Food
I have taken a multidimensional approach to my interest in food and the stories it can tell.
Research and speaking
I have spoken on panels about my research on Tamil Muslim food and identity, following an invitation from Dr Niranjana R, a human geographer and lecturer researching the lives lived around waters and other natures on the urban-rural spectrum of the Coromandel Coast. I spoke alongside writers, activists, and chefs on food many people already know well: dosa, hoppers, kothu, rotti, sambal, fish rolls. It is Sri Lankan food, South Indian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Mauritian, and now Canadian, French, and London food too. All of it is arguably "Tamil food", a global food culture shaped by histories of trade, labour, and colonial and postcolonial movement, and by geographies of land, water, and caste.
The supper club
In Edinburgh, my best friend and I ran a pop-up supper club in aid of the Scottish Refugee Council. We designed four menus around four cuisines, Norwegian, Korean, Levantine, and Desi, and served a donation-based three-course, two-drink tasting menu. The project was financially demanding and complex to execute, but it let me tell a story about displacement and kindness in a country that had welcomed us.
Travel and fine dining
I have taken food research trips to Palestine, Japan, and Latvia, and eaten widely on the road elsewhere, including at Frantzen, which in the year I visited was ranked number one on La Liste, an aggregator of food criticism.
KOL and Santiago Lastra
Eater, since decommissioned, commissioned a short entry from me on the best meal I had eaten that year, and I wrote about the chef's table at KOL. I was drawn to Santiago Lastra's approach: modern Mexican food cooked in Britain with as few food miles as possible, including limes recreated from cucumber and sea buckthorn, and langoustine brains pressed into his tacos.
Lastra had previously run Noma's pop-up in Tulum. He replied to a comment I left on his Instagram appreciating the piece, and I asked to visit his kitchen. He put me in touch with his head chef at the time and invited me, alongside a few students from Leiths School of Food and Wine, to stage there. That experience, and a second culinary apprenticeship, are documented in my essay "This Is Not Your Knife."
Further staging
My second stage was at the Michelin-starred Akoko, a contemporary West African restaurant.
Sarna
My most recent food work has been with Sarna, a manoushe pop-up bakery in East London, where I have worked as CDP and front of house. Sarna continues a thread of learning about Levantine cuisine I began while living in Amman, Jordan, and travelling the West Bank, a trip I undertook to develop a more nuanced understanding of the region's food, culture, and complexities.
Coffee and tea
I am interested in speciality coffee, though I have not written on it or dedicated as much time to learning about it as I would like. The same is true of speciality teas, such as pu-erh.