Lessons my mother said SKIP!!!!

It is Every Mother's right to keep her daughter away from the evil that she saw in the world and it is the dream of every rebellious daughter to see what you are not allowed to see.

Keeping aside a lot of things that a typical mother wouldn’t let her daughter do..... My mother did not teach me one thing and she had a good reason for it too...
She never taught me how to COOK.

As a child I could not even roast a papad, make maggi or omelets like how my close friends did. Every teenager knew how to make jellies, French fries and cup cakes and I was always the spoilt daughter without siblings having a fancy life...

Till one day I moved out of my home to be in a city to have a home of my own, a dream job selling exotic luxury products, wear a suit to work and have a car to drive you around and of course a Kitchen like the one little red riding hood's grandmother had.
I had a three burner gas stove, a microwave cum grill, a mixer, refrigerator and a conventional oven.
I took up the challenge of trying out dishes that I found exotic and seemed difficult to cook. Recipes were like a Math sum. The more data given the easier it was and exotic it tasted and looked. Apart from an elaborate Malayali vegetatian -Brown rice , “thoran” and “mezhukupurathiyathu” with “kachia moru” I could proudly come out with Kerala style fish and chicken fried and curried. And the most amazing prawn biriyani and Crab roast.

It was Christmas and I wanted to bake like anyone or maybe better than anyone else. I wanted to bake cakes for my loved ones on their special days. I mastered the recipe of the best white pound cake. I made peanut butter cookies, scones, shortbread cookies, lemon tarts.
I developed a sense to smell the curry and say if the meat was done or the bread was baked.

I remember food that I had tried out from different people like my mother makes the best of fish curry and my grandmother certain tomato chutney. An old Paying guesthouse had this awesome onion chutney.
Tamil nadu is where I have tasted the best “rasam” ever. A kerala Christian home, made the best “pidi” and chicken curry.

Some nice sweet dishes as well like the tender coconut pudding, cashew pudding and the caramel custard.
The best part of setting up a kitchen is to have the containers color coded, learn to read the dish care instructions, to have Microwave friendly dishes. In the process I have burnt a plastic container in the microwave. I still can’t forget the fuming microwave. I laughed and quoted Sylvia Plath.
"To annihilate the world by annihilation of one's self is the deluded height of desperate egoism. The simple way out of all the little brick dead ends we scratch our nails against.... I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb."I always wondered how it would have been to put my head in the oven instead of the not so microwave friendly dish.

Shopping for traditional utensils which I feel will soon get extinct...The coconut grater for a start… to red colors plates long forks
Choosing Meat, fish, vegetables.....To de vein to sauté to grill to bake. It’s always good to cook for yourself. It’s nice to eat what you like, add less of what you don’t like, keep a check on the fat oil and salt intake. It’s a lot cheaper and healthier.

You can always be the favorite chef amongst your friends and show off your culinary skills. You are never out of topic with elders you are busy sharing your recipes with them. I eat 2 meals out continuously and I miss my cooking the third time I do so.

I’m sure you must be wondering all this while why my mother would not have allowed me to be appreciated by friends, assent me to get compliments or even let me try to cook or bake like her.

She was the most amazing cook amongst all the aunts. It unfailingly became her responsibility to spend hours in the kitchen while others spend time dressing up for a function at home. Any relative who walks into my home even at midnight expected and got their elaborate spread on the dining table. Every member in the family relates to the midnight craving for sugar and we had our list of Paal rawa and coconut burfi. We were allowed to choose. One wanted the “dosa” with butter some without and the kids wanted them in shapes. I wanted the special tomato chutney, father with the chilli powder chutney and grandmother wouldn’t eat it without the “sambar”. And we never really cared how she liked it.

We find an extra lump in the vegetable, mismatch in the plates served, (I don’t know about others) but I could sense that it was food made to fill our stomach and just because it needed to be done.

The food made with passion reflects passion in taste, presentation, warmth.

Next time you put anything in your mouth wait a second and think if the chef was under compulsion or it was a manifest of passion …:-)