About me

Hello Friends,

This is Amisha, and I would like to introduce myself. I am a recipe developer, food photographer and a food stylist, in that order. I am an extremely passionate home cook, who loves to cook all dishes vegetarian, crazy about baking(yes, I bake a lot at night!), jamming and creating healthy, nourishing, fresh meals for my family. I have a very dear husband, 2 lovely kids, a girl and a boy, ages 13 and 11, and 2 adorable cats, who are from the same litter, named Marc and Tabitha! We live in the Bay Area and are blessed to be surrounded with fresh, organic produce, throughout the year, that is a part of my daily musings with cooking.

My latest and most recent accomplishment is that I published a cookbook called Mumbai Modern – Vegetarian recipes inspired by Indian Roots and California Cuisine – published by Countryman Press and an accomplishment I am very proud of. This cookbook baby has been my pandemic baby. Very cliche but it has been a true labor of love – the cookbook is dedicated to my dear mother who passed in 2007, when I promised her that I would write a cookbook one day with her recipes in it! So here I am! You can purchase the cookbook at your local bookstore or on Amazon and your support is always appreciated with all my heart.

I am also proud to say that I have become a bi-weekly contributor to the food section of the SF Chronicle newspaper, and online(digital)! My food column is called MODERN VEGETARIAN! These are small achievements that I am truly happy about and that keeps me going.

A little bit about myself… I am originally from Mumbai – the city that never sleeps! I am a computer engineer by profession, and came to the US to study Masters. I was very fortunate to be brought up in a family that loves to eat and cook. My mom has been my constant source of inspiration. She started teaching me the tricks of her trade of cooking when I was around eight or nine years old. There was this one winter holiday, when I was 10 years old, and I took it up, upon me to use one of my mom’s cookbooks, and make a new dish everyday all by myself. There are some successes and some failures, lots of tears and laughs, but it was a fun adventurous experience that I still remember to date! I have always helped my mom in the kitchen, played with spices, flavors and learnt to make things from scratch. My mom believed in fresh food on the table for every meal, and I strive to do the same for my family.

JAM LAB is a universal name, my kitchen is my lab, where I jam away, cooking, baking, experimenting, and whipping up dishes for my family.

I love working with different flavor combinations, be it herbs, spices, fruits, teas anything! I come up with different flavor combinations which turn any simple dish into an exquisite dish. That is what I excel at, and is my forte.

My food photography, and recipes have been featured on Food52, TheKitchn, BeautifulCuisines, InstyleMagazine, CookingLight, RealSimple, Williams Sonoma, Vitamix, Ghirardelli, Today Food, The Bake Feed, Simply Organics, Method, Earthbound Farms, Driscoll’s as well.

I have worked on videos for Sunset Magazine, and the videos are currently featured on their website.

I had my first print publication in the Special Holiday Cookie Issue of the Bake from Scratch Magazine, which was a collaboration with the TheBakeFeed. I have had my stories in print for the Sunset Magazine as well. I had my second print publication with the Bake from Scratch Magazine for their Third Special Holiday Cookie Issue. I have also had my work, which included 5 delicious recipes, in print for the Cook from Scratch Magazine.

Recently I also did some food photography work for TapRoot Magazine, which is a local regional magazine based in Maine.

Northern California being a major source of olive oil and wines, I have worked with several brands for recipe development, and food photography for their products. I have worked with:

LaTourangelle Oils
B.R Cohn Olive Oil
Fillipo Berio
Domenica Fiore
J Lohr Wines
Meadowcroft Wines
Casillero Wines
Sequoia Grove Wines

Other brands that I have worked with are listed below:

Valley Fig
Tillamook
a2 Milk
Simply Organic Foods
Nutiva
Country Crock
EarthBound Farms
William Sonoma
Sur La Table
C&H Sugar
Just Date Syrup
Belgioioso
Lagonista
Diamond Nuts
US Dry Bean Council
Driscolls
Fisher Nuts

Welcome to my blog, and I am so excited to have you share my journey, on my cooking adventures with Indian food, various other cuisines, baking, jamming and other musings! I would love to know more about you, so please feel free to drop me a line at: amishad@gmail.com. 🙂

For recipe development, food styling and photography inquiries, feel feel to email me at the above address, or through the Contact Me page.

With much love from Amisha’s kitchen!