Cooking Chronicles

“If we are what we eat then I'm fast, cheap and easy”.

Having graduated from eating to cooking, I’ve realised it isn’t easy nor fast and my husband insists it isn’t cheap either! Well, at least my dignity is intact! Coming from a long line of eaters with fetish stories spanning generations of my bloodline, 9 binging months later Ma had done her bit. The apparent gourmet gluttony you jeer at is merely a well preserved genetic trait. People complain about how they can’t cook for themselves as it results in a loss of appetite and I wasn’t willing to take a chance and until I tried my hand at being a domestic goddess! I’ve known SP for over ten years now and he realized that the way to my heart is through my stomach. (Hell no! As bad as that sounds I don’t wear the pants in this marriage, he’s just not much of a gastronome) .With expectations as low as my catering skills the runny gravies and scalded delicacies were guzzled down quickly and quietly lest the kitchen knife have other uses too :)The poor man almost got the binge-and-purge syndrome. I'd make him binge and the quality of food would make him purge!

I’ve been a perpetual milk baby, lead a life void of caffeine and tea. The wedding came and went and a lovely big box of Black & Decker made coffee for the hubby twice a day. The trick is in the presentation, my dears! Handing it over with a 100 watt smile and he’s literally melt into the coffee. Life was good,months of marital bliss and the burning kitchen, oops, smell from the kitchen may be clearing away but not quite ready to vanish yet and the in-laws arrive on short notice.

Small talk and lo…its kaapi time! I walk with my head held high to kitchen. Black & Decker, I will always love you. Husband rushes to the kitchen and whispers breathlessly, don’t use the machine and vanishes to make merry parent-son conversations. I’m stumped! Minutes later with trembling hands I conjured up a watery variation of what is commonly called coffee and prayed fervently to the God of Infusions to save my soul. As I serve the coffee, I say a little prayer for me. A sip later, My FIL’s eyes seem like they may pop out from his head and his body is still in shock and he kindly asks me how I made the coffee, secretly hoping he survives this assassination attempt. The rest was a whirl.

I knew the time had come to salvage my daughter in law reputation. Even worse, my folks who had spoilt me rotten all these years suddenly believed that they were blinded by my corporate accomplishments and had failed as parents to domesticate me! What can I say my lovelies, what followed was a nightmare. My mother badgered me with more calls than my mother-in law asking what I cooked everyday.I toiled in the kitchen armed with my laptop that churned out “Easy Recipes” in accordance to the words relentlessly typed in my google search engine since hell froze over.Even worse, I didn’t know what half the ingredients were so I had to google out “Images” to give me a fair idea before I headed out grocery shopping! Now why would I put this on print out in the blogosphere? I guess, mostly because I like a good laugh even when the joke is on me.

So now I cook and it has resulted in loss of appetite but not loss of weight.I wish Murphy wasn’t born!Grunt and that’s the cooker whistle. Adios!