Cooking off the Web

When I was young, nothing could persuade me to step into the kitchen to help Mom cook. I guess I was never too particular about what I ate - so it never did matter whether I learnt how to make it or not.

When I was in Germany, I set a record of sorts of being the only Indian who ate everyday at the canteen with the German team - for three months. It is still a mystery to me how I survived on potatoes, chocolate and eggs (and managed to lose a lot of weight in the bargain!) All for the simple reason that I hated to cook ;-)

When I broke the news of my non-cooking abilities to my then-fiance-now-husband, he was not bothered either. He lived in Japan and he wasn't too fond of cooking either. His meals were very simple and the most complicated being tomato curry. But then 'I survived in Germany, so why not in Japan?' I thought to myself.

So when Mom packed all kinds of masalas, dals, ready to eat snacks and MTR ready made mixes in my luggage, I was quite amused. Turned out when I reached Japan, that even if I had to live on potatoes, chocolate and eggs, someone (meaning me!) had to get them, cook them and try to make something edible out of it.

Now, I laugh when I think of all the crazy things I did back then, but I am sure at that point of time (many points of time, actually!) I would have been ready to just drop the ladle, pot, veggies and whatever else was getting 'cooked', sit and cry! So, I made up my mind to learn to cook ("it was surely much easier than programming the injection system of a car, was it not?").

So I think I used up a phone card everyday getting recipes from Mom. The recipes were more detailed than my engineering notes. And then, I realized I couldn't keep asking Mom forever - so I turned to the web for culinary help.

And today the internet is probably my best friend when it comes to cooking up a new dish a day! And one of the things I love about it is I just key in the ingredients I have on hand and I get a zillion recipes in an instant - and I get to choose which one to work on.

Of course, being an organized cook, I love websites like spiceindiaonline.com which is so detailed, even someone like me with no prior cooking experience whatsoever can churn out dishes from the kitchen like a Masterchef! I learnt how to make exquisite paneer butter masala from this website before I learnt how to make palatable rasam from my mil! ;-)

Thank you, Mullai of spiceindiaonline.com for all the wonderful recipes!