Cutting onions is my favorite task in the kitchen. The rhythm is meditative and I often volunteer to do it. One such evening, oblivious to my surroundings, I was enjoying dicing onions. Alex, along with his lovely wife Nikole and their sweet girl Marie, who was dining at the restaurant, happened to catch a glimpse of me lost in my thoughts. “I haven’t seen anyone smile like you were while cutting onions, you looked so content,” he said to me when I stopped by their table. Thi

“Until recently I only thought of you as my mother and barely as your own person who’s had a whole life before me.” My 18 year old son said this to me recently. My initial thought was, “You and me, my boy, I too have barely thought of me as a person beyond this identity. That’s when I decided to meet the person beyond the mother by going away on a trip with myself. I picked New York, a city very familiar to me, to avoid distractions and the only one to discover on this tri

I am the luckiest girl ever. I meet the most amazing people through The Verandah Kitchen. And with each new person I meet, my tribe expands. Here’s the story of one such endearing person who walked in through the dining room and stayed on in my life. Sergio, an endocrinologist by day and an explorer by spirit, came to TVK as a guest last year, and expressed that he wanted to cook with me. We have many guests who say that after a hearty meal. Some even follow up and have joine