Food Book Launch – Made in India – Kunal Vijaykar

“Cook-book by a foodie is always for keeps, trust us on that!”

Kunal Vijaykar, the author and actor is hugely vocal and expressive about his likes and dislikes, especially when it comes to FOOD. Being a foodie, has made him travel all over the country. And, in this cook book he has made sure that his readers can feel all their 5 senses when trying out his selected recipes. Kunal has carefully handpicked recipes that are close to his heart. At the book-launch, Cyrus Broacha, hosted the event and entertained us with funny and witty jokes that were all pointed at Kunal and other chief guests like Boman Irani, a renowned actor; Rashmi Uday Singh, an ardent food critic and TV host; Perizaad Zorabian, actor and business woman and Bharat Dhabolkar, actor and director. All were victims of the laugh riot at the launch. Kunal has many friends and they adore him as a foodie. All the chief guests said one thing in common about Kunal that he is a food fanatic. Like Cyrus said, “Kunal makes more noise than Latin lovers in their bedroom”. They shared their experiences on how they bonded with Kunal over food.

Bharat knows Kunal for many years, which he mentioned during his speech. He said, Kunal was particular about his food and he would go out of the way to make sure that his food is served right. The actor cum author has been in an advertising agency for 11 years before he hosted his own food show on Times Now. Kunal is different from other food critics, Perizaad said; he treats Michelin star restaurants with same respect as the Dhaba food.

Debutant author of cook book, Made in India shared his experience on how he was way beyond his deadline, but hard work paid off in the laziest way. He had eight years of experience discovering 2000 restaurants mustered in 450 episodes from his show, The Foodie. He said, “I should have only myself to thank, because the amount of time, stamina and stress it has taken me to put together this small compendium of recipes is shameful. I’m not saying this is a great literary work, but I’ve literally had to slog to select and deliver these recipes. Since I am no chef, I could not conjure dishes as I went along. Instead, I’ve had to delve into my beginnings, recollect my excursions, extract from my retentiveness and borrow from the classics.As he rightly said, “Keep Calm & Eat On”!

In the Q&A session, the guests were concerned about certain hospitality issues like why we don’t have open cafés on the street or barely have options for chef tasting menus in restaurants and when is he planning to open a restaurant. Kunal answered cheerfully that he would open a restaurant only if he finds a chef and businessman, and he would look into the conceptualization and promotional activities. He would love to see more options available to try out Chef’s special in restaurants. Kunal reckoned that unlike other countries where people have accepted change, it is different in India. It is slowly evolving with experimental food. And, peoples’ pallet is getting used to new cuisines at affordable prices.

Kitchen Pops is looking forward to try some unforgotten, some beloved food from the buffet restored in the book and we hope that you will try it too. What will really draw you to read this book is the author’s thoughts, information and experiences mentioned alongside his recipes. So, enjoy reading and love cooking! Made in India is available with Amazon,Flipkart,Crosswords.in, Jaicobooks.com & Bookadda.com for readers