Here in the Boothbay Region when we hear “Mumbai to Maine,” we immediately think of Mumbai native Cherie Scott who has been our friend and neighbor these past 14 years. We recall the exciting pilot for a future cooking show of the same name at Harbor Theater in December 2018. Scott shared her story that evening, a story that began in Mumbai, India, laced with the scent of spices aloft in the air, the street vendors; her family’s move to Canada, and Scott’s move to New York City, where she met her future husband, Guy Scott. And about their move to Boothbay.

In December 2020, Cherie Scott introduced her Mumbai to Maine gourmet Indian simmer sauces, handcrafted in her state-licensed home kitchen. Scott said each of the three sauces is “a journey in a jar mindfully bridging cultural divides, one sauce at a time.”

Scott’s journey as a taste maker began with a craving for the creamy coconut sauce caldine her mother made on Sundays. She wanted the scents of the spices – toasted coriander, cumin, Tellicherry peppercorns, Kashmiri chiles, and fine turmeric – from her childhood kitchen, in her kitchen. When she couldn’t find the recipe in her mother’s collection, she contacted her 80-year-old aunt on the western side of India in Goa, where Scott’s Portuguese Indian family is from. With the help of a younger family member, Scott’s aunt sent the recipe via What’s App.

The simmer sauce saag will take you to the North Indian state of Punjab. It is a lush vegetarian sauce of spinach, broccoli and spices. Open a jar of the creamy, buttery, peppery makhani simmer sauce and travel to the Indian subcontinent.

Within two weeks of her sauces being sold locally at Eventide Specialties in 2020, the sauces were in seven more locations, including Pinkham’s Gourmet Market, and in 30 Maine locations within months. Each 16-ounce jar of Scott’s gourmet sauces is retailed at approximately $15.

Last July, there was a soft nationwide launching of Mumbai to Maine gourmet Indian simmer sauces. Scott said she didn’t want a huge influx of orders – her kitchen is big, but it’s not that big!

“Sales through Thanksgiving and Christmas were good, but, you know, destiny has always come to find me ...”

Non-stop popularity

Find her it did. Dec. 28, Kathy Gunst, resident chef of NPR’s “Here and Now,” with 5.5 million listeners nationwide, told her listeners across the country about the excellent peppery goodness of a meal she made one night with Scott’s makhani sauce, some chicken thighs and basmati rice. Gunst told Scott she thought it was “an extremely sophisticated, evolved authentic sauce” to have come out of a jar.

Gunst called Scott before the show aired to give her a heads up. Gunst wanted to make sure Scott was ready.

“I told her I was ready,” Scott recalled. “Kathy said, ‘Yes, but this is NPR,’ and I said I’m totally ready. (Laughs) I was thinking we’d get 30 orders … well, in 59 seconds of Kathy being on air, my website just blew up! I call it my Christmas miracle – and it’s been non-stop since then.”

Scott received 200-plus orders from the broadcasts of that “Here & Now” episode. And she wrote email responses to every person to thank them and to let them know it might take a while before they received their sauces. Scott explained she made every jar herself, toasted and ground the authentic Indian spices, and simmered each batch on her stove for eight hours in her home kitchen.

“Within minutes, I started receiving responses. Each person saying how excited they were for me and how excited they were to be part of the startup. They didn’t mind waiting!” Scott said. “I did not leave my kitchen for eight days straight; 98% of those orders were variety simmer sauce packs, some orders were two (to) three packs to one customer! “They were buying one pack for themselves and sending others to friends and family across the country. It is so special to know something that came from your heart, your heritage, a deep desire to fulfill a nostalgic craving – and that is an homage to your mother – is connecting with the rest of the country!”

The sauces were packed and mailed by Guy, who divvied up the orders among the post offices in Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb and Damariscotta; UPS was used as well as Coastal Shipping in Edgecomb.

Scott said the NPR soundbite was part of a confluence of events that included a shout out in the January AAA Northern New England magazine. She received plenty of emails from that publicity, too. Many people said they had heard the NPR show. And Mumbai to Maine was mentioned as one of the “Most Memorable Food Moments of 2021” on Here & Now by chef Gunst.

“I’d gone nationwide, from my kitchen. It’s just my two hands from start to finish. Guy asks ‘Did I have to chose the most costly, labor intensive, complex sauces?’ And I say, yes – or what would be the point?”

And Scott uses nothing but the finest imported spices in those complex, labor-intensive, costly spices from an Indian spice company with a U.S. distributor. Around the Dec. 2, 2020, launch, Scott received a phone call from Bangor Savings/Elevating Voices about being one of 12 aspiring entrepreneurs being awarded $5,000. After that call (and one to her lawyer to make Mumbai to Maine an LLC) Scott got in her car, in the middle of a snowstorm, and drove to a Portland business where she bought $1,700 worth of the most expensive, whole Indian spices they had.

“Literally, I had spices loaded into the back of my car at night. In a parking lot, in the back of a building … like a drug deal – it was hilarious!” said Scott. 

Kim Martin, owner of Eventide Specialties in Boothbay Harbor, said the sauces sell very well and many people come in for it to support Scott. “I think (the sauces) are all lovely; and each one is so distinctive – and versatile,” Martin said. “They sell very well.”

Scott said of the sauces, “When you open that jar, you will be transported to the coast of India. I simmer them for eight hours, but you can enjoy them in eight minutes … jar to table.”

The next step is to move the business into a commercial building because Scott needs the space to meet demand. But, she added, she is being very strategic about these next steps and is moving at a slow, methodical pace. With expansion in mind, Scott made a pitch to Greenlight Maine, Season 7. Cash prizes are $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000. The week of Jan. 17, Scott received word Mumbai to Maine was in the top 10. “I will only find out top three once I get through the taping of the first round in the first week of February.”

And there’s more exciting news: Scott was recently notified Mumbai to Maine, LLC has been nominated as one of UpStart Maine’s Most Exciting Startups of 2021! The board has chosen women in business as the focus of this year’s award.

It’s hard to fathom how this mother of two, wife, with a full-time job with a top marketing firm in Portland; host of Lincoln Theater’s Talking Food in Maine: Intimate Conversations; blogs; a chef with the Milk Street Live Online Cooking Class (next one is March 15 with a 15% discount code); and more – juggles it all, yet she does. But she will tell you she could not do it without Guy.

“We are a team. My husband Guy literally helps me do everything and to balance all of it, too. We are a dynamic duo; this is not ‘me’ and ‘my.’ It’s ‘us.’”

For more on Mumbai to Maine, LLC and what’s cooking with Cherie Scott, visit https://mumbaitomaine.com