I miss cooking so much, it’s ridiculous. I haven’t cooked in seven months apart from a shortlived stint making rotis for my grandma the day her maid didn’t come. I remember the first thing I ever concocted, age 8 – a chocolate mousse from a recipe in one of those children’s newspapers like Young Times or something, where the recipes were always as simple as white bread, cucumber and sliced cheese. It was divine. When I left home, some eight years ago, I used to make grilled feta with cayenne pepper on toast, orange syrup cake and petits fours with my high school boyfriend. In the years that followed, I made Thai and Italian food for my housemates at university. I miss making pancakes with Teva (which technically he made) and making and baking sweet potato chips from scratch and steaming dumplings for Ro. I miss Juhi’s cooking lessons – hotpot and claypot, etc. I miss my boyfree baking extravaganzas with Hayley and trying recipes from her beautiful cookbooks Apples for Jam and Falling Cloudberries. The only time I’ve been in the kitchen since June is when Rushad and I made the most exquisite hot chocolate here once with a huge block of dark, a vanilla bean pod and a large green chilli we split and roasted. Oh and the one time, he invited me to their work kitchen and made the four following delicious dishes. Including the best burger I’ve ever eaten.
Stuffed calamari for a salad. Sesame beef salad prep. Delicious red pepper relish. That burger.
Oh and I miss baking the most. Muffins, fish pie, flourless chocolate cake. What sucks most of all is that I don’t have my own kitchen and the only utensils I have here are an ice crusher, a set of really expensive coffee mugs and two mini whisks. I can basically only make five minute chocolate cake. When I get my own place, I am going to make the biggest lemon tart, hand churned caramel icecream with fresh figs, tagliatelle with shellfish and ten jugs of mojitos. It will be in Bombay. You’re invited in advance.
Cooking and baking with Hayley. I missssssss.
-food rant end-
