Recently, I had the chance to talk to Sapna Anand, an Indian expat who has been in Malaysia for 16 years, about her impressive culinary journey and career. From not knowing how to cook to whipping up delicious meals at home, and then moving to cooking professionally and giving lessons, Sapna Anand is proof that hard work does pay off.

Sapna’s passion for food only surfaced after she and her husband moved to San Francisco from India. At the time, Sapna was forced to start cooking at home because there weren’t many restaurants near where they lived. Sapna mentioned that they would have to drive miles out of their neighbourhood to get to a restaurant and it wasn’t very affordable either.

That’s when Sapna bought her first cookbook and started familiarising herself with the kitchen, making her way through every single recipe in the book. However, this wasn’t a magical, overnight transformation. Cooking was a skill that she had to learn. Her first trial with food was at a barbecue with friends, and Sapna completely burnt the meat on the grill. Sapna sheepishly admitted that her husband was, at that time, a much better cook than her.

Sapna recalled that the transition from burning food on the grill to being a culinary teacher with a cookbook under her belt – and two more on the way – was a slow process. She noted that her cooking did get better after moving to Malaysia, though, where there’s such a diverse culinary scene.

Exploring a passion

After moving to this country, Sapna truly started to focus on her passion. She began cooking for her friends and experimenting with new flavours and techniques – her family and friends were willing participants. Eventually, Sapna enrolled for a year-long pastry course at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu, which had just opened a new school in Thailand and was the only branch in the region at the time offering English speaking courses.

For a year, Sapna travelled back and forth between Malaysia and Thailand, juggling motherhood and culinary passion. At the end of it, though, Sapna’s love for experimenting only got stronger. She started fusing her knowledge of western pastries with her life-long love of Indian cuisine.

All the while, Sapna was also cultivating a following on her Facebook page where she shared her daily home-cooking adventures. Eventually, Sapna’s social media presence caught the attention of a cooking school, @19 Culinary Studio. She was invited to teach cooking classes focused on modern Indian cuisine. This wasn’t a very big shift though, since Sapna was already giving out lessons to her expat friends who were interested in exploring authentic Indian cuisine.

From home-cook to published chef

Teaching at the studio then led to writing her first cookbook. The plan was to have all the instructors at 19 Culinary Studio featured in one book, but the publishers liked Sapna so much that they wanted Sapna to have her own cookbook.

That’s how New Indian Kitchen came about in 2014. Now, Sapna is working on another two books for an MPH series, one on curries and another on vegetarian food.

As we talked about her cookbook, Sapna excitedly recounted her experience of researching spices for a comprehensive spice section in New Indian Kitchen.

Sapna worked closely with the Spice Board of India, even going on a three-day tour of spice plantations, to learn everything about spices, from farming to processing, packaging, flavours, and history.

We went off tangent a couple of times during the interview, talking about the difference between real and fake cinnamon, flavour profiles, and the history of Indian cuisine. Sapna’s passion for food was truly obvious in those moments as she explained to me how Indian cuisine today is almost unrecognisable from what her ancestors were cooking only a few hundred years ago. I have no doubt that Sapna would be able to teach a whole class on spices alone after her lengthy, in-depth research.

Future culinary endeavours

Right now, Sapna is working on the two cookbooks with MPH as well as a line of spices with local spice brand, Hexa. Sapna is looking to release her own line of premium spices sourced directly from farmers in India. These farmers, she tells me, make a measly sum after traders and middlemen take their cuts and she wanted to do something to help them. So her brand will be sold at a premium as stocks are dependent on how much spice a farmer can supply. The proceeds from the spices will also go to supporting a school in Calcutta that is nurturing 120 children.

When prompted about her own children, Sapna proudly tells me that her two youngsters are both quite talented in the kitchen as well. Obviously her culinary experiments made a mark on them.

Right now, Sapna is working on a couple of big projects which she can’t really talk about. ‘Check my social media for updates!” she excitedly tells me. For now, we can expect a couple of cookbooks and a line of spices with her name on it, and maybe a little café as well where she plans on hosting supper clubs.  When someone as passionate as Sapna is offering you the chance to enjoy her cooking, you best not pass on the opportunity.

Personally, I’m very excited to try out the spices since I know from experience that real cinnamon is not easy to find here in Malaysia. The stuff we get in abundance here is actually called cassia and tastes very different from the real deal, she tells me. I guess we’ll find out for ourselves in due time.

To keep up with Sapna and her projects, check out her Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and website.