Day 4: How it all started

A strange title for the first post a new blog.
Well, 4 days ago i never new i would be writing this post.
So first a little background:
My family and friends know that I and Vandana are expecting later this month. So last weekend we visited her parents place in Kota and now for the next 3-4 months she will be away.(Some time in kota and then in bahraich and again some time in kota; i will be visiting her frequently though)
So in effect it will be a 'Wife bina life' for the next few months.

Let me tell you that i am a very lazy and unorganized kind of person when it comes to home. I never like to keep things in place and though i know a lot of recipes and used to help mummy when i was with her(good 12 yrs ago), i just hate being in kitchen or trying something to cook. Whenever my wife was away in the last 2 yrs, it was just a small 5 day block in 2month's time. So i would eat out or have some maggi rather than cooking a good meal.

This time i had no option; i cannot live on maggi or dhaba food for 4 months.
I told this intention to my wife some two weeks ago(that i would be regularly cooking all my meals for the next 3-4 months). She was so astonished as if i am a chain smoker and have decided to quit smoking.(For the record, i am not).
Anyways, she was planning to finish off all the groceries before going and then i broke the news. Still she tried her best to make the kitchen and all the containers easy for me to use. She still doesn't believe that its the 4th day that i have cooked my breakfast dinner and supper.
Day1:
I came back to Ghaziabad Monday morning and directly went to office.
In the evening i scanned the kitchen found only 3-4 potatoes in the name of veggies. No onion, garlic, ginger or chillies. Also some chakki ka ata(some mix type of wheat, gram, bajra etc) and oils/ghee. So i just made aloo ki bhujia and rotis for the dinner and a few parathas for the lunch next day. Cooking alone seemed to be a herculean task for me, forget about making different stuff for both the meals. So home-foils came in handy; packed all the parathas in them kept in the fridge; also some aloo ki bhujia. Sounds good. huh.
Well, men are bad at multitasking, even more when they are in kitchen. But i decided to try. On one burner, there was this aloo and on the other the great indian breads. OF COURSE you know what happened. After i burned a layer of aloo and one paratha, i switched myself to singlethreaded mode(m bad in multithreaded programming too). So rest of the parathas were fine(read Unburnt).
I had a great interest in geography in my schooldays, never knew my food will also love it.
The parathas looked like map of India and Rotis like Punjab da Naksha. Please leave the aloo now: it performed at its best without his best friend Pyaaz and couldn't do better with only jeera and saro ka tel.

I was happy that i cooked a complete meal afterall. If it was not a good supper, it wasn't bad either.
Next day in lunchtime i got some good reviews with colleagues. May they were as surprised as my wife and trying to encourage me or was me the 'andho me kana raja'.

Day2:
In the evening i bought onions(Missed them badly) and a cauliflower(why, i don't know). Now since this cauliflower was more than enough for me, i decided to give the regular aloo-gobhi a miss and tryout only Gobhi. This time i did one intelligent thing. I called my wife and ask her to dictate me all the steps. Got some surprises also.(Like, i never knew that tomatoes were forst roasted and then peeled off and then used in a sookhi sabji). This time also, i tried to to do multithreading and crashed the code, I mean the most round roti.

Day3:

Searched for rajma and found a little of them. No good for a meal. Also found some chana and some badiyan(made by my naniji). Badiya were easy to make fry them and then cook with potatoes(Oh how reliable you are.). They came out to be good, can't say how, but it was good. Perhaps naniji ki badiyan can never be made BAD.

Soaked the chanas in water for Day 4. Wanted to make chhola.

Today:

Was feeling sleepy all afternoon so couldn't gather courage for Ataa marhna. Then thought of the easiest to make thing:Rice. Also Rice would go well with chhole. boiled them and cooked with the thick amalgamation of onions and tomatos. All was going well when i realised that i had missed some thing. Yes: Salt. Also it looked to me that the color is turning out to be very dull. Well if the chhole don't look good, they won't be tempting. I found Kashmere mirch powder. Heard somewhere that this is for color only and is NOT hot, so i used it generously and the texture came to an acceptable level. But as they say, dont trust everything you hear, i should have asked my experienced wife.
The chholes are now HOT, red Hot.


Though there are some blunders everyday, i am enjoying it. It gives me a sense of gratification which i earlier got when i clicked some good pic(More on this in some other blog). But there are some factors helping me out here;
1. A well maintained kitchen by Vandana.
2. A maid to do the cleaning(without which i would have never ventured into it).
3. The TV serails Wife Bina Life and Mrs tendulkar gave me a confidence that i can also be in Kitchen. I have seens just a couple of episodes and now plan to skip them as i have found some better way to kill my time.
4. The temperature: feb, march, oct and nov are best months to be in kitchen.
5. A thought that the worst food made by me would be more nourishing and less contaminated than whatever i eat out.
6. Working in kitchen everyday increases my respect to all woman in general and my mother and wife in particular. This is one the toughest job in the world.


A long blog for today. Promise to make it short and crisp from now on.

Good nite.

P.S. All readers are requested to post their feedback and suggestions on how i can improve upon in kitchen. This will greatly help me out. My greatest helper/supporter is a bit far away so your help will be deeply appreciated.