How an Indian food writer broke traditions to amass a huge following in US

In his deeply personal debut cookbook, "Season," Nik Sharma tells his story as a gay immigrant reconciling his past and present

The food writer Nik Sharma was 8 when he made his first pot of rice. It was a disaster.

He found a bottle of Rooh Afza, a rose-flavored concentrated syrup popular throughout South Asia, in the studio apartment in the Bandra neighborhood of Mumbai, India, where he grew up in the late 1980s. Though Rooh Afza is typically mixed into cold water or milk, Mr. Sharma had other plans. “I remember thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you put the Rooh Afza in the rice so it smelled like roses?’” he said.

The syrup turned the rice an atomic pink hue. It