SITA’S KITCHEN

by Raghav Khanna

  1. ISBN: 978-93-5520-189-8
  2. Pages: 224 pages
  3. Date: 10th December 2021

ABOUT THIS BOOK

She was told, ‘Girls belong in the kitchen’, but her destiny was to rule it as a chef.
London-based restaurateur Arun and his assistant Ben are on a business trip. They stop at a roadside café in Himachal Pradesh and are astonished with its European looks and Italian menu. A cynical Arun samples a dish and is blown away by its authenticity.
His astonishment turns into disbelief when he learns that the cook is Sita, a simple mountain girl who has never in her life stepped outside her village. Ever since her mother passed away, Sita started helping her deaf-mute father run their small tea stall. Sita loves cooking and when a travelling Italian chef gifts her a cookbook, the passion becomes an obsession. Aided by YouTube videos, Sita soon revamps the tea stall and turns it into an elfin café.
Arun recognizes Sita’s extraordinary talents and convinces her to move to London and become a chef at his restaurant. However, Sita’s lack of professional training is soon apparent. Help comes in the form of Anwar Khan, a veteran butcher, who takes a floundering Sita under his wings.
She embarks on a journey, navigating the cut-throat and often ugly world of gourmet chefs where gender conventions and racial undercurrents can make or break careers. As she strives to carve a niche for herself, Arun starts feeling differently towards Sita.
Just when Sita starts believing in her special destiny, one incident alters her inside out and leads her to rediscovering herself.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Raghav Khanna comes from the world of television and is best known as the creative director and writer of the acclaimed food history series Raja Rasoi aur Anya Kahaniyaan. His other works include Masters of Taste with Gary Mehigan, The Family Affair, Mega Icons, The Royal Enfield Story, Mega-Festivals and Janani: The Story of Yamuna.
Hailing from Old Delhi, Raghav studied English literature at University of Delhi. His writings explore themes of loss of cultural identity, internal conflicts,
post-colonial heritage in the twenty-first century, brown voices in a global community and man’s reckless abuse of nature.
Sita’s Kitchen is his first book.
Reach him at: Instagram: ‘raghavkhanna24’ and ‘sitas.kitchen’