Contributor: Madhu Gosh
Photographer: Saffron and Sage

With cooking, everything begins at home. I come from India where tales and folklore are what's weaved into everything we do--so it was but natural for me to be around my Ma when she was cooking in Delhi, or my Dida, my grandmother in Kolkata. The cuisine is different in the north where I grew up and in the east where my parents came from. And with my degree in chemistry and molecular biology, it was but natural for me to explore the history behind food along with the science of what happens when we season a dish with cumin versus mustard seeds.

My love affair with cooking intensified when I moved to America over a quarter century ago. It was sheer homesickness that made me explore different dishes. But when my parents passed away, it almost seemed like genetic and culinary information was passed down to me, even though I never got any recipes from Ma.

I come from a culture where stories are shared around food. Stories happen around food. Politics is discussed around the dinner table and you learn how to negotiate in the fish bazaar. Cooking is love, cooking is community and cooking is connection.

To me, food speaks a hundred languages and there are no words that can explain how we connect over food. People from different countries and cultures get the love in the food that people serve them in countries they visit. But food is also travel--it's storytelling at its best. So my inspiration comes from my parents who taught me the art, craft and science of cooking, but also taught me daredevilry in attempting recipes that could fail but there may be that one chance the recipe will be glorious. I am inspired by the fact that I represent India, even though I have lived outside of my country longer than I have there, so when folks from different cultures ask me to share my world, food is how I include them in mine.

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To me, food speaks a hundred languages and there are no words that can explain how we connect over food. People from different countries and cultures get the love in the food that people serve them in countries they visit. But food is also travel--it's storytelling at its best. So my inspiration comes from my parents who taught me the art, craft and science of cooking, but also taught me daredevilry in attempting recipes that could fail but there may be that one chance the recipe will be glorious. I am inspired by the fact that I represent India, even though I have lived outside of my country longer than I have there, so when folks from different cultures ask me to share my world, food is how I include them in mine.

I work in cancer diagnostics, write about food, travel and immigration. I travel over three weeks in each month so my mental, physical balance is always a struggle to maintain. Saffron and Sage's focus on enabling the members to be open, vulnerable and yet focused on their wellbeing helps me have a routine that I can return to, over and over again