The Smile Foundation and Grand Hyatt Mumbai CEO Cook Off with Chef Vikas Khanna

A wonderful initiative was recently organized by the NGO “The Smile Foundation” where they used a food based event as their fund raising activity along with celebrity chef Vikas Khanna. The format of the event was quite unique with some of the top CEOs from the corporate world coming together to participate in a cook off challenge where each one was paired with a kid from The Smile Foundation to help them as their sous chef at the Grand Hyatt Mumbai. Smile Foundation is a national development organization which provides education to more than 300,000 underprivileged children, youth and women directly every year through 158 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, youth employability, and women empowerment across 25 states of India. The foundation teamed up with Three times Michelin Starred Chef Vikas Khanna who is also the foundation’s Goodwill Ambassador for “NUTRITION FOR BETTER LITERACY” initiative. Despite it being a Sunday, all the CEOs were present at the event with their families cheering for them. Though the event started a good one hour late (Perhaps keeping up with the busy profiles of the participants), Chef Khanna was present much before time ,interacting with the audience and even going to the extent of apologizing to each and every individual present in the hall for the delay. The cook off arena was well equipped with equipment from Kitchenaid who were co-sponsoring the event. The CEOs chose to make a wide variety of dishes which included continental as well as Indian delicacies. Many of them cooking for the first time were diligently being prompted by their spouses from the side lines. Keeping up with his “Twist of Taste”; Chef Khanna, halfway through the cookout threw a surprise by asking the CEOs to move away from there sections and for their spouses to complete the dishes. With only 30 minutes for the cook off, the spouses managed to finish off their dishes just in time. Chef Khanna did the judging himself, and chose two winners in two separate rounds. Since the event was a charity fund raiser, I believe each and every CEO who took the time out on a busy family Sunday to give time to this cause would be considered a winner, hence I don’t think it is necessary to name who won the contest. However, special mention must be made for the three last minute surprises thrown by Kitchenaid as well as Chef Khanna himself. Post the token certificate and prize distribution, Kitchenaid put a professional grade mixer on auction for the present public. Valued at Rs.45,000, the bidding started at about half the price. Chef Khanna, who was keeping the audience entertained throughout these activities through his affable antics, threw two major surprises into the bidding process. The first one was a reservation for two to his soon to be opened restaurant in Dubai which incidentally is his first restaurant outside of the USA. For his second surprise, he pulled out the first draft copy of his yet to be released cook book “Hymns for the Soul” which he offered to give to the winner. Both the mixer and the book were duly autographed by the chef. Post the auction, the kids got an opportunity to get their pictures taken with their idol and the CEOs and the audience were invited by the Hotel for lunch at one of their restaurants. I sincerely think that the efforts of Smile Foundation must be applauded for providing literacy and nutrition to underprivileged children through innovative acts such as these and also a big applause to Chef Vikas Khanna for using food as a medium to bring about awareness for this initiative. One last word about Chef Khanna- Despite of him being an international celebrity chef of grand stature, his humility is quite overwhelming. Throughout the afternoon, I saw him interacting with the public addressing them with honorific “Jees”, saw him touching feet of a few elderly people in the crowd (am not sure if he previously knew them) and off course, going to each and every person present in the audience, folding hands and saying “Sorry Jee” for the unusual delay at the start of the program. I wish we get more people to take lessons in humility from this man who definitely made a huge impact on me that day. CEOs who took part in the Cook Off:- DR RAMEN GOEL, Ex-President, All India Association for Advanced Research on Obesity MANOJ CHACKO, CEO, Kuoni Business Travel, Kuoni India TEJBIR SINGH SAWHNEY, CEO, Hindustan Colas Ltd. MOHIT JAIN, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Kitchen Aid YASMIN POONEGAR, Director of Corporate Communications, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts – Southwest Asia Ltd. ARCHANA KOCHHAR – Designer NITYANAND SHETTY, Managing Director, Essen Vision Software Ltd. DAVID MANSFIELD, Area Director & General Manager, Grand Hyatt, Mumbai SHRAVAN KUMAR, CEO, Children Film Society India ARUN CHATTERJEE, – Depositary Receipts BNY Mellon India VISHAL GONDAL, Founder and CEO, GOQii Inc. ARJUN BAFNA, Managing Director, Seven Islands Harley-Davidson