Aarti Sequeira facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Aarti Sequeira

Born	Aarti Lucica Sequeira (1978-08-19) 19 August 1978 (age 46) Mumbai, India
Cooking style	Indian cuisine
Education	Northwestern University
Spouse	Brendan "Bren" McNamara
Television show(s) Aarti Party Guy's Grocery Games, Taste in Translation The Next Food Network Star

Aarti Lucica Sequeira (born August 19, 1978) is a famous Indian American chef and TV star. She is best known for winning the sixth season of Food Network's TV show, The Next Food Network Star. After winning in 2010, she got her own cooking show called Aarti Party. Later, she hosted Taste in Translation on Cooking Channel, where she explored popular dishes from all over the world. Before becoming a TV chef, Aarti worked as a news producer for CNN. In 2008, she started her own online cooking show called Aarti Paarti.

Early Life and Education

Aarti Lucica Sequeira was born in Mumbai, India, on August 19, 1978. Her family came from Mangalore. She grew up in a traditional Indian Catholic home with two sisters. When she was a baby, her family moved to Dubai because her father found better job chances there.

Aarti went to an Indian school in Dubai until she was seven. Then, she moved to a British school, which was hard at first because she felt different. She loved music and sang in the choir and played the piano.

Aarti says cooking was a big part of her family's life. She learned a lot about cooking from her Indian culture and her mother. She called her grandmother an "incredible cook." Aarti's mother started a recipe journal after her own mother passed away. This inspired Aarti to start her own recipe journal when she was 10 years old. She loved remembering her father buying fresh fish and her mother creating new recipes every day. She also tried foods from other countries, like homemade pasta at her Italian friend's house and Arabian shawarmas. As a child, Aarti sometimes pretended to host a cooking show. She moved to the United States in 1996. People even nicknamed her "Showcase" because she loved to dance and perform.

Aarti wanted to be a journalist after watching CNN news about the Gulf War when she was young. She dreamed of working at CNN, just like journalist Christiane Amanpour. Aarti went to Northwestern University and graduated in 2000. She studied Broadcast Journalism and International Relations. She worked at the school's radio and TV stations. She also spent some time in Washington, D.C. covering the United States Congress. Aarti said her school was tough, but it made her feel stronger and ready for challenges.

Early Career Journey

Just two weeks after graduating, Aarti started working at CNN in Chicago. A year later, she moved to CNN's office in New York City. She worked as a producer and helped cover the September 11 attacks. She produced stories about firefighters and economic news. She was later promoted to a segment producer.

Aarti worked for CNN until 2003. In 2004, she moved to Los Angeles, California, to be with her husband, Brendan McNamara, who was an actor. She did some freelance work for CNN, but it was hard to find steady jobs. She started to feel like she wanted a different career than journalism. She said it felt like she had "lost her identity," but she found comfort in cooking.

Aarti began working on a documentary called Sand and Sorrow about the Darfur crisis. She started as an assistant and later became a co-producer. The documentary was released on HBO in 2007. During this time, Aarti became very interested in cooking. She received the Joy of Cooking cookbook as a wedding gift. Her cousin also gave her a gift certificate for a 12-week cooking program. Her husband enrolled her in the New School of Cooking in Culver City. She took professional cooking classes and even interned for a famous chef, Suzanne Goin, at her restaurant Lucques. But Aarti realized she didn't want to own a restaurant. She earned a professional certificate from the school in 2007.

A friend suggested Aarti start a cooking show on YouTube. At first, she wasn't sure about the idea. In 2008, she launched her online cooking show called Aarti Paarti and a food blog, AartiPaarti.com. The name "Aarti Paarti" came from her husband, who thought it would be easy to remember. After filming the first episode by herself, her husband helped her record the rest in their small apartment kitchen. She felt comfortable on camera because cooking shows felt less stressful than news stories.

Aarti made Indian and Middle Eastern dishes on her show, inspired by her childhood. The show also had funny parts and variety segments. Aarti would play the ukelele, belly dance, or even juggling. She said these fun bits helped attract different viewers, including teenage boys. Aarti also hosted cooking segments for GoodBite.com for about a year. At first, Aarti wondered if a cooking show was a good use of her journalism education. But a friend told her that a cooking show could inspire and inform people just as much as a good news story.

Aarti sometimes felt like she wasn't good enough in her early cooking videos. This is called imposter syndrome. She hadn't gone to a long culinary school program or worked in many restaurants. She also felt she wasn't "the most typical Indian" because she didn't grow up in India. She said her early videos were like an "experiment." Aarti openly talked about her self-doubt on her blog, which helped her gain more followers.

The Next Food Network Star

With encouragement from her husband, Aarti auditioned for The Next Food Network Star. This Food Network reality show gives the winner their own cooking show. In 2010, Aarti became a contestant on the sixth season. There were 12 contestants who competed in cooking and on-camera challenges. The Houston Chronicle said she was a "fan favorite" early on.

Even though Aarti had experience with her online show, she found the camera challenges very hard. Judges liked her bubbly personality, humor, and strong cooking skills. However, they often noticed her lack of self-confidence. Aarti faced 18 challenges over 10 weeks. She was almost eliminated twice but managed to stay on the show. The first time she was in danger, a judge told her she was a "frontrunner." This made her realize she needed to work harder.

Aarti won several weekly challenges. She won an Iron Chef-style cooking competition in the second-to-last episode. Judges like Cat Cora and Bobby Flay praised her for this win. In June 2010, before the finale aired, Aarti's name appeared on a list of chefs on the Food Network website. This made people guess she would win.

In the season finale on August 15, Aarti had to film a pilot episode for her possible TV show. Her pilot was called Aarti Party, based on her online show. Aarti felt more confident filming the pilot because there was no time limit or celebrity judges. A writer from Entertainment Weekly called her pilot "engaging and informative." Aarti was chosen as the winner of The Next Food Network Star. She beat the other finalists, Tom Pizzica and Herb Mesa.

A Food Network executive said Aarti has a rare mix of being a "passionate food expert" who is also "warm, radiant, fun, and relatable."

Food Network Career

The Food Network launched Aarti's six-episode cooking show, Aarti Party, on August 22, 2010. This was just one week after she won The Next Food Network Star. The show was about easy ways to add Indian flavors to American favorite dishes. She was also featured in Food Network Magazine and appeared at a food festival in New York City. The show was filmed in Culver City. Aarti had to create 40 recipes in one month, which she found challenging but good for her creativity. She used some recipes she had already shared on her blog. She had hoped her TV show would have fun variety elements like her online show, but there wasn't enough time. Aarti Party had a second and third season but was canceled after about a year.

In September 2012, Aarti was a main chef at a food festival in San Luis Obispo County, California. She hosted the show Taste in Translation and co-hosted Drop 5lbs with Good Housekeeping. Both shows started in January 2013 on the Cooking Channel. Aarti also hosted Hidden Eats, a travel series. She competed and won on other cooking shows like Cutthroat Kitchen All-Stars and Chopped All-Stars.

She is often a judge on cooking game shows like Guy's Grocery Games, hosted by Guy Fieri, and From Duff Til Dawn. Guy Fieri nicknamed Aarti "the spice queen" because she loves spices so much. She has also appeared on many other Food Network and Cooking Channel shows, including The Best Thing I Ever Ate and Guilty Pleasures. In November 2020, Aarti appeared on a special Thanksgiving episode of the Selena Gomez cooking show Selena + Chef on HBO Max. In that episode, Aarti helped Selena Gomez cook a Thanksgiving turkey for the first time. Since 2021, Aarti has been a judge on holiday cooking shows like Holiday Wars and Halloween Wars.

Aarti published a cookbook called Aarti Paarti: An American Kitchen with an Indian Soul in 2014. It became a Top 10 Indian cookbook on Amazon. She said the book was like an extension of her Aarti Party show and her family's recipe books. She hoped it would be a "gateway" for people to try Indian food. Her favorite recipe from the book is a ground beef dish called keema, which she makes often for her family. A food writer from the Los Angeles Times praised the book's fun approach to cooking. As of August 2022, Aarti was working on a new cookbook.

Aarti also released a book called My Family Recipe Journal: With Prayers and Scriptures. This book was inspired by the recipe journals she and her mother kept. She wanted it to help others write down their own family recipes and traditions. The book is color-coded and has 10 sections, with space for eight recipes in each part. Aarti has been a guest on several talk shows, including The Today Show and The Talk.

Personal Life

Aarti Sequeira has been married to actor Brendan "Bren" McNamara since 2003. They met while they were both students at Northwestern University. As of 2013, they lived in Mid City, Los Angeles. In 2020, her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Aarti and her husband have two daughters, Eliyah and Moses Marigold. Aarti experienced sadness after her first daughter was born. This led her to help other mothers who feel sad or have mood changes after having a baby. She works with an organization called Postpartum Support International.

Aarti is a Catholic and is very religious. Besides cooking, Aarti enjoys improvisational theatre and has taken classes for it. She said this helped her feel brave enough to post her first cooking videos online. She also loves music, Middle Eastern dance, and visiting art galleries. She is active on Instagram.

Filmography