Love it or loathe it!





Food is an essential part of human existence. Food provides energy and nourishes the body with nutrients. Some of us eat to live and then others live to eat. Not all food tastes good in its raw form. Cooking food is what makes it edible. Cooking is something everyone may or may not like. But everyone likes good, tasty food!

I never really put much thought into how something raw was transformed into a tasty treat. I loathed cooking, I would avoid it like the plague. When I actually ended up in a kitchen I would not know what to do with the pots and pans or raw ingredients. Being the youngest member of a big family, I was never responsible for preparing any meals. The only task I remember doing at meal times was laying the table.

When I got married I struggled to have a decent meal on the table, my husband was supportive and patient with me. He cooked at time and sometimes we ate takeaways. And then mum’s house was never too far. When it got out of budget to buy meals, I would cook but it meant putting a pot on the stove and making a phone call to mums “what do I do next”. My husband was glad my mum lived in the same town or else takeaways would have been a cheaper option.


Franz Joseph Glacier-New Zealand

 It wasn’t until I was in New Zealand that knowing how to cook was essential and I suddenly had this need to know how to make even regular meals. The very first year as a migrant was a struggle as both me and my husband worked different hours of the day. This meant that I could no longer depend on hubby to make the meals. It was quintessential for me to learn to cook. Also weekends were long and boring by myself. I needed to find something to do. Then there were days when I craved all the lovely food I enjoyed eating back home. I was home sick!

I slowly started with making just some basic dishes that my husband taught me. My husband by the way is a very good cook and till date some dishes are his speciality. As I kept experimenting with my food and cooking skills I kept getting better. I identified some ladies at work and among social circles who were good cooks and made friends only to learn some tricks of the good cooks.

I have one drawback with my cooking skills; I don’t taste my food before serving. So whenever I cooked some new, I served him his meals and awaited a reaction, when he said nothing I assumed the food must be good. And so I’d serve myself a portion, on tasting I’d go….yuck!! My husband probably never said anything only to keep the peace.

I slowly started making many different dishes and trying to perfect the art of cooking. I was trying every cuisine and every recipe in the magazines and cookbook’s. I even went to the library each week and picked up a certain cuisine for the week.

Since we are so far from India it’s always a good thing to be able to connect with people. What better way to make friends than gather around at meal time!

I had definitely improved on my cooking skills and I had the confidence to invite friends over for meals. I soon realised I was getting better each day with my cooking when my friends started taking doggy bags after dinner.

Then I really got interested in baking as all the morning teas that we had at work places were full of sweet baked treats and all I took was packed biscuits from the supermarket. I bought myself umpteen number of baking books. Then I baked and baked till I baked the perfect cake, cookie & scone.

Now I felt the need to decorate my cakes, first I started with fondant. Most people start from basic décor and find decorating with fondant difficult, but not me. Then I thought of trying other styles of cake décor. Now I find baking and decorating cakes very relaxing.

Through these years of trying to learn to cook and bake I was taking pictures of my food and noting all the recipes. With the new found love of facebook and to prove to all my friends and family that I had started cooking like a pro, I started posting my food pictures on facebook. Soon my friends and family wanted recipes. But my recipes were all over the place and I struggled to find the recipes when I actually needed them.

Then one day while reading my facebook page I saw an option to create a page. I thought of starting a page about food and my journey with cooking. I started my page on 1^st August 2011 solely to share my recipes with my friends and have all my recipes in one place where I could find them easily. Now I also have this personal blog and it’s good fun to be able to share something that I have in common with so many people all over the world. From this I have learnt that if you want you can learn something like cooking even if you loathe it and start loving it. I rarely ever have burnt offerings on my dinner table these days.