Instead, I Insta-ed It
Ten days ago, I made my first appam. It was beautiful – fluffy and light with a deep, firm centre. I could have had it framed. Instead, I Insta-ed it. A small step for womankind, but a giant step for me.
For it’s been a long journey. Long, long ago, in the dim and distant past, when I was still in the throes of not-yet-married-a-year domesticatedness (yes, I know that’s not a word!), I offered to help the MIL in the kitchen. Looks were exchanged between her and the FIL. Nothing about my acquaintance thus far had prepared them for this.
‘Why don’t you make the salad?’ The MIL is generous like that. Also cautious. How far can you go wrong with a tomato and a cucumber, she must have thought. She had no idea of my talents.
I eyed said tomatoes and cucumber dubiously. My offer to help had been imbued with shades of being asked to stir an already cooking pot. This was more proactive than warranted by my daydream of domesticity (there, I told you I knew the right word!).
But this was my chance. So I went to with gusto. And was still there by the time the MIL had cooked two veg, one dal and one raita. And chapatis. To feed six-and-a-half of us. She then took the cucumber from my hands.
Merrily unaware of my tryst with the knife, the husband took one look at the tomatoes and gasped, ‘Who butchered those?!’ He’s not much more tactful thirty-four years later.
What can I say? Amma and Appa were gadget freaks. I grew up amidst tomato slicers and egg separators. Amidst might be stretching the truth a bit though. I never ever ventured into the kitchen willingly. It was too hot most of the time. Besides, both Amma and the MIL were amazing cooks. Why would you tamper with perfection?
Also, I was thinking of the son. His wife would never have to hear, ‘Your boiled rice just doesn’t taste like my mother’s.’ The sacrifices a mother makes for her son’s future happiness!
Fast-forward a quarter of a century or thereabouts. When we announced our plans to move to London, there were telling silences from both Amma and the MIL. When they recovered, the MIL told her son to learn to make omelettes. Amma told her daughter unnecessarily cheerfully, ‘I suppose they’ll have ready prepared meals.’
They did, but, living on a scholarship, we were too poor to afford them. I will say this for the husband. He is patient. And kind. And hungry. When the turkey leg remained raw after six hours, he put eggs to boil instead. And ‘cooked’ toast. His word, not mine.
I’ve climbed the cooking curve considerably since the turkey. Hunger, and nostalgia, in that order, are powerful motivators. As are YouTube videos. And the Internet. Which can tell you how much a medium onion should weigh. Or the difference between one cup of water and one glass. In short, I’m impressed with myself. And that beautiful appam. Who cares about daughters-in-law?
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