I was channel surfing in the morning, when I stopped to watch a ridiculous show on Discovery Travel and Living channel. Its called 'Friends for Dinner', where they apparently catch hold of some person who has never probably cooked a complete meal, give him/her a menu and then invite over the friends who'll have to bear the brunt of all that 'experiment'. Sort of reality show actually. Trust these westerners to come up with any stupid sounding concept and turn it into a mega show, which offcourse then will be copied by us. So, why I thought it was particularly silly, a brit female was given an elaborate Indian menu. A chef is always assigned to such a person as a mentor, and she kept on calling him every now and then and asked him the silliest doubts. SHE FORGOT TO ADD THE CORRIANDER!!! and she PANICKED over that!!!! She calls him up and says, "Oh my God Joe, I forgot to add corriander..." and I was actually LMAO.... I always thought of cooking as an art, a creative faculty rather than a science. So I can never understand this obsession with cook-books. In my mind, its always a way I can keep on trying new things, kitchen being the laboratory...once you understand the process, the nature and use of ingredients and use some of your brains rather than going by cook-book, you can invent your own dish, shortcuts of cooking some elaborate dishes. I started that quite long ago. In the process, I came up with many original recipies and I have no doubt, thousands of people who love cooking would've too. I think, to cook properly, one's gotta 'understand' it and love it. That chick didnt know WHY a particular ingredient was being used. So she was like adding 'quarter' of tablespoon of turmeric powder. If she knew what turmeric does to that dish, she'd have come up with her own measurement no doubt. I guess one needs to understand cultural aspects of a cuisine too. Like we always use corriander to garnish in Indian cuisine. So we could at times do without it as well. I know that cause I'm an Indian. In that sense I shouldn't be lauging at her...coz I'm not really good with the exotic dishes...so okay.
With all the above thoughts and pride on being excellent cook, I set in the evening to cook Pulav rice for my family. After treating it as just another quick dish and attempting to cook in shortest possible time, it turns out that its been done too spicy. My dad is like gulping down a glass full of water after eating every spoonfull of it. He's started hiccoughing already.
That just brought me down to earth...
Okay, next time, I'd try using cookbook.