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The spice route
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Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor chats about the latest from his kitchen and plans for a food channel
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Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
In the right channel! Sanjeev Kapoor says one has to know food and the user to succeed
Sanjeev Kapoor agrees he cannot think beyond food. One of the most successful chefs in our country, Sanjeev’s journey has been quite eventful with stints in swanky hotels, an award winning television show, innumerable best-selling books and a s
uccessful chain of restaurants.
“There are four verticals in my business — books and website, restaurant, my Khana Khazana brand of products and television,” says the master chef. Sanjeev keeps coming out with cook books. If a couple of months ago it was on no-oil cooking, this time around it is a mini series on Chinese, Punjabi, seafood and microwave cooking.
“It is not difficult to make each book different from the others, as there are so many parameters in cooking. Anyway, being different is not my criteria while writing recipe books. I just cater to what people want. There are so many titles I haven’t touched upon. I still don’t have a dedicated book on cakes and baking, which I am working on next.”
His ideas, he says, come from the people themselves. “People often tell me that they would love to have a book on such-and-such subject. The other day, one woman asked why I haven’t written a book on Indian food for diabetics and, on hearing that, another woman came and told me to be more specific about juvenile diabetes. I just have to keep my ears and eyes open.”
Being a globetrotter also helps, as it exposes him to new ingredients.
“I bring a whole lot of things back home when I travel. Recently, I picked up that special rice from my trip to Spain and roasted crushed chillies from Turkey.”
And with new ingredients at home, it motivates him to experiment as well. “When I made Spanish paella (rice), to make it a little different I added those chillies to it. I believe there’s nothing you cannot experiment with, but I think we are limited by what we eat. What we aren’t used to, we think is difficult or will not taste good.”
“But things have changed. People have the knowhow of different kinds of cuisine, which I think is good news.”
News that he is going to launch a 24-hour channel devoted to food is doing the rounds, and Sanjeev goes into a shell the moment you ask him anything about it. “I don’t know where people manage to get this information from,” the chuckle in his voice cannot be missed though.
“Yes, I will soon, but cannot say how soon. It’s too early to talk about it now.”
And the day he does, he promises he would pack all information about health, food and fitness into it. “Unlike what people think, it’s not easy to run a food show. You have to know your food, the user and the consumer. That’s why many channels are not able to sustain their cookery shows,” asserts Sanjeev.
Success has come to him relatively easily, considering that becoming a chef was never really his dream. “I don’t believe it when someone tells me that they wanted to be a doctor or an engineer since childhood. How can a child know all that? It’s only with age that you are mature enough to decide. In my case, I just knew I wanted to do something different but never had anything specific in mind. When the opportunity came knocking, I opened my door happily,” he quips.
And as they say, the rest is history!
MANGALA RAMAMOORTHY
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