FSR May 2022

CHEFS & INGREDIENTS CHEF PROFILE

an elevated yet bohemian restaurant in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Mingling flavors and ingredients from India and the American South, Garland has landed Kumar on the shorthand list for a James Beard Award multiple times. At press time, she was once again in the running for Best Chef: Southeast. So, how did Kumar move from band manager and rock musician to restaura teur and chef? “I’m not really sure,” she says with a laugh. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘How did this happen?’” Kumar spent the first eight years of her life in Chandigarh, a small town out side of Punjab in India. Memories of the local markets in her hometown would stay with her for years and eventually serve as a source of creative inspiration. When the family first immigrated to New York City, Kumar found comfort in her mother’s cooking, which, she says,

could turn the most basic ingredients into something special. Still, the restaurant world wasn’t on her radar as a career prospect. Instead, her family encouraged her to continue her education and attend college. “My parents wanted me to be in academia, like most Indian parents who are immi grants do,” she says. At the University of Massachusetts, Kumar studied psychology but found a second home at the campus radio station. “Psychology was really a compromise for my parents. Music was always the thing that inspired me,” she says. “I spent much more time at the station than I did my classes.” That passion launched Kumar into a music career. Rather than return to New York to work at a big record company, she moved to Raleigh to work as a band man ager. The quieter indie music scene was much more appealing to her than the

crowded cities up north. After her tenure as a band manager fizzled out, she took to the spotlight her self, playing guitar in a touring band. For some years, she split her time between playing shows, making records, and trav eling the American South. But playing in an indie band wasn’t a particularly lucra tive profession, and Kumar needed to bring in some extra income. To do this, she started bartending and taking on small catering gigs on the side. “I’d always cooked,” she says. “I’d reg ularly have dinner parties that were way too big for my house.” The nexus between cooking and music has always been clear for Kumar, who says her time as a musician influenced her life in the kitchen. Both vocations require collaboration to create some thing, whether it’s a menu or a song. Plus, they demand a certain level of dedication. “So much of it is actually just disci

LOCAL PRODUCE SHINES IN DISHES LIKE THE

STRAWBERRY BEET SALAD.

CHEF CHEETIE KUMAR

JOE PAYNE

FAVORITE KITCHEN UTENSIL: A sharp chef’s knife CHEF YOU’D MOST LIKE TO WORK WITH: Cookbook authors Deborah Madison and Madhur Jaffrey SPICE OF THE MOMENT: Coriander FAVORITE VEGETABLE: Whatever is at the peak of its season BEST ALBUM: David Bowie’s records from the Berlin era

GARLAND

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MAY 2022