Chef, author, publisher and restaurateur—meet Nita Mehta, grand lady of the kitchen

While other children were busy munching on cakes and cookies that their mothers baked during summer holidays, Nita Mehta was busy making them. As she puts it, “I really had it in me to cook and stay in the kitchen.” It is no wonder that the zest paid off and today Mehta is not only one of the most revered cookbook writers of the country, she also has several culinary academies and schools to her credit. Spotting their daughter’s inexhaustible interest, Mehta’s parents enrolled her in a Home Science programme. She did her Bachelor’s from Lady Irwin College, which was in those days “the best in the country”. As a food lover she understood it was not enough to fill the belly, but line the stomach with nutritional items. Thus, she fortified her Bachelor’s course with a Master’s of Science in Food and Nutrition because as she puts it, “By then I had realised the importance of the right kind of food.” Ultimately her times were a different era—as she points out. Conventional strictures demanded that women be married at a “certain age”. So after completing her post graduation Mehta was married off and her passion for food was limited to tending to the nutritional needs of the family. However her passion simmered within her like a nice, hot pot of soup. After a while Mehta decided that she could not be happy just feeding her family and friends. She had to do something extra which did not need her to keep long hours or step out of the comfortable confine of her home. Of course, she could start cookery classes at home! Off she went to advertise her “special ice cream lessons”. The response was nothing if not overwhelming. “On the first day itself I received 200 calls.” For the next four months her calendar was booked. Mehta’s USP lay in her teaching style which made a class more like a picnic. Even today while conducting her classes Mehta talks to every student, samples dishes and has tips for all. Going back to the ice cream classes, apart from Nirula’s, those days there were few ice cream parlours in the country. Mehta herself missed different flavoured ice creams, so the class churned, cooled and froze unusual flavours. And the rest was chilled history. Post ice-cream sessions came lessons in Chinese, Thai, Mughlai and Mexican cuisines and Mehta’s reputation grew. One day she decided to put her experience across to millions who could not access her classes. She wrote her first book Vegetarian Wonders. But a cook proposes and publishers disposes—most scoffed at the idea of a cookbook at a time when there were few Indian authors writing on food. So Mehta did the obvious thing; start her own publishing house. All right that was not so obvious, but she did it! “The move didn’t do all that well,” she admits honestly. But the bug had bitten by then. The moderate success of her book made her revisit the process and see ‘what went wrong’. The answer lay in the fact that unlike her ice cream classes the book was not a “novelty”. That was when she hit on the idea of Paneer All The Way—a one-of-its-kind book that was a one-stop spot for paneer or cottage cheese lovers. No Indian kitchen, especially north Indian kitchen, is complete without this magic ingredient. In the book she asked the magic question: “Who wants kadhai paneer, shahi paneer and mattar paneer all the time?” The answer, of course, is no one. If your palate is tired of the three dishes, this book should be a solution to all your cheesy problems. The book was an instant hit. Overnight Mehta started her journey as India’s most popular cookbook writer. With every new book she got even more famous. The grand lady finally did what her fans were waiting for her to do. She started Kelong, a restaurant in Ludhiana, a year ago. The multi-cuisine eatery offers a variety of dishes cooked in the chef’s unique signature style. It is impossible to talk to a chef and not prod her on you her favourite recipe. So we ask her about her favourite dish. Mehta dotes on the Thai red curry and she loves the lemon grass flavour. And what makes her Thai red curry absolutely delectable? “Lots and lots of basil leaves and that extra something,” she added with a twinkle. Humble and attached to her roots, Mehta inherited her love for cooking from her mother. In her words “My mother was not just a fabulous cook, she was also efficient and creative in the kitchen.” Therefore, we can comfortably assume that her insurmountable zest for cooking, and everything else related to it, starts closer home. So whose cooking would India’s Martha Stewart like to taste? Why Martha Stewart’s of course! Both the women have had similar journeys from being a homemaker to an entrepreneur. All said and done and towards the end of the interview, after so much of dialogue, my throat was a little parched. So I had to ask what was her favourite summer cooler? Well a classic Mojito cools her soul. Before we left her to her dishes every kitchen queen has a pet peeve—a veggie or a fruit so difficult to work around that the very name sends a shudder. But no, Mehta steers clear of hate. As she says “I hate nothing that is edible.” Her favourite vegetable is the bottle gourd—everyone’s nightmare of a vegetable both in childhood and adulthood. She goes on to say that, “If cooked properly, the bottle gourd is the most delicious of all vegetables.” With all the food talk, I was beginning to feel hungry myself. On a bottle gourd note I took her leave, came back to the workstation, opened a pack of Oreos and gobbled something sweet. Because not everyone is as talented as Mehta. And not everyone can bake the perfect cookie. While some like her truly rise and shine, others are happy basking in the reflected glory.