A Life Between Cultures: Rachel Gurjar on East to East
Chicken Kebab Caesar Salad. Spicy Butter Masala Pasta. Cardamom Sticky Toffee Cake. If your own kitchen is already a happy collision of two pantries, you're going to want to meet Rachel Gurjar.
Join us for an intimate evening with the chef and food writer, celebrating her new cookbook, East to East: Recipes and Stories from Mumbai to New York. A Culinary Institute of America graduate who cooked at New York's ABC Kitchen and served as a food editor at Bon Appétit, Rachel cooks with the produce-forward, market-driven sensibility Bay Area cooks will appreciate — and then sends it somewhere you don't see coming. A Caesar that runs through a chicken kebab marinade. A shrimp biryani finished with pineapple raita. Familiar dishes, rerouted through a Mumbai pantry.
Part cookbook, part love letter, East to East gathers 101 Indian-inspired recipes alongside the stories behind them — of leaving home, building a life between cultures, and finding your footing in a new city one meal at a time. Mumbai-raised and now based in Brooklyn, Rachel writes with real honesty about the triumphs and the hardships of that journey, and cooks like someone equally at home on both coasts of the world.
We'll talk with Rachel about that journey — from the markets of Mumbai to the kitchens of New York — and her tips for bringing this kind of cooking into your own repertoire, no special occasion required. The evening will feature bites inspired by recipes from East to East, paired with thoughtfully selected beverages, with plenty of time for questions and a book signing to close the night.
Whether you're an adventurous home cook, a devoted cookbook collector, or simply someone who believes the best stories are told around a table, this evening was made for you.
Your ticket includes:
Intimate conversation with Rachel Gurjar on the stories and recipes behind East to East
A tasting of bites from the book, paired with thoughtfully selected beverages
Audience Q&A and a book signing with Rachel
A limited number of Rachel's book, East to East, will be available for purchase at the event.
About the Author
Rachel Gurjar is a chef and food writer from Mumbai, India, now based in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, she cooked in a number of New York City restaurants, including ABC Kitchen, before becoming a food editor at Bon Appétit. She now works as a freelance writer and recipe developer, and her work has appeared in Bon Appétit, Food52, The Kitchn, and Forbes, among other outlets. She has also appeared on Good Morning America and NPR. East to East is her first cookbook.