It's winter! (mostly) fake yuletide cheer time.. All the stupid potluck things have started..and those of us with the gift of brown skin in vella-kaaran land are expected to come up with 'exotisches indisches' celebration food. One such do is happening later today and my friend V in all his enthusiasm volunteered us to make something... We decided on 'Suji ka Halwa'..'Kesri Baath' to me..because it was easy to make.. and pulled it off pretty well in the end.
The process, however, was a traumatizing experience..for me and my me-accustomed kitchen. V is what I now refer to as a method retard.. he messed up my kitchen..stirred the suji so it slopped all over the stove..and burnt itself in place.. sent some of it flying to the previously clean, mopped floor, used all the clean utensils and ladles he could reach, dumped the drippy stirring spoon on every available clean surface and generally forced me to enter a state of suspended conciousness just to keep from braining him with a suji coated saucepan.. and I repressed my homicidal side by alternately shoving him out and stirring for a bit till he popped back in..and spacing out to other times I've cooked with someone else while he abused my poor kitchen..
Amma... I imagine my mother feels a similar horror and remorse for her kitchen when I decide to cook. Cooking sessions with Amma were and still are (to a lesser extent now) revelations.
I'd start off thinking '
that looks simple..and I've watched her make it for..like..ever..I can handle this' two minutes into the recipe.. I'd be like 'maaa!' and she'd turn to me looking resigned, encouraging, proud of my effort and a smidgeon smug (as only mothers can) and tell me exactly what was amiss..it's scary.. I really hope someday I'm as good at her..at my job if not cooking. While it's fun kitchening ( prepping, cooking, cleaning up) whith her, her inner management-conscience doesn't permit her to not-correct..she'll try really hard to let me muddle through it on my sloppy own but will eventually cave and offer some ( usually credible) suggestion. I pretty much always feel a bit embarassed and a tad disgruntled and react to it in one of 4 ways- I'll silently do what she says and leave it be; - I'll glare and continue doing it wrong; - I'll dump it down and say 'you do it!' and storm out or I'll pause, demand she let me do it on my own, throw in some crap about not having her experience, and do what she asked me too, with one part of me smirking at the other..
That made me sentimental and goofy, but I still wanted to cry with my kitchen... so..onto the next..
Sandy.. Cooking with Sandy's one of the funnest thing to do on the domesticity list... from childhood 'chinese' cook-fests to baking trials that almost ended up in electrocution.
Now, both of us being wiser, we have this pattern. We discuss, start to cook..improvise to include cravings, continue with discussions, screaming and maniacal laughter and end up with a fairly decent meal..normally comprising corn, chilly, fried stuff and cheese... and leave the kitchen a mess that neither of us want to think about. Then her OCD makes her go back and clean..and I end up helping...which means I clean out a space on the counter for my butt and talk/tease/sing while she does the cleaning.
I never got out of the cleaning in the winter cooking sessions with T and S back in Yingland, though. T and I were alike..cooking temperament wise.
We'd get things started and clean up while we cooked..and us being housemates..that was a good thing all round. Our sessions always ended with a hot and usually brilliant meal and a clean kitchen and even tempers (I'm making this sound like something else now..damnit y'all..focus!) but sometimes S would show up.. she was one of those people that literally and metaphorically sticks her finger into every..well.. subzi, sambhar or payasam... throw in a pseudo friendly, incessant high pitched chatter and you had the perfect murder scene. T and I stayed outta jail though..just shows the power of a homecooked meal.
I was beginning to think V's low score on my kitchen compatibility scale was a result of the y chromosome but my most recent cooking experience..with R who's visiting me for new years..forces me to reevaluate..
not only is R extremely efficient in the kitchen..he's so bloody darn good, I could fall back on the old setting the table and doing the dishes routine.. code for Renu's patented wriggling out of work and doodling..
So all in all..my best cooking experiences amount to me either being alone..or not actually cooking!
