Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A time to count my blessings

I try not to talk aboutmyself too much on this blog. I am thankful to be doing somehing I love. Every morning I wake up thinking of what I am going to cook today! I began it as a place to write about food. But being interviewed byFemina for a story on women that have persued careers that are different from the education they persued has led to a lot of thinking. Appropriate since we are in December now... ater all it is a time for introspection... and counting one's blessings... besides blogging is where it all began...
Food writing happened entirely by chance for me. I did not have any qualifications in journalism. I was a liturature and fine arts student at school, went on to study animation and then worked in the travel industry for 2 years untill I took a sabbatical to have a baby. I discovered food writing at this point. As the mother of a toddler I was pretty much confined to my home and the internet was my lifeline to the world. I spent hours surfing the net and reading about all sorts of things and experimenting with blogging. It was at this time when I was looking for information (on pickles I think) that I discovered egullet.org home to like minded people who reveled in food. I spent weeks dithering around, lurking through its forums, scribbling a line or two here and there until I finally worked up the courage to put up an essay on Uttarakhandi Cuisine. The cuisine in question being unknown, my post got a lot of attention and my inherent talent for research and writing must have come through because I got a lot of praise. The post was the first step to a book that is awaiting publishing but more immediately it brought me a job offer with local gastronomy magazine. The job did notworkout becase I did not want to leave my bby but it did get me started on foodwriting. made me think of persuing food writng. It was much later, that I realized that there was a career for me in food writing.

It has been a delicious journey so far. I have added food styling and a number of other skills to my repertoire over the years. But 2009 has been a year of growth for me. Off late dreams that seemed to big to dream are becoming tangible. I have two books in the works, my own company (A Perfect Bite - what else). I have also embarked on a journey of gastronomc discovery with Masala Trails a food tourism venture that will map food experiences in India.
Loks like 2010 will only get more delicious!
Rushina

5 comments:

Kalyan Karmakar said...

Inspiring Rushina. And not just for women. Look forward to the next milestone

Sunshinemom said...

Enjoyed this post as well as the article!

Kalyan Karmakar said...

Masala Trails sounds like a wonderful idea. All the best. It will go places :)

kumchatka said...

Dear Rushina

I am a westerner used to flipping through pages and not really taking anything in. I was searching for recipes on Chillies when I happen upon your blog! I stopped to read!

From now on it will be one of the things that I really do spend time on because I have not enjoyed anything on the web for a long time as I have enjoyed your blog. Thank you very much - it is really worth reading!

Rushina said...

@ The Knife, K, thank you so much for your continuing encouragement.

@ Snshinemom, S, Thank you!

@ Kumchatka, K, Thank you for taking the time to leave such a ovely comment. It served to remind me that it was encouragement like that that got me to blog in the first place.

Rushina