Covid-19 lockdown has brought several opportunities for girls and working and non-working women, and the most flagged have been cooking and baking.
Covid-19 lockdown has initiated many online vocational courses and small online workshops for all ages and genders, and the most prominent have been baking and cooking. A lot of girls and women have shown tremendous interest towards learning baking cakes, cookies and a variety of breads. This also became craze since most of the shops were closed. A simple 2-days online classes for about 3-4 hours are sufficient to learn these skills and the tricks of the baking.
Archana Kaushik, Udaipur based creative artist, who does a lot of work on Lippan and Madhubani launched her baking label – “Back to Roots by Archana Kaushik” on Facebook. Her focus has been to gainfully utilize the available time of house-hold women by teaching them varieties of eggless and preservative free cakes, cookies and stuffed breads.
Archana says, “As the names goes – “Back to Roots”, my focus is to utilize as much as regular home appliances and easily available ingredients so that it becomes easy for the young girls and working as well as non-working women to make these baking items. Back to Roots is all about going back to self for simple living and staying healthy. Baking is not difficult, rather, very simple. All you need is a little bit of guidance, motivation and process. Most of the ingredients are either already available at home or easily available in the market.”
For any festival, self-homemade items would carry much more hygiene and safety. If it is easy to cook, it will be good to eat also. Archana is currently taking online classes for easy to make Raksha Bandhan hampers and she is getting a good response.
“At this time when social distancing and hygiene is so important, nothing is better than preparing small sweat breads or cakes for Raksha Bandhan at home. I am making cookies to boost immune system as well. It is not about cost; it is all about engaging in creative thinking and doing something good. No need to even buy any hamper when you can prepare all these items at home” says Archana.
Non-working women who spend hours of their lives in house-hold work have been always inclined to learn something creative to gainfully utilize their time. Baking seems to be a better option to use their skills and love for making something delicious on important occasions. “Back to Roots by Archana Kaushik” is one of its kind source for these women.
