OF ME AND FOOD

Do you know what nice food is? Nice food is one which is prepared by a Hindu lady with lots of love and affection. All the emotions her thoughts are transferred via that food to you.

Now this prepared food should be served to you by a Muslim waiter who serves you with such vanity and delicacy.

Then this should be eaten by an Englishman in all style. See how he drapes the napkin on his lap then he picks up the knife and fork and eats in style and relishes every bite in no haste.

This is what nice food is.

That's a story that my grandfather repeated often about NICE FOOD in our family.

Kitchen has always been my domain and seldom have the men of household (my husband and two sons) ever tried to cross that threshold and displace me from my highlands. Despite my fuming and fretting of the domestic and professional overload I have not conceded my grounds.

Ever since my children went to Kota after their tenth standard my attempts to make them self-reliant or more so to domesticate them to a certain extent began. Usually my attempts were in vain for they were always pampered to the heel by the entire clan. Whatever I could say fell over deaf ears with 'Chill Ma Chill'. That chilled me to my levels of insolence.

Over the years that followed I gave in and stayed away from the topic, they established themselves to luxuries, had a maid to cook, to sweep, to iron, to buy grocery etc. etc. This was not available to me yet, despite working for over two decades.

And then out of the blue came Corona and the world quarantined itself with lockdown. All luxuries evaporated and the work from home and work for home started. All maids and the likes of Zomato and Swiggy socially distanced themselves.

I was Whatsapped this image with tick the appropriate

Usable/not

This was followed by a long consultant discourse with complete instructions about leafy greens storage. That was the last I heard of matters of cooking and I was left alone for my dental consultations.

Soon I discovered You tube and Google were the panacea.

Our family group on Whatsapp was being bombarded with the images of the daily meals prepared and it was amazing to see that all experiments did not go awry.

Egg rolls to beat the hunger, tremendous for primary schoolers in cooking. That is the power of human potential. Kneading the flour, rolling it and shallow frying it is certainly commendable.

What if the microwavable plate turned wobbly at least paneer tikka was well marinated and the taste and look was far from being a dampener. Who would mind being invited over for the dinner? This even settled the age old dispute between me and my son to learn cooking.

He may have had limited resources and gadgets in the temporary kitchen but the spirit to prove his newly founded culinary skills is indomitable

Like most mothers of this generation I am being entertained by images of dishes he is dishing out after work hours.