She makes your cooking a lot easier

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The many wee hours she spent chopping vegetables in their home in Dubai to cook Kerala style food for her husband and son had given exhaustion untold. But it couldn’t get the better of her ingenuity.Back in her parents’ home in Thiruvananthapuram, and her seven-year-old son having out-grown hands-on care, Naveena started to chop away washed and cleaned veggies, pack, and drop them in Margin Free shops. “I hoped that it will make things easier for at least a few of those scores of women who compromise on sleep and rest to get those vegetables on to the plates. I wanted to save them the trouble of trips to the market, cleaning, peeling and chopping vegetables. That’s a lot of work done for you, especially when you have small children or have a career to juggle,” says this Hotel Management graduate. The underground floor of house no: 400 on Easwara Vilasom Raod, Vazhuthacaud, goes abuzz with activity from around 7 am. Four women staff - “all of them mothers and hence extra careful about hygiene,” emphasises Naveena - start sorting the veggies to be delivered that day. Cleaned and cut vegetables are packed by 2.30 pm and are picked for delivery by two other women between 3.30 pm and 4 pm.The packets - mix for ‘aviyal’, ‘sambar’, and ‘kurma’, ‘thoran’ and salads - are dropped off at Eastern Bakery, Vazhuthacaud and Edapazhanji Margin Free Market and a few homes around the locality.She also has customers who buy straight from her home that bears the board, ‘Fresh Cut Greens’. Orders can be placed for specific vegetable choppings every morning too. “The original idea was to supply cut vegetables to order. But I think people find it difficult to decide on what to cook and would rather decide on the menu after shopping for the vegetables,” she chuckles.In the last one year, she has got an encouraging feedback from the shops and customers. “We now pack capsicum and elephant yam separately with the packets for stir fry and ‘aviyal’ or ‘sambar’. Their cooking time is different and they can spoil the other vegetables if put in the same packet. ”All the packets are sold at Rs 20 each, except for ‘cheera’, which requires a lot of washing and is charged Rs  25 per packet. During the jackfruit season, Naveena supplied cut jackfruit flakes for ‘puzhukku’ and chips which sold like hot cakes. ‘’They came back quite disappointingly when sold as whole flakes, but when they were cut, there were instant takers,” she says, allowing an insight into the pace that life has accelerated to. About six months back, she had a problem on  hand. Her son, Rohan, who has asthmatic complaints, became sick very often from taking the chips and others snacks supplied at his school. Naveena did not think too long before committing to Christ Nagar School authorities that she would take care of the entire school’s snack cravings. “We give the kids healthy, no-preservatives-added savouries and sweets at Rs 10 per packet. At the beginning of every week, parents can choose the combinations of foods to be ordered, so they know what the children are eating at school. We incorporate as much vegetables as possible and make it colourful too, so the kids are drawn to healthy food.” She has also started on soups, which will be available to the kids during the break at 11.45 am and is all set to supply lunch for the children who stay back for extra-curricular activities after the school finishes at 2 pm.