Shri Bala may forget to pack her tooth brush while travelling, but never her sambar powder. “I make it myself and just have to have it with me. The other things I can’t travel without are my knife, a few herbs and Chettinad spices,” laughs Bala and admits that she’s now accustomed to paying for excess luggage at airports. Ah, the quirks of being a cook.
A former Chartered Accountant, she resigned her job as a Chief Financier Officer with an IPR (Intellectual Property) firm to take up cooking full time. Bala specialises in South Indian cuisine and all her pop up events are titled Deccan Odyssey.
This year, she became the brand ambassador for Eat With India, a programme that focuses on forgotten grandmas’ recipes, and revives them. The programme focuses on traditional Indian food. Pop up events are organised, where diners can sit at a communal table and sample authentic regional cuisine.
Conceptualised by Delhi-based couple Sonal Saxena and Santanu Mahanta, Eat With India launched in the Capital in late 2015 and then spread to Mumbai, Kanpur, Lucknow and Guwahati.
It is all set to launch in Chennai on March 17 with a pop up dinner curated and created by Bala. “I am doing time travel — going from ancient food to medieval cooking to the British Raj. The event will be called Mann Vasanai ,” she explains.
Deciding the menu is the most challenging part. “My menu has to have the following: six tastes in it, five elements of Nature and the seven chakras. And the main dish should have a history.”
Bala is 42 years old now and has been cooking for almost 33 years. By the time she was 14, she could cook an entire meal for 15 people. “I learnt from my uncle PS Sankaran. He used to teach me recipes from his mother Meenakshi Ammal’s cookbook titled Samaithu Paar ,” says Bala, who has been training chefs in regional cooking at a few five star hotels and is now working on her cookbook .
The event will take place on
March 17 at 8 pm at Boat Club. For
details and reservations, log on to www.eatwithindia.com
