Ammalu’s Kitchen

My Tryst with Cooking for K

My survival techniques were simple. Skip breakfast and gulp loads of coffee until lunch, lunch at work place and for dinner, B, my good ol‘ landlady would normally give a dish of this and that and depending on what she gave me , I would make rice or dosa and be done with it.I never would bother to ask her the recipe and sometimes not even ask what she gave me, Just gobble it up! Man! She was an amazing cook. This is how life was until K came along. Mom called and said “Mm… The boy is going to come home for dinner!! Do a good job of the cooking” My reaction was “Dammit, How can he expect me to cook after a hard day’s work? ” That’s what I exactly thought when my would be fiance was coming to my place for Dinner for the first time . Both of us were living in the same city alone and our parents mutually decided the K would be eating in my apartment after having a tough time in the US . I decided I would woo my man to take me out for dinner once he arrived and didn’t cook anything ,but on a safer side, called my ammakkaya and asked for a few easy and simple recipes , in case my charm wouldn’t work!

K came and we got talking, never realised the time and I had to get cooking because he was tired of eating out and it was too late to go out.”Rrreal problem started then” I was a confident of whipping up a decent meal, even though I was impatient and didn’t know the real stuff. What came out of my 1 hour of hard work in the kitchen was half cooked methi dal ( I didn’t know you had to pick the methi leaves instead of cutting them) , half fried alu (too impatient and hungry to let it fry completely) , Store bought curd and decent enough plain rice. K said it was a wonderful meal and ate it all and rated me 2 on a scale of 10 because I pestered him for feedback ( my customer service mind). The journey had begun a year and a half ago and no longer my meals are half cooked but I get normally a rating of 8 on 10 unless I’m jittery or not in the right frame of mind.

This blog is a tribute to my aunts, amma and my M-I-L and K who is a better cook than I am. The tribute seems a little weird , but I learnt most of my cooking from my eldest cousin and aunts more than amma. Amma, being a working mom had little time to spare and whip up exotic dishes, unless during festive times. Her dishes were simple, healthy and fried food was taboo in her kitchen. My ammakkaya would always serve the dish and explain how she made it and what could be added more to make it a better dish, that’s how I learnt it from her. Thanks to them that I know a few things to whip up a fairly good meal .

My Cooking fairly improved after I moved to the US. Here I must thank , Indira of www.nandyala.org/mahanandi who posted wonderful recipes on her site. She has been truly inspirational for me and K to start this blog. Thank you Indira!