The Pursuit of Happiness

As is usually seen in life, or in Bollywood, there is no low not achievable by a man guided by the plight of his stomach. He’ll let go of his morals and integrity, he’ll loot, pillage and plunder, he’ll even make pigeon love noises and dance with fat and well endowed, scantily clad women in his mid-life-crisis movies.

Sigh! The things one’s stomach makes them do.

Yours truly was recently faced with a similar dilemma. And she sank down to something she was sure she’ll never, ever have to do in her life. Well, at least not for a few years…not until there was no way to escape it.

I..(cough)...erm...(cough cough)...err...(cough cough cough!)...cooked!!!

Well it was actually an amalgamation of a number of reasons, some being driven into me since I was a kid. Choose whichever one you think has the highest probability of explaining such a shocking and heinous act as I have committed.

• I inherited my Mum’s genes and love for awesome cooking
• I always secretly wanted to be a chef…MBA and media were just a farce for the sake of the world
• I’m very worried about my future husband’s tummy, and my future mum-in-law’s state of mind, and that I might not be accepted as a good ‘bahu’ if I can’t cook well
• I got tired of having cornflakes as two meals a day

So one fine day I finally decided it was time for me to start cooking. And that’s when I realized that starting a kitchen is pretty similar to starting one’s own enterprise. You need existing capital to purchase the initial raw materials and equipment, you need knowledge and expertise to be able to convert that raw material into the final output, and most importantly, you need contacts to give you insider tips and top secret information to be able to manage your balance sheet as well as product quality efficiently and effectively.

So faced with a lot of start-up dilemmas and delays, I hemmed and hawed for a few more weeks, until my mom finally lost her cool, and sent a start-up kit in a full ‘cooking for dummies’ kind of mode. And hence it started.

So for the last two nights (yes two nights in a row!!) there has been food…like actual food for dinner! I made a delicious concoction of mashed bread and tomato and onions as my dinner the first night (gimme a break, I’ve never cooked before!). It was yum. Ok, it was VERY edible. Better than the custard I had subjected Le Dudes to before.

And last night I decided to wade in further, and I made…(gasp!).… jeera aaloo!!!

And a very tasty jeera aaloo, might I rightfully add!

Please find below a picture of my dinner. It tasted much better than what it looked :P

Ya ya laugh all you want you Maggi eating suckers!!!