Momtrepreneurs: This mom means business

CHENNAI: Eat, Pray, Love – as much as we love the bestseller and the Julia Roberts-starrer, here are women – momtrepreneurs of Chennai – who follow the simple principle made popular on celluloid, and have a fanbase that swear by their service.

SAJINA SHEMZE, baker

As a business owner, Sajina Shemze, owner of The Chef House, is a happy camper. This cloud kitchen, offers a variety of wonderful cakes, unique starters, and dishes from the Malabar cuisine. The Chef House gained popularity after she introduced the Pull Me Up Biscoff cakes in Chennai. The cake recipe is an original put together by Sajina after she realised the craze for the flavour, biscoff.

She boasts of an impressive clientele with celebrities like Kiki Vijay, Shalini Ajith, Harris Jayaraj, Director Shankar, Aishwarya Rajesh, cricketer Murali Vijay, and several others. Her best-seller Kunafa Prawns, which is an original curation, is unique. She has made a dessert into a starter.

So how did ‘The Chef House’ happen? “I only cooked for my family. During the lockdown, I started blogging whatever I cooked at home on my social media handle. People liked the content and through the page, I’d sometimes get orders. Occasionally, I’d take up cake orders from my friends. This slowly led me to take orders full-time and work on running my business full-fledged.”

A cake prepared by baker Sajina Shemze

Fulfilling last-minute orders is a nightmare every cloud kitchen owner faces. Sharing her experience she says, “Recently, I had to make a 5 kg cake for CM Stalin’s wife, Durga. Her relative called me at 10:30 pm and told me that she needed a 5 kg cake delivered by 9:00 am the next morning. I was out of station and began panicking, since the relative was a regular customer, I had to oblige. I reached home and began working on it immediately. I pulled an all-nighter and finished the work at 5 am. I slept for a bit and woke up in an hour for the order to be picked up. The experience was very challenging and thrilling for me.”

A rice cake

Sajina wants to continue pushing her limits and try making new dishes.