Mom , MIL and Me ... Cooking

I never considered my mom to be a great cook when I was growing up. We rarely ate out those days and we when we did my mom made it a point to dissect the food we liked in her brain and try it out later. It was mostly a success. She baked cakes, cookies and puddings in those days when people rarely had ovens. We never bought any pickles or jams or fruit squashes(concentrates) , mom made it all.

Even when I moved to a hostel during my Engineering days and the food there was barely edible , I still did not give her the credit. I just assumed that every mom was a good cook or maybe that all home cooked food tasted good . 

Soon after school, I moved to another city to do my Graduation. It was supposed to be a good choice for an Engineering college . Then I got a job and moved further away. All through this time I made sure that I came home every weekend. I hogged on my mom's food but did not appreciate her cooking skills. Nor did I try to learn or try or even watch to see how she cooked. 

When I was dating my husband he often gushed about his mom's cooking . I told him that my mom is just an average cook. I was in for a shock after marriage. With all due respect for my MIL , she wasn't the cook I expected her to be.  Today I realize it is because of circumstances. She stayed in a joint family where the other elders did the cooking. She never went out a lot so she did not know anything other than the traditional fare. And their traditional fare was not what I have had and took me a lot of time adjust to. My husband on the other hand found my mom to be a great cook and would polish off whatever she made and ask for seconds. 

Then life happened and we moved to the US. And I realized that though I knew a lot about theoretical cooking thanks to the cooking blogs I read, I did not know how to cook at all.  It has been some time here now and I have come a long way from where I started. 

I am happy with the progress but then when I look back I keep thinking of some of the kitchen experiments that became an unexpected success. I wish I had those recipes to recreate the magic. I am planning to document my recipes keeping it in mind...  

#100 Happy Days - 1

Oct 17- 2017

John called me to ask if I am interested in a new role. I am happy he thought of me when the opening came. 

I am in a dilemma . The brain wants me to take it. But the heart wants to me consider my current team and project which is going through a difficult time for no reason of mine.
I am still not sure...

The mad rush ..

So the husband went on a vacation to India all by himself for a month. Many ask me how I manage . It makes me think I am odd but I love the space and distance once in a while (or maybe more) . I wonder if they think that we are going through a rough patch . No, we are not. We are two individuals and we love our "me" times to do what we like to do. 

Now things are not as good as I thought it will be. Coz the little one has school and all those extra activities that we send him to. To add to it , Murphy came round the corner . He has to. My work went into a crazy pitch since the husband left and I am struggling to balance it along with managing the kiddo , his food, school etc etc. But even then I am not complaining , I am still liking it. 

The silver lining in the cloud : 

The little boy and I went to the museum in New York that we always wanted to. The husband keeps putting it off coz I think the word museum scares him or bores him . 

We ate out quite a bit and ended up a few pounds heavier and super guilty too.  We tried out places and cuisines that we wanted to but was sure the husband will not like.

We read lots of books. Now that he reads by himself I get more time to read for myself. We went to the library quite a lot and as per the routine we had icecream from the local home run dairy after every library visit. 

The cons:

To fit all the things we wanted to , I had to stretch myself and push my work to the midnight hours. Sometimes it left me rushing to catch my breath ...

I have zillion other things to get done before he is back and I have no idea how. Enjoying the moment for now ...

At the icecream shop

There is one little icecream shop in my hometown.
My hometown is a busy town , though it has the tag of a city. Now years ago , when my sister and I were in school , we used to go to this big shopping center . Mom and Dad would go to the super market and we to the icecream shop. At that age, when sundaes were not the norm , they had brilliant flavors and mixes. Pineapple passion which is tall glasses of pineapple and vanilla icecreams with the occasional sweet and tart syrup and loads of pineapple or the Orange Temptation with vanilla and orange icecreams and sugary orange pulp . Even though I have my salted caramel and honey nut favorites now , this icecream shop and their icecreams are still a favorite.

So now I am all set to move to the US , I have this sharp pain that hits me when I think about leaving mom here. She is composed, she speaks about being happy for me , she does not show the slightest hint of pain.

Today I wanted to go to the quaint little icecream shop with her . She being her normal self, complained that it was time for lunch , complained about the weather and what not. But I could tell she was happy , very much ..

Now the catch is that the little boy cannot have icecream, he was (or maybe still is ) allergic to milk and I do not want to take chances. But he never asks for it , he doesnt seem to miss it . Mom thought it wasnt right for us to go with him in tow , she thought it was cruel . I bought some goodies from my favorite bakers down the street and he gobbled his share in the icecream shop.

We had our favorite icecreams , It has changed. My icecream was too frozen , and they had smaller glasses . and changed the brand of icrecream too. But it didnt matter to me.

While we were enjoying my son finished his "baked goodies" and made a sulky face. Without thinking I gave him my phone and told him he could play subway surfer. Sulk gave way to a broad grin and he told me : "I knew it , whenever I appear to be sad you give me the phone"  I realized I am doing it wrong but didnt care . 

The perfect life

I fought with her.

I am worried , she is . Mom is .

I felt she didn’t need me anymore . She rarely talks to me . She doesn’t pet my son. She ignores me .

She spents the whole of her time on the social media. I think she is addicted.

Those are my thoughts.

The whole bunch of them think I have some problem. I told him long ago that I needed to see a shrink. He didn’t take me, he didn’t think it was necessary. He thought it was emotional blackmail from me to him . I tried to explain that I feel crazy, depressed,  lonely, alone, and the urge to leave was pulling me.

He didn’t realize. Even now he does not. But they all agree that I am wrong, a character issue they call it.

I feel lonely, cut off. I felt the urge  I closed the door. There, lying on the bed , was my bundle of joy. Sleeping peacefully. I cringe . I decide to cry . I decide to be around for him.

The whole world, apart from them, think I have a magical life. My career, the opportunities, my baby,  he, mom, she … the life to perfect …. So be it.

We will not react

Today started like any other day .

At around 10 AM a colleague blurted out that “R” passed away. Now “R” was not my close friend , or I have not even talked to him once . But then he was someone whom I saw everyday , it doesn’t seem real.

He was a very tall, very slim ,a vegetarian. And with the tag of a “workaholic”.

For many days , maybe since October , he hasn’t been sleeping well coz the project was in a bad shape. He was an architect , he did not have to take responsibility for the project .  But he did and the managers took undue advanatage of his dedication and passion to work. This meant that he has his own work , he had to mentor and help out the juniors and he did the job that his managers should have done. And he was sleep deprived…

It hurts me , he and his wife were expecting a baby and she was in the hospital for her delivery when he collapsed. He was shuttling between home , hospital and work since the past few days.

What really worries me is that this is not an isolated incident. There have been so many cases that I personally know of , where sleep deprived , hard working people get a pain in the chest and pass away before they reach the hospital next door.

My concern here is that management is least affected by this. Today , his manager commented that “R” didn’t have much of a work load. Everyone knows its not true. No one reacted.

We do not react, Organizations want to make money and they bid for less money, they make employees work and work . We lose a few of our collegues but we do not react. Is it pure selfishness ? Or is it about being scared ? Or is it the feeling that it will never happen to you.

The Guests...

So the crowd has gone. It was a long weekend , the republic day and a "hartal" made it a super long weekend. I am exhausted cooking and cleaning for the Entire Inlaws clan. Now it is back to business as usual.

The guests over the weekend loved to sleep. Occasionally they would check if I needed help in the kitchen

I resorted to the readymade gravies and coconut pastes instead of doing it from scratch as I always do. Was a big relief.

One of the guests asked for "sambar" or some lentil curry when lunch was served. Luckily , I had some in the fridge. I do not understand how a guest can say - I need some curry other than chicken curry along with rice. I mean , isn't it rude. And there was fish fry , cutlets , veg stir fry , the usual pickles and curd ... and he wanted a "loose" curry he said.

The first day fish fry did not meet expectations. I tried my special fish fry masala with rice flour which makes the fish crisp on the outside and soft and well cooked on the inside. They consider that "uncooked" . They wanted fish to be be fried crisp till black like coal. I used to think it was a mistake , but realized that people do like it that way too. The next day I made it that way and they all loved it. I thought it tasted like a piece of burned something, could not taste fish anywhere.

They judge food by the amount of spice in it. The spicier , the merrier. Glad that I understood it , coz then i would make hot hot spicy curries . I thought the spice killed the curry , it was too spicy to get the real taste but everyone else would be happy. Great dish they would say. The husband bought some fish from the hypermarket, it was cleaned and cut . To me , the fish was starting to rot , the husband would not agree. I fried it with enormous amounts of chilly and pepper and they all loved it. I couldnt even think of tasting it . That is the magic of chilly and peppers.

I had to take Pran for skating lessons early in the morning . The guests would sleep all day . By 8 PM they were all refreshed and ready to start the day . I would be dead tired and waiting to hit the sack. Finally the last day , I apologized and asked my SIL to put dishes on sink when they were done with dinner. I had to wake up early in the morning and could not stay for a minute more.  Maybe they felt bad but I could not help it.

Now that they are gone , I am heaving a sigh of relief. Too lazy to start my office tasks. Too lazy to cook a normal meal . Too lazy , yes.