<p>When a sudden cerebral attack left 22-year-old Payal Kapoor permanently blind,</p><p>she went overnight from being a happy young girl to a physically and emotionally</p><p>disabled person. Her desire to be a chef now seemed like a pipe dream. Her practical</p><p>mother thought otherwise. After all, who needed to be able to see to string beans or</p><p>grate carrots? Soon Payal was back in the kitchen, and slowly, with the help of recipes</p><p>in Braille and even Braille measuring cups and a talking weighing scale, she began</p><p>to cook again. Now, being her family's resident chef and mentor to others similarly</p><p>afflicted, gives her unparalleled satisfaction and a growing sense of being bigger than</p><p>her disability.</p><p>Cooking changed the life of both Jaya Vaishya and her son Mihir, born with athetoid</p><p>cerebral palsy. Thanks to the Veruschka Foundation, a space that trains children with</p><p>special needs to become independent chefs, Mihir now cooks aloo chat, dosa and</p><p>Chinese fried rice-and the pride and joy he feels is a balm for both mother and son.</p><p>For warzone photographer Giles Duley, the depression that engulfed him when he</p><p>witnessed the human tragedy in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017, when countless thousands</p><p>were killed, seemed like an abyss he would never escape. Until he began to cook.</p><p>Today, despite having lost both legs and an arm in a landmine explosion, this 'onearmed</p><p>chef' continues to find solace in cooking for, as he says, 'Food is life.'</p><p>From bipolar disorder, clinical depression, an abusive marriage or childhood traumas</p><p>to simply finding one's feet in a foreign land, each person in this collection of</p><p>personal narratives, poetry and fiction, finds comfort in the kitchen-cooking to give</p><p>their lives a focus and stability. Heartwarming and immensely moving, their stories</p><p>are an inspiration for each one of us to get up and smell the coffee.</p>