ABIGAIL NUNES

Culinarian Inspired By Generations

By IG Team

Images - Abigail Nunes

Abigail Nunes always wanted to follow her dream of being a chef. She entered this field because she was always passionate about cooking and baking from a young age. Her mom has been a great Goan traditional cook and her grandma was a great baker so they have been an inspiration to her.

She had a Vibrant perspective for her career choice of being a Culinary artist. She completed her BSc in home science, Food nutrition, and dietetics from IHM Goa and Food production and pâtissier She always saw herself as a chef and after all her genuine efforts she is the one.

She also said if she had to choose some another field of Career rather than being a chef, she would be a food technologist A cake beater, personnel knife, rolling pin, Cake turntable, and Paintbrush are some of the magical biddies that accompany her in this Beautiful business she runs.

While thinking back to her story, and why she chose to be a baker/ cake artist she said“So, 10 years back I baked my first cake for my sister which was on a Sunday, and we served our church group the finishing of the cake wasn’t that great though, don't have a lot of experience in cake icing was just seeing YouTube channels and observe at work, but I bet the taste of it was amazing as all of the church members loved it.

Since then I have got the confidence that I should be baking quite often”.

As every Chef is Foodie first and we got to ask her about what are her favorite and Go-ToComfort Food choices and she Joyfully confessed-

Pasties de Nata

Chicken wings in any form

Goan beef roast

Fruit salad

Goan fish curry rice anytime

Abigail Nunes has gone through a lot of experiences- she took this interview as a Runthrough of her story. She retorted“I always wanted to be a chef by profession. For that, I wanted to do a degree course in

IHM-goa but I could not afford it. Nevertheless, I chose home science but still, I knew I wouldn’t get to do an internship in a 5-star hotel at all. But things started with something and I saw myself doing a job where I had to demonstrate how to use an oven. I started my career in baking by teaching people how to bake since I had no experience I was just seeing YouTube channels trying out different cake recipes using my grandma's techniques etc

I desired to be a pastry chef After working for 3 years by demonstrating to people I finally saved up some money and did a 1.5-year IHM course. I did my internship in Cidade goa. Could not continue in the hotel industry as there were many steps in being a chef and it did not pay me that well I was okay with it at the same time I needed income.

So as a next step, I worked as a Quality control officer in a well-known Bakery. Looking into the quality of pieces of bread, cakes, etc but wasn’t making the products But I did observe a lot of techniques throughout the Job I did there.

But like it’s said that God sees the Efforts but waits, something happened to me like Miracle, I got Promoted from quality control executive to cake artist and store manager in the same bakery I delivered over 50+ flavors of cake Work was getting very stressful as it was decorating cakes and looking after the entire store

So, I took the risk of leaving the job and starting to bake and cook from home I opened up a small fast-food restaurant (Cozinha de Nunes) meaning the kitchen of the Nunes and started selling some Goan food street food also used to bake cakes with the services.

It wasn’t easy but I knew the hard work paid the best price Finally, I'm a pastry chef in a café and also run my fast food in Old Goa ”

The menu at her fast food station is decorated with traditional Goan options, all the Kitchen activities are still used traditional methods, including grinding masalas on the stone.

Even though there is a lot of competition since covid there are many home bakers, in the end, I believe in satisfying the taste of people once you satisfy the taste of your food to your customers. I don't think competition should even matter she never sees anyone as in the competition or never has thought of falling from the market. She cooks with love and delivers with love and that’s the best thing about home cooks and home bakers where she perfectly Fits.

Abigail Nunes is famous and much loved by her customers because of the variety in kids of cakes she serves. Some of her specialties are-

Chocolate rum cake

Chocolate mousse cake

Brownies

Christmas cakes

Goan Christmas sweets

She at last was lovely enough to share her optimistic energies with the aspiring young chefs and commented“If you ' re passionate about something and never give up it may take years to reach the place where you have seen yourself Sometimes disappointing situations lead you to give up but be patient, work hard, and trust the process and you will get there. Love what you do”.