About

I am an independent international development consultant — which is a formal way of saying I don't always have work. When I do, I travel across continents. When I don't, I keep myself busy with things I love: cooking, woodworking, restoring a 60-year-old classic car, and making cheese. Ottawa is where my family is rooted. Making ponir is not my career. It is something closer to a calling — the kind of thing you do because you cannot imagine not doing it.

I grew up in Dhaka, but every chance I got to leave the city for the villages of Bangladesh, I took it. My mother's family has roots close to Aushtogram, in Kishoreganj, and we have always been a close family. Some of my earliest food memories are tied to that part of the country — and to the soft, slightly salty white ponir that has been made in Aushtogram for generations.

My mother taught me to eat it in ways I still return to. Sliced plain. With bakharkhani — that crumbly, layered tandoor-baked bread — or with toast biscuits, or parathas and eggs for breakfast. Fried golden as a snack, or softened under hot rice and eaten with dal. I am always finding new ways. That is part of what keeps this interesting.

When I moved to Canada in 2018, that taste disappeared from my life. What passes for ponir here is not the same thing. So I went looking.

I started the way I start most things — by researching. I watched cheese-making videos obsessively. I read about techniques, changed ingredients, made batches, rewatched the videos, read again, made more batches. YouTube was genuinely helpful. Every batch taught me something. I kept going back and forth between making and learning until I was fairly happy with what I was producing — but not entirely. I am not sure I ever will be entirely happy. That gap between where I am and where I want to be is what keeps me making.

It was only after I had been making for a while that I reached out through my Aushtogram cousins to the artisan who had been supplying our family in Dhaka for years. Watching him work, asking questions, seeing the details up close — it filled in things no video could teach. I also discovered that the bamboo baskets used to press and shape the cheese were nearly impossible to find in Dhaka. I had them custom made, sized to 500 grams rather than the traditional one kilogram. Every basket is handmade, and so every wheel is slightly different. The size varies a little too. I don't consider this a flaw. It is the nature of anything genuinely handcrafted.

I started making ponir for myself. But the more I made, the more I wanted to improve — and to improve meaningfully I needed to make more often. To make more often I needed a reason beyond my own consumption. So I started sharing. The response from Ottawa's Bangladeshi community told me everything I needed to know.

Alongside the traditional craft I bring modern food safety practices and techniques to my process — not to change what this cheese is, but to ensure that every wheel delivers the same quality and consistency, no matter the season.

If you grew up eating this cheese, I think you will recognize it immediately. If you have never tasted it, I hope it becomes something you did not know you were missing.

Welcome to The Ponir Journal.