We are a Kodava family — my parents moved to Yelachenahalli from Madikeri in 1984 when my father took a government posting, and the one thing my mother refused to compromise on was the kitchen. Pandi curry on Sundays, kadambuttu for guests, noolputtu for every important occasion. When she became unwell last year and could not cook, we tried three different services. None of them had heard of kachampuli. One cook used tamarind instead and served it to my father, who has been eating pandi curry every Sunday for seventy years. He put down his plate and did not speak about it. Suma, who joined us through Rent A Maids 247 in February, is Kodava. She brought her own bottle of kachampuli from home the first day because she did not trust that we would have the right one. My father finished his entire plate. She has been with us seven months and my mother calls her "one of us."

My wife and I both work at tech companies on Outer Ring Road. We take the Metro from Yelachenahalli every morning at 7:20. For two years, breakfast was whatever we could find packaged, and dinner was Swiggy or leftover rice. We ate reasonably well on weekends when we had time to cook, and poorly during the week. My mother, who lives with us, is a Kannada Brahmin from a Tumkur family and she kept telling us that she wanted to cook but could not manage it physically anymore. She was eating from Swiggy too, which she described as "not real food." Nagaratna joined us four months ago. She arrives at 6 AM. My mother now wakes up when she hears the kitchen sounds and goes to sit nearby and talk while Nagaratna cooks. Nagaratna is also from Tumkur. They have the same idea of what saaru should taste like. My mother has started eating properly again. That matters more to me than the logistics, though the logistics are also perfect.

My father is from Dharwad and has type-2 diabetes. He manages it well but his real struggle is that the food required for diabetes management is usually made for a generic South Indian palate — white rice replaced with oats, which he finds insulting. He has been eating jolada rotti and shenga chutney his entire life. He wants ragi mudde, not oat porridge. He wants properly made North Karnataka food that happens to also be good for his blood sugar, not hospital diet food that looks like it was designed to punish him for getting sick. Shashikala, who joined us through Rent A Maids 247 three months ago, is from Hubli. She asked for his diet chart before the trial. On the trial day she made jolada rotti, a lentil preparation with almost no oil, and a shenga chutney that my father said was the best he had eaten outside Dharwad. His last HbA1c came down significantly. His endocrinologist asked what had changed. We told her: finally, the right food made the right way.