I have shared a love hate relationship with...

the Art of Cooking :-)

I LOVE food and hubby dear is an even bigger foodie than I am. But over the years, though my relationship with food has been a constant...that of pure love (and my genes make sure that the love for food shows on me in the form of extra girth and a yo yoing weight:-)), my tryst with cooking has been rather fascinating and has seen it’s fair share of ups and downs…

As a 14 year old, the spoilt brat that I was, while a lot of my peers were beginning to nurture their cooking talents, I don’t think I was even aware of where in the kitchen, the spice rack was located (Yes…I was that obnoxious !!). That was a stage in life when I was mighty happy being fed on delicious food made by mom, my adorable grand moms, aunts and all the brilliant cooks we had as household helpers…and yes, every once in a while, on a Sunday afternoon, dad would take over the kitchen to make that delicious Spanish omelette that only he could make, albeit leaving the kitchen in the state of a ‘hurricane aftermath’…

As a 17 year old, let’s just say this, while some of my peers were busy trying to woo their way into the hearts of prospective boyfriends, by cooking and feeding them home made meals, the seeds of feminism, already sown in my mind, made me glare disdainfully at anyone who dared to say anything that had the slightest hint of endorsing “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” paradigm …I was determined to find a guy who would love me the way I am and would be prepared to live eating canned food, for the rest of his life, if the need arose …can you believe that !!

During my undergrad years, I was happy falling in love with D, the ultimate personification of a foodie on earth :-)... but let’s just say this, cooking was the last thing on my mind during those four years…At the slightest opportunity, D and I would make our way to whatever few good restaurants we had in Trichy,and revel in the great food that they served (trust me, all food tasted great after what we had to deal with in the hostel dining halls)…

As far as my tryst with cooking, during the couple of years I was working in Bangalore, is concerned, my dear brother sums it up pretty well...he says that the 'daal', 'egg curry', 'paneer' ,essentially everything I cooked, ‘tasted the same’…and when he says ‘tasted the same’ with that smirk on his face, it means you are supposed to read ‘tasted the same’ as ‘tasted terrible’…

But then something changed...after moving in with D in the US, I realized that the person I had fallen in love with, was not just a big foodie but was a great cook as well…I reveled in the delicious food that he cooked while he barely managed to tolerate the tasteless food that I made…but the sweetheart that he is, he did that with a smile on his face …and then one fine day, he ‘officially’ asked me to marry him. Given the kind of food I was cooking and feeding him (specially given the fact that he was a foodie, a great cook himself and the very typical perfectionist Virgo), I was absolutely convinced that I had found the guy in D , who loved me for what I was and was prepared to live eating canned food, for the rest of his life, if the need arose:-)

Over the past 4-5 years, I take the liberty of patting myself on the back for evolving into a rather decent cook (my ever critical brother and perfectionist Virgo husband vouch for that,having been at the receiving end of my cooking over the years ;-))…I have developed a love for cooking dishes of different cuisines….I love to improvise on dishes, blending exotic regional spices and herbs…I have discovered and developed that skill of being able to bring out the taste of key ingredients in a dish...so now, all the dishes that I cook definitely don’t “taste the same” anymore….however I would still not claim to be extremely passionate about cooking…I do love cooking at leisure, as a hobby, and I definitely love entertaining people with home cooked food…but my dislike for cooking, on weekdays after a hard days' work, persists, and I crib about it every time it’s my turn to cook (D and I take alternate turns cooking on weekdays)…

But there is one day in the year when I cook with my heart and soul and hope to be able to do so for the rest of of my life…and that’s on my foodie hubby’s birthday….yes, yes D’s birthday…how I love that contented look and smile on his face when he’s fed a well cooked meal…I cook a variety of his favorite dishes on his birthday, just the way he loves them…

Well let’s just say this, though I didn’t woo my way into D’s heart through his stomach, his birthday dinner with friends is my way of saying thank you to my foodie hubby for loving me for what I am ,as much as he does, and for having been prepared to live off canned food, for the rest of his life , if the need arose…

Happy Birthday D !

Lost and Found...

A few months back I received an envelope, addressed to me, by snail mail...it took me about half a second to determine who it was from…it was from a dear cousin, R, who lives in London. In addition to regularly keeping in touch with her via email and phone calls, I always look forward to receiving these letters/cards (she has this way of finding these unflashy, beautiful, elegant cards, hand-painted on recycled paper for a social cause) from her with D and my names clearly etched on top of the envelope in her beautiful, cursive handwriting...

As far back as I can remember, she has never forgotten to send handwritten messages/cards on all special occasions, and postcards from places they are visiting, sharing an unknown trivia about a new place they have been exploring ... and I, for one, really look forward to receiving these...

This time around, when I opened the envelope, what I found was a note from her announcing the arrival of "The New Sheriff in Town", her second son, along with photo prints of family pictures with her two adorable kids, husband and my aunt ( her mom)....Of course, I had spoken to her 'n' number of times after the little one's birth and she had already shared these photographs with me on snapfish...but that handwritten message and the photograph prints, for some weird reason, evoked a medley of emotions...I can't explain the cause or the source of what I felt...but it evoked an urge to give her a big, warm hug...

In this perennial mad rush and rat race for the next big change in life, technology, career, advancement...as we've transitioned from reading printed books to listening to audio books…from writing letters to emails to texting to sharing what's happening in our lives through status messages on social networking sites…from bonding with pen pals through letters written in our own handwriting to being instantly gratified by new online pals with information about various cultures, through shared online photographs and messages ...from writing diaries to writing blogs...I think I know what we've found, but there is definitely something precious we've lost as well...

In audio books, I have found a good substitute to satiate my reading needs given the mad rush I am always in during the work week, while trying to deal with a long commute to work combined with the need to strike a good balance between office workload, household chores and spending quality time with D….what I’ve realized I miss, however, is the touch and feel of printed words on paper…the charm of lying down on the couch, having a cup of tea or coffee, sitting and becoming captured by the pages of a book, turning them one by one, getting more and more engrossed as the climax builds …I miss not being able to emphasize , interpret and visualize words and phrases like I would want to, and having instead to rely on the readers' discretionary emphasis on words and phrases, which I feel has a direct impact on the interpretation and visualization of sentences in a book.

In all the latest technological gadgets and electronic paraphernalia (email, texting, chatting, VOIP), that facilitate instant communication with near and dear ones, I have found solace in the knowledge that despite being physically thousands of miles away, loved ones are virtually just a click away…what I miss, however, is communication through the art of calligraphy, handwriting as an artform, which by itself has the ability to add a lot of meaning and expression to mere words…

In all the online social networking sites and blogs, I have found ways to reconnect with old pals and discover new ones….I have found ways to enrich my life with shared online travelogues, life experiences and photographs of old friends and new…I have found ways that make me revel in not having to memorize and remember the birthdays and special occasions of ‘n’ close friends, happy in the knowledge that early in the morning of the special day, I will be duly prompted by pop ups in one of the social networking sites to wish the person concerned…what I miss , however, is that postcard that someone close would send to share tid bits of travel experiences…what I miss is being one of the first ones to know about a birth in the family , about a snippet of good news in a friends life, before it is broadcasted to the whole world as a facebook status message ;-)….what I miss is that feeling of being special that comes with the knowledge that someone close was not prompted but remembered an occasion close to your heart, and put an extra effort to make you feel really special by posting a card that would reach you just in time for ‘the day’ celebrations…

Yes, yes folks…everything, in the above context, that I miss and feel I have lost, is extremely non “go green” friendly…but I miss these simple pleasures of life, nevertheless…and the funny thing is that I say all this, while I am fascinated by and revel in the kind of easy connectivity, planning ability, portable entertainment, fun, efficiency that gadgets like the iphone, blackberry etc. facilitate…hmmm…hypocrite you may say :-)…but not really I guess, it’s just that in the circle of life, whether you like it or not, you lose something to find something else…