We had the pleasure to catch up with another culinary fave, Aarti Sequeira. We begin by talking about her culinary journey and how we first met her during in season 6 of Food Network’s Next Food Star where she won her season. We talk about her show Aarti Party, her love for sharing Indian foods and being a Food Network personality as a host and a judge. Just in the past weeks alone, we have enjoyed her judging on the latest season of Halloween Wars and then immediately after, she is judging Holiday Wars! She shares how she takes on her role as a judge and why honesty is essential when she is interacting with contestants. We also talk about her latest project, My Family Recipe Journal which allows people to record their family recipes as well as to add new ones that you have created with your friends and family. She talks about the importance of maintaining these culinary moments and how through this, families can still be connected through space, time and generations.
ATHLEISURE MAG: We remember watching you on the 6th season of Next Food Star and winning it which we knew you would. What was it about cooking that you loved it and the passion that you brought to it and what made you want to work in the culinary world and to share your food stories?
AARTI SEQUIRA: Gosh, well first of all, I was 10lbs when I was born. I think that I have always had an appetite. My poor, poor, poor mother. I was her first baby and I literally scarred her for life. Bless her! I was born into a family who are obsessed with food. I mean, my family will talk about what they have eaten before they will tell you how they are feeling! Because that is probably a clearer barometer about their emotional well being. It’s really the center of our lives. I think it’s because food is such a huge part of Indian culture and in India as well as South Asia in general, you can tell so much about a person, their community and their history based on what they eat. Their religion will decide some of the things that they can eat, where they’re from, the way that they cook it. It’s just such a huge part of our identity. That was such a natural thing that I brought up with me as I grew and came to the states.
So the ironic thing is that my mum is an incredible cook and she’s known as this in our family. My dad has a very exacting palette and both of them are world travelers, they’ve been all over and especially my dad. When we would go on holiday, we would go to places where he had been on business trips. He’d come back and he’d say, “we have to go to Istanbul guys – you’ll love it.” That summer we would go to Istanbul and that was a really beautiful gift that they gave us. Of course, when we went on holiday, that was also about what we were going to eat and then coming home and trying to recreate some of that and sharing it with our friends and family. So, cooking and eating have marked every joyful and difficult moment of my life.
So in my 20s when I was here in the states and I was hitting a real rough patch in terms of – I had always thought that I wanted to be a journalist and I had been pretty successful at that and I had worked at the company of my dreams, CNN. Then, the bottom fell out of everything and I couldn’t find work and I was really starting to question my worth and I retreated to the kitchen and watched a ton of Food Network – every cooking show I could find, I read all the cookbooks and I started tinkering around in my kitchen. I found that cooking gave me my sense of peace and comfort and quiet and a sense of being able to turn chaos into something beautiful. I desperately needed that at that point in my life as it felt like chaos. So cooking really saved me in many ways because I was having a huge identity crisis and around the same time, that’s when my faith came together and so faith and cooking and everything that happened right then in my 20s – it was a crucible and it was really hard, but I’m so grateful for it because it really helped me establish who I am.
AM: What are your 3 favorite ingredients that you always like to have on hand?
AS: Oooo gosh! How can you narrow it down to just 3? It’s so hard. I would put it down to sort of the Indian holy trio which would be onion, ginger and garlic. I think if I have those 3 ingredients, I can build pretty much any savory dish and if I caramelize the onions enough, I can make a sweet dish.
AM: Oh wow some double duty actions!
AS: I think that if you walk into my house, you’ll always find those things sitting on the counter – even if I have nothing else.
AM: We always love when we're watching Food Network and we’ll see you popping on the Guy’s Grocery Games, on Chopped or Halloween Wars and we know that on Nov 7th, Holiday Wars comes out and that’s really exciting! It’s great to see these incredible bakers doing what they do and for it to be in the holiday season as we have navigated these past 20 months it makes you think of that sense of family, fun and thinking like a kid again. So, tell us for those that may not have seen the show, we know its hosted by Maneet Chauhan and that you and Shinmin Li are judges.
AS: So Holiday Wars is a tradition on Food Network. It’s a long standing show and I was really honored to be invited to be part of it. Shinmin has been judging it since the beginning so she’s the OG and then I’m there haha! Holiday Wars is a show that tests bakers on the inside and on the outside. Meaning, they have to make, sculpt and create for us these beautiful vignettes that will communicate whatever the theme is of that episode. But they can only use sugar, flour, eggs, butter, chocolate and some isomalt.
They have to make us a piece of art. Now on top of that, it’s interesting that this season they are going to have to be heartbreakingly, cutting into their creations because somewhere at a certain point in the middle of their beautiful sculpture, there is some cake for us to taste. So that’s why I say, inside and outside. It’s about the flavors and it’s also about the art of it. It’s such a unique show and something that keeps the whole family involved. I watch it with my kids because they can somewhat imagine the flavors especially my boujie palated children!
The thing with Holiday Wars, it’s what we get excited for. We drive around our neighborhoods to see the Christmas decorations and everywhere we go, there is holiday music playing. We have tumbled through the year and we have come home. At the end of the year, this is what you want – some comfort, warmth and hope which is to me what I think the holiday is about and that’s all wrapped into one here on Holiday Wars.
AM: How does it feel as a judge to sit there and watch all of these things going on and people are going through competitions? Do you find it hard to be able to categorize what is better than something else? It must be pretty tough.
AS: It is really hard, especially once we get further and further into the end of the competition. Listen, I am a huggy buggy. I start to get really invested in these people - I care about them. If I could hand them all a trophy, I would but that doesn’t really behoove anyone. The longer we go, the harder it is for me to tell them, “hey it didn’t work.” This is the advantage of being someone that has competed and continues to compete is that I know what that feels like. I don’t like it when I can tell that a judge is holding back the truth. I want to know the truth and that’s how I grow and that’s how I get better. I try to keep that in mind too. I bear in mind all the difficulty of cooking in front of 1 billion cameras and lights and the stress that that involves, I try to keep in mind that fatigue because really after a few weeks into the competition there is physical and mental fatigue going on. I try to keep all of that in mind, but at the end of the day, everybody is there to move forward in the competition and in their career. So I have to shoot it straight and I try to do it with as much grace and levity as possible because that’s what I want.
AM: This season starts on Nov 7th, but is there anything that you can tell us that we should look out for or anything that you can share?
AS: I will tell you that this show follows on the heels of Halloween Wars and it was really interesting to see how to make a sculpture really pop and to have an impact. On Halloween Wars, you can really cash in on the drama of the theater that really stands out. So in a way, you could really see that – but when you move on to Holiday Wars, there is no shadow and I found that they had somewhat of a harder challenge because what they’re trying to play on is nostalgia, memory, humor and that thing that you can’t put your finger on to give you those feelings in your heart when you say, “oh my gosh, I’m completely in love with it and I can tell you all the stories that I felt as a kid.” That’s very hard to do and so there were definitely a couple of creations where even if the execution wasn’t great and I can think of it now, I was brought to tears over it when I heard the story behind it. It just made me cry so grab some tissues as there will be some crying. It won’t just be me!
AM: It is a story and it’s kind of interesting because I was looking at your My Family Recipes Journal and I believe that people do tell stories through food. It’s pretty hard when you talk about a certain dish without talking about something that came from your family or some type of experience that you have had and especially with what we were talking about, family bonds, the holiday season and all of these feelings that come together with this. Where did the idea come from for you to be able to create this?
AS: Well, my grandmother whose name was Lucica, my middle name is from her. She was this whirlwind in the kitchen and she was the kind of woman who would say that she would make a cake, she would wing the recipe and even though she didn’t have an oven, she would steam it on the stove top. It would turn out so good and everyone would say, “oh my gosh, Lucica is an incredible cook.” She was and unfortunately, she passed away quite early in her life and in the life of her children. She did not write her recipes down because I think that she thought that she would always be here. So for my mom, her sisters and her brother, for whom food is such a huge part of their life, to not have those recipes and to not have them written down in her handwriting, it was just a huge loss.
So my mom started her own recipe journal and I think that consciously or subconsciously so that that wouldn’t happen to us. She has been keeping a recipe journal for as long as I can remember. She has so many of these big old day planners that are filled with her recipes written and re-written, tested and re-tested. It’s more of the traditional things that tell us about where we from, but it’s also the new things that she has come up with because of the experiences that she has gone through so it’s really this living testament to who my mother really is and one of these days, she’s going to pass. I don’t like thinking about that, but what I will have and what my sisters will have is that testament to who Rosemary Sequeira was and not only will I be able to run my fingers over the handwriting and touch her, but I will also be able to recreate them and you know that when you make that person's recipes, they are back in the kitchen with you and that's a way to reintroduce her to my girls and to help them them understand that, “hey, you come from me, but you also come from Rosemary Sequeira, you also come from Lucica Harrison and a bunch of generations before you who all loved to cook and these are the flavors that they were really into and this is why we have the sweet halal or the sweet pilaf recipes because back in the day, they were rationing and my grandmother had to come up with the recipes.” These are the stories right that pull our roots down into really good soil, so that we can stretch up high and wide. I think it’s really important to write these recipes down because family recipes naturally and inherently connect a family. These days because our lives are so full and so busy and frankly, families are all across the country and all across the world We have time and distance coming for our families and stretching them! So something as simple as sharing a family recipe can be that glue that pulls that family back together. If there is anything that we have learned over the past couple of years is that, you can take a lot of things from us, but we will find a way to remain connected to those people that are really important to us. Family is whatever way that it means something to us.
I got together with my family at DaySpring and they know how to make beautiful things that are a blessing to us and enable us to bless others. They helped me create this recipe journey. There are blessing at the beginning of every section and I get a little choked up to think that there might be families all over the country saying those blessings before they eat this holiday season and there are also pieces of scripture on every page and we have broken up the pages into 8 sections so that you can decide how you want to divide up your recipes. Every section is color coded and the colors are inspired by saris from my mum’s closet. The interesting way that we have set up the pages is that page 1 is not for your to write the recipe on – that’s page 2. Page 1 is for you to write the title of the recipe , the kitchen from which it came and then to write your memory of that person or the times that you have eaten eaten that recipe. So that stays and when you write something down, you give it value and you’ve taken something abstract that only lives in your mind and you put it down so that others can share in that experience. That’s why I think that that is really important to me and that’s why it’s on page 1.
AM: It seems like such a beautiful book and something that is perfect for gifting.
AS: Yeah, thank you!
AM: When we were watching you reveal the book on your Instagram, the colors are lovely and it looks so ornate and feels like something that you would want to put on the coffee table of your home when you are not using it.
AS: In my mind, it was meant to look like a jewelry box!
AM: Yes! That’s what we were going to say but we didn’t want to offend you ha!
AS: Yes! Why would I be offended that’s what I wanted it to look like! It’s a complete jewelry box, because I want people to understand that their family recipes no matter how humble or intricate – they are jewels and gems that they should hold onto. You should protect them and pass them down like an heirloom to the next generation.
AM: Do you see creating other products like this and having an assortment that allows people to continue to share their stories?
AS: I mean that is the hope and prayer. This is just the beginning of a relationship with DaySpring and we have some really cool ideas coming up so I am so excited to have a partner who values family and values connection and values faith the way that I do. Those are the things that keep me going. Really, on a day-to-day basis, if I didn't have those those things, I would be a mess!
AM: Yes!
AS: Yeah and I think that we can all relate to that! The holidays can be hard for some people and I wanted there to be something that could help them through this period of time.
PHOTOS COURTESY | Aarti Sequeira
Read the NOV ISSUE #71 of Athleisure Mag and see Roots + Recipes with Aarti Sequeira in mag.
Hear Chef, TV Personality and Judge of Food Network/Discovery+, Aarti Sequeira on our show, Athleisure Kitchen - which is a part of Athleisure Studio, our multimedia companion podcast network! Subscribe to be notified when the episode drops. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
