Food Glitches by Rekha Jad

We all tend to get hyper touchy when our names are mangled or forgotten but I pity the poor sweets and savouries, bobbled and distorted on the menu cards and name boards of some eateries.Many of us have come  across the " hot snakes" served here!  I almost start hollering,it's snacks!!. Don't let the cannibalism encouraging blatant displays in the form of " veg mom, cheken mom, finger chips, mutton chop intimidate you.

Once I dreaded, if I had landed in some Nigerian or South Korean  restaurant where  gory  dishes like chicken pups and egg pups are served. God please, rectify it s puff. On a visit to my son in  Mysore, went for breakfast in a nearby restaurant, couldn't miss the Gopi parantha, sand witches along with vizitable juice and Mango shak. Got the feel of some musical delight for visitors.

Lately came across a restaurant in Gurgaon,was foxed by the bizzare name it had  "Second wife". It was no name mangling,but what does it hint at? Either it's hailing the ailing patriarchal society,showing women their right place or it's proving the archaic adage that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach. No wonder I would be gasping if my better half calls me and says he is going to second wife for dinner!! This would no doubt have left me shattered long back when my culinary skills were not honed.

And if the adage holds true, my man would have shunned me long back, in view of my horrible cooking skills.

My gastronomical glitches take me back to my childhood, my father always disapproved my entry in to kitchen. Many a times my mother would enter into an verbal spat with my Dad over this, so I was a rare visitor to kitchen. Once my mother was not at home, I was asked to cook the rice, so naive at cooking, I had no idea about the quantity to be cooked, imagining one glass full for each person, I cooked four heapful glasses of rice and added generous amount of water.Lo! the gooey voluminous thing could feed the whole colony..

Other time I was asked to serve nimbu paani with salt alone to a guest, I added the salt with same generosity as sugar! Poor fellow could not dare to take a second sip: it was as saline as the dead sea.

There was no improvement or

 refinement in my culinary skills till my marriage and years after it. Any time we had guests at home ,I would plead my husband to  take them out for meals to avoid a gustatory embarrassment!! I had ample excuses like exams , thesis, night duties to chicken out of the crisis. I used to pray that guest leave after a sugary, milky ginger tea which I was good at making,and not stay for meals. My entry into kitchen was always with shuffling steps,pounding heart, rebelling gut and jangling nerves.Many a times recipe books by Tarla Dalal or Sanjeev Kapoor came to my rescue.

But it was mainly my mother I counted on for tid bits of cooking,though many times I was miffed at her" pinch of turmeric,or handful of flour, or little fennel and some nuts, actually drove me nuts. Since this vague measure was difficult to comprehend, as I was a recipe book person adhering strictly to grams and milligrams.

But, over the time, I derived at the conclusion that eating is something nobody can do without. Whether we eat to live or live to eat, there is nothing more satisfying than cooking with love and passion for our dear ones. Forced cooking, just to fill the bellies and get the meals done in fastest possible ways and cutting the corners  deprives you of the pleasure and bliss of soulful cooking.it is indeed a stress buster, it unwinds the brain and slackens the nerves.My knife skills have intensified so much over the time, that I have turned into finicky and fastidious person. I will not cook the Dumaalu unless I get the right size and shaped potatoes.The mutton for yakhni has to be from ribs and fish has to be Rohu with giant slices, typical Kashmiri style. Is it gastronomical humble bragging or my escalating culinary confidence which plummets in no time when my kids tell me to try some angrezi dishes!! Well slowly trying to step the higher rung of Cooking ladder!!!