The way to my heart is through a well made cup of tea. Or even just many cups of bad tea.
Great moments are born from Great Opportunities
And, I believe it is my responsibility as a human to do my very best to seek these out. In the pursuit of these great opportunities I spent my teenage years working at several places like the local Burger King, Kings’ Plant Barn and also as a dental assistant (I went through a ‘medicine is cool’ stage – an after effect of watching too much Grey’s Anatomy).
Having graduated from AUT University with a Hospitality & Marketing Degree, it was time to get a ‘real’ job. Since I loved food – mainly eating – it was serendipitous that I landed a role in AUT’s catering & events department, where I worked for three years as an Events & Marketing Co-ordinator. While AUT University is one of NZ’s top employers, our department was like a startup within the system and I played a first-hand role in setting up a lot of the systems and also Project Managing our first few end-to-end Academic Conferences.
Meanwhile, I fell in love with an Indian boy in Canada – long story – and moved to India to be with him. It was here, while making endless Powerpoint presentations for an agency-that-shall-not-be-named (like Voldemort) , that I discovered my passion for writing. I combined my passion for food and writing in 2012 and founded Bawi Bride – a Parsi food blog that documents lost Parsi recipes and helps me find new ways to feed my husband.
My blog snow-balled and soon I was moonlighting as a caterer while also holding down a Communications & Marketing Manager role at Ennovent. As much as I loved developing content and spending (productive) time on social media, I got bit by the startup bug and in 2015 quit my job to focus on the Bawi Bride Kitchen full time.
One year in, I discovered I was pregnant. I didn’t let this impact the business and worked right until I was in labour at the hospital. During this period my work was covered in the media by 100+ national publications and I also helped setup Chennai’s first Parsi restaurant.
My sleepless nights as a new mom led to me to start writing about my motherhood journey and whenever I get the change I write weird letters to my children like this one on Life Lessons to learn from Eggs. In July 2017, it was time to expand and I co-founded Greedy Foods, a multi cuisine catering company.
And then I got pregnant again. This seemed to have become a recurrent theme so I even spoke at Josh Talks (the Indian version of TED) about it!
During my time as a caterer I’ve served more than 5000 clients, catered for parties of up to 150 people and generated revenues upwards of INR 4.5 Million. I made it my mission to show people there was more to Parsi food than Dhansak and even launched a podcast which was called, Not Just Dhansak
In 2019 we decided it was time to something for the kids and so we moved back to New Zealand so that we could give them the same great opportunities I was gifted as a child. I (re)started my career in Aotearoa with a stint as Marketing Manager at newly launched KiwiSaver provider, Koura Wealth and now I work as a Communications Advisor at University of Auckland.
They say that being an entrepreneur is a mindset which is why, even though I am perfectly happy in my full time gig I can’t resist thinking about the next project I could start or work on.
When I am not working, I continue to eat and cook up new things in the kitchen and write on my blog. I am also dreaming up a new food podcast and love to moonlight as a freelance writer/marketing-ideas-person whenever I get the chance.
If you think there is an opportunity for us to collaborate in some way, get in touch! After all, the dots only connect looking backwards and I am a dot worth connecting to.