A 'cooker' (i)n me !
Kitchen is the most important
room in the house. Our lifespan is decided here. A right portion in wrong
quantity or wrong portion in right quantity can rest you in the restroom for the
rest of the day.
I have a dubious record of
setting fire to my house ,twice I did when I was less than 7 years ,since then
I was never allowed to even light a match box at home, I was even barred from
entering kitchen, however, my love for Jaggery
and Horlicks couldn't stop me find my way into the kitchen . During the course
if anything was broken, I was the one who will be invariably summoned. If
the stove didn't burn, my mother will look at me like its you???.
..So much so that even if a fire engine entered near my area , ..my father
would ask ..Got anything to say????
So I never got a chance to cook
anything ...apart from stories ;).... It continued till my first marriage. ... I
mean my only marriage!
Some
of my friends cook a bit but talk a lot.... Whenever they were
alone they try new dishes and i was always invited.... One dude
asked me how it was after a non-veg treat and I asked him how did he prepare
that Chicken sambar??? He never invited me after that.
So
last summer when my wife had gone to Chennai. ...the distance of 1200
kms forced me to cook. ...birth of Nair's Kitchen :)
Women always boast of cooking... Is
it that hard? Just add 1 glass of rice, 2 glass of water and 3 whistle. ..my wife often says ... so I decided to start from rice, sambar and slowly move on to
land-food, seafood and junk food. ... :) After all....the top chefs in
the world are men.
My wife ‘cooker’ always used milk
cooker, rice cooker and coffee cooker.... I mean maker. ... :)
So cooking rice must be a
piece of cake. I entered the kitchen remembering 1,2,3.... Took a glass of rice
in a Container ..Quick washed, rinsed and dried it like washing machine....
Then poured 2 glass of water. But there were 2, 3 cookers of various
sizes. I used to ask her which whistle is for which cooker
?? ... Right then my mother called me. She was with all pride. I
didn’t know how the news spread like cooking fire !
She asked me about the menu and
gave some tips too ! I crosschecked my 1,2,3
formula.... started to search for a lighter or a
match stick for half an hour and called my wife thinking how irresponsible she
was.... She respectfully( take a guess) replied "God, I had told you
many times, it is right beside the stove".
The cooker was on the stove and
the time was ticking like bomb and yet no whistle. White smoke was fuming.
I was nervously moving around like pregnant woman and called
my wife. She again confirmed 1,2 and 3. When I returned to the kitchen, the
white smoke has turned into black and the room was like war zone. If smoke
detector had been installed, I would have become world famous and got Oscars
for food.... All the apartment mates were at my door enquiring why was I
celebrating 'Bogi' inside my house.
I panicked and switched off the
stove and opened the cooker. Whole rice had burnt and the cooker was totally black
inside.... Safety valve and gasket had evaporated into thin air. The cooker
looked as if I had stolen it from Hiroshima. ... Shell shocked, I stood there
feeling numb. Again the phone rang and it was my wife. Whenever a husband does
some thing wrong, don't know how wife will know that.... I guess that's 7th
sense and its called Wife's sense.... I was senseless for a second. I
told all was well and dropped the phone...after 10 mins again called
her and narrated my "Operation Food" in detail. She asked ..Did
you pour water outside the container? I sat aghast....because I did not :(
Once
my wife returned she went straight to kitchen to ascertain the
damage .Till this date she keeps that cooker as a souvenir. Till this
day, whenever she sees the black cooker I can hear her mind voice which
says "No common sense at all."
While looking back,... If I had
poured water outside the container that day who knows... I might have
gone on to become a world best chef :)
Never the less, today I cook pretty decently ,thanks to that episode -my eye for detailing has gone up!
Used to think only suspense in a story can make us read till the end....but realised that even humour also has same effect
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