With the fears now gone (as learnt in Part 1) and the bold steps taken – (Also FYI – the above picture is what I started with)

To start with not only did I have to learn what culinary words meant, but trying to convert the English verbiage of vegetables, spices and items to my daily local language itself was one art – understanding what the damn thing looked like was another.

I felt I was in Tharoor land and it finally dawned upon my simple mind as to why I and many other men, I am sure are never to buy vegetables and restricted to buying simple fruits like bananas, apples, grapes, Oranges. It was also an eye opener that many of these cookbooks are just that – cookbooks. You cannot take them too seriously and perfectly – you would never be able to make anything following it to the T. Those MasterChef tests where they follow 10 pages – it works for the Chef who prepared and the professional cooks whose life is cooking.. We poor souls – just follow our guts. You read – you burn!!!

The amazing thing about learning is one learns fast – we remain children at heart – of course, unless we are born dumb! Especially when it comes to burning food, blackening the walls, sitting and scrubbing the ashes off the platforms and spending half your day on Amazon to find more cleaning liquids than what you spent on your office call – you learn Super Duper fast.

It did take me a day to realize that reading and cooking is not exactly an art that one should pursue unless your hands work as fast as some of the Master Chefs and you have optical, peripheral, horizontal, vertical and diagonal eyesight that all women possess. What happens if you cannot cope up – simple – you not only burn your food – but you also scar your vessels and then find ways to clean them, probably since you have spent two hours trying to clean the shit state that you left your vessels in. You also learn simultaneously that piped gas speeds are faster than the standard LPG gas cylinders – piped gas being more lighter.

Having had the privilege of doing that for one day – and also being a quick learner – I realized that this model of operation was not exactly that I could manage – without destroying half the kitchen, or ensuring every dish cooked was done on extreme rare status – not to mention thinking and storing excuses for the wife as to why half the crockery looks different with a darker shade than when left.

Option 2 appeared viable – but slower. Books you can read at one go – remember and come back during the cooking project (God help you if you forget where the page is in the middle of cooking) Videos – you have to wait for the narrator to run through every step or where there exist smart ones, they manage 20 steps in one step making you wonder, if you are actually cooking the same item that is being shown on You Tube. A slightly variable option that one learnt was if you forgot a step – one shuts the gas – look at the video and come back again. I must admit that I learnt this after scarring a few utensils on burnt vegetables when looking at the videos live – not realizing that something was getting cooked at a good speed. Of course that has its pitfalls of either the pan cooling or the multiple restarts screwing up the food in more ways than one and not to mention a cooking time of 20 minutes leapfrogs to 1 hour.

The 3rd way which turned out to be a combination of sorts – look at videos in your spare time – ask some good friends and then attempt – eventually seemed the most viable one. Yes, there were shares of pitfalls there too – one forgets the quantities that one should use – having once ending up cooking food that would have fed six people (instead of one) and had to eat the entire thing; at times even cooked so little food that even a month old baby would have starved; you put in too much salt – you suck up and eat – it is your hard earned money; or use the wrong spices – under / overestimate the use of oils and fats – do not realize that when you sauté them – the oil sparkles (more even with vegetables that are semiwet – throwing small bobs on your hands and creating some weird looking bubbles that stay for a week, which over time you become an expert and just put your hand under running water or have a moisturizer spread over – knives slicing either into your fingers or the chopping board too hard – not realizing what finely chopped means and you don’t use your brute strength trying to mash vegetables with the pan on the stove – the list goes on and on.

Eventually it had to be a combination of all – reading books – finding new stuff – watching videos – asking people – and then attempting and eventually getting your mojo. No one way is the best of all – Each has their pros and cons. But the key element was attempting and the willingness to learn.

Experiments are the best and no person in the world has become perfect without mistakes. I managed a bulk of the dishes that I had been fed over the decades – they may not have been perfect – but they were palatable enough to fill my stomach well and also in the process created some new versions as being alone and the only person responsible to eat what I had cooked – took the liberty to mix and match. Some were hits – some were – Oh well! The objective was never for the full nine yards – but more of self-reliance of being able to survive should the need arise, plus being able to contribute to the tasks occasionally.

Over time a number of dishes did finally fall into place, as I had learnt to eat them over the years – the taste might not have been the same – the food burn levels might have also been off – also considering that for the average Indian Man – they cook the best – even better than the wife -and reaching a stage of managing to cook without destroying the kitchen – proof also coming via the maid who stopped slapping her forehead as her time to clean the kitchen dropped by half not finding burnt vessels or greasy sticky walls as time went on and compared to what I started with – my featured image of a Sandwich!

The exposure was undeniably amazing – a realization for those men that have been brought up on the notion that they will be fed food until such time they go to the grave – that cooking too is specialized and yet fun. It is not as complicated as sending a rocket to the moon, nor is it a piece of cake – but at the same time – requires dedication and attention that any office going job requires – probably more – similar to a person working in the field – An incorrect timing judgement or a lack of precaution can well prove fatal. Putting it on a corporate level this experience surely taught a good number of lessons which I could relate to corporate lessons as in

Acceptance – There is no such thing as a bad dish. It is either undercooked or overcooked or burnt or mostly brilliant. And if anyone has a problem – well, no one till date has died of eating raw cabbage

Accountability and responsibility – You trust the vendor. You tell him – give me the best selection. Threaten to take away your business to competition. He will give you good stuff.

JIT Inventory – Everything need not come in at once. You buy what you want when you want. The options become tremendous.

Experiment – There is no one best method. We did it in Chemistry and the Physics Lab – If we never blew those – the kitchen is safer.

Never underestimate who you work with – I replaced chili powder with a special Mexican Extra Blazing Hot and Spicy sauce. Thought it was regular sauce. Had air coming from holes that I did not know existed – I realized why the wife hid it!

Time Management – We don’t need all day. When you work – skip the phones – even if it is the wife

Remain focused – Cooking is serious work. Loud Music, a glass of wine and you are set.

Being confident and being stupid are different – Starting a video call with the wife showing confidence is actually stupidity – They CAN and WILL find 3000 mistakes in three minutes. Confidence – My *****

Distribution – Finish materials fast – If you don’t understand what to do with a vegetable – mix it. What is MasterChef – Stuff that even they don’t know about.

People Management – Do 50% of the maid’s work by clearing out the platform and putting all utensils in the sink – She puts in an extra effort to clean the kitchen.

Physics – Expansion and contraction. Vegetables contract. Pulses and legumes expand when heated or become wet. Learn your products well.

Know your weaknesses – We are slapped and taught as kids – Fire is not a joke. Men forget and we plan to do flambés.  We think meat cutting knives can be used for chopping onions. Skin burns in Nanoseconds. The cleaver slices through skin – enough said

Acceptance – We are not God. We may be the next best thing – but not God. You have an off day – order a Pizza!

One also realizes that for many this is a career, a job, a profession – be it in the fancy 9** restaurant or a hotel or the road side vendor. Different names – Chef, Cook, Road side vendor – but at the end, it is cooking. And the brilliant dishes that we get to eat – at home or in a restaurant – come with hard work and beads of sweat. The wife would (or not) probably take over the kitchen one day – but until then – the fun, the joy, the pain continues – never one knows – I might have created a few secret recipes of my own. Better than the wife? Absolutely !!!

Onto my next dish – The Joy – and the Grief – goes on

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