Cooking

Cooking

I have always loved cooking. Its significance in my life has changed over the years. This article is a brief summary about how I became the cook I am today.

Get the onions cut fast!! Don’t let the curry boil that much it spoils the flavour!! Ah now see, just a little bit of tomato makes all the difference, it is almost uncanny how that happens …. These and many more lines like these are etched into my memory. These are moments in life that have crystallised in my memory bank. Growing up as a kid this was probably as much interaction I had with my dad. My dad is very much a man of customs who always thought a mans roles is outside the house and that kids were the responsibility of the mother, unlike other kids, I didn’t discuss my life at school or any things else with my dad ( sports occasionally ). But one thing which was very different between my dad and most other parents with similar attitudes towards parenting was his love of cooking! My dad would spend his Sundays ( and later Wednesdays as the weekly holiday schedule changed ) in kitchen trying to cook that dish that tasted ‘just like the restaurant’. It was one activity that I could be actively part of. Infact it did rub of on me, and even to this day, I love inviting my friends over and cooking for them.

Now let me make myself clear that I love food more than I like cooking, so if any one of you reading this are thinking of inviting me, remember I am always ready to eat. But this blog is not about my love for food. I will leave that as a topic for my next blog. As I said earlier, even as a kid I always had a soft spot for cooking. I tried long and hard to replicate the recipes that my father used and to this date my food has never tasted anything like his L. However, the art of cooking was almost lost upon me by the time I reached my 20s. I lived with my parents until the age of 23 ( I know its 3-4 years too many !! ) and hence the more busy I got with life, the further I depended on my mom ( and indeed my dad ) for cooked food. All that was about to change and how!!!

I moved to England at the age of 23, and after a long, long hiatus from cooking, it dawned upon me that now this was not going to be a Sunday ‘have fun’ activity any more, it was going to be part of my day to day life and there was no getting away from it. To this day I am not sure if it’s the time required for cooking (before you can eat anything ) or the fact that the dishes that have to be done after eating that I despise more!! I think it’s the latter, but the jury is still out on that! However, in the case of me Vs cooking, there were lots of twists and turns that were yet to follow.

Being a student in my mid 20s ( as exiting as that was! ) meant that I had to do odd jobs to make ends meet. Oh well, lets just say earn a few extra quid that are necessary to have some fun in life J. My first job with food was at dominos and believe it or not in two weeks time, I was as good as any one can get making a dominos pizza!! The best part about the job was that we got a staff pizza at the end of every shift and as I worked only 2-3 hrs a day, I got to eat a dominos pizza 4 days a week. Now this was a great arrangement and I loved it at that time, but in a months time I was convinced that I liked pizza hut more than dominos! I left the job at dominos in 2 months and that was that. But come summer and I needed cash to pay for a tour of Scotland that my friends and I had planned and Pizza hut was round the corner. I took a job as driver, working 2 hours every evening. The arrangements of the job were pretty much the same and I got to eat a pizza at the end of every shift. I did this job for another two months. Now after these to short stints spread over 14 months period, I thought that I have had my moments of glory in the food industry and that this would be my lasting memory as a ‘chef’ ( Don’t laugh! At that time, I thought making pizza in a pizza shop is a considerable skill and it probably is!!! ) but that was not last tryst with the food industry! Infact I served in a proper kitchen for two years after that ( my last two years before graduating ) and to tell you the truth, I am wiser for the experience. Although I always liked to believe that I was a decent cook, it was not until I took the job as a full time Chef ( this was a weekends stint ) that I realised that its not the fun and games that cooking on Sundays use to be. Also, the fact that the people who were eating the food were not my parents meant that the every dish I made was judged and sometimes the reactions were…. Well lets say they were not pleasant. All I can say is that you live and learn.

I am now in full time employment and cooking now is one of my favourite pass time. I love to cook for my friends and ask people over for food. Also, cooking is part of my ‘me time’. It is normally the time when I am alone and free to think things out. In one of my earlier blogs, I had written about how I started thinking about team work while I was cooking at my friends place. ( http://bizcovering.com/management/team-work-2/ ). I am glad that cooking is now back to being my favourite pastime and not part of my daily chore. I have heard people say that make your hobby your profession and you wont feel like you are working. Not sure if I agree with that. I think if you make your hobby your profession, you have not only robbed yourself a hobby but destroyed the immense pleasure of doing something for fun. What do my good readers have to say about that??

I am posting the picture of the two dishes I cooked for my housemate and friends who came over for dinner on last sunday. The one on the left is Butter Chicken and the one on the right is Mutter Paneer. The definitely looked the part and my friends did say that they liked it, hope it was not the just a friendly courtesy and it was good . Will provide the receipies if I get any requests for the same

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. No food ( vegetables or otherwise ) were hurt in the making of this blog. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely co-incidental even if my cooking had any part to play in the course of events!!!