Hi,
I devote this post of my new blog to 2 people who made me passionate about cooking.
1.Mom
2.दादाजी ,Dad's Dad
My mom's a crazily amazing cook. Okay she may not be the most creative of people in the kitchen,but the stuff she makes mm..umm mmm!! Absolute bliss! It started right since her childhood. She was one out of 4 sisters. My grandmother was an even crazier cook,as per my mom's description.And it wouldn't be too far off from the truth,as my mom is certainly the live testimony to that. So it is like the 10000 hour rule. My mom cooked from when she was about 10..theh she cooked during her graduation days,then she cooked even more after she got married...more,more more annnd more of cooking,and it must have been a while since she crossed the 15000 or even 20000 hour mark. I mean 40 years of pretty much relentless cooking,apart from totally burning her out, have been added her craft.. That too she juggled all of it while doing a 9-5 job,managing 2 crazy creatures that popped out of her,not to forget the third creature,who obviously popped out of somewhere else...annnd all the other more mundane looking outsiders who keep dropping by from time to time...
Each with a different set of demands to cater to!One word...WOW! I would certainly love to look at the world from her perspective...No not the exact same perspective,only the cooking part.
As a child,I sat next to mom when she cooked.Even now,as I am back from my college,I spend most of my evenings with my mom while she's cooking. The amount of stuff you pick up every time makes your learning curve look like the the exponential function plot.. If lucky enough(by the way,luck is,in my understanding,probability taken personally...) I would like to keep my learning curve that way. I have seen this very feminine approach to cooking that most people have in my immediate surrounding,this is of course ladies included!
So to them,I sing the song-Get over it(by Eagles)
2.दादाजी (Dadaji)
My grandpa is an ex-Air force guy.The 'guy' because he...is by long,far and wide(just to ensure the emphasis),the most coolest person I have met yet. My most vivid memories of my childhood(from age 3 or so) have been with him. He's 81 now. I still remember how,about 10 years ago,he'd come to our place. There was this park of sorts with these gymnastic's rings(those rings hanging from chains). He jumped,caught hold of it,did pull-ups,then kept his body parallel to the ground like for ever!!! Sorry for swearing,but FUCK!! So in short,He's awesome!!
Coming to cooking,now,my grandfather's all experimental with food. His credentials owe to his guts to to try completely bizarre stuff,with disasters no exception to his list of end results,but if Edison hadn't made 1000 mistakes,he wouldn't have made it to the 1001th trial that 'hit the spot'.
As a kid,when we visited my grand parents,my dad,mom,sister and grandmother went out,Dadaji and I stayed back. He isn't a very 'up for going out' type of a person. And I'd not mind missing my remaining family to give him company. He never speaks a lot. Strangely,neither do I. Specially in his company,I never felt the need to. As I write this,I also realize how much I have inherited from him in terms of my personality. We went about anything to everything with stuff that we found around. But bread,chicken,milk,eggs,tomatoes,onions and a few more things were mostly a staple..
He had a habit of consuming a small quantity of alcohol everyday,just the healthy quantity.. No ODing. So if we made something fruit-juice-ish,he just hit his share with a dash of brandy or something.. I guess it comes as a part of being in the Air force...
There was this one incident when I wasn't feeling too well. He gave me this brandy shot. He was like 'Take this,you'll feel warm'. I just gulped it down... BIG MISTAKE! The freaking thing burned me inside out!! But then there was this very soothing heat I felt inside. My cough,fever and all of it just fled from my body.I slept well that night. All this was apart from the fact that I felt super cool after consuming alcohol at 4...He told me that it was 'our little secret'..being the kid I was,this was like going on a secret undercover mission... Obviously he was slightly apprehensive about letting my mom know about this incident. But,much later,I realized that this was a very often used method to get rid of minor coughs and colds. Not that the incident left me an alcoholic for life.
I feel very proud for not having consumed any alcohol in spite of staying in a boarding college.
Even now when I visit my grandparents,If I am watching TV and दादाजी ain't asleep,I tune into some cooking channel..and Woalah!! WE GOT COMPANY!! I somehow feel very comfortable in our silence.He makes a not of the dishes we see. He may not try out all of it,as he used to,but he is not someone you can bear seeing sitting idle. If he is sitting idle,you immediately get a feeling that something's not right. He is the living proof to the fact that the human body is NOT meant to sit around for long duration!
Last but not least,this person totally deserves being mentioned,as a matter of fact,is kind of indispensable.
Sanjeev Kapoor. I very clearly remember watching his cooking shows with my mom,that came on every week ends on Z-TV.This fellow,single handedly changed the Indian cooking scene in the eyes of telly-watchers! He made cooking look cool and suave! The fact that he did not limit his cooking to Indian cuisine made the mind of the average Indian middle-class house-maker open to foods that would have otherwise taken a lot more time to become acquainted to the Indian palate. Yeah we did have the 'Chinese' and a Pizza hut or two but these weren't things you made at home.
I have a dream,probably like many of you out there to open a restaurant.. Hopefully I will turn the dream into a reality someday. So does my Drandpa. He wants it's name to be 'Mummy's kitchen'...
Let's see...
I devote this post of my new blog to 2 people who made me passionate about cooking.
1.Mom
2.दादाजी ,Dad's Dad
My mom's a crazily amazing cook. Okay she may not be the most creative of people in the kitchen,but the stuff she makes mm..umm mmm!! Absolute bliss! It started right since her childhood. She was one out of 4 sisters. My grandmother was an even crazier cook,as per my mom's description.And it wouldn't be too far off from the truth,as my mom is certainly the live testimony to that. So it is like the 10000 hour rule. My mom cooked from when she was about 10..theh she cooked during her graduation days,then she cooked even more after she got married...more,more more annnd more of cooking,and it must have been a while since she crossed the 15000 or even 20000 hour mark. I mean 40 years of pretty much relentless cooking,apart from totally burning her out, have been added her craft.. That too she juggled all of it while doing a 9-5 job,managing 2 crazy creatures that popped out of her,not to forget the third creature,who obviously popped out of somewhere else...annnd all the other more mundane looking outsiders who keep dropping by from time to time...
Each with a different set of demands to cater to!One word...WOW! I would certainly love to look at the world from her perspective...No not the exact same perspective,only the cooking part.
As a child,I sat next to mom when she cooked.Even now,as I am back from my college,I spend most of my evenings with my mom while she's cooking. The amount of stuff you pick up every time makes your learning curve look like the the exponential function plot.. If lucky enough(by the way,luck is,in my understanding,probability taken personally...) I would like to keep my learning curve that way. I have seen this very feminine approach to cooking that most people have in my immediate surrounding,this is of course ladies included!
So to them,I sing the song-Get over it(by Eagles)
2.दादाजी (Dadaji)
My grandpa is an ex-Air force guy.The 'guy' because he...is by long,far and wide(just to ensure the emphasis),the most coolest person I have met yet. My most vivid memories of my childhood(from age 3 or so) have been with him. He's 81 now. I still remember how,about 10 years ago,he'd come to our place. There was this park of sorts with these gymnastic's rings(those rings hanging from chains). He jumped,caught hold of it,did pull-ups,then kept his body parallel to the ground like for ever!!! Sorry for swearing,but FUCK!! So in short,He's awesome!!
Coming to cooking,now,my grandfather's all experimental with food. His credentials owe to his guts to to try completely bizarre stuff,with disasters no exception to his list of end results,but if Edison hadn't made 1000 mistakes,he wouldn't have made it to the 1001th trial that 'hit the spot'.
As a kid,when we visited my grand parents,my dad,mom,sister and grandmother went out,Dadaji and I stayed back. He isn't a very 'up for going out' type of a person. And I'd not mind missing my remaining family to give him company. He never speaks a lot. Strangely,neither do I. Specially in his company,I never felt the need to. As I write this,I also realize how much I have inherited from him in terms of my personality. We went about anything to everything with stuff that we found around. But bread,chicken,milk,eggs,tomatoes,onions and a few more things were mostly a staple..
He had a habit of consuming a small quantity of alcohol everyday,just the healthy quantity.. No ODing. So if we made something fruit-juice-ish,he just hit his share with a dash of brandy or something.. I guess it comes as a part of being in the Air force...
There was this one incident when I wasn't feeling too well. He gave me this brandy shot. He was like 'Take this,you'll feel warm'. I just gulped it down... BIG MISTAKE! The freaking thing burned me inside out!! But then there was this very soothing heat I felt inside. My cough,fever and all of it just fled from my body.I slept well that night. All this was apart from the fact that I felt super cool after consuming alcohol at 4...He told me that it was 'our little secret'..being the kid I was,this was like going on a secret undercover mission... Obviously he was slightly apprehensive about letting my mom know about this incident. But,much later,I realized that this was a very often used method to get rid of minor coughs and colds. Not that the incident left me an alcoholic for life.
I feel very proud for not having consumed any alcohol in spite of staying in a boarding college.
Even now when I visit my grandparents,If I am watching TV and दादाजी ain't asleep,I tune into some cooking channel..and Woalah!! WE GOT COMPANY!! I somehow feel very comfortable in our silence.He makes a not of the dishes we see. He may not try out all of it,as he used to,but he is not someone you can bear seeing sitting idle. If he is sitting idle,you immediately get a feeling that something's not right. He is the living proof to the fact that the human body is NOT meant to sit around for long duration!
Last but not least,this person totally deserves being mentioned,as a matter of fact,is kind of indispensable.
Sanjeev Kapoor. I very clearly remember watching his cooking shows with my mom,that came on every week ends on Z-TV.This fellow,single handedly changed the Indian cooking scene in the eyes of telly-watchers! He made cooking look cool and suave! The fact that he did not limit his cooking to Indian cuisine made the mind of the average Indian middle-class house-maker open to foods that would have otherwise taken a lot more time to become acquainted to the Indian palate. Yeah we did have the 'Chinese' and a Pizza hut or two but these weren't things you made at home.
I have a dream,probably like many of you out there to open a restaurant.. Hopefully I will turn the dream into a reality someday. So does my Drandpa. He wants it's name to be 'Mummy's kitchen'...
Let's see...
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