Kitchen "Kursed"

For all these days of not exercising my grey cells to pen down a few words or to even think about a topic to ponder over ( or for that matter to even attempt reading anything remotely interesting!) I am glad to know today at least that I have one great woe of mine to share with you all. I don’t know how many women share this with me because my revelation hereby is not going to find me a great number of female allegiances as far as the woe of cooking is considered.

Yes friends, I apparently belong to that category of women (gawk at me or not!) who particularly do not take immense self pride in saying that “ I know how to cook Chicken biriyani and Paneer Mutter Masala and Chocolate truffle pudding all within a matter of two hours!” (My dad has a reputation of doing the same though, precisely speaking, a bigger number of dishes within the same time span!) because firstly I don’t know how to cook all the aforementioned and many more items and secondly why waste energy, time and sweat for a party when these can be readily ordered as takeaways from a nearby restaurant!

As far as my culinary skills are concerned I can quip up things more than just for my survival but I vehemently yet unwarily turn a blind eye towards actually crushing ginger and garlic in a mortar and just add plain “apna” readymade ginger garlic paste. Well of course the former does tingle the taste buds better than the latter but really why do I want to feel relaxed eating my own chicken curry when I have already perspired a litre in the furnace called kitchen in the heat of the Indian summer, when I can treat myself royally to Chicken Ghee Roast from a deli and pamper myself like a baby.

But I have always and still dream of having my own food show someday, a food travelogue combining the two most fulfilling entities of human life: food and travel. I don’t watch Nigella Lawson and Curtis Stone without a tad of envy , I find Bourdain a little too adventurous for my taste, and Kelly’s Chinese cooking is, erm well, a little complicated for my brains. My green aura doesn’t even spare Kairali’s Lakshmi Nair! The colors, the textures, the cacophony of tastes that could have probably melted into my palate had I been blessed with immense patience and culinary intelligence never forget to drift me into the hedonistic world of FOOD!

Lets say I am a wannabe Epicurean. A wannabe who is too lazy and clumsy and shallow to try to enter the kitchen. The only shows that I would probably stop on while surfing the television (which I rarely watch nowadays) are cookery shows but when my mother orders and sometimes requests(which almost borders reprimanding and later on imploring) to help her in the kitchen, all that I end up doing are: a) wash the dishes and b)sit on the cabinet comfortably and gossip with my poor mother who has to manage grinding, frying, washing and gossiping simultaneously making her Superman’s Twin Sister!
They say , the dominant gene of either parents definitely gets transmitted to their offspring as far as Mendel’s rules of genetics goes by. Even Mendel will go Mental seeing how I have connivingly disproved his theory as far as the disposition of my “cooking genes” are concerned. Both my parents and to an extent my brother are excellent chefs. They quip up the most innovative and lip smacking dishes in just hours. My brother has a special knack of making a continental dish out of, lets say, even biscuits and chocolate powder which makes me look like a fat and frustrated middle aged sister!
Today evening my friend narrated out the recipe of Paneer chilly over phone and as she ranted and raved on enthusiastically about how thick every piece of onion chopped should be I was dreaming away as to how I would write about it! Silly as it sounds, I replied back with an impish grin, “You are so talented!” At the end of the conversation I only remembered that Paneer chilly was supposed to have paneer diced as cubes in it (Or is it!) Another friend of mine who talks about preparing Idlis and dosas in Australia for breakfast, almost has me on the verge of tears, when I come to a self realization that I am a loser for a woman.
Then, I shake up from the ego smashing rut and muster my guts up and tell myself, that I am going to take over the reins from Lawson and mesmerize everyone with my food and charms ( provided if I have any by then!) and be The Queen of Food , someday… And then I think about having to patiently wait and stir onions till they are fried crisp golden brown over a hot stove till my hunger is suppressed with the smell of a materializing dish and physical fatigue and immediately I thank God for home deliveries with all my heart as I thank Him for electricity and anaesthesia.
P.S: Don’t stop visiting my place hereon. You shall never leave hungry. What are restaurants for anyways ;)