About My Mother

सुषमा देशपांडे 

My mother, Sushama Vilas Deshpande, the youngest of 4 children was born in 1951 to Ramchandra Gupte and Snehalata Gupte in Bhusalavar in Maharashtra. She spent her maiden years in Khamgaon near Akola in Maharashtra.

She was always an energetic and highly talented individual and excelled both in academics and extra curricular activities winning elocution competitions and debates when in school. My grandmother started training her in cooking at the tender age of 6. By the time she was 12-13 years of age, she had already mastered traditional CKP recipes and had already started experimenting with other recipes.

After marriage, she studied to be a beautician and ran her own ladies beauty parlour for more than 20 years. She also would conduct private classes in Cooking, Beauty treatments, Jams, Squashes, Cakes, Mehendi designs, Arts and Crafts, Painting, Embroidery, Sauces, etc.

She has also actively worked in the catering business undertaking party orders. She would daily supply more than 30 lunch tiffins and also supplied daily lunch and snacks for the cast and crew of Marathi teleseries "Abhalmaya".

She continues to cook wonderful dishes for us and still conducts cooking classes for groups.

Her first book on traditional CKP cuisine is highly successful within the CKP community and she is planning to work on the second edition of the book.

Thank you.