ABOUT SARINA

Sarina Kamini didn’t grow up imagining a world of spice and cooking. She grew up wanting to be a writer and reporter: one part Salman Rushdie, to two parts Jana Wendt and Arundhati Roy. Sarina’s Kashmiri father was an amazing storyteller: his Hindu household was alive with the myths of the Pantheon and Sarina ate up those stories like she ate up her Australian Mum’s elegantly spiced Kashmiri food. Sarina’s mother may not have been born a Devi, but she took to India and to spice with all of the flair of her fashion designer’s nature. As the Indian daughter, Sarina was the link between her Australian mother and her Kashmiri grandmother, her Ammi: Kamini Ganju was her grandmother’s name, the same name given to Sarina. She was a majestic woman of strength who knew spice as she knew her Gods and herself.

Straddling worlds is integral to the nature of what it is to be born of two cultures. New Delhi. Torquay on the Great Ocean Road. Bangalore for a time. Straddling worlds is also part of what it means to be Hindu - the metaphysical geography of the gods is as vibrant to its devotees as the physical geography they occupy. Being comfortable living in a constant state of in-between is possible because the commonality is spice.

Spice came alive for Sarina into her thirties. After a professional career as a food writer and food critic working in Melbourne, California, Paris, Edinburgh and Barcelona, Sarina wanted to tell her own story. She wrote her memoir with recipes, Spirits In A Spice Jar, sold it into India where it was published by Westland Books in May 2018, and thought her life as an author had begun.

Except it didn’t quite work out like that… Where Sarina felt readers would fall for her words, what she found was instead they fell for her relationship to spice.

A move from Spain to Margaret River in 2015 with her husband and two sons began a new phase. After 15 years, journalism no longer appealed but food and the communication of it still did. Sarina worked in a local deli while she finished her book. Wearing her sindhoor meant people got to know her cultural background. Dealing with customer questions helped them to understand the depth of her aromatic and food knowledge. Eventually, Sarina’s friend in Margaret River asked her to teach her what she knew. Sarina’s friend gathered together a small group. Another friend asked, another group gathered. Soon Sarina began to run classes, developing a language and a way of communicating the nature of spice in a way that is complex and intimate.

There are no answers with spice, only questions, and passing on this understanding in a way that can be heard by each unique audience is her specialty.

Spices are more than flavour profiles. Spices are texture and personality. They are colour and tone. Spices can be allocated gender and foibles. Spices are metaphor. Spices are magic.

Sarina doesn’t just love each of her spices. She loves sharing what they mean, how to use them, and the secret tips and tricks of blending that turn every meal into an experience.

This is the spirit of spice.