Hello Sunshine, Hey Vesties. Today on the bright Side, we're sitting down with trailblazing chef rest for tour and cookbook author Ozma Khan.
You write your old story, you dictate what you want to do with your life. You are not born to crawl through life. You were born to fly free.
See Ozma's the visionary behind London's one and only Indian restaurant with an all female team. The daughter of royal parents in Calcutta, India, Ozma's had a fire in her belly since the day she was born. But here's the twist. She didn't learn how to cook until much later in life. Now she's igniting a revolution in the culinary world, one that places women front and center in professional kitchens, and today she's sharing her recipe for change with us. It's Thursday,
August twenty second. I'm Simone Boyce.
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day. Simone, on a scale of one to ten, where your cooking skills at?
I don't know.
I don't want to be too overconfident here. I feel like a seven. Maybe seven, that's pretty good, seven eight on some days, catch me on the holidays, maybe I'm an eight.
How about you?
So wait, if we're talking like one to Ozma conn or Jada laurentis you're a seven.
I mean you didn't say that.
That's thinking ten is professional executive chef.
No, okay, So if you're comparing me to a professional chef, maybe I'll say I'm a six. But I think I'm a pretty good home chef, home cook. I'll say that that's awesome. How about you.
I'm sort of at a one. I rate myself a one because I stop burning toast. But I make breakfast, I make eggs. I can make great protein pancakes and sometimes a panini or a sandwich. But that's really as far as it goes for me.
Can you boil an egg?
Yes?
I learned how to boil an egg. But that's funny that you ask, because today's guest couldn't even boil an egg when she was in her twenties, and now she's one of the brightest stars in London's culinary scene. Ozma Kahn is an award winning chef, best selling cookbook author and the first British chef to be featured in Netflix's show Chef's Table. She's the founder of one of the city's top rated restaurants, Darjeeling Express. It's where she serves up delicious Indian food.
I mean that is so cool, not just the fact that it's run by an all female staff, but the ages of the women here. It's just such an underrepresented portion of this industry and Ozma's journey is incredible. She was born to Indian royalty in Kolkatta, where she faced the harsh reality of being a second daughter, a role that's often seen as a burden in Indian society. And these women who are second daughters, they're often completely forgotten by their loved ones and by the culture at large.
She did not let that stigma define her. In fact, she actively rejected it and reclaimed it because she went on to become the very first woman in her family to attend college. Then, when she left India for Cambridge in nineteen ninety one to live with her husband, she didn't know how to cook. I mean, as we mentioned, she literally couldn't even boil an egg. But the aromas, the spices and comforts of India kept drawing her back. She made the kitchen her classroom and learned to master
the dishes of her childhood. Then, with her newfound culinary skills, she said, she became quote the Queen of the kitchen, all while getting her PhD in Constitutional law from King's College in London, growing her family and creating this beautiful, thriving community in the UK.
You Know, something I love about her story is that she started her restaurant with community at the center. She started hosting these dinner parties and she was doing them behind her husband's back, which is so funny. And these supper clubs eventually became her restaurant, The Darjeeling Express, and the women that she invited to her home, nanny's and housewives that she met at her kids' school who were
also immigrants, became the chefs at the restaurant. You know, in today's world, we talk a lot about women supporting women and its almost colloquialism now, but what does it really mean.
Ozma Khn lives it. It's so inspiring. And now she's got a new cookbook that's slated to come out next year and it's meant to be a masterclass on building flavor. But all right, enough from us, let's bring her in. Ozma Khn, welcome to the bright side.
Thank you.
You are named one of the coolest people in food and Wine by Business Insider in twenty nineteen, and just this past year, your career as a restaurant tour landed you on Time Magazine's one hundred most Influential People. So I cannot believe that you did not learn to cook until adulthood. Yeah.
I just love to eat. Every family needs someone like me. I love to eat. And I never imagined that I would leave India, that I would live in Cambridge and have to cook for myself. I actually thought I would end up being a princess and you know, marry some prince and he would take care of me and cook for me. I'm being flippant, but I actually just didn't think that I would reach a situation where I would be on my own and I would have to cook. And my kismuth was different. And I left Calcutta to
join my academic husband. Then I ended up in Cambridge not knowing how to cook. It was such a huge move. It was now prouting. The only person I knew was my husband, and that too. I just found met him effectively before I got married. I had an arranged marriage, which is different from a forced marriage. Okay, arrange marriage is like go on speed dating, but your entire family is involved this thing. You know. There's how in Indian
arranged marriages work. And I think a lot of people today don't understand what it was thirty five years ago. You couldn't call home. It was very expensive to make even a short call. Traveling was expensive. You didn't see the face of your parents, of your siblings. You didn't hear voices. I wrote letters to my father and he wrote to me. Felt like I had been banished. I felt it was almost like a berievement. See today, if you miss your family, you can even skype your dog
in Delhi today. But I couldn't talk to anyone. It was a real tough, isolating, difficult time.
I want to talk about your upbringing a little bit more Asthma, because I feel like it's so important to connect the darts between where you came from and the environment that you're creating for other women and food today. I mean, your cried when you were born. How would you describe what it's like growing up as a privileged woman in a patriarchal agrarian society.
Well, the interesting thing is, I think that my mother was overwhelmed. She felt she'd let down her mother. She was one of five daughters. I know she cried when I was born, but after that my mother really loved me, but the extended family was not so nice. It also did not help that I was, apart from being the second daughter, I was dark skinned. I was a fat little girl. People would constantly tell me I was ugly and fat and dark, that nobody would marry me from
the clan, which turned out to be true. But it was tough because I wasn't even attractive as far as the family was concerned. There was no bonus in having someone like me around. It really hit home when I was writing my last book and I went through the entire family archives looking for a picture of me and my mother. Because the book was in my mother's name, I had to use a photograph of my mother pregnant with me. Because no one ever felt that photograph needed
to be taken of me and my mother. It didn't exist. And it is just these little things when it's so wrong that a lot of families extended families, grandparents, uncles, and aunts don't. They just are not kind and they don't understand that they leave scars so deep. For me, those cars is where the fire came from. I wanted to set the whole world alight with those cars that I carry today. They never went so it was complicated. My parents loved me a lot. My siblings are really
close to me. My sister who everybody adored because she was so beautiful. She was this beautiful princess with long hair. But the game changer was every time people were being cruel to me, she would hold my hand and tell me, you are the warrior princess. You the world would shake when they hear your name. The fact that everybody's favorite thought I was beautiful, that I was powerful, that I would become something changed my life. And I was so young.
I realized then solidarity of a woman behind another woman, a girl telling another girl, go and do it. You're beautiful, You're going to be powerful, You're going to be strong. It just made me realize. It changed everything for me, and I'm so grateful for my sister.
Stay with us, everyone, We're taking a quick break and then we'll be right back with the Asthma Khan, and we're back talking food and community with Ozma Khan. The pain and hurt from your childhood set you want a path to becoming a change maker in the culinary world. I mean, like you said, those scars put a fire in your bones. Your restaurant our Jealing Express, has gotten high praise from food critics and earned you a spot
on chef's table. And your kitchen is run by an all women team of housewives who have been with you since the supper club you created in your own home. But I actually heard you say that this was not deliberate, which was surprising to me. How did this team of women come together?
I mean, it's very easy for me to now create this narrative that oh I wanted it. I just wanted women who could cook like me. Intuitively, instinctively, we are a deeply patriarchal society. The men who are now cooking on stage in Indian restaurant scene, everyone sees is identical. They learned as a professional cook in culinary school and they were trained in five star hotels in India. They
never learned with their mothers and grandmothers. Why would the boys be in the kitchen the boys would sit on the table and be served with the men. Women ate last girls. Eight least we served the boys. They never were there in the kitchen. You didn't have boys hanging around and helping. I cooked with my heart and I weigh with my eyes and my hands. This is why I had to have women helping me, who did this instinctively. And when you look into the open kitchen, there are
nine women cooking. The average age of the women cooking is fifty. And when I wanted to open a restaurant with my team who had been working with me in supper clubs, it was all the women and all the men told me, oh, no, you need professionals. Why is it that life experience doesn't mean that I'm professional?
Right?
I also am not a chef. I never called myself a chef. If I want to call myself something fancy, I can call myself a doctor. I have a PhD in British constitutional law. Chef is a vocational qualification. None of us have that. But we know how to cook. And yet everyone told me your restaurant's going to fail. You cannot open a restaurant just with women who've never worked professionally. Wow. Look at me. Now, I'd done pretty good. So it's just at that time everybody was so negative.
And I understand why, because there wasn't anyone like me around. They felt I was not going to be successful. I was absolutely sure I would be successful. I believed to the women, and the women believed in me. Such a powerful collective of women, we couldn't fail.
I also can't help but think about how that mirrors your experience with your sister right, Like you really experienced sisterhood and believed in it, and so you brought it to the forefront. My question for you is, these women in their fifties and sixties who are the backbone of your restaurant, what lessons do you think that other chefs and other kitchens could learn from them.
Patience that's the most important thing. You should be cooking to heal, not to impress, and give every ingredient, every spice the time it needs to shine. We have a very small menu, All the spices are lid. I really believe in flavor. In fact, that's what my new book I've just written is on, is just bringing in every ingredient so that every ingredient shines. That is our food, Our food is not a meat and too vedge or a whole bowl of something. Every bite tastes the same.
There's a huge variation in our food.
One of the things that I've heard you talk about in in terms of your home and learnings is from your dad on chef's table. You talk about how he imprinted this concept of social responsibility for you because you had more than most people did, and he said it was your job to make sure to give back and uplift other people. And so when I think about your kitchen, I'm wondering what choices you've made that ensure your staff meet both their family and their professional obligations.
The double shift, which is the backbone of all restaurants, is almost created to exclude women and also exclude empathetic men in this country. In England, when you go into work, it's dock. You leave at six thirty seven. Often you know over the minter bances dock. You are in an airless space with artificial lighting. Because most restaurant kitchens are in the basement and you are there till midnight. You go back. You don't have social life. We allow women
to have two ships. They pick. They can come in the morning and they leave at two thirty because they've got to pick up the children at three thirty. You come in for the first shift, or you come in for the second shift. It come starts at five. There's nothing happening I can guarantee to you. In a kitchen between lunch and dinner service, often the menu is separate. It's not brain surgery where the surgeon cannot leave for a second. Yeah, it is boiling potatoes. You are prepping,
we're cutting onions. You know, we're getting things ready for dinner service. This is a culture created by men for men, and this is why it excludes people who have families. What we lose are unbelievable women.
Yeah, we lose real talent.
Yeah, it's a brain drain. We lose our future leaders. And if some of us don't speak up now. And this is why I am so grateful like an opportunity to speak to you, because hopefully in my accented voice, people listen to my story and understand that we need to change things. Not just for ourselves. I want to change things for that generation of girls who are not yet born.
Have you seen other kitchens adopt your model because it's been so successful in London.
Not yet, but I live in Hope. I hope that people are brave. There are more women who are opening restaurants, but they don't have this model. And I hope that people are brave because of course everybody wants to be successful. We are extremely successful. I'm saying this because not out of arrogance. I want people to know you can have a business where the bottom line is not money, but
the bottom line is uplifting women. The bottom line is about community, about justice, about food justice, and about the politics of food. You can have all of these as important basis on which you set up your business. It doesn't mean that you will fail. You will still succeed. There's overwhelming pressure to conform. But I am determined to try and have this conversation because I am sowing a harvest.
I will not reap. I will probably not be alive to see that time when women walk into kitchens and they own it that they're not afraid of going into the walk in fridge, they're not afraid of being touched against their consent. I will not live. But every day I am trying my best to clear the pathways for those young women, even those who are not born yet I want them to know you are free and you should do this and do not allow others to shut
that flame off inside you. I really want women to be passionate, and it is all our duty to speak up to encourage others.
It's very important, so clear that that flame that was placed inside of you asthma has evolved into a real soft spot for other second daughters. You have the Second Daughter's Fund to support forgotten little girls in India, and you are just imbuing the women in your kitchens with such dignity and pride. You plucked them out of their domestic roles where they were nannies, they were care workers, they were housewives, and you said, no, I believe in you.
You can do this. And I want to know how are these women and their communities changed because of you, because of all this work that you're doing.
When I was on a call, my first call about being on Chef's table, the first thing I said is I need to show my team, and there was silence. I thought I'd got dropped out of the call. They said, no, oh, the chef in chef's table. Let us to show that team. This is the big difference. I have to show that team, because I cannot live, I cannot breathe, I cannot be free if I know that I've taken their labor, their love, their patients, their skills and claimed it to be my success.
Too many founders, too many leaders, do this. I stand on the shoulders of giants, my incredible team. How could I not show them? And in chef's table. For those who've seen it, you will remember that scene where the women are against the blue wall. Their name is there, but the name of the village. I needed that to go. It made a huge impact. When they went back, the whole village turned up in the station to receive them
with drums. These were the girls whose birds were lamented, where the mothers were made to feel humilated because a girl was born in that house. These girls went back as heroes. And this is just it stills. I get emotional because watching this happen in my lifetime, that we are getting the honor for what we are. Because everybody wants our rotie. If it's free, they will pay a man to cook, but we must do it for free. I want to cook for free. I also want to
be paid. I also want this to be a profession. I want that to be dignity, and no one should shut the door on your face saying you're a woman, you're older. This is not the law of the jungle. Yes, I may not be able to chase a deer and catch it, but I can cook, so I should be given an opportunity.
We're taking a quick break, but stay with us because we'll be right back with chef, restaurant tour and cookbook author Ozma Khan. And we're back with Ozma Khan.
Asthma.
You mentioned the politics of food earlier, and people see food as this way of bringing people together. Often hear that phrase let's break bread. But you say that food and culture has been separated, that people don't actually want to see the people behind the food.
Sometimes. Yes, so we are in a situation where food and culture is separated. You have a table full of food, my food, food off my heritage. The table is groaning with food, but there isn't a seat on that table for me. I will not allow you to eat my food, to listen to my music, to wear my fabric if you do not accept me. You build walls to keep the Mexicans out, but you want to have tacos. Recently, we've had issues with, you know, riots on the streets
in London. Everybody says, oh, we all love Indian food, chicken, tikamasala, but then they don't accept us. And this is the thing that the easiest thing to take of an immigrant community is their food. But the food is my dna, it is my breath, it is my heartbeat. You take away my food and you dismiss my people. This is unacceptable.
And there's so much bullying that happens in schools where children of different ethnicity in their pack lunch, they may take rice, they may take food that for other children may smell unusual. And then there's oh, you smell your food smells. When a very young child is told their food smells, it is as if they are smelling. It's the other ing of people when they're very young using food, and then later on the taking away of our food. And I want everybody to cook my food. You can
be from Mars. Please cook my food. But I want you to understand the stories of my women. I want you to understand the ingredients that went in. I want you to understand the beat with which we crush the spices. Please listen to our stories, talk to us. Don't dismiss us and take away our food. It's very important. And the problem is that for too long this has been happening.
For too long, it's been happening. We need to stop that because with that lack of respect for our culture, the food just goes and we lose a very important part of our identity.
There's room at the table for my food, but not for me. Is in analogy I think for so many marginalized groups. Yes, you know you started your business later in life, and you started it after starting your family, after going through years of school. You mentioned you're a doctorate. In what ways do you think that starting your career as a restaurant tour was actually beneficial to you?
I think it is the most powerful decade of my life when I was in my forties. That's not how society sees it. Everybody worships the youth and the creative and the young in many cultures, and this is in the West and the East. The moment you are in your life late forties, you are not seen as dynamic, not creative. When I went to the bank, I just want to open a t shop downstairs near my house. They laughed at me. And they said, oh, what a lovely hobby. Call us to your house, missus Kahan. I
cried all the way home. I was tongue tied. I could not say a name of a single woman who started in her forties, who did something she had not done before, who was passionate, who was creative, who is dynamic, but didn't have a piece of paper a certificate, and she was in her forties. I began at forty five. In every sport where there's baseball, a cricket, we have a second innings. I am in my second innings. I will hit every ball out of the park. My team
will win. I will not get a chance to bat again. You can't defeat me. You cannot defeat powerful women in their forties, the collective of women who have all on so many times, we have scarred, we are bruised. All of you only know me when I became successful. You were not there when I was ridiculed and laughed at, when the doors were slammed on my face from the ashes.
I have risen to be this person. Who is that bird we have my father's to always say, Ausma, be that bird who sings before dawn in the darkness tell everybody light is going to come. Be so powerful and so confident that you always know dawn will follow night.
The night is never endless. And I think all of us should be that we should tell the stories of hope and tell women that when everybody pushes you, boxes you in one corner and tells you that you are past it, tell them your light is coming, your night is over. And I feel such a sense of joy. I know every day I live one day less. I want to be that person who, through my hope, gives others hope.
I need you in my ear every morning. I just need you to give me a daily pep talk so that I can get out of bed and feel confident, because when I as I'm listening to you speak, it's like this incredibly moving motivational material that just is so energizing. You have been the light for those women who are in your kitchen. And I want to talk about some specific ways that you've recommended that other chefs in the industry and restaurateurs go about making change. And you say
that this is something that we can all do. Take a chance on someone even if they aren't fully qualified. Why why is that so important?
You can teach people's skills. You cannot teach attitude. You cannot teach them resilience. That doesn't happen. So if they are not fully qualified and they don't have all the skills, you can teach them, you can guide them, you can hup them. I don't know how to cook. I'm pretty decent cook now. It took a bit a while, but I goot that, so I understand. I love skills. But the passion and the love for food, the desire to understand my culinary heritage, my respect for women who cooked.
This cannot be taught. You need to feel it.
When I think about the kinds of conversations that we want to have on our show, The bright Side, you are like straight up the middle because you are knocking your second act out of the park. And that's something that we talk about a lot, is transformation, reinvention. And I think one of the reasons why we feel it's important to talk about that is because our society, our world is obsessed with the expiration dates for women. Society loves to tell us what we can and can't do
after a certain age. So what would you say to anyone listening who feels it might be too late for them.
Do not allow anyone to label you, to put a badge on you, to put you into a box. I tell everybody there's no box big enough. I will be who I want to be. I am the captain of my ship. You don't get on my ship and tell me where to go. You don't do that. I think this is so important. We are allowed, we are pushed to one side. We allow people to dictate to us. Even well beinging friends, female friends will always kind of You're the smart one, You're the nerdy one, you're the
techy one. You are none of these. You are every day you can be a new person. You write your own story. The world should not write your story. You write your story. You dictate what you want to do with your life. You are not born to crawl through life. You were born to fly free. If everybody else tells you where to go, this is not your destiny. We all have a beautiful story, and I think that you
embrace that. And there's a little voice inside us. Let's shut down everybody, shut down all that noise and listen to that voice that is telling you who you really are.
Ozma, thank you so much. This has been truly one of my favorite conversations we've had so far.
Thank you, Thank you so much, Ozma. Ozma Kahn is the chef and owner of the Darjeeling Express in London and an author of multiple esteemed cookbooks.
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're popping off with the hosts of the Go Touch Grass podcast, Millie Tamaraz and Elise Morales. Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Simone Voice. You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and.
Tiktok'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
That's r O b A. Y.
See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.