RainyDayChefs
About Us
Why RainyDayChefs?
When 3 girls get together one Spring afternoon, they talk about many different things. When Neha, Ria, and Nitya got together, they chatted about their love for cooking, writing, photography, and blogging, and just like that, RainyDayChefs was born.
Rainydaychefs was set up in April 2017 with the goal to "heal with a meal". While this effort began with 3 girls driven by their passion, in 5 years this effort has been supported by more than 50 volunteers
Neha
My name is Neha and I am the Creative Director for RainyDayChefs. I manage the website, photograph the food and cook, of course!
One summer vacation, on the way to our beach side resort in a nice tropical place, we were driving past a village and I saw a lot of poor children on the side of the road. Since the drive was long, we had packed food to eat on the way. We decided to stop on the side of the road for lunch and decided to share our food with the kids who were really hungry. The kids loved the food and were full of smiles and expressed gratitude for our kind act. This filled my heart with a type of joy that I had never experienced before. You could call this my “Buddha moment”. After that, I felt like giving food to kids all over the world.
Some of my talents include photography, creative writing and use of technology. I am the official photographer during the exotic vacations that my family likes to take every year. I am also the go to person in my family for any technology related issues. Being a vegetarian, I don't eat or cook meat, so handling meat while cooking is a brand new experience for me.
Given my passion to serve the underprivileged kids and my talents, I see “Friends of Youth” as a great way to combine my passion and talents. “Friends of Youth” is a non-profit organization that provides services for youth and their families. While FOY is a great start where I can serve underprivileged kids and use my creative and technology skills to manage the website and its content. I hope we can expand and give food to more people.
Ria-11 yrs
My name is Ria and I am the Main Chef for RainyDayChefs.
As a little girl, my mother always used to say that I never liked eating, but instead, I was very interested in what she was making. That brought me to my first baking experiment. When I was as little as 2 years old, my mother and I made our first set of cookies together. My earliest memories are of baking holiday cookies with my family. Every day I used to pester my mother if we could make either cakes, cookies or cupcakes for my class. When I did turn 9, my father taught me how to make omelets and frittatas for him. The moment I made that first frittata, I learnt that my passion wasn’t just baking, but all sorts of cooking. During the travels around the world with my parents, I most look forward to tasting different foods and bringing a sprinkling of flavor back with us. I still have a small, fragrant jar filled with saffron from Turkey. I have been fortunate to travel around the world but I have also seen a lot of people in need. I want to free the world of its poverty, but as my mother always says, "Start by taking small steps to get to the greatest.” There was a lot of inspiration that brought me here, cooking for the homeless, and trying to help change the world. If you share my dreams, I hope you will follow my journey and share the culinary adventures as we help the world.
Nitya-10 yrs
My name is Nitya and I am the Executive Director for RainyDayChefs. I organize our events , communicate with sponsors and manage our money.
My parents always asks me “What should we have for dinner” and I always have specific actionable suggestions on what we can have for our next meal. Most of the time I have an active inventory of the ingredients we have at home and this helps me in making appropriate food choices.
I am also very health conscious. I don’t like eating “junk” food such as potato chips, sugar loaded cookies etc. Being a 12 year old and health conscious is not easy - I have to please my palette and take care of healthy eating. This has prompted me to cook some of my meals and I really enjoy that experience. I also like the aspect of spending time with family while cooking. Being a vegetarian I come up with creative Dog Treats for my dog Dash! I feel very happy when I make food and feed others.
“Friends of Youth” is a great way to serve the needs of underprivileged children by bringing together my passion for healthy home cooked meals along with my organizational skills.
Here are some pictures from out first photoshoot after we started RDC!
