Page 33 - Magazine Final Project_Neat

eating,” she said. “There’s so few opportunities to together, and when you’re not in that. You can tell by the way they
When Gross decided to try and really connect with people … from your own space … it’s just not the talk about it, the way they describe
Launch the League of Kitchens in another culture in an intimate and same feeling.” food and their cooking, that they
New York City, it was her first time meaningful way.” This is where Avetian and have a really great relationship
starting a business, so she Googled Yoon said that what stops many Smitha Sindagi come in. Their with their food and also one that’s
her way through it. potential instructors is the fact that backgrounds could not be more filled with so many memories and
“I’d never run a business before the workshops take place at the different, but besides being so much love.”
so there was just a huge learning Sindagi, a software engineer who
curve of step by step, learning how was born in Hubli, a city in India’s
to do each thing and figuring it Northern region of Karnataka
out,” she said. “Basically, I just did and specializes in roti, a kind of
the combination of Googling and flatbread, learned to cook from
reading and finding people to talk the women in her family. She first
to.” heard of the League of Kitchens
through Instagram and rightly
She also never realized how thought she would be a good fit.
difficult finding instructors would
be. Gross said she had to remind She said that the League of
herself constantly that people like Kitchens team was the first group
the ones she was looking for had of non-Indians she had ever
to exist. hosted in her home.
“I kept reminding myself ‘ok, Despite initial awkwardness,
New York City is close to one- Sindagi feels more comfortable
third foreign born and I’m just with her students now.
looking for six individuals, which “I was nervous, but thankfully
is how many people we had in we’ve had quite a few training
New York when we launched,” workshops and we got good
Gross said. “Eventually, I did feedback,” she said.
find them … but I think that’s Avetian, who was recruited thanks
something that continues to be a to a friend of her daughter who
little unpredictable.” went to college with Yoon, said
Yoon explained that the prevailing she was immediately drawn to the
method of finding instructors is to opportunity.
tell as many people as possible, be Elmira Avetian sprinkles walnuts on gata pastry. She was not worried about letting
on as many platforms as possible strangers into her home, as guests
and create partnerships with instructor’s home. In some cultures, exceptional home cooks and in her culture are seen as a gift
community organizations that she said, having strangers in such a sharing an appreciation from from the heavens.
work with immigrant communities. private space is very uncomfortable homemade food, for them,
or simply uncommon, but she said cooking is a form of expression “Guests for us are sent by God and
The League of Kitchens had been conducting the workshops in the and the way they show love to it’s very special,” she said. “When
established in New York City for instructor’s home is important friends and family. a person comes to the house, you
four years before Gross decided to to maintain the element of treat them like the best person and
expand to Los Angeles, but she said authenticity. “They both learned to cook you take everything you have good
finding instructors remains difficult from their families and their to let them try and eat and you
because besides being exceptional “Part of our workshops it that grandmothers, mothers and aunts, have to make sure they leave your
home cooks, instructors have to you’re seeing this person in their so there’s really a sense of lineage house happy.”
be warm towards strangers and element and they’re using these around food and they both are
be willing to host them in their very specific tools and gadgets passionate about cooking,” Gross Avetian is ethnically Armenian but
homes. and pots that they’ve been using said. grew up in Georgia and has been
for years, and sometimes there’s living in Glendale for the past
“Something that really marks all things that are from back home Yoon agreed that their connection 21 years. She said she was raised
of our instructors is that they’re all and you can’t find them here,” to food was undeniable. surrounded by both Georgian and
deeply hospitable in a way that I Yoon said. “Other times it’s like “[They] have almost twinkle in Armenian family traditions.
think is really missing in American they’ve MacGyvered something their eye when they talk about
culture but is so needed,” she said. food,” she said. “I think it’s just She learned how to cook when she

32