Cooking is too important to be left in the hands of women
I was like you, Guys. I was just like you…. For a quarter of a century I never went into the kitchen except for rare occasions to make the Instant Noodles. But we are a victim when it comes to the most important activity – Cooking. And we have been deliberately kept away from it!
Cooking, like any other art, is not so easy especially if you start late. You tend to make some mistakes. And learn it the hard way! When I decided to start cooking lemon rice, I asked my mother to help and she made three things – Rice cooked in pressure cooker, Lemon juice in a cup, the mustard/ gram etc cooked in oil. All she asked me to do was to mix these three things and eat! (Since I was new to cooking). Being the lazy guy that I ever am, I postponed this simple task for two weeks. After two weeks, when I opened the container containing rice, I got a huge shock! It smelled so awful and it was so much de-composed, that I had to throw away the container along with the spoilt rice!! When I did start to cook some simple dishes, I just left the vessels unwashed for a week. (While cooking itself is a task, you need to wash the vessels too!) Because of that negligence, it became harder to wash the vessels!
Rule No.1: While cooking, don’t postpone any activity related to it.
Then I did learn to make rice (in a pressure cooker cum frying pan). So, one day I thought I will make the lemon rice myself. So, I invented a new procedure – without planning anything, I started to heat the oil in the pan. Then I put mustard, the grams and the groundnuts into the pan and started frying it along with the oil. They seemed to become black instantly (Which I learnt was because I had kept the flame in full) and in order to protect them, I put the turmeric powder, salt, Kothamalli, rice(!!) – and almost everything in my sight into the pan! Then I remembered, I was doing lemon rice and hence I searched for the lime, cut it, and directly put the juice (along with the seeds) into the pan!! Then, I started re-cooking the rice in the pan along with all the other things that I just put in. This is called the chaos theory in kitchen – butterfly effect! How hopelessly related incidents lead to the biggest incident – of having to eat what you just cooked!!
Rule No.2: Plan what you are going to do. There has to be a sequence!
By now, any pro-active person would have rushed to the nearby restaurant to grab what is left before they close for the day. But I decided to cool what I have just cooked under a fan (as if cooling would make the taste better!) and then started eating it after fifteen minutes. The fifteen minutes (which I spent listening to songs) where the most crucial, which I didn’t realize at that time, because – the nearby restaurant close by that time! But alas, since we advocate learning by the hardest way to sink the lesson into our minds, we have to eat our own pills!
Rule No.3: Have a back up. Have instant noodles packets ready, but since everything that could go wrong, could actually go wrong – like the gas running out or the noodles over cooked, have bread/butter/jam or something like that, ready. Now, it is also very important that you finish cooking BEFORE the neighborhood restaurant closes!!
Coming back to the title of this post – you thought, we could remain experts in eating alone, and the sarcastic remarks made by women (Like ‘My son never even enters the kitchen, he never helps’) are to force us to cook? Nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, we have been kept away from kitchen while they (Look at the no. of comments in this blog post where the author has invited recipes on some theme and it is almost all women – each having a cooking blog!) improve their skills by collaborating and keeping us out! Even in the parliament, if not 33%, there is some considerable no. of women MP’s!! (Still worse, you thought there were no cooking blogs on the net?).
So, “Arise, Awake and stop not ill the goal is reached” And to remind you, eating is not the goal – It is a consequence of cooking, which is the ultimate goal. So, you guys start planning something about this, while I am off to eat the Gulab Jamun made by my mom! J
Destination Infinity
PS: This was supposed to be humorous post. Alas, we men find humor even in such ironies of life!
With all due respect to the readers of this blog —
It pains to see that this blog whose USP was unconventionality (please read the first ever post to know what I mean) has meandered into pandering to the banal tastes of pop culture with posts like these.
DI, there are umpteen bloggers to write about failed kitchen missions, who do a better job at that.
I would rather you to stick to your original motives – unconventionality and abstract-ism.
..and I found the title to be strongly sexist.
Hahha…..to be honest with you, women never tried to banish men from Kitchen….its the men who think its a lady's job! If a hubby/bro/father wants to give a helping hand in kitchen, I bet no women would deny it! infact they would be more glad than ever!
and ya the basic rule of kitchen [as I was like u few months back , never entering kitchen for 20 years!!!] is Common Sense!
If u know science, u can easily understand cooking!
Coming to cooking disasters,anyone can have a bad day!
its not based on genders…..come to west n u wud find most of the dads cooking at home just coz their wifes make awful food! Its all a matter of time and interest and anyone can master it! or at least cook decent food [ i am the live example!]
Cooking is important for anyone!! be it east or west or men/women! Ofcourse yaar….what do we earn/save or whatever? TO eat right??
finally, cooking is just like any other art ! anyone can master it, if they have interest!
All The Best! 🙂 hope 2 c u like a butterfly soon not with butterfly effect 😉
lol,I like to cook 🙂
Enjoyed the post! Very funny!
I love to cook.. this is the statement I am saying for more than 2 years but never went beyond noodles and Omlette.. Maybe taking inspiration form you guys I must enter into kitchen soon 🙂
@Sahaja
My mom never allow me to enter into kitchen except for drinking water 🙂
I think your conspiracy theory (that you are deliberately kept out of the kitchen) is your excuse to stay out of the kitchen and eat your mom's yummy food. And that is ok. Love yourself 🙂
I totally agree with you. It was only when I stayed out of my house, I realized that I too can enjoy cooking. 🙂
i actually came here to say something else but after reading the first comment the only word that came out of my mouth is
OUCH!
Another important rule is to fully concentrate on what you're doing. Don't just put some stuff on the fire and at the same time start working on a blog post. The recipe for complete failure in the kitchen.
High time for us women to keep our prejudices aside and let men cook 🙂
Liked your cooking adventure. So are you entering that contest?
DI, a bit off-topic:)
there is a discussion about you on my blog 🙂 could you please respond and clarify it ?http://1000petals.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/tag-all-my-jobs/#comment-7453
1000 thanks!
@MSR: Comment answered in blogspot.
@Sahaja: I accept one of your points much more than the others – What do we earn/save or whatever, to eat right? : I whole heartedly accept this 🙂
@Vishesh: My My – you seem to know almost everything at your age. At this pace, there would be nothing else left for you to learn after 45!
@Nita: It was funny for me also. Strangely, I am able to find my own blunders funny. I heard that only greatest souls are able to do that 🙂
@Kanagu: I am also back to noodles nowadays. My Grandmother says its easy to cook vegetables along with rice and eat. The eating part is easy, but the cooking part????
@Molly: Yeah, and I would have just loved to be doing that for ever. But now since I am living alone away from home, all this has to be faced.
@Amit: I too enjoy cooking, only the eating my own cooked food……
@Tazeen: That first commenter has just now posted after six months! This is much better than that.
@lenen: That idea has not struck me till now, fortunately 🙂
@Solilo: I have an advantage, even if I do choose to enter the contest. The lemon rice is indeed yellow and no one there can taste it!! But the only problem is, I have not taken a photo of the lemon rice!
@Axinia: Answered, and will do the tag soon.
Destination Infinity
It would be kind of you to post the comment here as well. You don't want your readers to shuttle between WP and Blogspot. Do you?
I post comments at both places because your readers are divided between WP and Blogspot. You want all your readers to know what you reply, right?
@MSR: I didn't answer it there. But if you do want the reply : This blog is about all you said but it is not easy to come up with 4-5 posts a month all on the same theme. Also, some variation helps in refreshing both the readers and the writer (Me!!).
Secondly, criticism is not only about pointing out errors.
Destination Infinity
/*The eating part is easy, but the cooking part????
*/
LOl 😆
Most women with a cooking blog have other blogs too, and my blog (the one you have referred to in your post) has some of my husband's creations which are superlative! I have left here the link to my other blog where I ramble too, and I quite unintentionally might have turned sexist too sometimes!! BTW have you not check Avec Eric, Sanjeev Kapoor or David Lebovitz site – they are hot men cooking good food:)
@Sunshinemom: I always knew that a lot chief chefs at the Five star hotels were men 😉 I will also tell you a secret: Men don't listen when you say 'Cooking is good and it is a skill which needs to be learnt and women would feel good if you help' They always need a tonic like this!!
Destination Infinity
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i loved your article ….cooking is science and all guys should know cooking ………..well nowadays all working woemed need such husbands
take care
love the article …..well considering todays circumstances so many women folks are working ….i will take your heading very sportingly …please please do not leave the kitchen in our hands please cook the food and pack for us too 🙂
@NK: Yes, Cooking is science and everyone needs to learn it. I have learned my bit! No, we will not cook for others – we are very selfish. So, we will ask the wife to eat in a hotel and enjoy our own cooked meal 😀 😛
Destination Infinity
LOL !