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Welcome toWell Fed, a column that celebrates how we nourish our bodies, from face to plate.
Sana Javeri Kadriand I have been speaking for approximately three seconds before she starts hyping other people up.
She’s also bleeding.
“I was stupid.
Kadri making chai.
Do you knowHedley & Bennett, that really cool apron company?”
she asks, collecting herself over Zoom.
“[Its co-founder] Ellen Bennett is amazing; she’s on our board.
She sent me their newchef’s knifeand said, ‘It’s super sharp, have fun!’
and I had so much fun that I sliced my fingers.”
That’s when Kadri, at age 22, found thatsourcing problemswere selling her own country’s exports short.
She says she realized her job, from that point on, was easy.
“They already exist; they’re already doing the work.
All I have to do is market that and tell their stories, and I love storytelling.
Fresh and ground turmeric.
After they’ve narrowed down the best contenders, they hold calls with each farmer.
“Who can scale with us?
Who has the ambition to scale?
GENTL & HYERS
That’s how we narrow it down to the partner that we choose to work with.”
Great, we’ll give you an interest-free loan, buy a mill.
Fresh and ground turmeric.
“I started with one spice from one farmer: our turmeric,” she says.
It’s an exfoliant meant to makeyour skin glow.
Her other go-two mask is inspired by skin-care products by beauty brandRanavat, helmed by Indian-American founder Michelle Ranavat.
I’ll do it on a Sunday and leave it on for a couple hours.
The honey is gentle, and the saffron is brightening.
“But it’s beautiful, and it’s really good for you.”
“My hair was falling out for three years.
I saddle up to her and I’m like, ‘Can you do it, yo?'”
“We owe people complicated stories and not flat narratives that really just don’t do our culture justice.
South Asian culture is just so much deeper and richer than that.
“I do feel like there’s such an exciting wave of South Asian brands in beauty right now.
It’s been very cool to see.
To have the first South Asian [founded] beauty product in Sephora?
“To me, it’s so simple: if you nod to the origin, you learn more.
You engage with the culture.”
Saffron being harvested in Kashmir for Diaspora Co.’s line.
I’m so damn proud of her!
What is the difference between Pakistanikajal cultureand Indian kajal culture?
There are differences there,” Kadri explains.
Kadri says this shift feels like, in many ways, a beginning.
That battle for complex representation is shared across beauty andfood spaces.
And while accessibility in cooking isn’t necessarily harmful, the appropriation that erases a dish’s origins is.
“To me, it’s so simple: if you nod to the origin, you learn more.
You engagewith the culture.
“Take the one minute to figure out where this came from.
For me, I am fascinated by and really in adoration of Korean food and Korean food culture.
“When you’re appropriating something, it’s like, ‘Why?’
You interacting with [that culture instead] is more beautiful.
The world gets better when we do things like that, not worse.
We’re not losing anything.”
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