Therapeutic cooking and music for soul
I’m struggling with my reading, writing and life in general
at the moment. Few days back as I was thinking of ways to heal/calm myself, I
realized that once upon a time I used to like cooking as well. Not the everyday
cooking where it seems like a chore, a job - something that I must do. It was
an activity that I did of my own free will, albeit rather occasionally.
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| Photo by Katie Smith on Unsplash |
Trying
out new dishes, experimenting in the kitchen, scrounging hard-to-find
ingredients and replicating recipes was so much fun. It also led to several
disasters (now funny).
Like one time, I burned a wooden table while baking a cake and using
an OTG for the first time!! We were waiting for the sweet smell of cake to fill
up our house. But instead it was filled with the burning smell of wood. LOL!
For the same cake, I needed vanilla essence. But my local store only had
pineapple essence. I thought how much difference it would make if instead of a few drops of vanilla, I use a few drops of pineapple? Not much, right? Turns out, it
makes a huge difference!!
Another
time, I bought fresh pomfret fish from the market to make tandoori pomfret. I
followed a recipe from the famous chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s book that had listed
out ingredients for 2 fish. I very confidently marinated the fishes and
declared in my house that today I’m going to feed you’ll an amazing fish dish.
The confidence dropped to zero when I fried it as it didn’t look as I had
expected. I quickly ran towards the book and reread the recipe. In my hurry I had
skipped reading ‘2 fish (each weighing 300 grams)’ in the recipe. I had bought
the smaller ones from the market that were probably 1/3 the size the recipe had
asked for. Since, I had not adjusted the recipe as per the weight and instead
focussed on the number of fishes, the end result was bad! Fortunately, my mom’s
quick wit saved the day. We washed off the marination from the rest of the
fishes and fried it the usual basic way (by slathering ginger-garlic-chillies paste,
salt, lemon juice, turmeric)
But
yes, I still had fun in spite of the trial and errors. For some reason, I
stopped experimenting 2 or 3 years back.
Now I’m
trying to get back to cooking for its therapeutic effect. Today, I cooked onion
pakoda (fritters). Yesterday, I had made egg bhurji (masala scrambled eggs with
onion, tomatoes, chillies and dry spices). And the day before that, I had made
a chicken curry. All basic stuff, nothing fancy. But the objective is to cook
regularly, even if it is just good old tea.
Ah yes,
listening to violin, piano and cello is nurturing my soul too. I wrote this
blog-post while listening to Amelie and La La Land’s piano, violin cover. It is
so beautiful. And so soothing. I particularly play these four on loop, for
those interested:
Until
next time!
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