spice rack #4

Q&A: cooking inspirations, regrets, signs!

Welcome back to the monthly edition of Spice Rack, where we talk about things to read, cook, and listen to. I asked for some questions on my Instagram stories and picked a few to answer at the bottom.

to read

The Food as Medicine guide by the New York City Food Policy Center was a very important source for last week’s piece about the “food as medicine” movement. It’s not exactly casual reading, but would recommend if you're looking to learn more about the topic!

Even though I haven’t read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, this review’s adoration for it is so wholesome that I started daydreaming about picking up my extensive collection of childhood books from my parents’ house and reading The Babysitters Club and Beverly Cleary with my future children. 

Laura from

Can I Have Another Snack?

wrote this ultraprocessed foods series and it strings together a vast body of research to raise important points. How do we reconcile the benefits offered by ultraprocessed foods while holding institutions accountable for increasing access to other foods people need?

Please Don’t Ask ChatGPT for Diet Advice on Bon Appetit. I finally tried out ChatGPT, just for fun! I asked many things (it’s not very good at essays – thank goodness, pretty good at poems about food, and not bad at outfit planning), including a menu for an Indian restaurant. As expected, it included butter chicken and naan and no South Indian food, which felt congruous with this line of the article: “Because of the way it’s been trained, AI also disproportionately favors English. That means it can generate advice and recipes that are based on Eurocentric preferences and characteristics.” 

Notes on Progress: An environmentalist gets lunch. Came across this through Laura’s series. It’s a refreshing take on redefining what sustainability looks like in food: “I still get the instinctual pull towards ‘natural’ solutions that seem more grounded in our roots. Working against it takes repeated, and sometimes uncomfortable, effort.”

This 9-year-old piece about the problems with MyPlate seems to still be true. 

I was already pumped about the Outside Lands’ music lineup and the food lineup? We will be eating.

Kayla from

Oy Vey It's A Food Newsletter

has spicy thoughts about milk that always get me riled up. The accompanying NYT article about the dairy industry’s struggles with our generation!

India’s Beef with Beef by Sharanya Deepak for The Baffler, about purity politics and vegetarianism in India. A lot to unpack here. “It’s like Indian Muslims don’t have agency to claim a linguistic, regional, and culinary identity,” Janmohamed explained. “In the diaspora, Hinduism, vegetarianism, and ‘Indianism’ go hand in hand.”

to cook 

I’m having fun filming my breakfast series and a perk of it is I have nice breakfasts ready to go! I am a breakfast person who understands that everyone isn’t a breakfast person, so I’ll clarify that these are also great for lunch.

Aloo paratha: a whole wheat flatbread stuffed with silky spiced potatoes. Video here, recipe here. 

Khaman dhokla: a savory spongy cake made of besan (gram flour or chickpea flour) and moistened with a tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves, green chilis, sugar, and water. It’s a popular snack originating from Gujarat! Might I suggest pairing with masala chai? Video here, recipe here. 

Tofu bhurji: inspired by my dad’s egg bhurji, but with no eggs and all the flavor. It’s essentially a classic tofu scramble, but cooked with a variety of spices, aromatics and any veggies you have. Enjoy it as a kathi roll or on toast! Video here, recipe here. 

Mushroom asparagus risotto: a risotto for spring! Miso balsamic mushrooms cooked with leeks, plenty of thyme, and white wine. Video and recipe here.

I’ve talked about my cabbage obsession enough, but I couldn’t resist. Cabbage rolls with a tofu-mushroom-veggie filling, further flavored with gochujang! And saved the leftover filling for crispy rice paper rolls!

to listen

Redesigning Our Food System To Make Health Accessible For All. 

My Industry is Failing: Writing Edition with Jennifer Romolini (Work Appropriate)

Virginia Sole-Smith and Judy Blume on Fresh Air

Debunking The 5 Love Languages. So funny. (If Books Could Kill) 

We love a Coachella fashion analysis (Anything Goes)

And Met Gala for Fashion Dummies (Vibe Check)

The Friendship Harmonies of boygenius (Popcast)

extra spice: Q&A!

Q: What are your go to meals when you don’t feel like cooking?

I’m not sure if I can genuinely answer this question because I have the rare privilege of having a freezer stocked with food from my mom, who occasionally freezes a portion of what she makes so I can have a taste of home when I’m away from home…she insists! Usually I’ll eat that when I don’t feel like cooking dinner. 

For lunch, miso mushrooms and greens, with either hummus, pesto, or avocado on toast. It takes about 10 minutes and has most things I want from lunch! If I don’t want to turn on heat at all, then I’ll replace the mushrooms with any veggies that can be eaten raw or microwaved: tomatoes, cucumbers, edamame, peas. Or a kale avocado salad on toast! You get the point, I love toast. 

Besides toast, I love vodka pasta because it doesn’t require much ingredients or prep. I also love peanut noodles with edamame, any veggies I need to use, and a fun topping like chili crisp or Fly By Jing’s zhong sauce. 

Q: Whose Substacks do you read? Or blogs/YouTube?

Oh gosh, so many Substacks! I am starting to get a little overwhelmed by my inbox but I’ve already done my spring cleaning and it is what it is. You can find everything I read on my profile – highly recommend them all. 

As for blogs, I’ve been enjoying Laura Wright’s Saturday Sun on The First Mess and love her recipes. I also appreciate how much detail Nisha Vora includes on her beautiful blog, Rainbow Plant Life. For Indian recipes in particular, I love Cook With Manali. I included a more detailed list of vegan food creators of color in this guest post for Antiracist Dietitian! I don’t really watch YouTube besides the occasional music video and Emma Chamberlain lol. 

Q: Who or what inspires your recipes?

I love sharing recipes that are meaningful to my family, especially because of the avenue it carves for storytelling. I talk to my parents about food a lot: what they ate for dinner last night, what they ate as kids in Bihar, how to make [x] recipe. These conversations usually spur some ideas.  Given the immense differences between regions of India, I’m pleasantly overwhelmed by how much I have to learn within Indian cuisine! I grew up around my mother’s friends, a group of talented home cooks from all over India who ingeniously readjusted to Californian culture and ingredients. Her relationships with them brought many new recipes to our table, from biryani to aloo bonda. 

I’m inspired by the home cooking corner of Instagram, where people post phone photos of their creations, usually with no recipe attached. I also love flipping through cookbooks and more traditional blogs, taking mental notes of what entices me. And there’s also beauty in letting the season’s ingredients serve as the inspiration. 

Q: Do you have any regrets? Even small ones? 

I try not to think of them as “regrets” as things usually turn out just fine, so might as well not dwell on it. But small ones, sure. When I was a teenager, I wish I asked myself what I actually wanted and spent more time on interests that came with no formal end goals. I wish I took more time to slow down and relinquish control. Perhaps these repressed feelings need to be unleashed in an essay about growing up in Silicon Valley? 

Q: Where are you from?

My parents are from Bihar, a state in North India. I was born in Mountain View and grew up in Sunnyvale for most of my life! It’s near San Jose, which is where we currently live. 

Q: Zodiac sign?

Aquarius, but I don’t know much about zodiac signs. Do I give off Aquarius vibes? I don’t know, you tell me (like actually do tell, I’m curious). Whenever I read descriptions of the signs, I feel like there’s a part of me that identifies with every sign. I wish I knew more about them just to understand cultural references!

No newsletter next week, as I’m going on a girls trip this weekend and have quite a heavy topic planned for my next essay …writing that here to hold myself accountable and not shy away from writing it! Until then, I’ll be on those video apps with more Indian breakfasts.