Woman of the Week, February 8, 2010: Preena Chauhan

by Joelle Litt

The kitchen has always been a place of comfort for this Woman of the Week. Preena Chauhan, of Arvinda's artisanal spice blends for Indian cooking, and Arvinda's Indian Cooking Classes, remembers her University days spent baking to relieve stress.

Although the cooking classes focus more on main dishes, various uses of spices, and the culture as a whole, she still continues to bake, and often, in quite inventive ways. Her blog lists many recipes that Preena has tried and recommends including Chai Spice Ladoos (Snowballs), done this past holiday season.

While speaking with Preena, she tells of the culture, as well as her passion for, and the benefits of the classes. I don’t think she mentioned charities and such because it comes as second nature to her. Below the Snowball recipe in her blog, she mentions how she will be spending the rest of her afternoon, “Later today, my brother Paresh and I will be making mass quantities of Arvinda’s curries, Bombay Potatoes, and Basmati Rice Pullao to donate to a Toronto soup kitchen. We realize how blessed we are to have good food on the table everyday.” That is one soup kitchen that I’d like the address to.

Arvinda, the name of both of the businesses, stems from her mother. Preena’s mother, Arvinda, lost her own mother at a very early age and did most of the family cooking while growing up. That is the very root where the company began. In 1993, Preena and her mother developed the cooking school. As only a high school student at the time, her role was as her mother’s assistant. She only realized just how much knowledge she had taken in when she filled in for her mother for a segment of Christine Cushing on the Food Network.

While studying environmental studies and majoring in political science at the University of Toronto, she researched in South India for part of a winter term. This was probably a big factor in what was about to come. Interning at various federal government level positions, she suddenly came to realize her calling. In 2005, Arvinda’s artisanal spice blends for Indian Cooking came to be, headed by herself and her brother, Paresh, who both decided to then leave their corporate lifestyles behind.

Consumers can find Arvinda spices in the aisles at Whole Foods, Pusateri’s, Big Carrot, and Fresh & Wild, and Arvinda’s Gourmet Indian Cooking Classes are teaching eager chefs and beginners all across the GTA, including at their own signature classroom located in Oakville, Ontario.

Using family recipes, the primary focus is on healthier Indian cooking with a more homestyle approach than that of typical restaurant dining. Offering classes such as ‘North meets South,’ students are able to get more comfortable with all of the different spices and put their misconceptions aside since our Westernized Indian dining consists largely on dishes from Northern India alone. One class at a time, they are shown that Indian cooking is so much more than tossing some curry on your chicken!

Balancing life while running a cooking school and a product line is very much a give and take: Yes she puts in the hours, but she always takes that time out for herself, whether it be reading the morning paper or taking part in a yoga session. Preena draws immense inspiration seeing the passion in students and greatly appreciates the day-to-day variety that both of the businesses offer her.

Her blog states, “A Celebration of Indian Cooking,” and that, most definitely, is what her and her family have created.