Smita Deo is a celebrated chef, author, and storyteller, but the journey that brought her here is even more remarkable than the destination.
Smita has authored the bestselling cookbook Karwar to Kolhapur via Mumbai, celebrating the recipes and culinary traditions passed down through her family. Through popular digital platforms including Get Curried and Ruchkar Mejwani, she has shared simple, authentic cooking with millions, curated regional food festivals for leading hotels, and earned the Woman Game Changers Award.
Yet at one point, Smita, who had always loved to cook, couldn’t even bring herself to enter the kitchen. Years of severe depression and significant health challenges changed the course of her life.
In this candid conversation, Smita shares how she found her way back, with family, professional help, and eventually, cooking, rediscovering not just joy, but purpose and a reason to begin again.
A story about mental health, hope, and what it can mean to find your way back to yourself.
Key themes emerging out of our conversation:
- A Fairy-Tale Childhood
- Finding Her Way into the Kitchen and Making It Her Laboratory
- Marriage and Life in a Celebrated Film Family
- The Move That Changed Everything
- Adjusting to Tradition, Challenging First Impressions
- From a Fairy-Tale Life to an Unexpected Darkness
- Recognising the Need for Help
- A Bipolar Diagnosis and the Struggle to Find the Right Help
- A Mother’s Hand, a Son’s Hug and the First Steps Back
- When Mental Illness Tests Relationships
- Finding Dr. Vishal Sawant, the Hand That Helped Her Stand Again
- Choosing Herself, Finding New Purpose
- Sounds of the Kitchen, Therapeutic
- A Husband’s Nudge Towards Purpose
- When Recipes Became Stories
- Living Alongside Mental Illness, a Family’s Journey Too
- Taking the Shame Out of Seeking Psychiatric Help
- From Changing the World Around to Strengthening the World Within
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