02/04/2026
Usually children grow up with the smell of their mom’s cooking, fresh masala from curries, achaar drying under the sun, the sweetness of a packet of gems. My home had a different concept altogether. I grew up with the smell of fresh bakes from the tiny oven in our kitchen. My dad, the ultimate home baking king, made everything, pastries, cakes, breads, peethes. Come November, fruits marinating in rum for the Christmas plum cakes. I remember my grandmother taking me to the local baker near New Market, who’d bake our homemade mix in big batches. To sit there and smell cake being baked was a different kind of excitement.
As I entered my teenage phase, my dad entered his dream of having his own industrial bakery which only meant one thing: unlimited bread samples at home every week. He’d ask my opinion on taste and texture, but there I was, a bread noob, thinking this is bread, what else will it even taste like. With Nigella’s show on TLC and so much bread at home, I started experimenting with bread snacks and pairing biscottis with Nescafe. Eventually the bakery shifted on, the experiments stopped, and I moved on from the idea of being around a bakery.
About two years ago when I started at The Red Bari, it was like coming home to an inbuilt bakery. It was here I understood the real patience and precision with which bread is made. Back then it was my dad asking me to describe texture bread made for fast, industrial use. Today it’s the bakery team asking me to describe flavour profiles, helping me understand how an artisanal bakery works, how ingredients are pure, and that the bread we make is for people who love a good bread dish at home. Here it is Keith teaching me how temperature affects a cookie.
When we sit to discuss Bari Bakes, I feel like a teenager again only this time with valid inputs and more confidence. I found myself going back to my dad, explaining how I’m learning about bakery all over again, and I see a spark in his eye. It takes him back to his bakery days too. So now it’s me, taking home sandwich samples and biscotti trials to get his inputs, so I can come back and share the insights.
Funny, and sweet, how the world works.
