BackWinning back my freedom in the kitchen
It's always nice to have someone chop, cook and clean for you. Or is it nicer to have your kitchen back?
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It is nice to have help in the kitchen, to have someone who chops, cooks and cleans for you.
Isn’t it?
I am not so sure.
I have only intermittently had help, usually a part-time cook who does the basic sabzis or the preparations or handles the aftermath. Sometimes, it is nice not to spend time doing what appears much like drudgery.
Sometimes.
After about a quarter-century of running my own kitchen, I find it hard to have someone else helping or doing whatever else they are doing to make my life easier.
My life does not become easier because I have help. I suppose I am too nit-picky about what I eat, how it is made, the state of cleanliness, the location of spices and things—you know, all those things that make a man and his kitchen feel as one.
Someone in the kitchen—even if it is my wife—gets in my way.
The first kitchen I ran by myself was nothing more than a hot plate shoved under the bed. Sundry eggs, tomatoes and onions shared stone shelves with underwear and T-shirts in the tiny, rooftop room that I rented in a calmer, gentler Bangalore. That was easy to manage, though it was irksome to wash vessels in the tiny washbasin of my midget bathroom.
The next kitchen was no more than a grimy, shared pantry down the corridor of my dorm room in a little Midwestern American town of 90,000 people. Columbia was in the state of Missouri—where they declared it the second largest city. I learned to make-believe like the pantry was my own kitchen, filing away the then strange smells of Chinese broths and Haitian chicken into my olfactory archives and living off super-sized bread, eggs and 99-cent (around ₹ 53 now) packets of fatty, plasticky sausages.
Soon, I was turning out biryanis for my friends and grilling meat with whatever exotic spices—meaning red-chilli and cumin—were available in Midwestern, early 1990s America.
Back in India, I lived in a series of flats in Delhi, revelling in the freedom and my own food, both of which went together in my mind.
After marriage at the turn of the century, the first signs of help started creeping in. I soon discovered that the better the cook, the greater the restrictions on my culinary liberties. I could interfere only so much, and, in any case, no cook could hope to translate my wild gastronomic dreams into reality.
The greatest threat to my freedom came in Bangalore where, for more than a year, our part-time cook often ended up doing full-time cooking. For this, I place a part of the blame on myself and a part on the wife, a well-meaning soul who tries to reduce my time in the kitchen by trying to super-organize my life and my kitchen. I allowed myself to be lulled into this dependence, at times secretly enjoying the lethargy and pampering.
It was an illusion.
When I went to teach in Berkeley, California, US, for a semester last year, I rediscovered freedom in full measure. My kitchen was back, and although I had to cook for the wife and child before going to work, it was not difficult, what with all the pre-washed meats and triple-washed salads. Nothing beats the satisfaction of a self-cooked good meal. Even if it isn’t that good, you tend not to feel it.
When we returned, the part-time cook really became part-time, disappearing for days on end with dubious explanations (how about: my husband ran away with my sister? Turns out it never happened) or, despite having a cellphone, no explanations, except “Three chilluns akka (three children, sister)!".
Well, last week, she finally disappeared, for good it appears. The wife was dismayed. I could scarcely believe my luck. Did this mean, could it be, dare I hope that my kitchen would return to me?
Presently, my kitchen is indeed back, and in celebration of the first signs of freedom, I dug into my larder and fished out my old bamboo steamer, which my harried in-laws had found after a week’s search in Seattle a decade ago. You might consider my experiment, described below, a bit strange, but the steamed fish was really quite nice, though it is possible my taste buds were influenced by my excitement. I particularly like steaming because apart from being super healthy, it quickly reveals the freshness of meats, vegetables and ingredients.
When I lose freedom in my kitchen, I tend to shrink within myself. I do not steam. I do not experiment. I do not mix and match spices. I do not pound and roast. I do not read through my formidable collection of cooking books. I do not do a lot of things I would if my kitchen were mine alone.
The freedom could not have come at a more propitious time. It is summer, a time when I do my best cooking. Somehow, the heat of an Indian summer spurs me on. Even usually balmy Bangalore is steaming. The ubiquitous Bangalore breeze appears to wilt and wane, and the rain trees appear bowed and beat.
With freedom ringing from every shelf, spice bottle and steamer in my kitchen, and garnished by every warm breeze blowing in, I think this will be a productive, satisfying summer.
Nutmeg and aniseed steamed fish
Serves 1-2
Ingredients
2 large slices of kingfish
1 tsp nutmeg powder
¼ tsp whole saunf (aniseed)
½ tsp chilli powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp olive oil
Salt to taste
Method
Mix all the ingredients and rub over the fish. Wrap in foil and set aside for an hour. Bring water to boil in a vessel that is as broad as your steamer. Place steamer on top of the boiling water and cook the fish parcel for about 10 minutes. Keep extra boiling water handy if it evaporates. You can open the foil and check if the fish is cooked, but be aware the steam will be superheated. Squeeze lime over the fish and serve hot with fresh bread or rice.
This is a column on easy, inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar also writes the fortnightly science column Frontier Mail for Mint.
Also Read | Samar’s previous columns
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