When Men Cook (Guest Post by Sakshi Nanda)

I feel privileged to host my friend from the blogging world, Sakshi Nanda on my page today. She blogs at Between Write and Wrong.

Sakshi is a lively and cheerful person, but most of all, she’s a wonderful human being. Her posts ranging from the tit-bits on mothering her 2-year old son, lessons learnt, relationships, friendship and social issues, which otherwise are left unattended strike a chord with the readers immediately. The essential dose of humor that she adds in her posts is something that I adore most. Her recent article ‘The Room for Guests’ was one that took me down the memory lane and made me relive those beautiful childhood days. She loves cooking ideas, and having them read even more! She believes watching Pingu, singing Jack-n-Jill and eating baby food is therapeutic. And that the pen is man’s best invention, only after diapers that is! 😉

This happens to be the first ever guest post on Dew Drops and this also happens to be Sakshi’s 100th post. I’m honored. 🙂

Let’s see what caught her attention while men were in kitchen. 😀

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When men cook, look up at the moon. Is it orange? Silver? Green? No, it’s blue.

Of course that is not a bad thing. The blue moon, I mean. It’s rare and hence it is special. Day after day we see the same moon shining silver and bright. It takes a man in the kitchen to turn it blue. Bathe us in this rare light. And it’s a momentous O’clock when a man says – ‘I’ll cook today, why not!’

What happens when men cook?

When men cook, it’s all about science

Archimedes for the soaked kidney beans and Newton for dropping in the fenugreek seeds! And all kinds of theorems tossed in the salad or made heavy with cheese. A battalion of measuring cups and spoons, ladles and bowls. Even peg measures, the most reliable for 30 ml or 60 ml, or maybe double (so what if it’s just chai that is going to be made). Such a rational way of adding water, salt, turmeric, chilli powder that the Age of Enlightenment unfolds right inside your kitchens. Careful hands dropping them in the pan. A gram here and milligram there. Watch them, and it’s like someone beading a necklace with pearls he wrenched out of oysters. Cumin seeds! The man will count the number, drop them in the hot oil and move some calculated yards back. Excused, the recoil! What if they crackle in protest of a man’s hand and pop in the wrong direction? The mini-mines in the pan can instill fear in anyone’s heart. And here it’s just dear men. Notes taken for the next time. 5 seconds, and 7 baby steps towards the pan again. Time to add the onions, sniff sniff and a cascade of tears. Even at Rs. 70/kg what a terrible lot, the man complains!

When men cook, they follow the written word

They don’t cook with their minds, but with their behinds. Oh you get me wrong. I mean the recipes they hang behind them on the wall to swirl around and read, word for word. Maybe borrow spectacles so they can see the minutest of difference between tbsp. and tsp. The finger runs down the sheet, the eyes pore over it, the mind makes temporary notes and the ladle goes round-round-tik-tik-swish. How many rounds? Well, check the recipe, yes he will! The clock is the hero. The time keeper for success. Every second counts for a man making pasta cream, like for Bolt running for a gold. Oops! Excuse the bad analogy. For they work at different speeds (Actually, very different speeds!)

When men cook, they don’t cook daal

Why cook daal? Boiled lentils and no more (with cumin seeds, of course)!  Cook continental, or ‘conti’ as is lovingly called. Or maybe stir fry some veggies in red wine. Or white. Celery and lettuce and exotic cheese. Sauté mushrooms in butter or salad things up with olive oil. Spend the monthly budget but make it exotic will you! Bhoona masala is what mundane is made of, and hard work too. The kitchen travels in the hand of a cooking man. It goes to US of A and makes big burgers, or rises up to China and to Manchuria in particular. It may just go down under, make something with beer. Beer? Why, Australia has to have a dish which needs a little lager? Daal, roti, subzi can remain in The Everyday. It’s a blue moon, darling, and it’s Russia on my plate this day!

When men cook, the kitchen changes face

Master Chefs at home are experts at cooking. But the Dept. of Cleaning is not under their jurisdiction, conveniently. They need liveried attendants to clean up and wind up after them. Ok, homely dressed will do too, as long as someone else is making the kitchen feel at home again! In moments of sheer genius, who cares where the oil dripped or sugar fell to invite the ants for a little treat? Which spoon stand the dirty used ladles carelessly adorned or how many utensils were used to simply beat the eggs? Trifles, all! When men are cooking manna, all the mess can matter not. Trivialities, those drips drops splashes splatters hits and misses on the floor tiles, or even on the wall. The cooking took an hour, the winding up maybe two. But where there’s gilded food to be had, who minds a little extra dose of to-do?

And when men cook, they stand atop Town Hall’s hall. Beat a thaali with a spoon

Announce the deed done, the ordeal that is over. The science, the expertise, the meticulous moves. They stand all proud, with that dish in their hands and enjoying the whole pantheon of Gods showering flowers on their heads from the clouds above. Some get a little tattoo with the date and time of achievement, when they served a perfect dish (or so they think). Some become world celebrity chefs, of course. Wear what they may, say what they will, taste everything and cook a pretentious meal you empty your life’s savings for. Others are celebrities in their own dens. For on that special day they had buttered the bread, or better still boiled not one but two eggs.

When men cook, it goes to their heads.

The kitchen fumes, of course. That’s all I meant! Then they need an Aspirin, maybe a few minutes of head massage or foot. A little extra TLC for standing beside the LPG, a whole half hour through.

But despite the sweat and salt, when men eat what they cooked, they burp the loudest too!

(Views expressed are personal. The author, under no circumstances, is including your man in the ‘Men’. At best, she is exposing her naiveté by generalizing. Maybe, her sexist attitude too. But like all Gods say in one voice – Forgive, and you shall get more blog hits. Amen!)