Building a Digital Indian Cooking Empire: The Story Behind Bhavna's Kitchen and Living
Have you watched one of Bhavna’s Kitchen & Living cooking videos? With her creative spin on traditional and fusion Indian dishes, she has built an audience of millions of viewers around the world across social media with her simple, fun, and eclectic recipes. Today’s woman dreamer, Bhavna Patel, shares her she built her digital Indian Cooking empire, what inspired her to post her cooking videos on Youtube, and the challenges she and her family faced along the way upon immigrating to the U.S. Enjoy the story below!
1) You have built quite a cooking empire online with your simple and engaging recipe video and content. Tell us your story. Where did your passion for cooking/food come from, and what inspired you to build this platform?
I was born and grew up in a beautiful village of India (Nagod, BARDOLI) in a healthy, wealthy and a strictly vegetarian family. I was bit of a spoiled child being the youngest one in the family.
My life from 1978 to 2000 was probably just as normal as average persons life in India would be.
My life took a turn when I got married in 2000. I was fortunate enough to have a good family I was going to stay with. I married Janak on one condition that I will not go to foreign country and he said “I had applied for Canadian 🇨🇦 immigration. It’s been years now but I never got the chance so I have given up on it.” Of course, right after we got married his application was approved. Though he was educated, he was struggling for a good job. I thought why not just go to Canada and try to settle there. We then moved to Canada in 2001.
The very first problem I encountered after migrating to Canada was the language barrier. I was very bad at English. I used to skip English lectures in school, as I never intended to go to a foreign country. Yet, here I was, in Canada! I was almost depressed and culture shocked! I had no choice but to study If I wanted a better life there, so I started learning English first to get admission into a college. While learning English, I was working full-time and studying part-time. Getting admission in a college was very tough because every time I went for the test, I got 97, 98 or hundred in math, but I failed in English. Finally I got admission after three years I used to try home- based businesses as well, like making jewelry etc. I could talk for hours and hours about our life in Canada. I can’t believe I even had to take medication for depression.
In 2005 I gave a birth to my first child, Dhruv. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing. Life was still tough and we were going through a financial and mental crisis. We were now planning to move to the US to have a better life but we didn’t know how. Luckily, one of our family friends talked about the opportunity in the hotel industry, so we made the move in 2006. In 2007 I gave birth to my second child Aakas. Life was still tough at least for me going through motherhood but it was getting better. I worked in a rotating shift as a desk clerk in the hotel industry. I could hardly spend much quality time with my kids. Most of the time when I got home, they were sleeping because of the rotating shift I worked. So again I was thinking about other options to make my life better. I wanted to be with my kids whenever they needed me.
These rough circumstances inspired me to start cooking, My interest in cooking sparked fast. When I say rough circumstances, I mean I had to cook food for myself and my partner as we migrated to Canada without other family members. We mostly ate restaurant food in the beginning as both of us were working and studying. But eating our traditional food is in our blood so I started to cook more food by myself as needed.
Though I did not cook much till the age of 22, I was a very picky eater. I mostly enjoyed the food cooked by my mother. I grew up eating freshly cooked food. We had our own vegetable garden, rice farms, and cow barn. When I left my birth place, I didn’t realize what I was leaving behind. Soon, I realized that I have left behind my natural life…I decided that I should be buying raw ingredients as much as possible and need to start cooking my own traditional food. So basically, my culture is my inspiration. And I think, I inherited the cooking genes from my mother and other ancestors, I guess! It’s long story so I can’t write it all here but one day I would love to share it with the whole world!
Trends in information technology change rapidly and I couldn’t keep up with it while going through different stages in my life. Marriage, children, responsibilities and many other factors affect our daily lives and we make decisions as per our circumstances.
Janak(my partner) introduced me to YouTube in about 2008 but did not pay much attention to it because at that time I wasn’t thinking about doing something on YouTube. Then in 2009, I thought of trying out YouTube and started posting videos of my recipes that I was making for my family. One day, I got an email from YouTube saying that one of my videos was doing really well and that it has a potential of earnings and I got encouraged to make more videos and started from there. Nothing is easy and so wasn’t keeping up with my YouTube channel. There were a lot of trolls, negative comments and so on but I was determined to do something different. I kept working hard for my YouTube channel and finally I was able to quit my job in around 2012. I couldn’t make the trip to India and see my parents until the year 2010. I was now a full-time YouTuber.
After 15 years of struggling I finally have an amazing life today! Since 2013 I have been traveling around the world, to places such as Brazil, Argentina, Antarctica, China, Tibet, Mount Everest base camp, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Scotland, United Kingdom, Nepal, and New Zealand. I never thought I will be traveling to this many destinations.
Life feels complete. One thing I could say that practicing yoga and meditation help me a lot for this many years to overcome from tough times. I would like to share just one message to all those girls that never give up and continue what you’re doing and finally success will be yours! Life can take a turn at any time….this is my story!
2) You share a vast selection of recipes, from fusion food to traditional dishes, and bring a lot of creativity and art to your meals. You have made some very creative recipes (such as sweet samosas and some wonderful air fryer dishes) Do you view food/cooking as an art? How do you get creative in the kitchen/come up with new ideas?
My kitchen is my cooking lab where I experiment a lot. I try to combine various cuisines in one, most times with a hint of Indian spices! This may sound strange but for some reason,as my mind keeps giving me ideas to create food with sometimes what seems like very strange combinations. Sometimes, I implement them and sometimes I find them too strange! I have that instinct that I can tell exactly what ingredients a dish made with. When I travel around, and when I observe food of any kind, my mind gives me hundreds of ideas in just few seconds. I should not brag about all these but that’s the truth. I strongly believe that cooking is an art where one can portray the same food with a different angle!
3) Are there any recipes that have a special story or place in your heart?
There are few recipes that hold a very special place in my heart. The very first favorite one is Khichdi. I love khichdi so much that I almost convert many recipes into khichdi! For example, quinoa and oats are not original ingredients in khichdi but I combine quinoa, oats & lentil to make Khichdi. I grew up eating khichdi and has never felt any issue with it. In fact, when I was in school, I used to eat khichdi in a very early morning. I remember my mother making the khichdi around 5 o’clock in the morning and I would eat it around 6:00 before leaving the house.I always had it loaded with ghee and sweet sour lemon pickle…OMG my mouth is watering!!!
My second favorite food is Chaat of all kinds. I grew up eating Indian street food. During my school, college and university days, It was fun to have the company of friends while eating at the stalls and gossiping around.Nowadays, I enjoy various cuisines like Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Lebanese and more with my own twist.
4) As #Dreamcatchers, what is your next big dream for the platform?
My next big dream is to bring some more hearty, healthy meals preparation ideas with ease. Cooking is fun, freeing, and essential to achieving health and happiness. Unfortunately we have handed over the act of cooking, the unique task that makes us human, to the food industry. We have become food consumers, not food producers or preparers, and in doing so, we have lost our connection to our world and to ourselves.I aim to help rebuild that connection and help as many as I can. And to help me achieve all these, I am planning to become a certified nutritionist and may pursue a health coach career as well.
Bio: I am a mother of two teens. Currently, I reside in Florida with my family and in-laws. We are a family of six and feeding them all, every single day, is difficult, especially, with age difference and of course, different taste buds!