Jyoti Mukharji and Auyon Mukharji, Heartland Masala

Saturday, September 20, 2025, 11:00 am - 11:45 am

Stop by the Foodwise Classroom for a cooking demo featuring the seasonal bounty of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

Jyoti Mukharji is a chef, teacher, and retired physician. She immigrated to the US from India in the late 1970s, and she began teaching weekly Indian cooking classes out of her home in Prairie Village, KS in 2010. Jyoti has since welcomed several thousand students into her kitchen, and her writing and teaching have been celebrated in press and radio outlets across the Midwest. Jyoti’s team includes her husband Jhulan (art director), her eldest son Arnob (grocery shopping deputy), her middle son Auyon (musical guest), and her youngest son Aroop (copy editor).

Auyon Mukharji is a musician, writer, and culinary historian who spends most of his time thinking about food. He studied biology at Williams College and was awarded a Watson Fellowship in 2007 to study self-expression in folk music. Since 2009, Auyon has toured with, and cooked for, the acclaimed indie-folk band Darlingside. He otherwise finds time to work in and around kitchens (and farms) in both his hometown of Kansas City and his adopted state-of residence of Massachusetts.

They are the co-authors of Heartland Masala: An Indian Cookbook from the American Midwest (Collective Book Studio, September 2025).

All demos take place in the Foodwise Classroom (under the tents in front of the Ferry Building) and are free to the public, with recipes and samples for all.

The demo will be followed by a book signing with book sales courtesy of Book Passage.