Nuclear explosions of the culinary kind

Some people cook awesome food. Not only lick your fingers, you can happily lick your plates too. It’s that tasty. My Ma also falls into that category (and I guess all moms do). Unfortunately I don’t. If given a chance I can easily burn water as well.

Looking back, my culinary timeline looks something like this:

11 years old – tried making puri, after watching Jhumka (who used to come in evenings to cook) the previous day. One advantage I always had was since both parents were working, I only had my paternal grandmother to keep an eye over me in the afternoons after school. And she preferred keeping her eyes closed in deep sleep between 2-4pm. Without digressing, the puris came out like rock plates, the oil and dough wasted, and I was left with a burned hand. I still remember my howling gathered everyone from the adjacent flat. I was forbidden to go anywhere near the gas burner without supervision. Sharma Aunty gossiped about it for a week.

13 years old - made Maggi for the first time. Everyone liked it (atleast they said they did). Got really enthusiastic and next time experimented with it adding egg, and vinegar. Even my dog refused to sniff. High hopes of eating it.  

Was too traumatized by rejection to try my hand in anything other than play video games for two years… also got addicted to watching afternoon cooking program on DD (we didn’t have Travel and Living in those days to teach us world cuisine and cable was new, too expensive and absolutely unaffordable). 

16 years old – after gaining enough theoretical knowledge, baked a cake. Started the recipe from scratch. Actually churned the butter out of the cream and made the batter (after all, that’s the sign of a real, gourmet cook). 15 minutes into the oven, the batter started making strange noises and to my horror the cake started rising. Now cakes are supposed to rise, even breads, buns and biscuits are supposed to do the same. But if my kitchen was a Roald Dahl book, my cake would have risen like that a mountain. Back to real world, it was scary cause 1. I was doing it after 3 years and desperately wanted to succeed 2. I had used up all my pocket money in buying the ingredients and if this didn’t go well, I was going to be broke 3. I was scared of Ma, it was suppose to be a pleasant surprise for her but the way it was going, it looked otherwise 4. It looked like the oven was also going to burst if the cake continued to have its way…

And then there was the nuclear explosion of the culinary kind. Thankfully the oven didn’t burst, but the cake did. It committed suicide by erupting like a volcano and oodles of vanilla scented liquid (which was later classified as ghee) started coming out. The dead cake deflated into a dense ball and with it, deflated my hopes of becoming a good cook. 

After much analysis by Ma and my pest younger sister over peals of laughter (much to my chagrin), it was inferred that I had not churned the cream well enough and put too much baking soda. The ghee was used to cook gajar halwa and my dad commented slowly over the dinner table that the halwa tasted like vanilla essence (I wanted to creep below the table and disappear)

21 years old – tea, omlette and Maggi were safe zones now. Time to move to higher pastures I decided. Baked chocolate éclairs for my first crush. The cream and icing came out fine, but the bread…err… no comments.

In last two years things have been on an uphill though. But if the record is anything to go buy, I am sure X may decide to kill me over eating home cooked food for straight three days. Incase you do X, you can have my world movies that you are searching the shops for… 

Live to Eat

On Thursday everybody in the office had three things on their computer screens:
a travel website giving weekend options
rakhi card websites
online games and orkut
It was the last working day of the week and everyone- including me was looking toward the long weekend – Friday to Sunday, official holiday. Gods are being kind and we have Independence Day, rakshabandhan and Sunday all in a row!

Unlike my colleagues, I was not going out anywhere (since I figured I am going to bump into the same lot there too- everyone was fleeing to weekend retreats). I have no brother in town so rakshabandhan too was going to be limited to phone calls, I had my itinerary ready – sleep, eat, watch TV, read, listen to radio, sleep, eat… basically the order kept on repeat. It was a jolt, therefore, to find out that Saturday (today) was going to be a busy day.

Saturday early morning got two phone calls – my landlady decided to celebrate her 25th marriage anniversary (now I really salute all you couples out there… I can’t even think how I will stay alive for 25 years … forget stay married). It was a dinner invitation. Gran ma called next. Last week being Y’s birthday, she wished to take us out for lunch. Now even though I planned to rot at home like an alligator, I admit, I was surprised and relieved. I won’t have to cook food and no utensils to wash- Yippee! Today was going to be a great day…

It is close to eleven thirty now and I came back from that dinner an hour ago. And I feel like a python, yes a python that has swallowed an oversized prey and can’t move. Much to my embarrassed and surprise (at my eating capacity), I ponder over the list of trash that has gone in:
- breakfast – aloo puri
- lunch – galouti kabab, mutton kadai, chicken curry, biryani, rice, rabri, fresh lime soda
- dinner – chana dal, cake, lachcha parantha, mutton korma, malai kofta, fish roll, sandesh, icecream and rasgulla.

Phew! No wonder more than love, money and world peace, all I want right now (as I clutch my growling tummy) is pudinhara!