What is cooking for me

I don't call myself a person who is very interested in cooking, rather a person who cooks out of necessity, because, necessity is the mother of invention ;)

I started cooking 6 years ago. I learnt a little bit of cooking from my dad when I started, and the rest from cook books, internet and of-course, from a lot of people like aunts, cousins, friends, etc. The most pitiful part is that I never learnt an inch of cooking from mom(who was a great cook), because I never thought I would ever have to cook in all my life. When mom used to say "A woman has to end up having to cook, at some point of time or the other", I strongly refuted saying, I would have a full-time paid cook at home when I get married. Those were the good times :)

Back then, somehow, I was into this routine menu. I restricted myself to cooking dishes that I was familiar with and hardly tried out anything new. It was mostly rice, dhal, vegetable, rasam or sambhar. This was also because we had the best restaurants in Chennai, that if I had a craving for a certain food, its easy to go out and eat, rather than cook at home :)

I still remember the first time I made roti. I asked my aunt over phone and started making the dough. As I started mixing the flour and water, at one point I thought there was more water and added little flour, now I thought there was not enough water, and this happened for a while, until I felt the dough was too sticky and I couldn't handle it. Totally annoyed, I called my aunt in hope of asking her a remedy. She had a hearty laugh, after which she came home from work, made the dough and made the rotis for me as well. What a shame! I didn't even know how to make dosa, leave alone making the batter. This was until 3 years back. But I should admit I did start improving. Last month I made 40 rotis with ease, when I invited people for dinner :)

The past year was glorious for me in terms of cooking. I was bored of cooking the same kind of stuff and coincidently the person who was dependent on my cooking preferred variety. I love eating outside often, but having dined at almost all the places that I liked to, some sort of a boredom crept up, with the same same menu that I found in the restaurants. And my favorite dishes here(in the US), lacked the authentic taste. These are some of the factors that forced me to try new stuff, not because someone was waiting on me, but because, I have a huge craving for good food :)

I used to cook for my dad who had restrictions in oil consumption, and ended up cooking with bare minimum oil. Till date I am in the same habit. Of-course this sure does no compromise in the taste. I have had people call me names because of this.

I am at the top in the list of the "laziest people on the face of this Earth" and my cooking sure reflects this. I won't feel like cooking until I'm hungry and once I'm hungry, I have to finish cooking before my hunger can reach the peak :)

So, for all the lazy bums out there, here I go.... planning to document anything interesting that I cook/have cooked, with all the funny tales associated with the process and of-course the tips that I get/got from a lot people.

Hope I enjoy doing this and you enjoy reading too.

Happy cooking.... no.... errrrr..... Happy eating :))))))))))