Cooking: A Life Skill

 

Being a Defence kid, I attended eight schools in my school-going years. After that it was graduation, post- graduation and post-post- graduation. Barring a short dalliance with home-science as an extra- curricular subject in one of the schools, my familiarity with the kitchen was near zero. Indulgent parents who were keener on academics, kept me out of the kitchen too.

Fast forward to marriage and circumstances where I was thrown in at the deep end of the culinary pool. In those days I did not even know how to make tea (filter coffee was fine!). Nervously and painstakingly, I learned. While I questioned the automatic assumption that a girl would be a born cook, I simply could not give up. Any task I took up, had to be seen to its conclusion, and diligently, at that. Cooking is something that one has to do well, at least for the sake of the children. Simply catering to the nutritional and palate needs of elders also fine tunes one’s skill.

I learnt recipes from elders, neighbours, and magazines. I noted all tips and fixes in a diary which is now filled with authentic and exclusive recipes. As with all skills, cooking gets better with practice. It also has a meditative side to it. If one is not harried, intent on a deadline, that is, a mealtime, then one can experiment and perfect one’s own special touches.

Over the years, this is what I have done. The meditation during cooking gave rise to several ideas for stories that I subsequently wrote and that were published. While there were several tearful episodes around cooking in those early years, I did come out of it all with a valuable skill learnt. While there are many acquaintances who still don’t know the writing side of me, they all certainly know about my cooking. It is now a large part of who I am. My approach to cooking may be directed by the way I do things in other spheres. However, cooking, in turn, has taught me to multitask, to focus, to be resourceful, and to think on my feet.

The best takeaway is the realization that food is the language of welcome, and belonging.

This post is a part of the Blogchatter Half Marathon 2025.

https://www.theblogchatter.com/