the loudest room
in the house
"when I cook, I'm in my element. I'm happy."
in my house growing up, the kitchen was the loudest room. somebody was always being fed. I'm Sindhi, but Kolkata raised me too — the sweetness of the city, the Chinatown nearby that made my mom's Chinese the thing I still reach for when I miss home.
my grandmom made me her sous-chef as a kid, before I was much use at the counter. later it was MasterChef on the sofa with mum, the two of us experimenting, getting things wrong, trying again. I didn't really grow up learning dishes. I grew up learning that food is how my family said the things we couldn't say out loud.
all week I'm a program manager, the one who keeps everyone's world organised. ask my closest friends to describe me, though, and they don't say organised. kind, creative, warm, they say. I'm the elder daughter. the fixer. I read the room before I read myself.
and then on a weekend I pick up a knife, and for a few hours nobody needs managing. I'm just making something because I want to. honestly it's the only part of my week that's all mine 🫶
it started with tiffins in COVID, dropped at friends' doors. they wouldn't let me stop. the name was already waiting, from a little review page I ran in college: food that's fun to eat + my surname, Punjabi. Funjabi :) a joke that turned out to mean two true things — the food is fun, and the food is mine.
now I cook the gatherings people remember — weekends, out of my own kitchen in Bangalore, whether it's a cosy ten or a houseful of fifty. high-protein and guilt-free when it can be — that one's my own battle, and yes, the chole bhature stays. slowly, plate by plate, cooking my way to a little cafe of my own.
I'll text you back myself. it's a small kitchen — that's the point. come hungry. you're early ✨
— Pooja, Funjabi Foodiee
