Recipes passed down on old notebook pages.

Swaada Gruha began in a small kitchen in Andhra, where my mother's hand-pounded chilli powder sat in tall glass jars catching the afternoon sun. Every other house on our street had its own version — a slightly different ratio of coriander, a pinch more pepper, a secret leaf or two — and that was the whole magic of it.

For years, friends would carry packets of our spice blends back home in their suitcases. "Send some more," the texts would say. Eventually, we decided to stop being a suitcase and become a small homely brand.

We still pound our chillies on stone. We still roast our coriander on cast iron. The women of our village hand-roll every papad on cool granite slabs at dawn. Nothing in our pantry is rushed, machine-blasted or shortcut.

— Anu, with the rest of the Swaada Gruha kitchen