I am Sneh and I cook, write, and tweet from gorgeous Sydney, Australia. I was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. I moved to Singapore and lived there for 5 years. Nick and I fell in love with Sydney on our holiday and moved our home and life here. Gel’s Kitchen is like that little cornershop that every suburb has that is supposed to have knick-knacks and goodies and is always open so you can go in and chat up the nice lady behind the corner or buy yourself a cold, icy treat or just hang out with your mates or by yourself thinking about what you want to cook for dinner and where your next brilliant photograph will be shot. It is my cornershop, a place for my food musings and culinary experiments, a stage for the photographs I love to shoot. 

The most important events in my life are dotted with memories and smells of food, I think that is just how my brain processes my thoughts. Have you watched "Julie & Julia"? I think every food blogger out there can relate to Julie, some more than others. Well I was Julie back in 2004 when I first started food blogging and developing an online recipe database to log my efforts in the kitchen. Mind you, I never really did anything as crazy as she did. But I remember watching my comment section and wondering who out there reads what I write? Fast-forward to 2010 and nothing has changed really. The comments are few and sporadic but writing about food has fed my soul in a way that no dish could have. I have connected with a lot of wonderful people out there who are trying to feed their own souls in some way, making a tiny bit of difference in this mad world, one delicious recipe and one scrumptious photo at a time.

The Sweet Goddess™ with the cupcakes in her hair is not really me, she is my alter-ego. As a child I never played with dolls or had tea-sets and pretty pink ruffles. And I never even had a cupcake till I was well into my twenties. But when I did, it was love! So when I was deciding on a brand for my food shenanigans, I created the Sweet Goddess™ oozing Parisian chic, a pretty and quirky bakestar with yummy cupcakes dotting her gorgeous tresses amidst swirls of cherries and hearts.

I have spent the last two years inventing and exploring healthy, nutrient rich recipes for myself and my family that I share on the blog regularly. That has helped immensely towards me shedding 55lbs [25kg over a period of 1 year. And then of course there are naughty and sinful recipes that I couldn’t live without. Shoe crazy? Not me. Books and cookbooks have that kind of an effect on me. I test recipes from cookbooks on the blog all the time. I am always on the hunt for a special silver spoon, or a gold rimmed enamel plate or an unusual cooking/photography prop. I have been hunting for Crinkle Cups [porcelain in Sydney, so if you know where I can find them, please let me know! I have been trying to grow a lot of fresh veggies and fruits in my garden and a fig tree is the latest addition to my gazillion chili plants, rose bushes, lemon trees, mulberry bushes and herb patches.

Finally to end my monologuing, I am by no means a professional chef or photographer, but I like to think that with every recipe I cook and every photograph I capture, I learn something new and share something different with this world. If you want to see and read more of my work and passions, check out my design blog LBOI.