休假办公：风投家从初创企业到香料烹饪中汲取灵感
内容总结：
【科技精英的厨房哲学】西雅图风险投资人维韦克·拉萨里亚的烹饪人生
在西雅图科技圈，先锋广场实验室的普通合伙人维韦克·拉萨里亚白天致力于孵化和投资初创企业，而脱下西装后，他的双手最常触碰的是面粉与香料。这位印度裔投资人的烹饪热情源于乡愁——童年时家中经营磨坊，母亲与祖母的厨艺是他记忆里的温暖底色。"移居美国后，唯有亲手复刻家乡味道才能缓解思念"，拉萨里亚坦言最初的烹饪纯粹出于生存需求。
如今他的厨艺早已超越家乡菜范畴：从手工意面到台湾小吃，从慢炖肉食到葱油饼，家中七周大的女儿已成为他系着婴儿背带下厨时最年轻的"品鉴师"。疫情期间，他更在旧金山两家餐厅实践专业厨艺，还曾与友人举行为期三天的慈善快闪餐厅，将所得全数捐献。
尽管烹饪带给他的满足感远超预期——"当大脑终日处理抽象的投资决策时，亲手制作美食的即时反馈令人沉醉"，但这位投资人并无意转行。在他看来，后厨终日站立的高强度工作会消磨热爱，而科技与烹饪实则存在共通哲学："优质食材是美味根基，正如优秀团队是创业核心。无论是陌生菜谱还是创新项目，过度思虑不如立即行动。"
正如他家中总飘着食物香气的工作室，拉萨里亚正计划在西雅图复制快闪餐厅的盛况，继续用锅铲调和数字与烟火，在科技与人文的交叉点烹饪人生。
中文翻译：
《职场之外》是GeekWire新推出的系列专栏，聚焦西雅图科技圈成员在工作之余热衷的爱好与副业。
- 人物：维韦克·拉德萨里亚
- 主业：西雅图先锋广场实验室普通合伙人兼董事总经理，作为风险投资人协助创建初创企业并进行投资
- 职场外热情：烹饪
在印度成长的岁月里，美食是文化的重要部分，维韦克·拉德萨里亚自幼便在家中耳濡目染。他的家族经营着磨坊，会购买小麦研磨成面粉。他常观看母亲和祖母烹饪，享用并热爱她们制作的食物。
“移居美国后，我无比怀念那些味道，而除了自己学习复刻，根本没有途径再尝到家乡菜，”拉德萨里亚坦言，“正是那时我开始认真钻研烹饪——因为我太需要那些食物了。可以说这完全是出于生活必需。”
他的品味与技艺早已超越童年挚爱的菜肴。如今他擅长制作意大利面与台湾美食，喜欢慢火炖肉或使用高级比萨烤箱。在最近的聚餐午餐上，他带来了亲手制作的葱油饼。
拉德萨里亚与妻子坚持在家烹饪每餐饭。随着七周大女儿的降生，他常在厨房“身挂”幼女下厨，并鼓励她品尝正在烹制的食物。
疫情期间居住旧金山时，趁妻子忙于医疗工作，拉德萨里亚曾先后在Merchant Roots与Sushi Hakko两家餐厅工作，以此保持忙碌状态。
“那段经历让我的厨艺真正实现了飞跃，”他说，“此前我只是享受烹饪过程，但总会弄得一团糟。而在餐厅我学会了系统化操作，变得高效专业。”
他还与友人共同策划快闪餐厅，耗费两月研发菜单，连续三日为宾客献艺。所得收益全部捐给慈善机构，被拉德萨里亚称为人生中最珍贵的经历之一，并计划在西雅图复刻这一模式。
不过，这位热衷为初创创始人举办私宴的投资者，并无意转行投身厨房。“厨师需要终日站立，疲惫程度超乎想象，”他解释道，“这份热情可能很快消磨殆尽。”
问及最大收获，他表示主业需要高度脑力劳动，有时难免抽象且缺乏实时反馈，而亲手烹饪则截然不同：“我痴迷这种即时反馈——每个操作的效果立竿见影，努力与回报环环相扣，这种亲手创造的满足感如此真实。”
对他而言，烹饪的快乐更在于款待他人：“美食能凝聚人心，构建社群。通过操办盛宴，我既满足了创作欲，又将人们紧密相连。”
他将烹饪哲学融入职场思考：“佳肴关键在于优质食材与恰当处理，正如初创企业的核心是优秀人才——人才就是构建企业的‘食材’。”
无论是尝试新菜谱还是面对棘手创业构想，他建议切忌过度思虑：“人们容易因畏惧而却步，但只要稍作研究、专注投入，你就能创造奇迹。”
【延伸阅读】
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英文来源：
Out of Office is a new GeekWire series spotlighting the passions and hobbies that members of the Seattle-area tech community pursue outside of work.
- Name: Vivek Ladsariya.
- Day job: General partner and managing director at Seattle’s Pioneer Square Labs, where he helps create and invest in startups as a venture capital investor.
- Out-of-office passion: Cooking.
Growing up in India, food was a big part of the culture and something that Vivek Ladsariya was immersed in at home.
His family had a flour mill and would buy wheat grain to grind it into flour. He watched his mother and grandmother cook, and he ate and enjoyed their food.
“When I moved to the U.S., I missed it tremendously, and there was no real way to get some of that home food except to learn how to cook it,” Ladsariya said. “That’s when I started to really learn how to cook all of those things, because I needed that food to consume. So, it was very much born out of necessity.”
His taste and skill goes beyond making the dishes he loved as a boy. He makes pastas and Taiwanese food. He likes to slow cook meat or use his fancy pizza oven. During a recent potluck lunch he made scallion pancakes.
Ladsariya and his wife cook every meal at home, and with a 7-week-old daughter, he finds himself “wearing” her around the kitchen while he’s cooking, encouraging her to taste what he’s making.
During the pandemic while living in San Francisco, Ladsariya got the chance to work in two restaurants — Merchant Roots and Sushi Hakko — as a chance to stay busy while his wife was busy with her healthcare job.
“I think that’s when my cooking game really elevated,” he said. “Up until then I enjoyed cooking, but I’d create a mess. Then I got really organized in the kitchen. I became really efficient.”
With a friend, Ladsariya also put together a pop-up restaurant in which they spent two months researching and prepping a menu and cooking for guests over three days. The proceeds went to charity, and Ladsariya called it one of the favorite times of his life. It’s a process he plans to repeat in Seattle.
But Ladsariya, who enjoys hosting smaller dinners for startup founders, has no plans to leave his day job for a life in the kitchen.
“You’re standing on your feet the entire day and you are unbelievably exhausted,” he said. “I think it’d get old really quickly, and I’d lose the love for this.”
Most rewarding aspect of this pursuit: Ladsariya said that his day job is so high level and “in the brain” that it can sometimes can be abstract and lacking in the real-time feedback that he gets from working with his hands.
“I just fell in love with that aspect of cooking,” he said. “Everything you do is right there, you get the evidence of whether you did it well or not right away. The effort, the reward — that loop is just so instant and real and gratifying to work with your hands.”
And it’s not about feeding himself. For Ladsariya, the joy of cooking comes from feeding others.
“It’s the bringing people together, the community and all of that that food enables,” he said. “I’m able to provide a great meal and bring together people with something that scratches my creative desires.”
The lessons he brings back to work: Ladsariya finds a connection between how he thinks about cooking and how he thinks about startups.
“Cooking is really about high quality ingredients and not messing it up,” he said. “More often than not, bad food comes from bad ingredients. And I think the same is true for startups. As long as you have a good group of people, they can do something good. People are the ingredients of startup building.”
Furthermore, whether it’s a dish he’s never made or a startup idea that’s especially daunting, it’s best not to overthink things and just do it.
“It’s easy to be intimidated and say, ‘Oh, I have no idea how to do that or where to even start,'” Ladsariya said. “But with a little bit of research and work and just committing to it, you can do pretty incredible things.”
Read more Out of Office profiles.
Do you have an out-of-office hobby or interesting side hustle that you’re passionate about that would make for a fun profile on GeekWire? Drop us a line: [email protected].