Vimala Cooks Everybody Eats: Domesticity, Community, and Empowerment Public Deposited

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Last Modified
  • March 22, 2019
Creator
  • Hilliard, Emily
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of American Studies, Folklore Program
Abstract
  • Nearly once a week for 12 years, Vimala Rajendran, joined by her husband, and volunteers, hosted Indian community dinners out of her home to approximately175 donation-paying guests. In June of 2010, Vimala opened a restaurant, Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe, in downtown Chapel Hill, relocating her underground kitchen, community, volunteers, and family helpers to a more formal place of business. This thesis addresses how through her dinners, Vimala constructed a "purposeful domesticity" and examines how in her home kitchen and restaurant kitchen she creates shifting and multiple visions of "home" through food, community, and expressions of "creative ethnicity." Vimala's transition from an underground economy to a public local restaurant provides an example for an investigation of the possibilities and hardships of sustaining an alternative, feminist, community-supported economy.
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Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Ferris, Marcie Cohen
  • Sawin, Patricia
  • Berger, Michele
Degree
  • Master of Arts
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2011
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Hilliard_unc_0153M_12223.pdf 2019-04-08 Public
A short student documentary about Vimala Rajendran's transition from underground home community dinners to a community-supported home-cooking restaurant, Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe in downtown Chapel Hill, NC. By Emily Hilliard. 2019-04-08 Public