Cooking for Gods and Human Beings (and Celebrities)
There are not too many chefs who can cook for humans and the gods with equal panache but New York chef Vikas Khanna is certainly one of them. He has helped cook langar at the Golden Temple, exchanged hugs with Amma and also created gourmet dishes at the high-end New York restaurant, Junoon. Not to mention cooking a Satvic meal at the White House!
Richard Gere, Tyra Banks, Salman Rushdie, Harrison Ford, and Andre Agassi have all enjoyed his cuisine, and he’s created the menus for galas where Bill Clinton and Muhammad Yunis have been honored.
Vikas, who was voted New York’s hottest chef by Eater, is certainly on a roll. Junoon, the much-talked of restaurant where he is the chef, received a Michelin Star. He’s also been featured on the cover of Manhattan Magazine as one of the Top chefs in New York City.
And now of course, he’s a bit of a Foodie God himself as the linchpin of the MasterChef series on national television, where he makes and breaks the fortunes of aspiring chefs – but always with his trademark winning smile.
In fact, you could easily mistake him for an upcoming Bollywood actor or model. With his lanky good looks and oodles of charm, he wins you over before you’ve even taken a bite of his food.
Vikas was voted amongst the 2011 New York Rising Stars who are changing American cuisine. In selecting him, the judges wrote: “Vikas Khanna will charm you. It’s inevitable. If not with his food—which is rich, reverent, and revealing of a much deeper source than the kitchen—he’ll do it with his smile. Not that we’d congratulate a chef for just for warmth and charisma, which Khanna’s got in spades. We’re into Khanna for the depth of his dedication—his dedication to the traditions and techniques of Indian cuisine, his dedication to the ceremonies of hospitality, and his dedication to the evolution of global culinary awareness.” The dish which won them over was Lamb Matke Wala.
With Vikas, Lots of Pots Cooking
As a creative and innovative cook, he’s certainly got a finger in every pie. He’s consultant at the Café of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art which with Vikas’ menu was named the Best Asian Restaurant in New York. And yes, he was voted the Hottest Chef in New York by Eater, a popular foodie website based on voting by its readers.
Vikas has authored several books including The Spice Story of India, Modern Indian Cooking and his latest Flavors First. He’s also the creator of The Holy Kitchens, a series of documentary films that explore sharing food in different faiths, which are directed and written by his colleague and chef Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn.
Once Upon a Time in Amritsar …
Yet this celebrity chef started out unsung and unknown in a simple, middle-class family in Amritsar. Growing up, Vikas’ life was different from that of other kids who would be running around, playing cricket and climbing trees. He had a disability as his feet were not aligned.
“Where I found my shelter was in the kitchen. Simple, home-cooked meals became like prasad for me, and Biji, my grandmother, my priest. She didn’t teach me recipes, she taught me the power of food to heal, to connect people.”
He adds, “My whole life is about food. I learned to cook at my Biji’s side. Seeing the everyday food rituals performed by her was a moment of truth in my life, it left a permanent impression on my mind. Biji purchased, cooked and served food for our entire family, and at times for friends, neighbors and even complete strangers. She would have fresh, hot, delicious food ready for us when we came back from school.
I would be in the kitchen with her when she would get dinner ready. It was always a moment of pride for me, when she would ask me to approve the seasoning, Biji nurtured the cook within me and knew my calling even before I did.”
At the age of seventeen, he started a catering place called Lawrence Garden – it was a small ‘kitty house’ where the Punjabi ladies got together and played tambola and had their kitty parties. Vikas could make a formidable chana batura and gradually the place picked up and even catered big parties. After his big Master Chef success, Vikas went back recently at his mother’s request to cook for the kitty ladies and even did a cooking demonstration for them!
With his love for feeding people, he went on to Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, and later trained under chefs at the Taj Group of Hotels, Oberoi, and the Leela Group. He then traveled to the US, carrying his food culture and family stories with him. He says, “The moment I forget them, I will be rootless, I will be no one.”
Vikas Khanna: Food is the Great Unifier
For Vikas, it’s all been about learning and creating. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America, Cornell University and New York University and Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, while working in restaurants, including Salaam Bombay. The recognition came slowly but the tireless chef was always on the go, always working one more hour, feeding one more person, propagating his message of sharing through cookbooks, through charity work, and through creative cooking.
Vikas, who himself had vision problems in his student days, has a nonprofit organization called Sakiv (that’s his name spelt backward) which stands for South Asian Kids Infinite Visions. He is also a founding member of New York Chefs Cooking For Life which organizes tasting events by major chefs to raise funds for relief efforts. He’s authored six books including Mango Mia, and all author’s royalties go to Mother Teresa’s Mission. In ways big and small, working his way up through various restaurants, he’s always been sure of one thing – the power of food to connect and unite people.
“I grew up in the shadow of the Golden Temple,” he says. “You go there and you’re being fed, no matter what’s your background.” From seeing the power of langar to feed people and where seva is everything, he hit upon the idea of using food as a metaphor for service. This mix of caring and sharing, of cooking food that has basic home cooking at its heart all comes from his roots, from the cooking of his mother and the other women of his family.
“Sharing Food is as Old as Time Itself”
He decided to use cinema to make people aware of the commonality of the world’s great religions and the holy feasts which unite and bind people. ‘Holy Kitchens’ is the series which has taken the message everywhere from film festivals to educational institutes, and is also being used in the curriculum of some universities like Harvard Divinity School.
Indeed, feeding people is the best kind of service. He captures it perfectly in The Holy Kitchens film series, directed and written by his colleague and chef Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn. These include True Business, Karma to Nirvana and The Moon of Eid. Says Vikas: “Sharing food is as old as time itself and is an inseparable part of the human experience. When we share food in a spiritual setting we imbue it with meaning that draws us closer to our creator and closer to each other. The spirituality of the food is actually the sharing of the food.”
This food evangelist jumps between continents, spreading the message of food and sharing. He is particularly thrilled and mindful of the millions watching MasterChef across the world, in India and the Diaspora. He says, “With this show I’ve got my feet back in this country. When kids get inspired and tell me “You know chef, I’m going to become a chef!” I tell them, “Absolutely!”
With lots of new ventures cooking in several pots, Vikas is one busy man. Yet his heart is never very far from the fields of his native Amritsar, and that’s what keeps him grounded. Fame doesn’t seem to have changed him, as it does many, and that’s a refreshing quality in a world where everything gets changed by celebrity.
Asked for the secret ingredient of his success with food and with people, he says, “Patience, and Positive energy. Biji taught me that your energy is transmitted through the food when you cook. Before preparing every meal she would sit with a cup of tea and think through everything she would be cooking, before she started. I later came to understand that this technique is called visualization. When it gets hectic at Junoon, I try to remember her technique.”
So what keeps him going through good days and bad?
“I’m a total believer of cosmic schedule,” says Vikas Khanna. “If something is delayed for you in your life, that is part of the Cosmic schedule. The universe plans everything for you.”
He adds with his trademark smile, ” If you believe in that, you submit to failure and you also realize that the success is not all yours – there are too many people involved; it’s all their schedules that are part of your journey. If you understand that you don’t get too depressed or too happy. You just move on and see what the Universe has for you next!”
(C) Lavina Melwani
(This article first appeared in Hi Blitz magazine)
