For someone who dislikes cooking, I sure do love to eat!
The few times that I’ve cooked in adulthood are the times I’ve taken pictures of the dishes I made and uploaded them on Facebook: almost as if it’s proof enclosed.
I haven’t been the type of person who cooks in emergencies. I’ve usually cooked at odd periods of time in life when I’ve been on some self-improvement spree, trying to pick up basic life skills so that I don’t perish in the absence of a cook.
In my 20s and 30s, colleagues have shared their 20-minute recipes with me, and I’ve gone home after work to try the dish out and report back to them the following day. These experiments in cooking have been rather successful. I’ve made pulao, bhindi subzi, aloo ki subzi, masoor dal – the works! But this has possibly been on a handful of occasions. Also, my maternal grandma could never stop talking about the day when as an eight-year-old I entered the kitchen in Delhi to help with cooking. My primary school friend also mentioned some memory she had of me making snacks for the whole school gang at home when I was a child of ten.
As we know, any muscle that we stop using rusts! And my cooking muscle has no muscle memory to speak of. So today, if I have to make a dish, I need a detailed recipe in front of me, and I have to follow it to the tee. No instinctive cooking for me.
In my early twenties, I managed to burn water and milk to a crisp! I still don’t know how one can do that, but I somehow achieved this dubious feat. During the pandemic, I tried to step up to the plate, but I failed miserably, so I stuck to washing dishes. In March 2023, I got up the entire month and made idly for breakfast for all of us at home, but after a month of doing this every day, I was beat!
So I will confess that I don’t share a positive relationship with cooking and bow down to the masterchefs in my social circle. You guys rock!
This post is a part of #BlogchatterFoodFest – Blogchatter® to introduce better Blogging in India (theblogchatter.com)
