Most cook out of necessity, but some are driven to the kitchen by passion. In other words, some cook to survive, others thrive.
Monalisa Cardoso from Candolim, Bardez, finds herself in the "passionate about cooking" bracket but had to wait for more than 20 years to finally turn her dream of starting her own food business in the United Kingdom into a reality.
"Owning a restaurant has always been a lifelong dream. Even as a child, I always found myself hanging around the kitchen with my grandmother. I learnt a great deal about her use of spices and food, knowledge she had inherited from her mother," she recalls.
After graduation, she was hoping to set up her restaurant and make Goa her culinary canvas. However, life had other plans that took her to the Middle East, and thus her dream had to remain on hold for another 12 years.
During this time, she kept learning different cooking techniques and food recipes from India and the world, keeping the restaurant dream alive in her heart. Then came marriage and the quest for a better life that finally took her to the United Kingdom like many Goans.
After her kids were born, they became Monalisa's first priority, and theirs and life's demands took most of her time. But the restaurant dream kept flickering in one corner of her heart and the flames in her kitchen poured culinary creations that fed the family.
But Mona, as she is lovingly called by her family, loved feedback so she extended her food hospitality to close friends, who found her creations to be extraordinary. The feedback she received fuelled her passion further.
However, after living in the UK for nine years, she realised that the dream of having a full-fledged restaurant could be an expensive affair. A takeaway business, she believed, would keep her on track to get to her restaurant dream, and so off she went.
Some of her kitchen creations find a pride of place on the menu of Kayshiah Kuisine, her new takeaway venture that promises to tickle the taste buds of Croydon, the place where she resides with her family—her husband, parents and two children.
Kayshiah Kuisine promises authentic Goan and Indian cuisine, and Mona has put together a menu that is a blend of her own creative spirit and her family's time-honoured recipes.
She believes that her food will tantalise not just the Asian community but even the locals. "The world has become a global village and the palate is changing. Even Europeans have started loving Indian food," she adds.
Being the only daughter, Mona was always showered with affection by her parents. It was but natural that she showered that same love on her children. That is reflected in the name Kayshiah — Kaylynn and Josiah — her two children.
The world has become a global village and the palate is changing. Even Europeans have started loving Indian food
Monalisa Cardoso
Kayshiah Kuisine operates from Friday to Sunday from 157 Sundale Avenue CR2 8RS in South Croydon. "I plan to make it a full-time venture, but for now I am more eager to taste the feedback. I want to prove to my family and many women like me that it is never too late to take the leap of faith to live your dream. I am sure anybody who tastes our food will be a customer for life," says a confidence-personified Mona.
“If not half, a quarter of my dream has been achieved with this humble home-based takeaway venture,” she feels. And with time, she plans on writing a culinary script that will share a part of Goa with the UK.
The journey has just begun, and right now the aroma of success has enveloped 157 Sundale Avenue in Croydon.