Learning to Cook with Nutella (Lots of Nutella)

Daily posts weren't working out because I am lazy and holidaying and kept sleeping while my grandmom was cooking. This morning (afternoon), however, I woke up seized with the undeniable urge to cook- possibly because sparkykitty had linked me to this video, and I realised I had both nutella and strawberries at home. It was clearly a sign from the stars, and I'm not one to refuse astronomical orders. The roll-ups pictured in the video seemed to be a waste of crust, however, and unnecessarily complicated, so I decided to just make traditional french toast with nutella and strawberries slathered on top. My grandmom helped me figure out the quantities of ingredients, but the rest was ALL ME and man, it felt (and tasted) good. Here's a picture, obviously, because pics or it didn't happen.

Has this picture been shared on every social media platform I'm on? Maybe.

Thinking I might finally have found what motivates me to cook (nutella),

~Sam

Learning to Cook: Day 3

My grandmother decided that my life was too peaceful, and announced that I'd be cooking tonight (paneer). Thankfully, she was worried enough about feeding us edible food that she watched over me and gave me detailed instructions. Nevertheless, being the person standing with the spoon in front of the gas was as daunting as anything I've done.

Learnings:
1. The classic: always go easy on the salt. You can add more, but you can't remove excess.
2. Add milk if it's too thick: it makes the food both taste AND look good.
3. I am too impatient and too worried about getting messy and/or getting burned to ever be able to cook as easily as my grandmother and mother do.
4. The best part of cooking is when you drop everything into the pan and stir.

To do:
1. Pay attention to the gas, and what level it's on.
2. Learn to figure out sufficiency of salt by taste.

It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself. ^_^
(Even if I was only the arm obeying my grandmother's mind and skill.)

~Sam

Learning to Cook: Day 2

I stirred Knorr soup and agreed with my grandmother when she suggested it would go better with some kali mirch. (It did.)

~Sam 

Learning to Cook: Day 1

In recognition of my imminent entry into the real world of self-sustenance and no free lunches, I asked my grandmother to teach me how to cook, and she has taken me on as her project with a terrifying amount of enthusiasm. I really didn't imagine I'd be off to a running start, but my grandmother is nothing if not efficient, and I was inducted into kitchen duty my very first night home. The plan: my grandmother makes something and I observe, then I try to make it myself a few days later. It seemed like a good idea to get some blogging out of it, (given how unlikely it seems that I'll get any actual edible food out of it), and so here goes.

Today's menu was egg bhurji, aka scrambled eggs but with a tomato-onion-chili masala. In addition to my observer duties, I made myself proud by volunteering to crack the eggs. I tried my hand at two, and succeeded at one. I CAN CRACK EGGS WITH A 50% SUCCESS RATE YO! I then spent some time watching and pondering over the prettiness of the colours involved in food (red! yellow! white! green!), why there weren't more reported incidents of kitchen accidents (did you know chili seeds can fly into your face and blind you when you're trying to fry cut chili?), and how I'd never given a thought to how much salt I ate. 

I attempted to contribute again by trying to beat the eggs while my grandmother made the masala. I thought I did okay, but I feel like my grandmother may have disagreed, given how my efforts prompted her to discreetly turn the conversation to the availability of excellent mechanised egg beaters in the market.

I also tried to memorise the proportions of the ingredients involved (six eggs, one karchi chili, two of onions, and an indeterminate amount of tomato puree, jeera, chili powder, and olive oil) and thought that I could do at least passably well at a theoretical exam on cooking egg bhurji. That is, unless they asked me the proportions for making anything but a six-egg bhurji, in which case I'd likely fail because the normal rules of ratio and proportion don't seem to apply to food, and I've never even been able to wrap my head around regular math, let alone cooking math.

Dismal failure aside, it was a pretty great experience- I could feel the inner peace growing within me while stirring the food and watching it transform from ingredients into something which could be plated, and was slightly teary-eyed at the magic of cooking, so I definitely think I'll be trying this again. 

Bonus Learning Experience: Do not hug people when they're carrying giant vats of milk. 

Fin. 

~Sam

January Favourites (and Resolutions)

It's been a tumultuous beginning of the year. What I've liked, so far:

1. When we stopped fighting. 
2. Being fed pizza. Pizza, generally. 
3. Becoming employed (when the news eventually sank in) (I'm still slightly terrified this will turn to out have been some sort of mistake). On a related note- the prospect of a set of holidays where all I do is holiday (sleeping! eating! reading!).
4. My yet-to-be-delivered panda eye mask.
5. Being nearly done with another term, and one step closer to the heaven that (I hope) is final year!  
6. Competent teachers and guest lecturers, in equal measures terrifying and sexy. 
7. Giant, cozy, warm tshirts, and my new pyjamas. Speaking of- SHOPPING! So much shopping! Earrings with the Chocolate Bomb, and a suitcase-full with my mom- blouses and pyjamas and trousers and leggings and a messenger bag (finally!) and the comfiest pretty bra ever. 
8. Books- so many books! Everything by Rainbow Rowell, starting with my eternal favourite, Carry On (thanks Ron!), some trashy romances obviously, and another Shannon Hale. The prospect of rereading all of the Harry Potter books in February.
9. The simple, beautiful pleasure of browsing and buying books- and a 70% sale at Landmark, which meant getting three books for the price of one and, more importantly, meant THREE. NEW. BOOKS! 
10. Being reminded of this poem, and all its memories and associations, just when I needed it. Bless you, Marshmallow. (I still hate you for all the feels.)
11. KINDLE. Her name is Cinder. Bless you, Amanda. 

A brief update on my resolutions for this year (because you totally care):
I'm not seriously looking to change anything or aim for anything in particular this year, like I did last year and the year before that, mostly because those two sets cover everything important, but also because I simply don't feel the need to radically change things and try to claw myself out of a sad hole this year, for which I am grateful. What I'd like to change, I mostly can't, so I'm going to just enjoy what I've got and live with the rest. To that end, some broad things I'd like to work on are- being more patient, with myself, with others, and with circumstances; stressing less, especially when something is out of my hands, as most things are; and snarking less, even when I hate someone's guts and want to claw their eyes out. There are obviously other things I want to do this year- read more, learn to cook, relearn to drive, be healthier- but it seems less important this year to make a list of them. Also, I'm lazy.

~Sam