Heya, thanks for stopping by! I know that the online food scene is going pretty great right now, and there are tons of websites out there. So the fact that you are here on my blog, means the world to me!
I am Sayantani – the chef, stylist and photographer behind anything you see on this blog, and it goes without saying that I lovvvvvvve cooking! When not minding my techie business at a leading tech giant by the day, you will find me around food – cooking ‘em, shooting ‘em, and well, eating ‘em – I am your quintessential food lover!
I hail from the Eastern Part of India, born in West Bengal and brought up in Jharkhand (Yes! ‘Probashi’ Bengali, for those of you who know the term!). I then moved to western India for my education (no points for guessing – I am an Engineer!). I have traveled extensively to Northern parts of India. Moved back to Eastern India again for my job. As if this was not enough, I fell in love with the world’s cutest sugar monster and the man of my dreams – a Bihari guy brought up and settled in Gujarat with parents currently settled in Japan. We got married and settled in Bangalore (southern part of India). So long story short – what I am today, and the recipes and food stories that you read on this blog are all a culmination of my cross cultural experiences and travel escapades, which I proudly wear up my sleeve!
Apart from traveling extensively to different parts of India, I have been fortunate to travel (and live) to different parts of the world – London, Scotland, Vietnam, Thailand etc. Trying to learn more about local cuisines on these trips is what has made me appreciate the world of food, and develop a passion for food blogging. During my stay in UK, I was introduced to fish and chips, Shepherd’s pie, Sunday roast, puddings and fell in love with so many other things. During my stay in Vietnam, I was awestruck by the simplicity of the ingredients, recipes and amazed with how food could taste so good with such minimalist cooking. In contrast, the food in Scotland was rich, made mostly with meat, but oh-so-delicious! So you see, I do not discriminate!
Both my husband & I are lazy travelers (let’s just say we are two lazy souls), and we would rather lounge by the beach all day, go checkout local eateries and markets than go on a trail run or hiking. And what unites us is the love for each other, and well, food! After all, as George Bernard Shaw has rightly put, “There is no sincerer love than the love of food”.
So come, join me in this culinary celebration, and let me know your thoughts/suggestions in the feedback section. See you around!
Delish Studio
Humans are amazing, isn’t it? Well of course we would agree! But I have reasons to believe humans are much more complex than what we credit ourselves to be. Why, you ask? Well, picture this. You wake up on a cloudy, gloomy morning, in your three bedroom apartment on the tenth floor of a swanky apartment complex. You are living the big city dream. It’s Saturday morning, and of course it’s an off day for you, because who works on Saturdays anymore, right? You waddle to the rest room to relieve yourself, and you can hear your husband already hooked on to the telly. Men, I tell you!
As you come out of the bathroom, and head towards the living room to see what your man-child is up to, two things happen at once. You hear the soundtrack of Mario and Luigi (yes, the video game!), and you also smell mangoes! What happens next cements my belief in the power of human brain. From that swanky apartment on the tenth floor of a big-city apartment complex, you are suddenly teleported two decades back, into the by-lanes of your hometown, where you and your brother grew up. You are suddenly reminded of another Saturday, when your brother and you sneakily woke up at 7, and started playing on the new gadget in the house, the video game! Of course you were hungry, and so you also fished out 2 alphonso mangoes from the fridge, and pounced on it like Mario does on the turtles!
This is what I am talking about – the power of human imagination. Just the sound of music and smell of food can transport us back in time, and to such a specific instance! It’s unbelievable until it happens, and you realize that you had not even thought about the video-gaming, mango-guzzling sibling story in forever, but here you are, thinking about it as if that’s what’s on your mind the whole week! This is what fascinates me. A smell, a sight, a sound is so powerful, that it can change your state of mind, and how! This is also the reason humans think of food differently than other species – we think of it as not just something to feed ourselves, but we also associate food with the stories in our life. For us, food is an anecdote, an incident, sometimes a person too! I still associate the smell of cardamom tea to my grandmother, who would chug down cups of cardamom tea like an addiction. You see what I am saying? In food, we have been given the power to impact people’s memories and emotions, and it’s one of the reasons I do what I do! I love creating new memories for my family, and reliving old ones as well.
I also love sharing what I know about food, in the hope to become associated with some of your memories too! So come with me on this amazing journey of new discoveries, creating new memories, and making good food look even better!
Why Delish Studio?
Delish studio is all about two of my favorite things – Delish food and photography. While I am totally an amateur at the latter, I still love the creative kick that I get out of curating food photos and making memories for life. When it comes to food, there are two people who have influenced this blog the most – my Mom and my husband. My mom for teaching me everything that I know about food – many of the recipes that you see on this blog are adaptations of her classic recipes. And my husband for happily being my guinea pig for all my food experiments and truly being my better half even in this blogging journey.
What can you find on Delish Studio?
Practically everything related to food, health and lifestyle. But most importantly two things:
‘Healthyish’ alternatives: Is ‘healthyish’ even a word? May be not, but let me tell you what it means to me. ‘Healthy’ translates to so many things to so many people, defined by what they have heard or have been conditioned to believe about being in a good state of health. To me being healthy is all about striking the right balance between being indulgent and fanatically following a fad. So am I healthy? No. But I do constantly stay motivated to make sustainable healthy choices a part of my lifestyle. I do not follow or support any particular diet to the T, but I do keep in mind the do’s and don’ts of many diets which have actually returned me benefits (like avoiding refined sugar, going organic etc). So what you see on the blog, reflects completely my views of being healthy through healthyish choices and every recipe is carefully crafted to keep that in mind.
Simple, Quick, Easy to make recipes: Having grown up in a Bengali household watching my mom and grandmother plan and cook elaborate dishes for every meal of the day, life has turned out to be a total contrast after moving into a big city (with crazy traffic) leaving barely anytime for cooking, after coming back from a hard day at work. So most of the recipes I share are traditional recipes simplified to prepare in no time!
Last but not the least, thank you for your time and let’s get rolling!
Food! Camera! Action!
*Copyright and Infringement policy: Like everybody else I am extremely possessive about the things I love and Delish studio is one of them. Every minutest content that you see on this blog is the copyright of Delish studio, so please spare the drama and ask permission for any use of the content. Blogging and everything that you see here requires a lot of efforts so be kind and give credit wherever necessary!