Episode 17: Cooking in professional kitchens in Japan and the US with Gayatri Singh, founder, Culinary Nirvana

Curious about what it’s like to work in professional kitchens? To have to kill 70 lobsters a day as a ‘hard-core’ vegetarian? To change your life path after surviving the most powerful earthquake in Japan?

I had such fun chatting with my guest Gayatri Singh, who began cooking as an 8 year old in her mother’s kitchen in Maharashtra, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and now shares her passion and expertise in cooking delicious food in person and online through her website Culinary Nirvana. Now based in Singapore, Gayatri spent many years in Japan, and cooked at the Peninsula, Tokyo before hosting extravagant dinner meet-ups at her apartment where Japanese people could come try global cuisines.

Hear Gayatri share her incredible story and her love of cooking and feeding people below or on iTunes here.

Ramen- Photo Culinary Nirvana

SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 17:

• Gayatri’s website Culinary Nirvana and instagram

• The Japanese foodie film I watched on a plane - if you liked Eat, Drink, Man, Woman you’ll love the food porn in this! The Last Recipe

• Trattoria La Pacchia Karuizawa, Japan

• India Cookbook by Pushpesh Pant

• Rick Stein's Long Weekends: Over 100 New Recipes from My Travels Around Europe

• Marcus Wareing’s New Classics Inspiring and Delicious Recipes to Transform Your Home Cooking

• The Culinary Institute of America

• The Peninsula, Tokyo

Red Lipstick Love!

• Lisa Eldridge Velvet Jazz

• Nars Shanghai Express

• Pat McGrath Vendetta

Follow us on Instagram for more on Gayatri and the places, events and work we discussed in this episode!

Special thanks to Aman Moroney and Mohit Shandilya @ Flying Carpet Productions for audio post-production engineering!

Hokifish with pesto- Photo Culinary Nirvana

Cauliflower Salad - Photo Culinary Nirvana

Fig cake - Photo Culinary Nirvana