�I cook only when people come over,� says Karen. �But I do the shopping. I train my staff on how to cut and how to cook. I organise breakfast, lunch and dinner. My family is into health foods. We're into fruits, juices and salads. We have one raw meal everyday. I have two sons. One is veg challenged. The other is a gourmet. He loves things like parma ham and he eats sushi wrappers like papads. He doesn't know they're fancy, but he seems them about the house!� She is not a chef. �I am passionate about food,� she says. �I read cookery books to go to sleep! I keep them in the car. These aren't books on recipes. But books on food. Food is what I do. Not out of business, but because I'm passionate and would like people to taste the same products I do.�

GOURMET specialist Karen Anand is a woman of many attributes. She is a food consultant, writer and a businesswoman, all rolled into one.

Her tryst with gourmet food is a story by itself. She trained briefly in Alain Sanderens' three star Michelin restaurant 'Lucas Carton' in Paris. From then on there was no looking back. She forced her way into any kitchen that let her in, whether they were in Bangkok, Bali or Sydney.

In 1991 she ran a restaurant at The Piano Bar specialising in salads known as 'The Salad Bar', the first of it's kind in Bombay. She left to start her own business, launching the city's first European style cheese shop and delicatessen, 'The Grand Cheese Bazaar', and her own brand label, Karen's, producing whole fruit preserves and marmalades, salad dressings and specialty sauces, which are today supplied to major luxury hotels and retail outlets.

She opened her own outlet in Contemporary Arts and Crafts, a lifestyle store in Bombay, in January 1998, which followed with another one in the Bombay suburbs. For ten years, she also ran one of Bombay's most successful catering companies specialising in international cuisine, which had an enviable corporate and private clientele throughout the country.

Karen doesn't like the word chef. She is not a chef. "I am passionate about food," she says. "I read cookery books to go to sleep! I keep them in the car. These aren't books on recipes. But books on food. Food is what I do. Not out of business, but because I'm passionate and would like people to taste the same products I do." She's always believed in food being simple and of quality. That's why she's been associated with foreign foods in India. "And with lots of Indian foods as well," she says, "anything that is fresh and quality-driven."

Karen was born in Bombay but grew up in London and was educated in England and Paris. A BA (Hons) in International Relations and French from Sussex University within which she spent one year at Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and three months in Russia. She is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of Russian and Hindi. She also has a diploma in French language and literature (Sorbonne, Paris).

Her experience as a food journalist includes freelancing for many foreign and Indian magazines. She had a regular weekly column called Bon Vivant in The Independent (India) for two years, which covered international food based on her extensive travels. This continued in the Bombay Times when The Independent folded up. She had a weekly column in the Saturday Times called Lean Cuisine and regular food columns in the Afternoon Despatch and Courier and Gentleman magazine (Breaking Bread). She was the first food editor for ELLE, India. She had a weekly food column in The Pune Times, Stir Fried and has for the past two years has had a fortnightly column called Cook-In with Karen, in the Bombay Times.

Karen anchored the popular food programme, The Good Food Guide for Star Plus in 1998, which was repeated in 1999. She will co-produce her next cookery show for Star World in 2001. She co-authored the best seller, Penguins Food Lovers Guide to India and Nepal, a selective restaurant guide and wrote the introduction to the Periplus book, The Food of India. She launched Lean Cuisine Curries, published by Harper Collins in 1998. The Best of The Good Food Guide, is due. A CD ROM, Creative Cooking for the City Coupl' for Times Multimedia, has just been launched all over India. She is currently the food editor for Hindustan Times.com and food expert for Encyclopedia Britannica.com. Her latest project is a Guide to Hotels and Restaurants in India for MasterCard.

Her food consultancies, management training and festivals include Old World Hospitality (India Habitat Centre), Domino's Pizza, Delhi; Khyber, Bombay; Radisson, Jet Airways, The Hyatt and currently The Park hotels and Britannia Industries (cheese division). She hosts gourmet dinners with her own menus twice a month at Starters & More, an international style restaurant in Bombay.

Does she get time to do any cooking at all with such demands being made on her time? "I cook only when people come over," says Karen. "But I do the shopping. I train my staff on how to cut and how to cook. I organise breakfast, lunch and dinner. My family is into health foods. We're into fruits, juices and salads. We have one raw meal everyday. I have two sons. One is veg challenged. The other is a gourmet. He loves things like parma ham and he eats sushi wrappers like papads. He doesn't know they're fancy, but he seems them about the house!"

And Karen is into wines as well. She drinks them almost every day. "I really don't know much," she admits, "but I'm learning about wines, I'm being exposed more and more, wine is getting to be such a passion with me. Wines, I find trendy. I like the hype that is being built around them here. I like the significant niche that wines are finding themselves in India. I like people asking what would go better with their meal, red or white? That's new in India."