At times I am faced with that ever-so-epicly poignant question which every wife/home maker/mother/sister/ in fact all womanhood face at some point in their lives.No no it's not the question on mega serials like " Kya Anandi ki dubara shaadi hogi" or " Bonny ki parbe nijer adhikar nite" etc etc but the other serious question in a woman's life- " What to cook for dinner?". Now I don't know about you guys but sometimes when faced this question of over 100 marks,I feel like sitting and solving test papers of Anita Desai or R.K.Agarwal before I.C.S.E. was a piece of cake.At least you knew where to start.Here it's like having a staring competition with the ingredients in your refrigerator and the take-out winning most of the times because you just don't know where to start.
My hubby complaints a lot that I am obsessed with cookery shows as I am an avid fan of the Masterchef series as well as Hell's Kitchen.Being the Atail (Intellectual) that he is,he prefers watching "Walk The Talk" and NDTV discussions led by the eminent Barkha Dutt about caste issues,corruption and other social maladies which plague our nation.Now with due respect to bengali Atailami(Intellectualism),he does not have to worry about cooking or I bet he has never faced gastronomy altering questions like,"Is it a good to mix moong,masoor,urad dal together and cook a dal fry" or " Should I add some veggies to the chicken so that it may soak up the excess salt I had mistakenly added to the chicken curry?".No he does not.Hence he does not know what difficult,crucial choices women all over the world make everyday while cooking dinner.Let's be honest.This is the one time other than Indian cricket when all boundaries of caste,creed,social hierarchy melt away as you know you are standing at par with the PM's wife as she stands in her kitchen and wonders the same stuff.Don't laugh.It's true.
Hence last afternoon when my hubby bought chicken from the market for me to cook,I sat and reflected over the composite fate of the chicken and was faced with another epic question of all times,"Should I cook a dahi chicken or a chicken curry?".Now the reason for this question was the last time I had cooked chicken,my husband had finished off dinner without a word and while washing his hands had casually remarked that though the chicken tasted great,it should have been spicier.Now you might think that that's a pretty okay comment to give but when you are cooking in a common kitchen shared by other people and the distance from your room to the kitchen is quite a walk,you tend to forget carrying stuff and hence I had forgotten the spice.But at that time it was like " Really dude!"
So last night when I was cooking dinner which comprised of chicken curry bengali style and paratha,I was recollecting how in India I had been so used to having chicken curry made by my mother that sometimes I would order take-aways so that I did not have to eat chicken curry bengali style.And today,miles away how I long for my mother's cooked chicken curry because I'm tired of the food which I eat here in SG.It's tasty but it's not for the long run.And as always my head bows with gratitude towards my mother who had once dragged me into kitchen and made me her sous chef so that I learnt how to cook a perfect chicken curry.
After dinner yesterday night when my husband told me that the chicken curry was phenomenal,I was happy because I too had a great dinner.It was not because the food was out of the world or because I had overnight turned into a masterchef but because no matter how many cuisines you taste and what new mind-blowing flavors you try,at times in order to feel satiated what you need is a simple meal of paratha and chicken curry instead of an A-la-carte with foreign food.I realised far away from home it's hard to hold near and dear ones closer to the heart but I am glad my mother taught me how to hold her close to my heart by introducing me to flavors that are from her kitchen.If not for her my luck would have been the same as my blog post,
"Ghar se durr..na mitte pyaas,na mitte bhook"
Awesome!
ReplyDelete