Tuesday, July 6, 2010

CookShetra X X X

Armed with a cutting board as shield and a knife as sword, I raided the fridge. Dragged the aalu, tomatoes and threw it in boiling water. I held the onion at the edge of my sword and tried to cut out through its heart. But it kept slipping out. After a tearful fight with it, I managed to tear it to pieces.
After the army of vegetables were taken care of I was face to face with the masala-putras. I knew I had to burn them with the vegetables. Gasping and coughing through their force I buried a few of them too.


Once I burnt all of them together and was prepared to taste my victory over them my husbandeshwar walks in to tell me I was fighting the wrong battle.


That’s my cookshetra. An everyday battle. An everyday journey.


It started an year back.
- Understanding how the spices taste

- lal mirchi, dhaniya powder and haldi are not the only masalas

- after a lot of over cooking and undercooking I finally have a hang of time

- fighting through the maze of daals, I finally understand their identity

- I cook things other than aalu, capsicaum and bhindi

- I cried when it turned out yuck(which was quite a few times). Now I have times when I smile a lot

- It took me hours to get through dal sabzi and roti. Now its like second nature.



Somewhere during this journey I fell in love. I fell in love with cooking. It was like the cliché, where the guy and girl meet in a journey . Initially they hate the sight of each other and then when they understand the uniqueness and fun . They fall in love.


That learning process made me concentrate. Made me appreciate the different flavors. Made me want to experiment. It gave me the same thrill as dancing. That’s quite a thing to say.



Also, being a leo it got to my ego when people said “I can’t cook. “ “It tastes bad”. When others laughed.Even if I had not liked it just to prove it that it ain’t that big a deal, I would have learnt cooking. But fortunately I enjoyed it and am loving it.


I love exploring new dishes. Trying out stuff, which my hubby never likes. But the satisfaction I get after making a new thing is unbeatable.


Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.
Harriet Van Horne

On a Tangent

3 friends.

3 friends who know each other since a long time.

3 friends who know so much about each other that it is frightening.

3 friends who can talk for hours together about everything under the sun.

3 Best friends.

But still, some conversations among us make me take a tangent to it. There has been a time that I simply dozed off. I don’t listen to the conversation I start pondering. I am amused many times.

Probably the different paths that we have had, has created that frequency difference among us. The times and life that we have seen has been on different levels altogether.

Some things I might never understand. Some feelings I might never share.

But we still gel like a bowl of jelly beans. I guess we keep dropping and sticking to each other.

(And I cant find a single quote to suit this.. )