Party for food journal promises to be a celebration of culinary memories

Bombay Perfumery series. Pic Courtesy/Sana Javeri Kadri

Manan Gandhi loves black pepper. While working in his lab to create fragrances, the founder of Bombay Perfumery keeps a bottle of black pepper oil with him for inspiration. When having lunch, he ensures he has black pepper with his food. "I am attracted to the spice, and knew I had to use it in a fragrance," admits Gandhi. Pepper, thus, is one of the notes in the spicy and woody Calicut eau de parfum.

This weekend, you can learn from Gandhi about how food ingredients have made their way into perfumes. Gandhi is one of the speakers at a collaborative event, Gather, between Bombay Perfumery, Paper Planes and Baro. "This is a release party to introduce our audience to a new title, a food magazine from Brooklyn called Gather. We were keen to organise a gathering of food writers and get them to conduct a storytelling session," says Nupur Joshi-Thanks, founder of Paper Planes, which brings indie magazines from across the world to India.

The all-day 'party' will begin with a workshop with Gandhi, who will introduce guests to fragrances with a focus on food ingredients. "We will try and use ingredients such as vanilla, black pepper, cardamom and ginger, to show that perfumes can borrow from food," he adds. His perfumery recently did a series on Bombay Summer Desserts by pairing a fragrance or ingredient in them with a dessert - the strong, sweet and subtle Chai Musk with kulfi, spicy and sweet Calicut with Kala Khatta Gola and the refreshing Seven Islands with an ice-cream soda.

Scenes from Paper Planes' release party at Ministry of New last year

The second half of the day will celebrate the release of Gather, the independent bi-annual, recipe-driven food magazine. "Every edition has a theme. This issue's theme is heroine - food inspired by women in creative fields. They don't do features or research on food. Their work is more recipe-driven and anecdotal. So, we decided to take inspiration from that," says Joshi-Thanks.

Manan Gandhi

The evening will see some of the city's popular food writers share their memories. The speakers include archeologist Kurush Dalal, food and travel writers Meher Mirza and Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi, visual artist and food stylist Sana Javeri Kadri, food writer Vikram Doctor, and founder of Neighbourhood-Potluck dinners Neysa Mendes.

Nupur Joshi-Thanks

"I will be talking about nostalgia, and how flavour is so intrinsically tied to a memory of travel and a place, and finding unusual foods in unexpected places," says Sanghvi.