Currently the co-host of cooking program MasterChef India 2, Mr. Khanna spoke to India Real Time about returning to his roots, the evolving food landscape in India, and why Indians can never drift away from “Mummy Ka Khana” (Mom’s dishes.)

Edited excerpts:

At last count, there were more than 250 cooking shows on Indian TV. You yourself are co-hosting MasterChef India 2. What do you make of our sudden interest in cooking shows?

As Indians, we are deeply passionate about our cuisine. Now, when we have a stage to express that passion, there is an immense excitement about the different types of food we can showcase. It’s like giving an instrument to a child who has been listening to music for several years. It’s in his subconscious, but now he can express it.

What are the key ingredients to a successful cooking show? In India, do you get a sense that as we cook less in our own kitchens, we consume more culinary shows?

A cooking show can’t just be about lectures and recipes. It has to be entertaining. As a culture, just like America, we love entertainment. The show must also have emotion – something we can connect to as regular people. It should also be about inspiration and should have a factor of relatability: Viewers should be able to relate to the food, the contestants and the judges.

I don’t agree that we are cooking less. Those people are in a minority. There are still people who cook three meals a day and these are the people to whom shows can be tailored to. People will watch shows they can relate to. My mother might say, “Oh this chef is cooking simple food, I like it,” while you might say “Oh, this chef is really entertaining. I am going to watch him.” There is a need for a lot of different types of shows and everyone will find a show to their liking.

Read the rest of my piece for The Wall Street Journal here. 

Drift from mustardcuffins on Vimeo.

Day laborers gather at Hart Part, Queens for a hot breakfast given by a local soup kitchen. Residents are angry at the increasing crowds milling outside the park (Photo: Smriti Rao)

On any given day, you would find day worker Jose Manuel at Hart Park, 69th at 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights. The painter from Mexico comes to the park each morning hoping to be picked up for work. On Tuesdays, a mobile soup kitchen run by St. John’s Bread and Life provides him and his friends with a hot breakfast of pasta and beans that makes the wait, which has gotten longer, a little more bearable.

“I have been coming here for a long time now,” said Manuel, eating his breakfast. “Earlier they weren’t this many people,” he said referring to about 60 day laborers still waiting for work at 10.30 in the morning. “But now there are no jobs,” he continues, adding “maybe in January it will get a little better.”

As Manuel and his friends mill outside Hart Park waiting for work; across the street, Stathis Amides, the superintendent of the building across the Park is seething. He stands with a small camera in his hand to record any digressions the workers make.

“I have been seeing this for a year now,” says Amidis, referring to the mobile soup kitchen. “They feed the people, then the workers take their platters to Roosevelt Avenue, and litter all along the block,” he said, adding he was normally up at about 6 am each day to clean up after the workers. “This is a very big problem for me,” he fumed.

Amidis is not alone in his anger towards the workers. A group of irritated residents went as far as posting on a neighborhood blog, their complaints against the soup kitchen and the workers.

Amidst calls for the soup kitchen to move elsewhere in Woodside, the angry residents, who were unnamed on the blog wrote: “Their [the soup kitchen] intrusion into our neighborhood is unwanted and unneeded. None of the residents ever take food from them.” Saying the soup kitchen feeding immigrants was a “creepy intrusion,” the residents worried about their children being exposed to the workers, complained about the bathrooms in the park getting dirty and said the soup kitchen and the day laborers both contributed in reducing the quality of life in the neighborhood.

St.John’s Bread and Life says it is bewildered by the open hostility. “We have been doing this [running the soup kitchen], at the same site, for the last two years now,” said Anthony Butler, Executive Director of the program that feeds roughly 300 laborers at Hart Park each Tuesday and about 3000 others city wide. “But the complaints started just two months ago. It’s kind of xenophobic, really,” he said, adding while undocumented labor was a big issue in the Country, people were being scrooges at this time of the year. “So, should we only feed people who are legal,” he asked adding there was a great deal of racism when it came to to the complaints. “We have seen a 20-30% increase in laborers because of the recession, and we have also seen an uptick in anti-immigrant sentiment. The undocumented [laborers] get blamed for everything,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amides, who has to deal with the workers on an everyday basis, said he wasn’t against the workers, only their attitudes. “Everyday, they bother the tenants,” he said, referring to the workers, “they tease the young girls, “Yo mamita, Yo mamita,” he mimicked.”I understand they are looking for jobs, but I can’t understand them bothering the little girls.”

Residents also complain that they feel unsafe for their children when the workers are milling about Hart Park.”We don’t mind them staying in Woodside, but not on the playground,” said another resident who wished to be unnamed. “They [the soup kitchen] are welcome to stay in Woodside,” she said, “Just move three or four blocks in either direction.”

A request that Sister Kathy Byrnes of St. John’s Bread and Life says, is untenable. “Some neighborhoods want immigrants to disappear,” she said, “We came here because the workers gather here, it’s not the other way around. We try to serve those most in need.” She said that since the soup kitchen clarified park rules,  workers have been notified not to enter Hart Park, as it is against the rules to enter the park without children. “Now, they don’t go into the park, but they can use the bathrooms,” she specified, much to the chagrin of the residents.

As the soup kitchen and the residents battle it out, workers like Jose and his friends admit to a few bad apples in their crowd. “Sometimes, some workers drink in the park in summer,” Jose said, “we tell them not to, but they still do it,” he added. He said the workers were warned by the local precinct to behave and added that it was a  shame that some workers didn’t play by the rules. “This is where we have to meet everyday,” he said, referring to the pick up point. “If they [residents] kick us out from here, where will we go?” he asked, as he finished his breakfast and started another long wait in the biting cold – hoping to be picked up for work.

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., left, and residents of Norwood Gardens protest the construction of two new apartment buildings in Astoria. PHOTO BY SMRITI RAO

At first glance, the empty lot at 36-88 36th St. in Astoria looks like any other construction site in the city. But the mere presence of this parcel in a quiet, leafy stretch of Astoria makes the neighbors angry.

Days after the Norwood Neighborhood Association reached a compromise with the Department of City Planning about new, tougher zoning regulations, the community learned about two neighboring demolition and development proposals on 36th Street, including the lot at 36-88, which would result in eight- and 10-story buildings on a block mostly consisting of two-family homes.

On Saturday morning, angry neighbors and residents of Norwood Gardens, an area bounded by 35th, 36th and 37th Streets between 30th and 31st Avenues, gathered despite the rain to protest the construction and development of the two sites.

“These houses in blocks [are] what makes Astoria beautiful,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) referring to Astoria’s quiet streets and modest homes. The building of a highrise in a quiet neighborhood, despite being legal, goes against the wishes of the community, Vallone said.

The residents can’t stop the construction, but they wish to make their displeasure clear.
“We want [the developers] to be good neighbors,” Vallone said. “There is no excuse for them to come into this community and destroy its character. This property is violating the character of the entire neighborhood.”

The developers of the site could not be reached for comment.

The two new structures on 36th Street are to be 8-unit and 10-unit apartment buildings. Such dwellings comply with the zoning of the area, which allows tall structures, but a new plan the city is considering would restrict development to make it harmonize more closely with existing structures.

Some residents are unhappy the new rules aren’t already in place. “We want to send a message to the City Council that we want the new zoning laws to be passed as soon as possible,” said Donnelly Marks, a member of the Norwood Neighborhood Association, which represents families living in one- and two-story houses in Astoria.“The building may be legal, but it is wrong. With the new buildings, there will be 18 more families in the area. How can we accommodate more parking and other issues?”

Complaints about out-of-context projects are common in Astoria. “We are trying to halt the development of these tall structures,” said Astoria resident Benjamin Duffey.“As long as they retain the aesthetic of the neighborhood, it’s fine, but look at them,” he added, pointing to two tall older buildings at the end of the block, “they stick out like sore thumbs!”

“These buildings will destroy the character of the neighborhood; they go against our community,” added resident Patrick Comasky. “With highrises and single-bedroom homes, you are getting a community that is transient. We need family-type housing, that keeps families and kids here.”

Others said they fear the incoming families could be a burden on the area’s existing infrastructure. “They are building homes, offices,” said James Mazlun, who has lived in Astoria since 1926. “We have one regular school, one hospital. Where are all these people going to go? If they have empty areas, they should build schools and hospitals.”

With the new housing, Duffey predicted problems with parking and noise pollution. “Con Ed won’t be able to support the demand in this area,” he added. Mazlun also noted that Astoria has become an increasingly popular place to live over the past few years and said newcomers don’t realize how much and how quickly the area is changing.

Part of the residents’ anxiety also stems from the commercial development on 30th Avenue. With a slew of bars and clubs, neighbors complain of the increase in bar brawls and noise pollution. “There are more people drunk on the streets — more fights that start at four in the morning,” said resident Karin Afrides. “There is screaming, yelling, breaking glass. It is just a matter of time that someone pops a gun and shoots someone.”

The neighborhood blog, norwoodneighborhoodassociation.blogspot.com, provides details of weekend chaos. Residents talk of brawls at 3 a.m., fights in the streets, urination on private property, beer bottles, trash and drug packets on the sidewalk, recklessly speeding cars with souped-up engines screeching and revving their way down residential streets.

While the NYPD reports a reduction in crime in the 114th Precinct over the past few years — rapes went from 33 in 2001 to 22 in 2009, and robberies dropped from 288 to 256 — residents feel the numbers are high.

Afrides’ husband, John, worries not just about what he sees as a deteriorating quality of life on 36th Street, but also about a potential increase in property taxes which could accompany big new development.
“Houses here are worth $800,000 to $1,000,000, so with this development, our property taxes will go up,” he said. The Afrides are also concerned about old trees being destroyed during construction.

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke says the recession is “very likely over,” the Dow swaggers to the top of the 10,000 mark, and Obama is confident the worst is behind us.

So why does it still hurt so bad? If you are one of the millions in America looking for a job in this economy, it’s hard to believe the pundits.

“Employment is a lagging indicator,” they assure us, speaking like parents chiding a child for not eating his greens.

But if there ain’t no green in the pocket, it’s hard to swallow what they say. Everywhere, the stories are the same—making us wonder, is the economy really recovering?

“It’s a really bad market,” says Wonyoung Hong, a taxation major at New York’s Fordham University who moved from Korea last year.

“Really impossible to get a job. A lot of my friends were fired at the end of last year; they’re still looking for jobs. They all have good backgrounds, experience, and most went to school here. When I see such qualified people struggling, I feel it will be more difficult for me.”

Hong, 27, graduates next month and going by her description of her summer internship application process, she is ready for “hell.”

Read the rest of the piece at Koream Journal

French Bulldogs - Small, uncute, apartment friendly pooches

Astoria in Queens, New York, is more than just all Greek restaurants and beer gardens.

It is also, according to The New York Times, home to 32 French Bulldogs – one of the most totally non-cute dogs I have ever laid eyes on.

With their narrow hips, rabbit years and large head, writes The Times, the dogs often have to be delivered through a c-section.  But once born, they quickly endear themselves to owners by possessing one awesome New York quality – they are landlord friendly – read small, low on the barking, and can be squeezed into miniscule NYC apartments! We knew dogs were pleasers, but these fellas!

Read the whole piece here.

While we have been carping about the financial crisis, nerds of all hues and heights have gotten together to bust out their creative juices.

According to Wired, New York City’s tech scene has got a huge leg up due to Wall Street’s harakiri.

According to Wired, New York City’s tech scene has got a huge leg up due to Wall Street’s harakiri. Investors that used to dole out millions to larger institutions are more than happy to toss a few pennies (read: a couple of hundred thou) to scrappy start-ups.

Investors that used to dole out millions to larger institutions are more than happy to toss a few pennies (read: a couple of hundred thou) to scrappy start-ups.

The start-up themselves also find themselves in the unique position of being able to hire that hot-shot engineer, who has been laid off, or a marketing specialist who now spends his time walking his dogs and willing to work for less.

So, if you are a tech start-up, finance (check), hiring new talent for cheap (check) – ready for launch? (check , check and check!)

And if you thought you need to be on West Coast to make tech crackle, think again, New York may well be emerging as the new tech hub.

Some of the buzzy new tech ventures include:

EkoVenture, that signed up 450 of the estimated 40,000 eco-tourism operators around the world to create a network of eco-friendly destinations, where eco-tourists can travel to.

IvyExec that lists jobs for “top-tier professionals. The founder, Elena Bajic, tells Wired that employers are inundated with “hundreds or thousands of applicants for jobs they post online,” so some are gravitating toward this smaller network, the majority of whom she says have an MBA from a top-20 school.

For the full list of  start-ups, go to Wired

The way to a man's heart is through a food truck!

You can’t walk through midtown without the delish smells of chicken and rice forcing you to drop that ridiculous diet and scarf down platefuls of wonderful hot  rice served with grilled chicken. It’s not some fancy restaurant we are talking about, but the ridonculously wonderful food truck on 53rd and 6th that serves this dish. It’s the only dish they serve and people love it for that. Love it so much that they patiently wait in long lines, despite their stomachs growling so loud they were picked up by NASA Voyager! Chicken and Rice apart, New York is full of the ubiquitous food trucks.

Parked on street corners, almost every other block has someone selling donuts and coffee, some others hawk falafel sandwiches and once ever so often you come across a cupcake truck! All great ideas. But here are three start-up food trucks featured on inc.com that hawk specialty foods – read, dumplings, baked treats, and lastly burritos and fish tacos. So what makes food trucks a great idea? Watch this video.

Then check out midtownlunch.com for some great ideas on some snacky deals in New York.

Kevin Kim, who won the Democratic Primary for New York City Council

On September 15, as the promise of autumn hung lightly in the air, New Yorkers headed into booths to cast their votes in the City Council primaries. What they saw on the ballot–among the Gleasons, Gregorys and Massons–the last names Kim, Choe and Jung.

Contesting for the seat of Councilman were P. J. Kim (District 1, Lower Manhattan), Kevin Kim (District 19, Bayside, Queens), and John Choe and S. J. Jung (both from District 20, Flushing, Queens). A historic 4 Korean American candidates competed in New York’s City Council primaries. And when the results came in on the 16th, Kevin Kim emerged as the winner of the Democratic nomination for City Council from District 19.

Kim’s surprise victory saw him raking him 30 percent of the vote and defeating presumed front-runner Jerry Iannece and four other Democratic opponents. It also brought him one step closer to being the first Korean American to be elected to New York’s lawmaking body.

Kim’s victory marks the political maturation of the Korean American community, a moment that Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, termed as “decisive.” Sam Yoon, who had an unsuccessful bid running for Mayor of Boston, described the primaries as a “watershed moment in New York politics.”

But after the warm glow of victory, it’s time for some cold hard truths.

Despite these Koreans making an impressive play for New York City Council, there still remains a huge gap in Korean American leadership.

Though Koreans, at 1.5 million, represent the 5th largest immigrant group in the United States, there are less than a handful of prominent Korean political leaders in the country. New York alone has 132,000 Korean Americans, according to the latest census figures, yet none have been elected to the New York City Council, the State Legislature or any statewide office.

“We still haven’t found a sense of urgency to get involved in politics,” said Kevin Kim, referring to the Korean-Americans in the Tri-State area. “If they are citizens, they don’t register (to vote), and if they’re registered, they don’t vote in the primaries – robbing themselves of the chance to pick a candidate they truly believe in”

In Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, a man sits by a fruit cart, piled high with plums, apples and bananas. Asked if he had voted in the primaries, he shakes his head. “No politics, no politics,” he said in broken English, impatient with the questions and eager to direct his attention to a customer.

Businessman first, citizen next–the fruit seller may well embody one of the biggest challenges facing the Korean community in America.

One of the explanations for the community’s reticence to participate in the political process, says Esther Jung, a community organizer involved with P. J. Kim’s city campaign, is cultural. “For Koreans, it’s hard to be civic-minded,” says Jung. “Volunteerism is not even a concept back home.” Jung also observes that new émigrés struggle to assimilate. “Koreans have to learn that they are not in Korea anymore. They have to learn to be part of the American community.”

Nowhere was this chasm between mainstream America and the immigrant community more evident than during the Los Angeles race riots in 1992. “We learned the hard way,” said Sukhee Kang, the mayor of Irvine, California. “Over 700 business owners lost their livelihood overnight. We didn’t have any protection from local authorities, law enforcement and local politicians. We had to protect our own stores; that was a big lesson for our community.”

Brad Lee adds, “Korean American history has gone on for 100 years now. But we still don’t have any network systems in place.”

To put those networks in place, community leaders are urging young Koreans to start looking beyond professions such as medicine and accounting, and to consider other options like politics. “A lot of [Korean Americans] are fixed on success,” says Jung, adding that many second generation Korean Americans also get pigeonholed into going to the Ivys in order to fulfill their immigrant parents’ dreams. But, “we are not robots, we all have different gears.”

Two of the Korean American candidates in the City Council primaries, despite their Ivy-laced degrees, chose to look beyond the boardroom. Kevin Kim hails from Stanford and Columbia, and P. J. Kim wields degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

“I could have been one of the 500 associates at McKinsey and no one would care,” says P. J. “Or, I could do something for the community and make a difference.”

Even if Korean Americans don’t have the stomach to step into the political ring, leaders remind the community that they need to be more aggressive in voicing their concerns–and voting. And with the census just around the corner, Korean Americans have to also stand up and be counted. Kevin Kim also suggests a year-long program designed to get more Korean-Americans register as voters. “Churches have been doing a great job registering voters,” said Kim.” Now, we need to get civic organizations, charity organizations to start registering Korean-Americans,” adding the drive would be non-partisan and be the first step towards greater political participation.

Additionally, for any Korean American leader to succeed, it has also become imperative to cobble together broad support across various ethnic groups. Case in point is Sam Yoon’s election as Boston City councilor at-large in 2005, the first non-white ever elected to serve that post. Yoon could make it happen only with the support of the Chinese community. The 39-year-old naturalized citizen, a graduate of Harvard and Yale, came in third place in the Boston Mayoral Primaries.

“Boston is a world class, 21st century city, rich in academic resources, health care innovation, but Boston politics and the government is still in the Dark Ages,” said Yoon. “To have a Korean American candidate represent new ideas and fresh energy, captures the city’s imagination.”

As the leaves turn across the Northeast and political wheels grind forward, there is an unmistakable air of change. As Kevin Kim prepares to face off with his Republican opponent in the November 3^rd City Council election and Sam Yoon charts out a future course of action, their contests should remind Koreans that in a country where the highest office is occupied by the son of an immigrant, anything is possible.

According to Michael Silverstein, a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group, in Chicago: Women want to be Swedish! “The best place in the world for women to live is Sweden,” said Silverstein. “There is virtually no gender discrimination there. Men and women live as equals.” Yayy

Silverstein also talks about particular findings regarding New York women.

“Women in New York have enormous issues with money, enormous issues with time,” he observed. “They are more likely to get divorced, and they are more troubled about finding love.” Only seventeen per cent of New York women rate themselves “highly satisfied” with their sex lives, compared with twenty per cent nationally and twenty-five per cent globally.

On the other hand, New York women have more friends than anyone else on the planet: the average New Yorker would invite at least sixty-five friends to her wedding, compared with a national average of fifty-nine.

Called upon to explain this phenomenon, Silverstein remembered a recent visit to a New York Bikram-yoga studio. “I have been to Bikram yoga all over the country, and this was the friendliest, most conversational, most open yoga class I have ever been to—like, in a different category,” he said. “I have been there twice, and the instructor knows me by name. I have been to the studio in Chicago forty times, and the instructor doesn’t know me.”

Read the whole piece at The New Yorker.