Saturday, November 22, 2008

Leave poetry to poets

I believe cooking is a basic life skill, like  language. Unlike language, basic cooking can be learnt by anyone, in under an hour. To gain confidence though, it takes time and there is no better way to gain it than to keep cooking. 

Each cuisine can be thought of as a language and I like to think of one page cookbooks as primers teaching the alphabet and the ways they can be  put together. A lucky few among you, dear reader, may later become poets, turning out food poetry. But for the others, just learning to communicate (cook edible food) would be a worthy goal.

This is the reason you won't find poetry in one page cookbooks. There is no place for it in a primer. You are unlikely to bump into lines like " this heavenly sauce with a tantalising undertone of garlic, a whiff of fennel subtly juxtaposed with just a breath of ginger and a kiss of vine ripened tomatoes". I'll leave poetry to poets.



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Okay, let me start from the very beginning. 1500 crore years ago, with a Big Bang, the Universe is born. It expands dramatically. Hydrogen forms, contracts under gravity and lights up, forming stars. Some stars explode, dusting space with the building blocks of life. These condense into planets, one of which is Earth. Over time, self replicating molecules appear, multiply and become more complex. They create elaborate survival machines (cells, plants, animals). A variety of lifeforms evolve. Soon, humans arise, discover fire, invent language, agriculture and religion. Civilisations rise and fall. Alexander marches into India. Moguls establish an empire. Britain follows. Independence. Partition. Bloodshed. The license raj is in full sway. I'm born. India struggles to find its place. Liberalisation. The Internet arrives! I move from Tirupur to Chennai. Start a company. Expand into Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East. Poof! Dot com bust. Funding dries up. Struggle. Retire. Discover the joy of cooking, giving, friendships and the pleasures of a simple life. Life seems less complicated. Pizza Republic, Pita Bite and Bhojan Express bloom !

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