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Nandita Godbole
Nandita Godbole The Food-writer and Author
Born	1971 Mumbai, India
Occupation	Food-writer and Author
Spouse	R. Umashankar

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Biography

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Introduction

Nandita Godbole is a food-writer and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has cultivated a global audience of readers and food enthusiasts who enjoy simple, holistic and easy Indian meals. Nandita uses her blog, dining events, speaking engagements, classes, and lectures to showcase the everyday aspects of the Indian food and culture, as well as the experiences of an immigrant, a spouse, and a parent. She has extensively used crowdfunding to raise the capital for her many books: A Dozen Ways to Celebrate: Twelve Complete Decadent Indian Feasts for the Culinary Indulgent (2014); Crack the Code: Cook any Indian Meal with Confidence, Foreword by Faye Levy, Second Edition (2016); Not For You: Family Narratives of Denial & Comfort Foods, Foreword by Neela Paniz, Book One (2017) and Book Two (2018). Upcoming titles include: Roti: Easy Indian Breads & Sides, Second Edition (2018), Ten Thousand Tongues: Secrets of a Layered Kitchen (2018) with a companion cookbook of the same name, and Treasured Indian Comfort Foods (2019).

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Early Life & Personal

Nandita’s family was in the food business for many decades. Her maternal grandfather owned Sangam Restaurant in Mumbai in the late 1960s, He went on to own and operate a cookie and dried fruits store in Thane (East), a suburb of Mumbai, named after her as ‘Nandita Dry Fruit Center’ which he sold in the late 1970’s. Her mother had owned and operated ‘Mikky’s Cafe’ in Pune from 1998-2002 and also owned a B&B and an events center for some years. Though food remains a big part of her childhood and youth, Nandita did not start as a food writer.

Nandita was born in 1971 and grew up in Mumbai, India, where she graduated from Bombay University in 1994 with a Masters in Botany, specializing in Pharmacognosy, Economic Botany, and Taxonomy. She ranked second overall at the Masters level across all specializations in Botany. As a botany student, during her undergraduate and graduate years, Nandita was an active member of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), where she sometimes served as a resource guide for their nature camps. She went on to work briefly as a botany lecturer for Mithibai College in Vile Parle, Mumbai, under the guidance of late Prof. V. M. Kumar, during which time she also worked as an illustrator for Prof. Kumar’s academic publications.

Although she had applied for Ph.D. studies with BNHS with Prof. (Mr.) Almeida, in 1995, Nandita chanced on securing admission into the Master’s program in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During her time here as a student, of the numerous graduate assistantships she held, two were of particular note. The first was when she worked for the Program for the Study of Religion, where she was a teaching assistant for Religious Studies 101, a freshmen level class that taught essentials of Hinduism, Buddhism and other old-world religions under the astute guidance of Professor Rajeshwari Pandharipande. Upon completion of that assignment, she worked as a Research Assistant for Professor Pandharipande, helping with linguistic research on religious texts. Later, she worked for the Robert Allerton Parks and Conference Center in Monticello, IL where she created several publications and guides for its visitors under the guidance of then director, Mr. Jerrold W. Soesbe, FASLA. She earned her Master’s in Landscape Architecture for the thesis “User Dynamics in Two Neighborhood Parks, Bombay, India, 2002.”

Nandita moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan after she married fellow landscape architect R. Umashankar, and went on to work in private consulting as a landscape architect (2000-2001). During this time, she obtained certification in wetland delineation from the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, and also trained to become a volunteer docent for both Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. In the post 9/11 era, Nandita started teaching Indian cooking through Adult Enrichment Programs at the Ann Arbor Community Recreation and Education. Here, she established the brand “Curry Cravings,” representing an exploration of the multifaceted Indian cuisine.

Nandita and her family moved to Atlanta in 2005, where she once again worked as a landscape architect and graphic designer for a non-profit agency, and continued to teach Indian cooking and host private events in her spare time. When her husband’s job took him to California in 2010, she took her brand Curry Cravings to metro Los Angeles. Nandita has since become part of the food scene in both metro Atlanta and metro Los Angeles. Their bi-coastal life gave Nandita the opportunity to explore book publishing. In 2014, Nandita successfully crowdfunded her first book, and has since produced several titles that have included cookbooks, techniques books, and food fiction.

Given her experience as a graphic designer, Nandita multi-tasks as the writer, food photographer, book designer and publisher of her books. Her shipping records indicate that these books have reached more than 35 countries, and she has readers in all fifty states of the United States.

Nandita’s multi-faceted professional background and entrepreneurial ventures have paved the way for invitations to teach Indian cooking at illustrious institutions, peak at career fairs, to professional development groups, and other events to promote entrepreneurship. She occasionally serves as a reviewer for annual conference session proposals for the professional organizations.

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• autobiography
• biography

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