“Here, I’ve never had to explain my motivation, as a chef or a woman of color, but also, I’m a chef. Period. ”
steely resolve. The image epitomizes Sanghavi: Bold. Unapologetic. American. Desi. A combination. An outlier. And yet—quiet, soft, someone I relate to. I invite her home, as one would a sister or daughter in India. We sit in my backyard, this being Covid times, and I make sabudana khichdi—a tapioca pearl mid-afternoon dish, filled with chilies, peanuts, potatoes, and warmth. “Just like what my mother makes, comfort food,” she says, smiling. Two women of color, relating over food, over our desi similarities and differences—her family from Gujarat, mine from Bengal, opposite ends of a country that’s not home for either of us. “I love my mother, and, yet, I connected with you because you showed me the support I didn’t get from her,” Sanghavi admits freely. Much like myself, Sanghavi is an anomaly. In South Asian culture where children are expected to be doctors or engineers, Sanghavi received her college degree and then funded her culinary studies without her immigrant family’s support. “‘Who’d want to be a cook?’” she remembers her father saying. Her eyes fill with tears as she recounts her family’s reaction. “In fact, my mother has never eaten my ‘Indian’ food,” she says. “Why?” I ask. “Because she’s afraid of what her non-desi daughter represents.” Sanghavi’s mother felt forced to play a traditional homemaker’s role. While an expert cook, she didn’t wish the same for Sanghavi—but, in the complicated landscape of immigrant parent relationships, the concern translated to a dismissiveness of Sanghavi’s career choices. And yet, Sanghavi has defied patriarchal expectations. She’s her family’s first college graduate. Its first chef. Its first culinary success, with celebrated stints at San Diego’s Hake, Searsucker, Arterra, and Puesto—all to great acclaim. But she hasn’t been “back home” in decades, though we plan on a culinary India trip every time we meet. “I don’t fit in there. My motabhai [uncle], who is the patriarch, wouldn’t be pleased with me as a tattooed chef,” she says. To counter that, I ask her about her favorite tattoo. In typical contradictory fashion, she says, “My mother. The tattoo of my mother.” Her eyes tell more than those words—the story of a child longing for her parents’ acceptance with each success. Last month, we sat down in Cucina Urbana on Bankers Hill, where Sanghavi is the regional executive sous chef for Cucina Restaurants. Excited about the future, she says, “I like working for culinary mentors in San Diego who give me creative freedom and support the vision to make neighborhood restaurants focus on honest cooking and responsibly sourced ingredients.”
37 SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE 41
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