Heart2Hearth: Cupcakes and a mother’s pure love

Have you ever taken a bite of a cupcake or a cookie and known in your heart that it was made of pure love? This was how I felt while talking to Meeta Nanda over cups of chai tea and bites of the carrot scones she baked that morning. It was the first time I met Meeta and, before this, I had not sampled her popular vegan and organic baked goods nor her famous cooking. But I felt a gentleness and warmth about her and the food she was lovingly preparing for her friends who were coming over for lunch. Meeta is the woman behind Heart2Hearth, one of Salcedo Market’s latest and most well-known stops for special baked goods that are non-dairy, eggless and nut-free. Since she joined the Saturday market last November, word has been spreading quickly about her cupcakes, cookies and cakes which have been short of life-changing for those born with allergies to nuts and dairy.

Her foray into baking was serendipitous. The former Swissair flight attendant from India found a home in the Philippines in 2001 when her husband was assigned to work here. In 2005, they were blessed with a daughter, Maya, whom they later found to have a curious life-threatening allergy to dairy products. Meeta never knew that this setback would lead her to what could be her true calling. Meeta wanted to give her daughter sweets but was disappointed that she couldn’t find dairy-free treats anywhere in Manila. A very good cook, she then decided that she could very well bake the goodies herself for Maya. Meeta is not a schooled cook or baker but she learned well in her grandmother’s kitchen back home. “My childhood memories are of spending time with her. She was very hospitable and I would look at her and I was like, how did she do that? Somebody would come to the house and there would be nothing in the kitchen and she’d just go there and in 30 minutes, there would be a spread," she remembers. Here in Manila, Meeta began cooking for friends who soon came knocking at her door to place orders. Among their community in Salcedo and in expat circles, she easily made a name for herself as a great cook. She made the best hummus in Manila and earned the title “hummus queen." Baking, however, was new to Meeta. It was something her own grandmother wasn’t able to teach her. On her own, she learned to bake from scratch and experimented with different ingredients to create delicious but healthy baked goods for Maya to indulge in. She baked treats using organic ingredients including baking soda which she got in bulk from a health store. The butter was non-dairy. Same with the Dutch chocolate that went into her brownies. For sweetness, she used only muscovado. And all of them had the wholesome goodness of carrots, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, oranges, strawberries and the fruits she could find here in Manila. She did her own applesauce and made strawberry preserves for use when fresh strawberries were not in season. She shared the treats with Maya’s little friends and soon, she was not only baking cupcakes and cookies. She remembers, “Maya was not well the first year of her life, I really had to take care of her. On her second year, I started experimenting on baking and then for her third birthday, I made the best vegan chocolate cake. It was really good that people started asking me for the recipe or placing orders and that was it." After much prodding from friends, Meeta finally decided to join Salcedo Market in November 2009. In her stall, one would find her line of pastries under the name Heart2Hearth. She shares the reason behind the name: her recipes come from the heart and the food is cooked in her kitchen, baked in her own oven or hearth. Heart2Hearth has quickly become every vegan’s dream destination for desserts. The bestselling Carrot Orange Cupcakes (P300 a dozen) are gone quickly, bought in bulk by regular customers. Meeta says Filipinos go crazy over the Banana-Chocolate Cupcakes (P300 a dozen). The Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes (P360 a dozen) were the biggest hit last Christmas. Kids just adore her Apple Oatmeal Raisin Cookies which moms buy a lot of for “baon" in school. I had a taste of her fudge brownies and I was blown over by its rich velvety chocolate taste. Even more amazing is the fact that it was baked completely with no eggs. And what grabs you even more is the fact that her cupcakes are priced at only P25 to P30 a piece. On top of all these, Meeta bakes all the goods herself in her own kitchen. All these then led me to ask her jokingly if she was advocating a cause because she might as well be, since I knew how expensive and hard-to-find her ingredients are. Meeta laughed but said yes, she was promoting a healthy lifestyle and wanted Filipinos and everyone to become more aware of food allergies, how to avoid them and what’s good for them. She posts nutrition information regularly on the Facebook page she created for Heart2Hearth. Every Saturday, Meeta is there in Salcedo Market where her baked goods are often sold out before closing time. She also sells her famous Hummus (P150 for 150g), Pasta Sauce (P175 for 500g) and Indian Curry Sauce (P200 for 250g). The goods would be bought by moms for their kids and grownups looking for guilt-free treats. On weekdays (Tuesdays to Thursdays, 9:00a.m-12:00 nn), Meeta gives cooking lessons to groups of five to six people for only P3,000.00 for the entire group. The fee covers all the ingredients, a sumptuous lunch, and a spice to take home for each person who attended the lesson. On other days, she does private caterings and cooks vegetarian meals for the meetings of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). During my visit, I had the privilege of watching Meeta at work in her own kitchen. For lunch that day, she was cooking Makhani Dal or black lentils and kidney beans cooked with dairy-free butter and cream. It had been simmering on the stove for four hours. And then of course, what Indian lunch would be without curry? She made two kinds: a curry of vegetables and another of chicken. Quickly, she kneaded some dough and cooked the chapati. oon, I found myself enjoying what was my healthiest and most flavorful meal all week. When you look at Meeta, you see beauty and contentment in her eyes. Her daughter, Maya, is healthy, happy and quite wise for a 5-year old. She orders her own food in restaurants and upon being seated, would show the servers her allergy card and tell them “no milk, no dairy, no preservatives." At a young age, she shares her mother’s concern for every child’s well-being and tells her mom, “Mama, one day we open a restaurant where kids can come and their mama and papa don’t have to worry about medicine or no medicine. You will be the ‘cooker’ (cook), papa will be writer and I will be the server. And I will ask them first, ‘What are your allergies?’" Having met Meeta, I saw in her a quality I rarely see in the trained chefs I have had the pleasure of meeting in my work as a food writer. While some of the chefs had the best culinary training and were as passionate about food, they held themselves up to the standard of excellence that is common among their kind – to satisfy the most discriminating palates, gourmets who were wiliing to pay good money for mind-blowing food. Here in her kitchen, Meeta shares the only measure she has for knowing how successful she is as a cook and a baker. She says, “I did a birthday cake for a boy who turned three this year. His mom was in tears and I was in tears when I read her message that the boy, for the first time in his life, was cutting a cake and eating it, too. He had allergies so he could never eat his cake, he couldn’t even eat any dessert altogether. That day, from morning until evening, the only thing he wanted to eat was the cake. I relate to these stories because I had the same thing with Maya. It was a very emotional moment and that keeps me going." In welcoming me into her home and her kitchen, I had a rare glimpse into an extraordinary woman’s heart and known how pure love would taste if it were a cupcake. - GMANews.TV