Kitchen Tales

Almost every other day this conversation happens at my home.

Amma : Learn to cook. See your a,b, c,..z cousins. They all cook so well.

Me: OK OK I will cook this weekend

Weekend comes and before  I get up everything is ready in the kitchen.

Me: Amma,You wanted me to cook today.Then why did you finish everything.

Amma:You looked so tired while sleeping 😦 I didnot want to disturb you.

Sometime even if I am up early and try to cook, she comes inside kitchen , looks at the way I cook , gets tensed and asks me to get out .

Actually If I remember correctly I started cooking when I was 4 years old I think. Ya one afternoon my mother was sleeping. I went into kitchen and I wanted to ‘cook’ something. I selected ‘sambhar’ . All that I knew was sambhar is a liquid and it is in brownish colour with mustard seeds floating on top. I checked all the shelves which were ‘reachable’ and found Maltova. The only thing that matched sambhar’s brown colour ! I took a small bowl filled with water, added two spoons of maltova and put some mustard seeds. Tadaa!! Sambhar is ready. What a genius ! No not because I made ‘sambhar’ . I am calling myself a genius because I was careful enough not to taste it. I played with it  (continuous stirring) and later threw it away 🙂 But my mother found it out.You ask how? In an attempt to clean the vessel I dropped it inside a pot full of drinking water and the whole thing was smelling of maltova 😀

Years rolled on. I was in school when one day I wanted to make tea for my aunt. It started all nice.At the end I noticed that it was not brown enough . So I added few more tea spoons of tea dust and served it. It was raw but my poor aunt not wanting to disappoint me drank the whole thing. I could not!Not even a sip.

Months passed by. I wanted to eat roasted papad and was alone at home.I took one started roasting and in a second the papad caught fire and all that was left was ash .

Later oneday when my mother had gone to my hometown I was home alone, decided to make sambhar and rice. I made it but for next 2 days I had diarrhea . No not exaggerating. I really had may or may not be connected to my ‘cooking’ though 😛

Again another day I tried sambhar. After all life is all about taking risks no (“Risk edukarthu namaku lam rusk sapdara mathiri). It came out well as in edible but little watery but who cares I finished the whole thing. And no diarrhea 🙂

Few days back  I made panneer paratha and pudina chutney. Accidentally my friend had come that day. He tasted it and said that the pudina chutney was very good. For the next few weeks whichever restaurant I went, my first comment would be “huh my pudina chutney was way better.I make the bestest pudina chutney in the world ! “. My friend got bugged and told me that it could be just a beginners luck, try it again and if it tastes the same I will agree. 😀

Last week I made some parathas and it came out really WELL 🙂 hehehe.I celebrated my success the whole weekend 🙂

The next day  my mother started the above conversation again.

Me: Amma I can now cook nice nice parathas no.Why are you worried?

Amma: Thats not enough. You should learn basic cooking . Like good sambhar, rasam, kootu, poriyal, payasam…etc etc.

Well, I thought payasam, vada and all are advanced cooking !! 🙂 🙂

Happy Weekend guys  and Listen to this song. Its too good.