Tara Kitchen

Hello birdie! 😍

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Fun activity!

Catch me today at 2:00pm on WAMC Northeast Public Radio

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25 years ago today, I was living in the West Village and working for Quad Graphics in Midtown in their imaging department.

I remember that morning with an almost uncomfortable clarity. The first tower. The second tower. The chaos. The streets. The feeling in the air. And thinking, this is going to change the world.

It did.

It changed the world, and in ways I couldn’t possibly understand that day, it changed me too.

If someone had told me 25 years ago that one day I would own a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, in Tribeca, just blocks from where all of this happened, I would have thought they were crazy. And yet here I am.

Every time I walk out of Tara Kitchen and see the new World Trade Center, I am transported right back to that day. It still feels bizarre to me. And somehow, incredibly, beautiful too in the resilience this city continues to show.

This photograph feels like a strange full circle—the past, the present, and everything that happened in between.

I don’t have a profound lesson today. Just gratitude to be here. And remembrance for everyone who didn’t get the chance to see what came after.

25 years. I remember. ❤️‍🩹

Back to school feels VERY different in our house this year. ❤️

For the first time, Muntasim and I are sending our girls off to school in NYC. Zoya and Suha are starting at Manhattan Center for Science and Math, Manhattan Center and watching them begin this new journey has been such a mix of emotions.

They’ve grown up in our restaurants. They’ve watched us build, struggle, celebrate, start over and keep going. Now they get to have a new kind of adventure of their own — a new school, a new city, new friends, new experiences and educational opportunities we hope will open doors for them that we couldn’t even imagine.

And honestly, watching them step into that world makes me incredibly excited for what’s ahead.

For nearly 20 years, Upstate New York has been home. It’s where Muntasim and I built Tara Kitchen, raised our girls and created a life I’m incredibly proud of.

Over the next few months, we’ll be closing our Troy and Guilderland locations, leaving Schenectady as our one remaining Upstate location. It’s bittersweet, but mostly I feel grateful.

Because I don’t feel like we’re ending something.

I feel like we’re making room to start something new.

I’m putting my energy into Tribeca, a new restaurant concept, my government and community work, and a few new adventures Muntasim and I have been dreaming about — Tara Journeys, Tara Wrap and finally writing that book I’ve been talking about forever. 😂

We don’t have the whole plan figured out. We never really have. 😂

But we’ve built a pretty incredible life by taking the next step and seeing where it takes us.

So here we go.

New city. New chapter. New dreams. ❤️🗽✨

Wishing all the kids a beautiful, fruitful, happy school year ❤️

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For this year’s CHEFS: Big Apple, I’m putting my own spin on one of Morocco’s most iconic dishes — Bastilla — reimagined with the incredible local harvest of New York.

Moroccan tradition + New York ingredients + a great cause. ❤️

Come taste what happens when two places I love meet on one plate!

📍 September 29 | Albany Capital Center
🎟️ Tickets benefit the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.

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