Sanjay Thumma

Sanjay Thumma

Vah-Chef
Born (1970-04-26) 26 April 1970
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
(now in Telangana, India)
Education Diploma in Hotel Management, IHM, Hyderabad
Spouse(s) Ragini
Website vahrehvah.com

Culinary career

Cooking style Indian cuisine

Sanjay Thumma (born 26 April 1970) popularly known as Vah-Chef is an Indian chef and founder of the cooking website, vahrehvah.co].[1] He is especially popular among the Indian expatriate communities in mainland Europe, Australia and North America. He became known for his online recipe channel on YouTube, which he started in 2007, with over 100 million hits.[2] He became an instant hit for his easy cooking recipes and techniques with an element of fun. He is also popular with the beginners and young homemakers.

Early life

Thumma was born in Hyderabad, India. His father worked in BHEL, so they lived in a township in Hyderabad. He recollects that being a mischievous boy, his mother would engage him in the kitchen to prevent him from annoying his siblings. To keep 7-year old Sanjay occupied, she would have him grind spices. His mother fostered a deep fascination with cooking by allowing him to ask questions and provide assistance in preparing the meal and he would be the first to taste any dish. He learnt the fundamentals of good, tasty cooking from his mother. He later did his hotel management from IHM, Hyderabad.

Career

He began his career working for various ITC hotels in Gurgaon, Chennai, Agra and Jaipur. In 1998 he relocated to Chicago to start his own restaurant: Sizzle India. After opening four restaurants over seven years, he decided to sell them all, and took a two-year hiatus.

vahrehvah.com

He had requests for recipes from his family friends, where he had to repeat the cooking process over and over again. In September 2007, he set up a studio in Chicago and started recording his first 150 recipes, which he posted on YouTube, soon becoming a sensation,[3] and each video reaching over a million views.

Later he launched his food website, vahrehvah.com and moved back to Hyderabad, where he is currently based.[2][4] After a hiatus of almost two years, Sanjay returned to his YouTube cooking channel show.

Television shows

Sanjay co-hosted (and judged) a culinary show in Telugu, named Vantintlo Wonders (meaning Wonders in the kitchen') aired on Gemini TV, a Telugu channel. He is currently hosting another culinary show on Zee Telugu channel, named Vahrehvah. This is an acknowledgement of the fact that his popularity as a chef is ever-increasing, on and beyond the internet.

Facebook

His official Facebook page is followed and liked by over 523,484 people as on Jan 11th 2016. He posts new recipes on it and is increasingly becoming popular among food enthusiasts.

Personal life

He is married to Ragini, who has been filming, editing and uploading his videos onto YouTube since the early days.

References

  1. ↑ Cooking it up virtually - The Hindu
  2. 1 2 It’s cooking on YouTube The Hindu, Apr 25, 2009.
  3. ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Food/hot-on-accessories/article4653712.ece
  4. ↑ Super-chef Samayal

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.