I never promise that cooking would be easy, but I do promise that if you hang out with me, the food would be great!

Your goal is not reading recipes or cooking dishes. You cook for your family and friends, and you bask in glory when they are happy and satisfied and appreciate you. It makes you proud.

While talking with her friends on food and cooking, Bhawana Srivastava realized that it was difficult to understand the ingredients and follow directions for cooking Indian dishes on recipe Web sites, especially for people of non-Indian origin. After conducting some informal user research, she came up with three insights:

1. People need more information about the ingredients – what they are, why they are used, and where to buy them.

2. The steps in the recipes need detailed directions – if you want a certain result, you have to do it a certain way.

3. The community needs a place to share their views and ask questions – the sharing aspect needed to be given a prominent place on the user interface.

ProudCooks.com is Bhawana’s brainchild. Her goal is to make it easy for everyone to cook Indian dishes and share their views and tips. If you love cooking for family and friends, this Web site is for you.

Bhawana has an MBA degree and is trained as an instructional designer. She lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two kids.