“Your worth is non negotiable, there’s no more
settling for less! It’s about time you serve yourself what you truly deserve!” Says Divya Mohta, a CA turned Chef.
“I was 23 and marriage brought me to Nagpur from Mumbai. In the last couple of years, I’ve always been chasing something or the other like most millennials. Be it degrees, jobs or businesses. But one thing that’s always been my constant is my love for food and hosting people!
Looking at the food culture back then, I realised there are a lot of opportunities to create and introduce new things to the city. My exposure and experimental taste buds always wanted to try something new and innovative. Since there were limited options to explore, I started developing my own recipes and hosting family and friends at our place. Everytime I tried something new at a fancy restaurant, I used to come home and recreate it. I met a couple of F&B industry legends like Mr. Sanjiv Nahar from FSB, Mr. Dewansh Jaiswal from Bouffage and Mr. Bhavik Mehta, Brand Chief at Thinkin’Birds and the lessons from them ignited my interest in recipe curation even more!
Lockdown gave me all the time in the world to experiment with my love for food and I made a plan for myself – to keep posting pretty looking and easy peasy recipes for a good 100 days on social media, expecting the world to go normal by then though that of course didn’t happen. But, my cooking sprees made me become a freelance chef/content creator at India’s biggest food platforms like Gobble, TimesNowFoodie and MyGoodtimes. This was nothing less than a dream!
Starting with 250 friends on Instagram to a family of 15k plus, working across 5 platforms, curating menus for 3 cafés and bagging over 50 brands in a span of 2 years, I truly wanted to celebrate this women’s month with highly passionate, aspiring and established women entrepreneurs in the city. The only aim of the meet-up was to create impact with the intent of sharing common space with businesswomen and generational businesses, to achieve their tangible goals.
A room full of powerful women including (Dr. Neha Rahate – Tongue and scissors, Vinali Panchmatia – Vinali’s apron, Mansi Rathi – Pizza and pie, Dr. Himija Karia – dentist, Stuti Vij – architect, Barkha Nagpal – Physiotherapist, Malvika Fulwaani – dietician, Deepti Goyal – artistry stroke, Dhivya S. – licksters, Disha Chandak – pizza project, Mahima Lakhani – Sucrose patisserie, Disha – Roove giftery, Nishita Gupta – all smiles event, Ankita – floral jewellery artist, Pooja Bajaj – Graphic designer, Suchhita Bhola – Knotty knots, Aanchal Rathi – sassy bae, Aditi shah – igniting minds & Dimple Lalwani – black ink art) shared their stories, successes and struggles thereby inspiring each other to fulfill their dreams.
“We’re still on a high with this high impact high energy afternoon hosted at Bouffage Binge & Spirits, filled with positivity, empowerment and most importantly celebrating the sense of building and growing each other as a community because we’re all we have!” Concludes Divya.
