Sheema has had a long career in publishing, with a focus on food and travel writing. Among the places she worked were Dorling Kindersley, Harper Collins and Lonely Planet travel guides in India. She also wrote freelance food columns and restaurant reviews for leading Indian publications, such as The Hindustan Times and Indian Express. She has authored two books on food – The Penguin No-fuss Cookbook and Lonely Planet World Food Guide India. Everyone in Sheema’s family eats, breathes and thinks food all day round. Her husband and she vie for space in the kitchen every day to try out something new, and her son is a chef. Cooking and feeding people has been her life-long passion.
After leading a busy professional life in Delhi for 30 years, Sheema relocated to the forests of Central India in Kanha National Park where she runs an organic farm and award-winning homestay called Salban. She enjoys experimenting with local produce, farmed and foraged, and turning them into offerings at her table for guests. Among the indigenous ingredients she enjoys cooking with are the heirloom rice and millet grown on her farm, forest foraged greens and mushrooms, sun-dried mahua raisins and treacle, wild fruits like jamun and mulberry, and much more. She also focuses on providing life-skills to the local villagers, many of whom are employed at the homestay. It is her endeavour to make Salban a genuinely sustainable homestay in every way.
