Cooking Tales

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Lockdown is making me do crazy things. I am making simple foods with simple recipes. Naah, that is the sane part. The crazy part is  that I am making videos  of me cooking and sharing amongst friends. Me, who can barely cook decent food, is sharing recipes. I surprise myself and a few friends are even responding and wanting to try out the food. Promptly I have thought, I should stop writing and start  making food videos. I thought of all the apps which I need to edit these videos. Should I post the video with the written recipe or with subtitles? I told you I was not ambitious. My goal post keeps changing. Thank God, the phone s memory has called it a day. It refuses to take anything new however delicious. I get excited about so many things, so fast. But there is a hitch, it has to call me. The menu has to call me to make it in a jiffy. So I keep waiting till I finish my meditation with Sri Sri at 8 pm and then plan my meal. My mother calls me post her lunch at 12.45pm. She is asking me what I have cooked. I do not have the courage to tell her that I am still planning my meal and I have just got some rice cooking. I admire people who can walk into their kitchen and start cooking. I am always thinking what is easy to cut and how fast will it cook. My meals have to be simple and delicious. The nutrition value has to be high so  steaming of vegetables and no pressure cooking. Most Gujarati snacks were all steamed like Patra, Dhokla, Khandvi etc. Now people think Gujaratis eat only fried food. A friend just mentioned that in ancient India, most vegetables were prepared by steaming in leaves or over earthen pots. Little tempering was done with spices and herbs for the flavours. The frying of all food came with the foreign invasions or as late as with the British rule. 

My Grandmother Gauri Bai could really cook well and fast. We just had to ask her and she would be happy to oblige us by cooking a delicious meal for us. She could make the perfect Mithaai/ Sweets and Farsaan/ savouries and meals. She taught me cooking in the ninth grade when I was home alone during a school vacation. The family with five siblings had gone too Mumbai. I decided to stay back and study as I had been to Mumbai alone, the previous year. I learnt o make rice and Dal and watched her make Sabji. Now I feel, what a loss! I could have learnt everything from her and all her secret recipes and magic ingredients. I refused to learn cooking from my Mom. I do call her to ask her for recipes and then do my own thing. Our food tastes ares very different but Mom s technique is perfect. I am hoping my children learn some basic cooking and do not live to regret like me. Sorry Guys, I had promised myself, No talking about food and recipes in Lockdown. And I fail miserably in keeping this promise. I follow my Blog's name even in cooking..Making it easy as I cook. Keep simplifying and not compromising on the flavours. Indian cuisine has a lot of subtle flavours which are lost with harsh cooking styles. Be gentle with yourself and the food you consume. Unless one is a passionate cook, one cannot sustain making elaborate meals day in and day out. Easy cooking is easy on the stomach too. Easy on your digestive system. 

My nephew niece n friends' children have graduated from baking cakes and brownies to Pizza base, Pasta sheets and Rosermary crackers.  I have just started walking on the terrace since the extension to our Lockdown is announced. I was so sure that soon I will go back to my Yog class and my walks to Siddhi Vinayak that I never took on any exercise at home. I thought standing in the kitchen is enough to keep me fit. Now I am regretting not being more vehement and strict with myself from the beginning. I do not even want to utter that Next time onwards I shall be.....more...
More of this and less of that. This is the weighing scale of my life. It never balances. I am always removing from one side and adding to the other . 







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