Why 'Milk & Cardamom' was almost called 'Amazing Indian Desserts' & more from Hetal Vasavada. 

By Priyanka Ganjoo & Samia Abbasi

Hetal Vasavada is a Gujarati-American cookbook author, recipe developer, food photographer, and a Season 6 participant on MasterChef who lives in San Francisco, CA with her husband Rhut and her daughter Elara. Her blog and cookbook Milk & Cardamom has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

In her book Milk & Cardamom, filled with beautiful recipes for new and experienced dessert chefs alike, Hetal shares memories of warm summer afternoons spent with her grandmother where they would quietly sit next to each other enjoying an ice cold kulfi. Hetal’s desire to create a brand that is whimsical, optimistic, and nostalgic hits home for us, here at Kulfi. We are also more than a little obsessed with food (our brand name may have clued you in), so it was a no brainer that we connected with her. We learned about Hetal’s inspiration, the wild west of cookbook publishing, and more in our interview. 

photo credit: milkandcardamom.com

From young cook to Masterchef

“I grew up in a joint family household in New Jersey, where we had a constant rotation of family living with us. We had an upstairs kitchen and a downstairs kitchen. So, I would always run upstairs to see what my mom was making and then run downstairs to see what my Kaki or Masi was making. I got to choose which dinner I wanted to have. I learned how to cook doing the simple things most of our parents make us do: shelling the peas, rolling out the roti dough, and working my way up to actually making the shaak. 

I’ve always fallen back on food as a skill I can monetize. 

When I went to the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA, there were many vegetarians, and the cafeteria didn’t cater to them. So, I started cooking out of my dorm room. 

My husband pushed me to try out for MasterChef Season 6 to see how I compared to other amateur cooks. Your friends and family always tell you your food is good—always—so, you don’t really know how you compare to others. It was winning the first challenge on MasterChef that gave me confidence to pursue the food industry.

I’ve also never been in a position where I could financially do what I wanted to do—ever. But my husband said, ‘You know what, pursue cooking.’ (Meanwhile—Elara: Yeah, that’s my dad! Hetal: Yeah, that’s your dad, boo! Elara: That’s me, Elara!). The day that the episode aired where I was kicked off of MasterChef, I found out that I was pregnant with Elara. The restaurant business wasn’t conducive to the family life I wanted. Luckily, recipe development fell into my lap. At that time, meal kits were the jam: they had blue aprons & sun baskets, and unique food delivery businesses were starting up. So, I started developing recipes and worked for a bunch of startups. By word of mouth, my business grew. 

Every once in a while, I’d play into the whimsy and nostalgia—infusing the magic of the food you ate as a kid into my meals. I found my brand by finding out who my audience ended up being. I’d identify where the recipes hit home for them, like, ‘This is nostalgic,’ or ‘My mom used to make this.’ Milk & Cardamom is all about approachable food with a touch of nostalgia. 

Publishing her cookbook, being underpaid, & SEO challenges

Ever since MasterChef ended, it was a goal of mine to publish a cookbook. In our culture, we orally teach and pass down recipes to younger generations. Those recipes are getting lost as more people are going out to eat. Our parents are pushing us to be professionals but not learn things like cooking. I wanted to have a way to measure these recipes so my daughter could make them in the future. It’s a way to have a written history—a written memory, really. When my Baa passed away we lost a lot of her recipes she made. 

Initially, I tried to pitch my book to literary agents and had a really hard time finding one. They all said that they can't see a publisher wanting to buy a book like this, because the ingredients are too niche. I’m stubborn. Like, ‘Oh, you don’t like my book idea? Cool, moving on.’ That’s definitely something I've learned from my family of hustlers.

I've hustled my way here.
And no one is going to stop me if there's another option.

I knew there was a place in the market for Milk & Cardamom. There's a whole generation of Indian-Americans that grew up eating Parle-G biscuits instead of Chips Ahoy! cookies, going to Patel Brothers with your mom and being forced to sit there while she picks through all the produce and gossips with the aunties, and trying paan for the first time and thinking you're so badass. I knew that this book could inspire these little memories to surface and bring people back to those moments.

It seemed like it wasn’t going to happen, and then, Page Street reached out to me. I knew they had a reputation for taking advantage of small, minority cookbook authors. But I just wanted to get my book out there and get my foot in the door. After the book came out, I was scared that no one was going to buy it, that no one cared. What if people thought I bastardized these traditional recipes? When Priya Krishna wrote an article in The New York Times, it cemented my dessert expertise and got the word out. People knew this book was coming out, and it just grew from there.

photo credit: milkandcardamom.com

For Milk & Cardamom, I did 75 recipes. My most challenging recipe to develop was the gulab jamun cake. Initially, I tried to make gulab jamun, and that failed—10 batches went in the trash. The cake didn’t have a dense enough crumb so the syrup made it too soggy and mushy. Going through each iteration was exhausting. When I finally got the recipe down, it was joy. It took me 5 months of 50 hours a week to make the recipes, write, photograph, and edit. You add that back to how much I got paid, which was $15,000. Per hour, I was making less than minimum wage. The publisher basically told me that the pay rate was based on how many Instagram followers I have and because dessert books are hard to sell, let alone an Indian dessert book. What I learned is that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have—it doesn’t mean shit (Elara: don’t talk about that! I don’t like that!). There are plenty of phenomenal food writers that have 100 followers. I should have been paid a lot more, and now I know. I talk about it quite openly in hopes that no one gets taken advantage of.  

Page Street is under the fast publishing umbrella. They don’t give their writers many resources, and they don’t pay them enough. They're publishing so many books per year that their PR team doesn’t have time for long marketing pitches. I hired my own PR agent, Andrea Barnett (who is amazing to work with!) and spent $2,500 for 3 months. My PR agent asked the marketing company that Page Street was working with ‘Did you do any marketing pitches so far?’ They were like, ‘No, we didn’t. We’re waiting for the book to come out.’ It was a unique experience I wish not to relive.  

On Amazon, they labeled my book as ‘West Indian cooking’ and ‘Indian cooking.’ They didn’t even put me under the desserts category. I’m not West Indian, and I know the word Indian is in there, but they're not the same. There are 2 parts to this: 1.) I am Indian-American; I don’t think I can define myself as just American or just Indian. 2.) Being in the overarching dessert category would have been nice. Initially, they wanted to call my book ‘Amazing Indian Desserts’ and I was like, ‘No way. We’re calling it Milk & Cardamom.’ Like, please don’t give me this generic-ass name. It was for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, though, so that if anyone looked up Indian desserts, I would pop up first. I get it—but no. 

My advice to aspiring writers is to find people who have written books with the publisher you are considering and just nag them until they respond. Use that information to get a better deal or extend your timeline. Advocate for yourself. Be aware that the market is hard. Writing a cookbook is not a career, you’re not going to make stupid money. I broke even with mine. Some people think they're going to write a book and get rich and famous. But unless you're Madhur Jaffrey or Martha Stewart, you’re not turning out 5 to 7 cookbooks every couple of years. But if you can stick with it and write really good stories and a unique pitch that no one else can, that’s the only thing you need.

photo credit: milkandcardamom.com

The future of Milk & Cardamom: To pay-wall or not to pay-wall?

I’m currently working with a book agent—I finally got one this time!—we’re pitching my second book about Gujarati food. I was supposed to start a mithai business by the end of this month, but the pandemic had different plans (Elara: My birthday is coming up! I can't wait for my birthday! Hetal: Can you let mama speak? Elara: NO!). That’s obviously not going to happen, so I’m pivoting my idea to include smaller items and lower price points. On top of that, I’m doing a collaboration with Malai Ice Cream once all of this is over. I’m spending so much time creating content for everyone while they’re cooking and baking at home during the quarantine. So, the quarantine has changed the way that I make money: I do live classes on weekends, and I started my first Patreon account.

One of the things my husband is really pushing me about is to create ways I can get paid, because I’m spending 40+ hours doing this and getting paid as if I’m only working 10 hours. A lot of people assume that this is my side hustle, but I’m actually doing it full-time. I have been getting a lot of messages of people wanting my content for free, wanting things right away, or feeling entitled to everything. They don’t realize that this is how I make money. 

It's easy to not want to charge people for my recipes. You have to have a sense of ego to put something behind a paywall. For chefs, their paywall is their restaurants. Maybe it’s a gendered thing, too. Men are very quick to be like, ‘Pay me,’ and women are like, ‘Oh, no, everybody is enjoying it, and other female food-bloggers are making their content free.’ My husband is looking at it long-term, so that Milk & Cardamom is a sustainable business, whereas I’m  thinking about what's happening during the quarantine. I wonder: ‘Are my recipes even worth putting behind a paywall? Will people even pay to have access to them?’ He just says, ‘Yes, because you're Milk & Cardamom. People enjoy your food. Look at America's Test Kitchen; their stuff is behind a paywall. If that’s the kind of brand you want to build up you need to start acting like those brands.’ 

photo credit: milkandcardamom.com

Traditions from mothers to daughters

My mom was a seamstress when she first came to America. She is the queen of wearing simple, but man, does she know how to pick a good outfit! She has an eye for unique details; she’ll point out a simple black dress that’s uniquely cut or beautifully draped. She’d always put me in these bright, colorful, fun clothes. Looks-wise, I like things to be bright and colorful. I was a Color Queen in New Jersey, but I toned it down now that I live in San Francisco. Everyone here just wears gray Patagonias. So, from my mom, I learned that fun clothing can change your mood up. And with Elara, she feels like a princess in anything she wears—she hits the runway every morning. That fun and whimsy is what I learned from Elara. 

I don’t do makeup very often but when I do, I like a bright lip and keep it really simple. My sister is a makeup artist; she does makeup for TV and camera. Her #1 tip for me is that I need to fill in my eyebrows more, because it changes my face. She encourages me to get more colorful with my eye makeup. I tend to keep it gold and do a bright lip, and my sister says, ‘Aint nobody said you can't have pink lips and pink eyes! Just do it and have fun!’ The other thing is, you don't need to use as much product as you think you do. You see instagrammers dripping it all over their face. And you're like, ‘Oh? I? What?’ Elara loves makeup, though, probably because my sister took her to a couple of client meetings. We took her to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Disneyland, and they did Elara’s hair and makeup. I don't think I’ve seen her that happy in my life! It was like blue eyeshadow, a lot of glitter, and some sort of lip gloss that you couldn't see the color on her lips, but man, was she feeling beautiful. I definitely feel cute when my whole face is done up and everything matches and the lip color is fun and it shows my personality.

I also feel really cute when I’m wearing sweats and a T-shirt, and Elara tells me I’m squishy and gives me a hug.

I make Indian food with Elara and include her in the process. I’m not like my parents where I’m making daal, bhat, shaak, roti every day. I am attempting to teach her Gujarati (she keeps asking me why I’m speaking Spanish!), and we do Garba and Diwali with her. She won't really know what's going on, and that's okay, because I didn't either. I remember falling asleep on the bleachers with my moms saree underneath me. The thing I would change from my upbringing is to make sure she doesn't have to create two sides to herself. Almost every Indian-American kid growing up first gen. had two sides: the you when you’re out with friends, and the you when you're out at the Mandir with your family. You create these personas and you never let your parents see both sides. I don't want Elara to have to do that.

If she wants a boyfriend, sure go ahead, and talk to me about it—I want to guss-puss about it. 

I hope Elara tells me stuff like that when she's older. I try to give her similar memories, but I know it's not the same. I know the Indian-ness in me is diluted a little bit in her. My hope is that she's still proud of the Indian-ness that she has.”

Watch Hetal & Elara in our video “Every parent on a zoom call right now” here:

Cover photo credit: Hetal Vasavada, @milkandcardamom