Here's the story of how Anju Khattar turned cooking into a rewarding venture.
When I got married at the age of 21, I was more comfortable wielding a paint brush than a ladle. My initial attempts at cooking were a disaster, but the family stomached the hard grace. I would say I was lucky. Their forbearance encouraged me to experiment further and I would try to camouflage bad cooking with exotic presentation (my training in commercial art helped!).
During the early days of my married life, I used to travel a lot accompanying my husband on his tours all over the world. Not only did it open up my world I also picked up local recipes and churned them at home with modifications.
Entertaining friends and my husband’s clients at home further pushed me into the kitchen. But the compliments more than made up for the effort I would put into each dish. The challenge was to make each meal a celebration.
With friends insisting I get my recipes published, I approached a woman’s magazine when I was almost 35. They immediately assigned me a regular food column. What I enjoyed most was designing the dishes for the photographs that accompanied each recipe. My role in the magazine expanded to planning recipe specials for them. Getting paid for something I enjoyed was a great experience. I freelanced for them for four years.
In 2000, I published my first book, Daawat, a multi-cuisine recipe book. My initial gaffes at cooking had been a learning lesson and I had realised recipes needed to be simplified. And this became my USP. Be it Mughlai dishes or salads, I wrote them in a manner that made cooking a simple task; of course without compromising on taste. My experiments with fusion cooking happened long ago, but when I put them on paper they were quite well received.
The publishing house gave a decent remuneration and I was hooked. With the Internet fast coming of age, I got an opportunity to post my recipes on top portals.
Today I am a cookery expert with indiatimes.com and have already published nine books; six more will be out by this year end. I even host a website under my name where I share my recipes, experience and tips. With both my kids studying abroad, not much fancy cooking happens at home now. I firmly believe it is time to dump junk food and switch to our regular dal, chawal, subzi routine for better living. My next attempt is getting people to enjoy simple ghar ka khana that can be cooked in a jiffy.
