My Dirty Little Culinary Secret

I made this pizza ages ago and while it has got nothing to do with this post, I like the picture so deal with it.

I know I am a food blogger. I conduct baking classes, conduct specialised cooking courses for people with special requirements. I review food, my close friends usually call me for restaurant recommendations. But I do not much like cooking. Or food, for that matter.

There. I said it. I don't mean that I do not like good food, cannot appreciate a well crafted meal, the finer intricacies of tastes that pair well together, textures that complement each other. I do not mean that I am bad at what I do or find it tiresome and would rather order takeout. I do not mean that at all. I just mean...I do not cook because I want to eat all those things I make. And if left to my own devices, I'd live on protein shakes, supplements, ghee rice and maybe nibble on cheese. If I got too bored, I'd make some instant noodles and toss lots of veggies and paneer into it but that's as fancy as I would get.

I cook because the man loves to eat the things I make. It's what he looks forward to at the end of a tiring day and it makes me happy to see that it's brought him some joy, perhaps some relief and nutrition. I cook because I am good at it. Being good at something and liking it are two very different things. You may be fabulous at washing utensils but that does not mean you enjoy it and want to make a living doing it. That also means that to be fabulous at something, you do not have to necessarily love doing it. Cooking and food have taught me those two important life lessons.

I have applied that learning over and over to many things in life and so far, it's stood me in good stead.

Cooking, especially baking, taught me another big lesson; I could be perfect every single time. If you can more or less vouch for your everyday, mundane variables, you could control the biggest variable of them all - you. Baking, unlike cooking, is a very exact science with a hundred variables - tough to control. In six years of baking, I have had four failures. Now that is a pretty decent score for something that, scientific as it may be, has so many variables. I think there is a listed, official, psychological defence mechanism I used for this one and here's how I did it.

I learnt to bake because the man once told me that one of his favourite childhood memories was that of walking past the local bakery and smelling flour and butter transforming into sustenance. Rich, buttery aromas wafting past the stale and tiresome drudgeries of life, finding a permanent place in the heart of a ten year old boy. Which is another reason why, later, when I officially launched my baking classes, I had to have him present for every class for the first three years. I would pretend I was baking for him, giving him a glimpse of that time and memory. I was not baking for and with my student. If I assumed that I was baking for him, I'd get it right and perfect. But the moment I was expected to bake for strangers, I'd muck it up. It took me all that time before I could get to a stage where I could bake fabulously every time, even if he was not present during class. I'd just assume he's in the next room!

Baking also got us some lovely memories - like the time when India won the World Cup because everytime I baked a cake during their match, they'd win! At least, that's what the man started believing. During the finals, when I had a raging fever and decided I did not have to support the silly superstition just because he was so stuck on it, we lost wickets back to back. And not just any wicket - we lost Sachin and Sehwag. The man walked up to me and literally pleaded with me to make a teeny, tiny cake - it didn't matter how small but I had to bake. And bake I did. And I made three small bundt cakes. We won the match. The man went bats and we later went and gave the cakes to the building watchmen.

The few people who do read this blog often, know that it was started with an effort to chronicle recipes that we have in my family and in the man's, at least the ones we have adopted into our lives. This place was meant to be my easily accessible online diary in case I needed to refer to a recipe again. But it is a bit more than that now. No, I am not even referring to the restaurant reviews and meets over food that keep happening. This place is a small nudge, snatches of reminders of the good times we have had, associated with food, the friends I made because I said yes to meeting other food bloggers over great and devastatingly bad food. It brought a bit of work, it brought gossip, it brought conversation starters and it brought me a place that is absolutely mine.

I may still revert to eating ghee rice (yes people, that is how revert is used in a normal, non-crazed world, did you notice?) when the man is away and I have nobody to watch digging satisfactorily into the food I put together. I may not much care how something tastes, so long as my body can use it to be stronger, fitter, meaner. But for somebody who does not much like cooking for her own sake and eating fabulous food for her own sake, food sure has brought me some seriously important lessons, beautiful people and keepsakes in the form of memories we can chuckle about later.

PS: Glad I got it out of my system, I have been so torn listening to every good cook telling me they cook because they love to eat! Writing this out has made me realise that it's okay to be mildly bats in your own way, as long as it is, truly, your own way.