Food for Thought

It's the age of the amateur chef

Last week, Delhi's Select Citywalk hosted a chocolate festival. The central atrium of the mall was bustling with a variety of chocolate vendors, bakeries such as Choko La and Angels in my Kitchen, and small entrepreneurs selling cupcakes and biscuits in the shape of Diwali diyas and dolls. There were some spectacularly sized cakes moulded like the Titanic with real, blinking lights running through it, reminiscent of the kind you see on the TLC show Cake Off. There was a very pleasant aroma of cocoa everywhere, counters were offering bite-sized free chocolates, and I'd be surprised if even one single visitor to the mall left without

buying something.

Wherever you look, there's food, food and more food. Is it the MasterChef or Nigella effect? Experiments in gastronomy seem to have become a national obsession and there are plenty of people doing really interesting stuff in baking and cooking. International quality bakeries have set up in

India, like the French one, L'Opera in Delhi that charges Rs 150 for a single macaroon and Rs 250 for a brown bread (unbelievably, everything there is flying off the shelf even at these absurd rates).

This explosion in food wouldn't have happened if people weren't posting pictures of delectable goodies online, spurring on groups dedicated to connecting obsessed food enthusiasts. Like Foodie by Nature on Facebook, that addresses any question related to an epicurean dilemma and many easy, wonderful recipes. Anyone with a fork and a computer feels entitled to review restaurants — Gourmet Planet, another group on Facebook, discusses and advises its members where to eat, if you're travelling to LA, London, New York or Paris.

With all these musings on food coming at us from everywhere, it naturally follows that people want to hone their culinary skills. I first heard of chef Swathi Venkatesan, 39, from a school friend, Aarti Sarin, who runs the blog bakingfrommyheart.blogspot, where she had posted a picture of a perfect cake decorated in fondant and butter cream icing that she learnt from Venkatesan, who runs something called the Great Desserts Company. It's a consultancy for pastry and confectionery professionals or people who are in the process of setting up commercial kitchens. Venkatesan is an accomplished chef who has worked at the Raj Vilas in Jaipur and the restaurant Mosiman's in London. More recently, she headed the pastry

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