For the love of food

I have loved food all my life. The foodie gene comes from my family who enjoy trying new dishes and get satisfaction from every tasty meal. My mother is a great cook. So we always had access to yummy and a wide variety of recipes. But as a child, I never relished the thought of cooking. I have seen my mother mostly busy in kitchen. Though I enjoyed birthdays as we got to eat our favorite food, I used to feel bad for my mother who couldn't take rest even on her own birthday. I could only prepare tea, boil rice and make dal tadka till I left my house for higher studies.

The cooking lessons were rekindled when I started living independently after getting a job. I wished to marry a cook to satisfy my taste buds. 😁 However, I was secretly afraid of the question "what if my spouse also doesn't know how to cook?" In an attempt to become self-reliant, I learned basic cooking skill. Thankfully I did. My husband had only learned basics of using kitchen utensils by the time of our marriage. 

After marriage, cooking was no fun. Along with all the other household chores, it seemed a big deal to cook food for two. Nevertheless I continued it. A breakthrough in this journey came when I moved internationally for a work assignment. Cooking became a means of survival. And cooking only for self brought a sigh of relief. American kitchens are very different from traditional Indian kitchen. I was intrigued by the new tools and began experimenting. I also experimented with different ingredients and tried to prepare colourful meals. These effort paid off. After a few months, I officially started loving cooking. Here are some pictures of my earliest meals. 

After returning home, I tried to maintain the vigour by gifting myself new kitchen gadgets. I also started learning more(essential) Indian recipes. I made few changes to make my meals healthier. I began perfecting my dishes in accordance with the traditional taste n cooking methods. Here is the picture of my first bake in my OTG - biscuits or nankhatai. 

Over the past few years, I have come a long way in my journey of cooking. I love delicious meals and cooking bring me one step closer to it. It gives me pleasure when my daughter relishes a meal. It is soul-satisfying to devour a bite of food that I have been craving for. It is a moment of pride when my family ask for a dish which they saw on TV, for this shows their confidence on my cooking skills. 

Cook for your soul!!