Celebrity chef, cookbook author and TV host Vikas Khanna owns a smile, that fans find as much endearing as his cooking, if not more.
The Michellin-starred New York-based restaurateur is now gearing up to ‘cook for a smile’, a fundraising event to provide for underprivileged children in India.
Khanna will lead a cook-off with 15 CEOs from top corporates who are set to demonstrate their culinary prowess and raise funds for the project ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’, run by Smile Foundation.
“Personally I am a work in progress as a cook. I like the glamour helmet that I have come to don over the time but not without a purpose. I now want to reach out and do something to bring a difference to people’s lives, however small it may be,” Khanna told PTI in an interview.
The “Cook for a Smile” initiative, says the chef, combines his two loves – food and children.
“While Indian cuisine is going places, children in the country are struggling with issues like malnutrition. I feel disturbed to see a kid who has not had a full meal for days,” says Khanna.
The chef has been signed on as a goodwill ambassador for Smile Foundation. For that Khanna says he has set a target to benefit over 5000 children with nutrition support in the year 2014-15.
The foundation believes that providing a nutritious meal every day can ensure a better literacy and less dropouts from school.
Beginning May 18 in Mumbai, Khanna is set to participate in a set of three events one each in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Apart from a session involving cooking with corporate CEOs, other initiatives include Bollywood and Hollywood celebrities.
Khanna who hosts Indian version of popular TV series Masterchef has also written a cookbook for children.
“Unlike in the West where children are introduced to pretty much everything including cooking at an early age, in India they begin later,” says Khanna whose photograph filled book “Young Chefs” introduces the joy of cooking to children.
The chef returns again to the issue of underfed children and urges people to wake up to the grave problem.
“I feel everything comes around as a circle. I started off cooking as a child and now after traveling the world and setting up my own restaurant in New York am back to the beginning, working for the cause of underprivileged children,” Khanna says. -PTI
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