by Priya Sreeram
[box]Many of us find cooking a chore – Priya Sreeram was one of us too, until she took her time to find that it can be a therapeutic, fulfilling experience that can also make the family bond better. Read on for some tips from her![/box]‘A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe’ – Thomas Keller
The above quote sums up my kitchen chronicles. For me cooking is neither an art nor a science; it is in fact very personal, mostly therapeutic and immensely satisfying. Like many other girls my age I grew up listening to the oft-repeated “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” from all and sundry, especially my mother, who had a faint hope that I would take to donning the apron and get cracking in the kitchen. The more I heard such statements, the more I stayed away from the hearth. My mom would patiently listen to my vents as I spewed questions like “Why should the kitchen be the sole domain of a woman? Why can’t a man don the apron more regularly?” Her enigmatic Mona Lisa smile and practical suggestion to cook for myself as it was a skill worth knowing would soothe me. But it did nothing to shake me off the utmost repulsion whenever somebody suggested that I learn all these ‘girlie’ things.
Let me share a few lessons that I learnt from my hearth adventures. This is particularly for all you people who are afraid to step into the kitchen to cook.
I vividly remember a harrowing tea gulping experience that a few unsuspecting victims of mine had many years back. Little did the three workers who had come home for a plumbing job, know that they were to be served a grainy, weird-tasting beverage that would shake them for life and almost swear them off tea. The problem with the tea was that instead of milk I had tipped into the boiling tea water a white-looking liquid, which I later learnt from my mom was milk that was set to curd. It goes without saying that the tea tasted awful – the workers did not complain but it did put me off the hearth for a good while. The good news was that the workers who had this beverage reported for work the next day. The bad news was that they refused everything except water from then on.
Lesson 1: Identify your ingredients before you start cooking. You may be a novice but it does not excuse you from not putting the right ingredients together.
Spending time in the kitchen certainly brings out the best in you as it teaches you skills that come from your natural instincts. You may not be a master-chef but you will be the best chef ever for your loved one. Before I learnt this well into my married life, I had convinced myself that I would marry someone who would do the cooking chore after marriage. Yes, cooking looked like a huge chore that was to be dispensed with. And the kitchen in my dictionary was only meant for sitting on the counter and tucking unabashedly into the delights quickly churned out by my mom who worked as a teacher. The only thing I obliged her with was chopping the veggies and even then I would constantly balk at the prospect of cooking three meals a day for the rest of my life. Through sitting in the counter I learnt
Lesson 2: You need not spend all your free time in the kitchen or cook jaw-dropping dishes every time you don the apron but whenever you are in the kitchen make sure to ooze love; like someone once said, “Cooking is indeed love made visible”.
There are days when I feel too worked out and don’t want to enter the kitchen. Though many gadgets have come to ease our jobs and we don’t really spend as much time in the kitchen as women from the past have, don’t stress yourself too much if you don’t want to cook. It is okay to have these days too. What are dining out and take away counters for.
Lesson 3: Be open with your family. It is okay to let them know that you don’t want to spend the day in the kitchen. It is better than cribbing the whole time in the kitchen.
Go with the flow and enjoy whatever you do. Cultivate the joy of cooking as it is intensely gratifying to see a smile on a loved one’s face. Let your family join you in dishing out yummies, it is double the fun. Also, it’s time we let our kids spend time in the kitchen. It is important that we expose them to the smells and sounds from the kitchen. My two children, aged 9 and 4, love spending time in the kitchen. The little one especially enjoys his kitchen time. Of course, it requires oodles of patience and means messy counters, but it is worth the effort. Not only will they appreciate the value of food better but will also wipe the plate clean since it is their creation.
Lesson 4: Spending time with family in the kitchen is a sure-fire way of bonding. Go create and spread love from the kitchen.
I married a hotelier who not only loves his time in the kitchen but also churns out tasty dishes at regular intervals. It amused him no end to see my weirdly-shaped rotis, burnt cabbage and lumpy rice during the early days of my cooking. I would regularly howl my heart out after each disaster. Fortunately he stood by me, encouraged me and bore the brunt of my misadventures with a smiling face, especially because I would wake him from his sleep to rectify the various dishes that I would have specially killed…oops, cooked. Slowly and steadily I truly learnt that cooking is a fiery mix of oodles of passion, a dollop of vision, heartfelt execution, a certain sense of taste and a generous pinch of love. This sure fire recipe is enough to transform a dish from ordinary to gourmet.
Lesson 5: Enter the kitchen with a “what the hell” attitude similar to what Julia Child preached. The worst that may happen is the dish may fail, but let that not deter you from making dishes with gay abandon.
Finally, it is not that I have become an awesome chef but it is only that I have learnt to love what I do and my husband, these days, tells his family and friends that I cook much better than he does.
Have fun in the kitchen. Cheers!
Priya Sreeram is a stay-at-home mother to two children (whom she calls her dumplings!), with a loving, wonderful and supportive spouse who is her back-bone. A voracious reader and travel enthusiast, her travel footprints and musings find voice in her blog Straight from my Heart !!. Also a passionate foodie, she chronicles her hearth & heart adventures in the food blog BON APPETIT.
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