67: KITCHENS OF CULINARY ACCOUNTANTS

We Chartered Accountants are expected to write with numbers. A lot of us were doing exactly that till the pandemic changed life as we knew it. When the lockdown was announced in April 2020 in UAE, the first week we were all trying to adjust to new norms of ‘Work from Home’ and managing all chores on our own. The strong bond that we have among the CA fraternity helped us to bounce back and cope with the new normal with ease.

Catching up with friends and dining out is a big part of Dubai weekends. And with myriad cuisines to experiment from, the city is a food lover’s paradise. Suddenly with no more options to dine out, we had to get creative. In a short time we were encouraging each other through our WhatsApp groups not only to try different recipes at home, but also to present them beautifully .This inspired the members of our fraternity to put on their aprons, brush up their culinary skills to collaborate on a cookbook.

It all started with Priyanka coming up with idea of compiling our lockdown recipes and the five of us teaming up to collect, classify and edit those recipes. The initial plan was a PDF compilation of 50 recipes from 50 fellow members, but the project rapidly gained momentum. Chartered Accountants from across UAE started sending their recipes, along with write ups on why the dish caught their attention. While some were passionate cooks, others had cooked after many years, and a few ventured into the kitchen for the first time, eager to be a part of the book.

When we started this project, none of us knew what we were signing up for. Anuradha was the only one among us who had any prior experience of being part of a team in editing or publishing a book. The rest of us were novices learning on the go!! Making a book didn’t really seem like an uphill task until we actually started working on it.

After the initial tasks of collecting recipes were done, we had a drive full of recipes in different formats. For those to become a book, we needed to have a common format to start with. Avantika came up with a format and the next couple of weeks the rest of us were busy in putting those 70 odd recipes into the said format. Once that was done, we were into round one of editing. As mentioned earlier with prior experience in editing a book, Anuradha took the lead in that with Shilpa and Priyanka supporting in the best way they could.

After what seemed like eternity we somehow managed to complete the first round of editing coordinating over WhatsApp discussions and weekly zoom calls. What’s worth mentioning here is that we had two expectant mothers staying up late into the night for all these discussions! It was fun indeed and to some extent helped us to take stress of lockdown away from us.

After the initial editing of both the recipes and the food photographs, we were all excited how our lockdown project was progressing and thought we could actually aim for a print version if we manage to find some way to fund it. Avantika, Aashna and Priyanka took the idea forward, coordinating with various members of the fraternity and finding leads to rope in sponsors who would help us cover the cost of actually getting our lockdown cookbook in print. In the mean time, we also managed to finish further editing, the cover page and other details as required and the book was soon given for printing. And finally after months of working on it, in November 2020 ‘Kitchens of Culinary Accountants’ was launched .

Digital copy of the book: 

https://issuu.com/kitchensofculinaryaccountants/docs/ca_20cook_20book_202020

For a printed version do drop us an email on cacooksbook@gmail.com

TEAM KOCA: In order of the picture from left to right – CA Avantika Bardia, CA Priyanka Gupta, CA Aashna Mulgaonkar, CA Shilpa Rajan, CA Anuradha Ramani

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