Its been about 2 months since I returned from Germany and time has just flown away. I was travelling to a foreign country for the first time and had my share of jitters. Being a vegetarian, I had to take care of what food I eat over there. 'Experienced' people had advised me to be careful because the Germans consider egg and fish to be vegetarian!! So by chance I could end up tasting them. Yuck!! Read up here on the benefits of vegetarianism. But I was also given a lifeline - "If you can cook on your own then you can manage." Cook?! Now that's the word I used to utter when I would pester my mom to prepare something yummy to eat.
There were still some days before I left. I decided to learn it all. But as the saying goes - 'Procastrination is the thief of time' and it came true again this time :-)). My mom kept telling me how to prepare some simple, easy to prepare items to eat but i did not lend a patient hearing to her caring words. I also carried some of the 'MTR Ready to eat' stuff, Maggi etc which I could use over there.
After landing there, realized that I was going to be all alone, doing all the chores myself say cooking, washing clothes, washing utensils etc to be precise. Managing office and all these chores back in the hotel was just a skill which I learnt after going there. Among these cooking was something which i had never done before although i had visited the kitchen in my house; just to gobble up whatever my mom had prepared. :-)
The Maggi and the Ready to eat stuff disappeared into my stomach within a few days. And here came the crucial phase where I had to cook. I avoided cooking by having food either in the office canteen or outside on some days. Got bored of it since most of it would not satisfy my taste buds and they were also very unsattvic.
Finally I took the tough decision of cooking on my own on a Saturday afternoon. On a low confidence note but with full josh and enthusiasm started cooking. That's the kitchen below in the hotel -
Prepared some rice, dal and bhindi fry. Very hesitatingly I tasted them and to my surprise it came out very well. :-) and they tasted just perfect. Some kinda magic?! Ha Ha Ha. Suddenly my confidence levels rose sky high. Here I had prepared something for the first time and it was amazing. The items look tasty below. :-)
After some days one of my friends also joined me. Together we prepared a keralite special item called the
Avial. It came out really superb. You can see the colourful item below.
Since he had a big hand in preparing that, I don't remember the recipe. :-( You can read it up
here. The experience of cooking together was great. Now I feel like I can manage wherever I go. But its very important for each and everyone of us to know cooking whether be a bachelor or a married person.
Now looking to forward to cook up something for my mom sometime. :-)
