These are interesting times in the San Francisco Bay area when it comes to food and technology innovations. We spoke to 3 different entrepreneurs from the food and wine industry to find out about their journey. In this video we bring you highlights of our interviews with Mathew Sade of Kite Hill, who shares… Continue Reading
Food is a wonderful way to explore and understand the cultural hertigate of community or a country. And that is precisiely what a new 6-part series on food called Lucky Chow does. The series debuted at this year’s Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) film festival. I watched a couple of episodes during the festival and… Continue Reading
It was 26 years ago that the San Jose jazz festival began and today it has morphed into a 3-day festival. This year’s San Jose Jazz Summerfest (Aug 7-9, 2015) will feature over 100 performers spread across 12 stages spread across 12 blocks in downtown San Jose. It is not just jazz that you get… Continue Reading
Happy birthday Robin Williams wherever you are. And you were spot on when you said: “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” You changed my world and that of millions of people with your own, unique brand of humor. You brought us laughter, happiness and joy and made our… Continue Reading
Meet Mr. Garlic aka Gerry Foisy. For 28 years come rain or sunshine you will find him at the annual 3-day Gilroy Garlic Festival. His wife, Jeanne put down his name as a volunteer and ever since then he has continued to play Mr. Garlic dressed in his trademark garlic bulb suit topped with a… Continue Reading
All Spice is an elegant restaurant located in the Nob Hill area of San Francisco. The brainchild of Chef Sachin Chopra and his wife Shoshana Wolff, it is not your everyday Indian restaurant as its name might lead you to believe, but one that serves New American Exotica – and, believe me, there comes a surprise with every… Continue Reading
Garlic. The smell of stinking rose will tickle your nose as you travel south on Highlway 101 from San Jose to Gilroy. Located about 25 kilometers from San Jose, Gilroy is often described as the “Garlic Capital of the World.” And it comes as a surprise to many people when they discover that Gilroy is… Continue Reading
Meet Catlin Powers, who is passionate about harnessing the sun as clean fuel for millions of energy deficient communities around the world. Imagine if you had to walk for miles every morning to collect fuel for your basic cooking needs. I know my grandmother did that in the Indian Himalayas where she lived. But that… Continue Reading
Who was Amy Winehouse? Yes, we all know she was a talented and a 6-time Grammy winning British musician, who died tragically at the age of 27. But, who was the real Amy Wineshouse? How did she die and how did this happen in this day and age in London? These were some of the questions… Continue Reading
For those of you who thought my show – The Kamla Show – is available only online I have news for you. It is actually a weekly TV show that airs in many markets in the San Francisco bay area, and in a couple of places on the East Coast. And if everything goes well… Continue Reading
Finally, it is here – the first full length trailer of Steve Jobs by director Danny Boyle. Michael Fassbinder essays the role of Jobs, and he is practically unrecognizible. Seth Rogen plays Steve Wozniak, co-founder and the tech wizard of Apple. The film is based on Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs. The book was blessed by… Continue Reading
What Happened, Miss Simone by Liz Garbus is a powerful and riveting film that will leave you in a reflective and pensive mood. In the film we see the many avatars of this gifted & volatile singer, composser and activist, who cast her spell on us. We see “The High Priestess of Soul,” during her good… Continue Reading
London-based Niraj Chag is an award winning musician, composer and producer. Chag has worked on documentaries, plays and TV shows, incuding the popular Sex And The City. Chag released his latest album “Mud Doll,” on June 22, 2015. This is his third album. The concept for the new album is about human experience explains Chag. The… Continue Reading
San Jose Jazz Summerfest celebrates its 26th year from August 7-9, 2015. The 3 day celebration will see over 100 performances spread across 12 stages in downtown San Jose. There is something for every one from jazz to blues to salsa to soul to zydeco music. The opening night features San Francisco Bay Area’s Con Brio and… Continue Reading
Food is about buiiding your community, your tribe, your family and the deeper hunger to be connected to each other to be loved and needed says Roger Egger. The power of food is what Egger digs and he shares how he came to dig the power of food. The kitchen is a beautiful bad ass… Continue Reading
Oscar winner AR Rahman did not disappoint his audience, and it was surreal to watch and hear the adulation that he got from his audience in Silicon Valley. AR Rahman’s Intimate Concert Tour was a sold out event on June 11 and June 12 in San Jose. AR as he is known is on a… Continue Reading
“Baar Baar Dekho” means look and look again. I’d say listen and listen to this song again. This delightful track is from Shillong Chamber Choir of India. They do a great job of fusing a 1962 Bollywood or Hindi song with a jazz standard ‘S Wonderful, by Gershwin brothers from the 1927 Broadway musical “Funny Face.”… Continue Reading
I stumbled upon New York-based Solar Punch’s version of a popular Bollywood song from the film “Swades.” Solar Punch is an unusual band. Once you read about this eco-rock band’s mission statement, it became instantly clear why they chose to sing this Bollywood song. It fits with the band’s mission and the connection between Bollywood… Continue Reading
What a delighful musical discovery this one turned out to be. I stumbled upon Bollywood Republic’s new music video of Tetseo sisters from Nagaland in Northeast India. In this video the sisters sing their version of “Barso Re,” by AR Rahman from the film “Guru.” What makes this version unusual is the Northeastern flavor of Nagaland that… Continue Reading
BiteSV was a 3-day conference held at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Food was center stage at the conference, and more imporantaly our relationship with food and the challenge to feed billions of people in a healthy way. Chefs, technologists, and others from the food industry came together to talk about feeding 9 billion people, which… Continue Reading
Chef Roy Choi of Kogi truck fame and a pioneer of the food truck movement in America has a crazy idea called Loco’l. He is working with San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson and others to bring this idea to fruition. They want to revolutinize the food movement in inner cities of America, which are… Continue Reading
Meet Bombay Jayashri, an Oscar nominated singer from India. She composed and sang the opening lullaby in Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” which was filmed partly in India. Jayashri trained as a tradiational Carnatic or South Indian classical musician.What is unusual about Jayashri is that she sings traditional South Indian classical music, Indian film music and has… Continue Reading
The first BiteSV food and technology conference brings together chefs, winemakers and technologists under one roof from June 4-7, 2015 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Chef José Andrés, Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton Creek Food, Chef Michael Chiarello, and Dr. Robert Fraley, executive vice president of Monsanto are some of the speakers at the event. Roi Choi, Charlie Ayers, Mei Lin, Michale… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Prashant Bhargava passed away on May 16, 2015. He was 42 years old. Bhargav was a young, talented filmmaker, who is deeply mourned by his fans, friends and family. Bhragava had a brilliant eye and ear for stories, details and colors. His films like “Patang,” and “Radhe Radhe,”were visually stunning. I had an opporuntunity to interview Bhargav… Continue Reading
Imagine being connected to another human being in a different part of the world and you can hear, feel and see everything about them. You know their secrets and their history. Well, imagine no more. Michael Straczynski and the Wachowskis have created a new Netflix original series called “SENSE8” where 8 strangers around the world are connected to each other.… Continue Reading
Meet Madhur Jaffrey – an award-winning actress, cookbook author and the host of TV cooking shows that helped demystify Indian cooking. Born in British India, Jaffrey went to London to study acting and relocated to the USA in the late 1950s. She currently lives in New York with her family. When Jaffrey moved to England… Continue Reading
Post cards. Remember getting those colorful post cards from your family and friends when they visited a new place or city? As a kid I used to collect these post cards, and pester folks to send them to me. Sometimes, a Kindly neighbor would give me their old post cards that their “foreign” friends sent them. Somewhere… Continue Reading
There is a fascinating exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art that features 9 artists of Indian origin called “Postdate: Photography and Inherited Art in India,” This is the first time such an exhibit has been put together that looks at how modern Indian artists look back and interpret their inherited history in India.… Continue Reading
Indian actor Dhanush’s Tanglish song “Why This Kolaveri Di,” went viral in November 2011. It has over 90 million views on YouTube. This Tanglish (Tamil and English) song became quite the rage and spawned all sorts of remixed and new versions right from an R&B number to an Arabic version of the “Shorba Song.” There… Continue Reading
With a title like this “San Francisco is obsessed with food and that is an understatement,” how can you not read the article? This was not published in a local San Francisco bay area paper, but in the Washington Post (WaPo) and it brought back memories of a conversation I had with a chef in… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 