Life Recipes

 Potential burns, disasters, insects, and those mind boggling red ants that come to chew on the most unbelievable things. And stuff like split milk, too much food, too less food, too many guests, last minute mistakes, the eternal fear of the cooker exploding during one of those long pressure cooking sessions, electrocutions, gas leaks…

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The kitchen has been my war zone. Often.

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And it still remains the first place I walk into when I enter my house after a long, hard, mad, incredible day of work, people, workout, meetings, calls, conferences…the list is endless.

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The kitchen is also my comfort zone. A place I seldom entered as a child, a place I avoided as a teenager. A place where I have sat and laughed with my husband, cut my fingers, bled all over the platform, burnt my skin raw, a place where I have cried, worried and been hopeless. A place where I have dreamed, planned, thought, planned, listened, slept even.

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Spices are friends today, the onion doesn’t make my eyes water, I am no longer afraid to toss curry leaves into a wok full of sizzling oil, no longer afraid to chop vegetables at lightening speeds (okay, amazing speed), no longer afraid to bake a cake in a cooker.

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Still afraid to overcook, still afraid to combine the wrong ingredients (asafoetida and garam masala…yike!), still afraid to talk on the phone while cooking, in fear of dropping the phone in my dal.

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Still so new, already so old.

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What an unexpected sand clock to stumble into, to keep track of life passing by in bits and pieces, parts of it like hidden ingredients in culinary experiments, chunks of love, dashes of anxiety, sprinklings of anger and sprigs of madness.

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What a life.