Our Story

Simmering Tava

artisan local organic indian

Who is Simmering Tava?

At the Heart of Simmering Tava is Rajat Damani and his mother Tara Damani.

Tara grew up in Calcutta, India and is known among friends, family and community for her addictive cooking. She is very often requested to make her signature recipes of 'Bhel/Papri Chat and Masala Muri" whether she is hosting or visiting friends and family. She grew up in a city that is popular for the variety of Indian cuisines available and her recipes are a varied collection from her mother's cooking (her mother Hiraben was a most excellent cook and she was very well traveled), her experiences of the street foods of Calcutta, her multicultural friends (India is a country of many cultures and cuisines densely packed together) and her natural ability to create new dishes from observations and inspirations

Having grown up eating very wholesome, perfectly spiced and eclectic meals that Tara made, Rajat very quickly realized that he missed that immensely when he moved to Georgia, USA for University from Calcutta, India. His attempts to recreate the food he missed, he started to play in the kitchen himself often calling home for recipes and ideas. Since then he decided he was most interested in food and followed his passion and has worked at many excellent restaurants, catering companies and at a specialty food distributorship. This journey has allowed him to be exposed to an amazing variety of cuisines and cultures that fed is very curious nature.

Better Ingredients make Better Food which makes a Better

Person

One of things that is perfectly clear: “Better Ingredients make Better Food which makes a Better Person.” That is why Rajat's focus is always on finding and using local, natural and organic ingredients.

“Better Ingredients make Better Food which makes a Better Person.” That is why Rajat's focus is always on finding and using local, natural and organic ingredients.

Always all natural ingredients. Never, ever will you find manufactured products such as refined sugars, corn syrups, hydrogenated oils, or extra unnecessary ingredients like preservatives, chemicals and pesticides. We avoid the ‘fake’ and GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods at home – You are our friends and family and we will feed you with only the wholesome natural ingredients we use ourselves.
Local and organic first, only if we can’t find it in our area only then will we search to find natural suppliers outside of our Pacific Northwest neighborhood.

In order to deliver home cooked goodness to you, we cook in small, artisinal batches to retain that ‘Mummy’s home cooked’ flavor. We are going back to our roots and tapping into our grandmother’s recipes.

Our goals of caring and supporting our bodies extend to our environments too.

In order to make better ingredients we have to start with protecting the our environment and feeding the soil. Here at Simmering Tava we created 'Tiffin in a Jar' to reduce and eliminate waste and lowering our impact on the environment. You'll never find any to-go or disposable containers here. We only use glass jars with metal lids that can be re-used, re-heated, re-purposed, and re-cycled to promote our sustainability philosophy and practices.

Sustainability and No Waste practices

For the Tiffin in a Jar we have eliminated all to-go or disposable containers. Our delivery system will drop off the food and pick up the containers after you have eaten. We only use glass jars with metal lids that can be re-used, re-heated, re-purposed, and re-cycled to promote our sustainability philosophy and practices.

For Mummy’s Snacks we are looking for perfect containers (if you have any ideas let us know) that reduce impact on the environment, can contain the different sizes of snacks, and reduce weight for cost effective shipping. For right now, the small sized snacks (like the Daal Moth and Chewra) are packed in our Tiffin Jars. The larger items are will be packaged based on need.

If you already have the perfect container at home we’ll bring the snacks to you in our containers and you can move the yummy snacks to your air tight container.

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