Cuisine
Baking…
…is a perfect science. I somehow never managed to get around to learning how to bake. I still wonder why. It’s not as if the yummy chocolate cakes, the tiramisus, the brownies and the biscuits have not caught my fancy. I love them all. But getting around to actually baking them myself? Nah! Too much effort!
Earlier this week, I launched into a reflection about why, despite my interest in cooking, I never went for classes of any kind, baking or cookery. After extensive introspection I arrived at a rather simple conclusion. I do not like to treat cooking like a set of instructions to be followed. Weighing and measuring ingredients reminds me, rather unpleasantly, of my (failed) experiments in the chemistry lab. For me, cooking is instinctive. It is liberating. Above all, it is a joy.
The only time I tried to take cooking classes was in school. Faced with a choice of gardening, needlework, electrical gadgets and cooking, I decided that cooking was perhaps the most interesting and the least troublesome of “work experience” lessons. What I didn’t bargain for was that I would be stuck with a roomful of 17-year olds who couldn’t cook rice in a pressure cooker without burning themselves or the rice, or both. The result was rather disastrous. I ended up spending an entire term learning to measure out rice and water, admittedly not the most interesting of tasks.
Twelve years later, I still find myself incapable of following instructions in a recipe book without having to compulsively make modifications to it. I can still not measure or weigh anything when I cook. For me, cooking is very ad-hoc, much like Remy in Ratatouille. I throw in whatever catches my fancy and in whatever measure I deem fit at the moment. The taste, the texture and the colour are all indicators that I am right in what I do. My eyes and my nose are my guides when I cook. My tongue tells me if I have gone wrong when I finally sit down to eat.
That said, I have always admired the patience and meticulousness of those who bake. When I ask for a recipe of a cake or a dessert, I often wish I had the patience to take the time off to actually try it. Maybe that’s why I am not that great at making sweets. I find myself wishing that I could add a souffle or a crepe or a cookie to my repertoire, but I somehow never seem to progress beyond pal payasam and rava kesari!
Cooking…
Ever tried cooking when you’re in the worst possible mood, battling the worst possible mood swings? There is something about the act that makes it therapeutic. Of course, all this applies if you like cooking. If you’re someone who hates the thought of stepping into the kitchen, this will probably seem insane to you. But, if you’re like me, cooking takes on a whole new meaning. People cook for many reasons. Some cook just to make something edible enough to fill their stomach, others to experiment with new tastes and flavours, yet others because they enjoy feeding others. For me, cooking falls into all three categories depending on my mood. The idea of transforming some altogether inedible vegetables into something amazingly delicious is so appealing that I don’t mind trying at the risk of going terribly wrong.
I like to cook because it gives me something to do when I am in a bad mood. I can chop, marinate, temper, simmer and garnish, without worrying about the umpteen things that this crazy mind of mine is filled with. As someone told me yesterday, my mind is so full of things: worries, thoughts, feelings, confusion…name it, and it’s there. Cooking gives me something to do with myself. And my mind. This is perhaps why I am partial to the older and less fuel-efficient way of slow cooking. Given a choice between the microwave and a coal-stove, I would use the coal stove. I have never understood why people prefer to bake their vegetables in the microwave before making a perfectly Indian curry; or steam them before putting it in tamarind juice for making sambar.
Call me old-fashioned, but there is something special about potato curry roasted in a mud pot, or rasam made in an eeya sombu. Sambar in a kalchetti tastes better than sambar in a non-stick handi. Channa sabzi cooked over a slow flame and simmered until thick tastes much better than channa sabzi microwaved to perfection by designer chefs. Pardon me for being the puritan, but filter coffee just doesn’t taste as good made in an electric coffee maker is it does in the conventional drip-type filter.
For me, cooking is an art, as well as a passion. I take the time to let the vegetables cook in their juices and absorbs the flavours of the spices I add. Maybe, just maybe I need to master the art of microwave cooking. But for some reason, my microwave oven continues to be a mere embellishment to my already gadget-filled kitchen. I promise to myself that someday, I will learn to make proper use of it…and use it the way it is meant to be!
Wake up! Smell the (filter) coffee!
Picture this…you wake up in the morning, feeling lazy from all-night conversations with the world’s best friends you can have, and wish you could sleep just 5 minutes more. At this point, the aroma of freshly-filtered coffee, hits you…yumm… Can life be any better? Make no mistake; this is one area in which I am unabashedly a South Indian Brahmin. Freshly brewed filter coffee early in the morning (ok…even if it’s at 9) is something I’d kill for.
Food is something that I absolutely love. While I wouldn’t call myself a foodie (it seems to be becoming a bad word), I definitely enjoy food, of any and every kind. As long as it’s edible and doesn’t contain remains of any dead animals or sea creatures, I’ll eat it. Friends fail to see what is so special about freshly brewed filter kaapi.
Yesterday, a colleague said he didn’t see why I was so insistent on filter coffee. “Actually, decaf Nescafe is almost as good.” I nearly screamed in agony at the comparison between something so obviously tasteless as decaffeinated coffee and the wonderful Kumbakonam degree coffee. I mean, how can anyone be so insensitive? And what’s the point in drinking coffeeless coffee? That’s obviously what decaffeinated coffee is all about. Coffee without coffee.
Oh yes. I am puritan when it comes to food. Freshly-brewed (preferably freshly-ground) Kumbakonam filter coffee, dosas made from homemade batter, Thengai Sevai (what people so creatively call rice noodles) made painstakingly using the large bronze sevai naazhi at home. I’d die to have any of this. And yes! How could I forget? Rasam made in an Eeya Sombu (tin vessel) over embers of coal that takes ages to heat (but the taste is fabulous, so who cares?). Sundakkai sambar made in a Kalchetti (stone vessel), eaten with hot rice and potato poriyal made in a mud pot! Ok. I stop here. I am hungry!
Yes, I love to cook…so?
I intended to link to this post a long time ago. I kept putting it off until I decided it was too late to link to. But, something happened this afternoon that made me blog it (rant?) with a vengeance. I was at Alliance francaise. That’s not unusual. But, someone I knew a long time ago came up to me and said hi. I was not exactly thrilled to see this person, but I said hello nevertheless. I was trying to fight tiredness and sleep, and get home soon, when she started talking.
“So, what did you do in France?”, she asked.
I explained that I did my Masters in International Affairs. She rants for some time about being away for long, touring the world with her sailor-husband, and then asks me how I managed being a vegetarian.
“I cooked”, I said.
She looked at me with stunned disbelief.
“You cooked?”
“Well, yes…I did.”
“You still do?”
“Of course I do.”
Then she launches into this tirade about how women are forced to cook for their gluttunous husbands and how they normally hate the job. She then looks at me, and in a rather patronising voice states,
“I think you should refuse to do such nonsense. You are a post-graduate after all.”
Eh? Pardon me if I am being ignorant, but just what does being a post-graduate have to do with cooking. What irked me even more was that she cloaked her general inability/unwillingness to cook in the garb of feminism and free will. I have said it before and will say it again. I am not a feminist if this is what feminism means. I believe in equality of the sexes but that’s it. And yes, surprising as it may seem, I actually like cooking. Just as I like teaching, listening to music or reading. It’s a hobby, a passionate interst and an essential survival tool.
Nita talks about the devaluation of cooking, and I see it happening everywhere. Today’s incident reminded me that cooking is not just devalued but actively scorned and criticised as useless and as a waste of time. I disagree. Cooking can be therapeutic for someone who likes to do it. There is nothing more satisfying that a well-cooked meal. To me, it is a labour of love. I don’t cook for every passer-by. I only cook for those I love. And if I have cooked for any of you at any point in life, it probably means we share a lasting friendship, at the least. Lastly, I cook. But that does not mean I am incapable of doing other things. Conversely, the fact that I am capable of doing other things does not render my ability to cook meaningless. I love to cook. Period.
Of stock market crashes and cricket matches…
Hey! That rhymed. I swear I wasn’t trying to make it rhyme. Anyway, on to today’s rants. Yes, they are rants. First, the cricket match. Of course I am talking of the one we won. It was absolutely fantastic to see the famed Aussie batting line-up collapse like a pack of cards. And I, for one, was absolutely delighted to see Mr. Ponting and his men finally taste defeat. Notwithstanding their arrogance, I am tired of seeing the Aussies win all the time. For a sport to be interesting, there must be an element of uncertainty. If the result of the match is known before it ever happens, there is no point in watching the match. What better weekend could I have asked for after the Australian media called India cry babies for whining about the umpiring at Sydney because they could not take a defeat? Take it guys! We can play cricket too.
But while we are on the topic, I came across this article on the Sydney Morning Herald, albeit a few weeks too late. It is extremely irritating to see an Australian whine about having been stripped of the right to veto a decision at the ICC. Don’t you get it guys? Veto power of any kind, in any forum, is fundamentally unequal and unjust. And yes, by any forum, I mean the UN Security Council too. After all, why should the fate of the world be determined by the whim of a select few? So, stop cribbing about how an Indian deprived you guys of your birth right to a veto. The attitude sucks. Here is an excellent blog post on the issue. Greatbong has analysed and argued much better than I could ever hope to.
That said, on the the stock market now. It crashed yesterday. And today. And, it will probably continue to fall tomorrow. I still haven’t understood the cause of the original crash. Dad said it was a technical snag. Whatever the reason, it triggered off a massive fall in the prices of shares and the markets fell by about five percent today. What I don’t understand is this. Why do people choose to sell as soon as there is a problem, and without analysing the underlying cause. As far as I can see, the Indian economy is doing reasonably well. There is nothing seriously wrong with it. The stock markets have been bullish for almost 3 months now. Why then, do people feel the need to dump as many shares as possible on a bad day? After all, India’s is not an export-driven market. It has a huge domestic market to fall back on. If I had shares, I would probably adopt a wait-and-watch policy. The market are sure to rally. They are sure to recover on a few days, weeks, or months. I will probably still be able to cut my losses then. By selling when the markets crash, people only tend to maximise their losses. Correct me if I am wrong here, but my common sense tells me watch the markets closely before selling anything.
And finally, something unrelated to either the markets or cricket. Here is a recipe for Bisibelebath. I have never eaten bisibelebath with ginger-garlic paste in it. Every dish does not have to contain garlic, ginger and fennel seeds. It’s possible to cook without any of it, you know? For a better, and more authentic recipe of the dish, check out my food blog (link in side bar). And for goodness’ sake, check atleast 3 sites before deciding to make anything learnt from the net. Not all internet recipes are authentic, and even fewer taste original.