Yesterday, I coined a new term - the "Pensiopreneur"
I am sure I am not the only one, you stop working and you stop and think, surely there is more to life than just tending to the garden?
Creativity doesn't stop just because you get older. If the experience of writing this Indian Cookbook has taught me anything, it's that you are never too old to learn something new.
I built a career working within a company and whilst I had the responsibility for designing flavors for global brands and International companies, I had never experienced building a business from scratch and going on my own "entrepreneurial" journey.
One thing you learn in this journey is the critical importance of identifying the customer problem. We don't always start from there with personal projects, but my research (and that of many much wiser than me) show that you have a clearly identified problem and offer a solution to that problem, you have a good chance of success.
So what is the problem I am solving? Good question! The book was written primarily as a family heirloom if you will, to pass on to my children and grandchildren for when I am not here (which one day will be the case, 2 things you can be certain of in this life are death and taxes as they say!).
To answer the question of the customer problem, I would start with who this book has been written for, starting with my boys and people like them.
They have grown up in the UK and whilst we always encouraged Indian culture and spoke Bengali at home, they are by all accounts British (one of my daughter in laws often jokes about that, claiming that my son marketed his "Indianness" whilst he was courting her but she soon caught him out when she got him to the kitchen!).
This book offers my boys and countless others like them to have a link back to the food from their parent's country of origin and to some of the tastes and smells from Mother India.
The book was also written for my friends for whom I cooked for on many occasions over the years. And whilst this may seem like limiting my audience, this includes new friends (you!) for which I hope there is never a finite number. The people who have enjoyed my food over the years have been primarily Westerners who have an insatiable curiosity for new cultures. Who are willing to try new things and willing to find out what is beautiful about far away places. Those friends often shared their own wonderful cultures with me and I feel we all benefited from those exchanges. I thank those friends and colleagues with whom I shared a beer over lunch, you will never know how accepted you made me all feel. This book is for you and presented in a way that should make it easy for you to produce .
An extension of those friends are the people who I have met later in life. I traveled extensively with my work and I was fascinated by the continent of South America. The people, the music, the language, the food, the warmth. It must have rubbed off as my eldest son ended up marrying a Colombian and my grand kids now have an even richer cultural heritage of which I am very proud. We have been embraced by our Colombian family and again the curiosity into new cultures has allowed us to learn more about each others backgrounds and traditions. That is where the Spanish version of the book came from.
At a time when there are those that look to create barriers between people of different cultures, I hope this book serves as a reminder that beautiful friendships have been made when we open our hearts to new possibilities.
So back to the question of the problem, what are the common challenges faced by all those groups of people that I have mentioned here? I believe the perception has been created that Indian cooking is difficult. With my book I have tried to create very simple instructions and have stayed true to the ingredients that an every day Indian family uses when preparing meals at home. The problem I solve is thus making the often convoluted process of Indian cooking, simple through clear instructions and realistic photographs that give you a vision of the dishes that you will produce by following the recipes.
I do feel some of the real magic of Indian food and indirectly culture is in the beauty of it's simplicity. That is why, contrary to other cookbooks, we have chosen to use a white background for all of our photos in the book. We don't want you to be distracted by bright colors or ornaments or anything else that might put you off starting your journey with Indian cuisine. It is just about the food. What I want you to experience, is the moment that you have with your friends and family when you prepare meals from my book.
Keep cooking, share your #ollyskitchen moments on instagram and show us how you are getting on with your journey into Indian cuisine!
Olly.