Calcutta Kitchens

Norwalk, CT
calcuttakitchens.com

When Aditi Goswami shares stories of her childhood in India, her eyes sparkle. Especially when she talks about the food. She's a young entrepreneur and her stories are not from too long ago. Yet she speaks of a food culture that was quite different than the one of recent years in the U.S. Now, with each jar of her delicious simmer sauce, Aditi takes her customers back to the kitchens that inspired her life's work.

"When I was growing up in India," she explains, "There was no supermarket. There was no food traveling for miles and miles. Everything was in season. We treasured foods because we knew that they were only there for a few short months."

Both of Aditi's parents worked, and by age 12, she was making full meals for the family. "In India, everyone learns to cook. At least my generation did. It's not an option to not cook. If you can't cook, you can't eat," she says.

Her kitchen responsibilities included going with her parents to the market, a near daily adventure that instilled her love of being at the farmers market today.

"The idea of being with the raw ingredients is so appealing to me. I get inspired by looking at them and thinking of how to transform these ingredients into delicious meals," shares Aditi.

Around 2009, it was this process of transformation that started Calcutta Kitchens. She was visiting one of her favorite farmers at the end of the market day when he gave her a box of nearly over ripe tomatoes. He couldn't sell them. But she saw that she could make tomato chutney. "Then the chutney was such a hit that I thought 'why don't I try and sell this at the farmers market'?" she explains.

"By now, I know my customers so well that I can develop my recipes by thinking about what they will love."