Home Influencer Stories Food When Food Meets Art – Aisshwarya Waankhaday

When Food Meets Art – Aisshwarya Waankhaday

Through her years of expertise in cooking and learning it from her grandmother “called as Aaji”, the authentic combination of spices and food, has transformed the traditional attire of the food recipe into a creative piece, where Aisshwarya spins magic into usual food items and turns them into pieces of taste art. Born in Nasik, and based in Pune, every inspiration towards food involved Aaji as Aisshwarya says, “Cooking came naturally to me from the age of 5, when she prepared her first dish of ‘aloo chat’ and then eventually the experiments never ended as I started drawing passion for the same as life went along”. As her parents were working, Aisshwarya got to spend a lot of time with her grandparents. Ever since 7th grade, she found herself experimenting with different types of food; out of which Maggi was one of her favorite forever.

She fondly remembered the day when she made ukadiche modak. where instead of making them sweet, she ended up adding a twist and gave it a dumpling-style taste. Even though it looked like “ukadiche modak”, it had veggies and masala as the stuffing, which eventually became the most famous recipe for her Aaji’s kitty parties.
After the 10th grade, Aisshwarya decided to pursue commerce because she believed that would open up new career opportunities for her and likewise, she figured out to shower her creativity into interior space and grabbed a chance to work when she was only 19 years old, as an interior designer.

When an engineer met foodie

If you have ever heard of a foodie engineer falling in love with a creative foodie, you got to come across Aisshwarya and her fiance as the perfect combination of being avid foodies who love to travel and who love to experiment new places all time, they are the ones who are naturally called for if anyone wants to experience or get a review for any new restaurant in Pune to visit.

In 2018, December both of them realised , why not have a page for the same, with which the journey of @the.kitchenengineer page started. Over the page along with a brief review, Aisshwarya would also share recommended places to find suitable food, with cost, and extra details. All in all, everything that a food lover would like to know, she provided them with that information. It was never about the numbers game for her. She started her Instagram page, @the.kitchenengineer, out of sheer passion, where she wants to help people with her honest reviews about food and

Her Instagram page is loaded with delectable cuisines, some that she prepared herself, and others that she tried in different places. Starting from a small café to expensive restaurants, Aisshwarya has tried anything and everything. Inspired by the restaurants, she experimented with making the same recipes with her own touch of taste. She recalls posting her first photo of Eggs Benedict from one of her favourite go-to places. She goes the extra mile to connect with her followers. If someone asks her for restaurant recommendations or the recipe for biryani, she never fails to respond to these personal messages.

Managing content is not a cup of tea!

Cooking has always been a stress-buster for Aisshwarya, but managing Instagram is not as easy as it looks. While being a full-time interior designer, Aisshwarya prefers managing her time well. As Aisshwarya says “Managing social media needs a lot of persistence”. Preparing the monthly calendar during the first weekend helps Aisshwarya to manage better, she takes time to think about what will go on her feed, giving equal attention to the captions. She believes to not bother much about what happens once the post is done, because of which Aisshwarya feels immensely lucky to have such dedicated fans who encourage her to do better.

With her persistent content generation activity, Aisshwarya has managed to grab a good number of brands who ask to share her honest opinion about them. She has done partnerships with YogaBar, Be Organic, Jarved Coffee, and a few others.

While all the hustle had paid a tribute, Aisshwarya had been trying hard single-handed to shoot a lot of videos, which she would launch the same over youtube, to reach more audience with her niche for food masalas!

Learn to adapt:

When the pandemic hit us all, Aisshwarya took it as a time for self-reflecting. To keep involved in the positive side of life, she would experiment everyday and prepare dishes for her parents, and also excelled her knowledge in writing skills. As her Ajji had her own recipe for Indian masala which was at a time viral in the town they lived, inspired by Aisshwarya to come up with her new venture, Spicy Masala, where she intends to patent and distribute her grandmother’s independently prepared spices, all across the world. “Spicy Masala” is in the pipeline and going through branding, and she wishes to launch it soon. The sole motto that led to the inception of Spicy Masala is the notion of Atma Nirbhar Bharat. The venture employs numerous women from India making them financially empowered. Also, note that they only make organic Indian spices.

Prepare for that opportunity

Aisshwarya believes in perfection. Juggling between professional and content generation life has thought one thing clearly, that time is precious. Preparing content in advance has helped me to plan better and also make changes than required. Spontaneous content is good, but could eventually reflect on the quality delivered. One life lesson for all of us here,“ It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.”