Cooking

A friend came over for lunch with 2 kids. I figured instead of ordering food, I would cook something. I ended up making Sambhar, Chicken Curry and Egg Curry and baked potatoes. It wasn’t a lot. But in 1 hour that is pretty much how much you can cook on two stoves for 4 people.

While having the food, he mentioned I am pretty good at cooking and where did I learn from?

“From your mom? Or some youtube recipes?” “Neither. I think I just figured it out. It is science after all.”.

We both laughed, purely because he knew I thought of everything as science and he disapproved of that idea that everything is science. Partly, because he is the type to beleive that if someone is good at somethibng, is is because they invested a lot of time in it and so they must be bad at something else, as they didn’t invest the same amount of time in it. I certainly don’t believe in that theory. But he does. So every time we kind of get close to this topic, we end up just laughing and moving on, because we know that no amount of argument will change the other person’s mind.

But it got me thinking. I have never watched youtube videos or read any recipe online. I know both my parents are very good at cooking. But both of them never taught me to cook. I never got involved in the kitchedn when I was in Singapore. Even when my mom used to take off for some events/functions, my dad used to cook, but my involvement was bounded to just doing the dishes.

So I really have no clue how my cooking is good. It is not even trial and error. It just was always good. And no, I never had to figure what I have to put first, what I have to put next to make sambhar etc. It just intuitively felt right.

It sounds like a lot of bullshit. But I really can’t figure out how I am good at cooking.