Here I m

A journalist by profession, my schedule never allowed me to go for elaborate recipes. The age old trial and error methods had literally no significance in my kitchen as the time constraint pushed me to settle down with hasty cooking. Though I never compromised on the taste factor, a distant corner of my heart yearned for a peek into simple and yummy home-cooked food surrounding us tweaked here and there according to my palate and busy life. The yearning never saw the daylight until my daughter Koyal was born. All the restriction on certain food during my pregnancy and the former ghost of a chef had become a sort of hangover and never left me even during the nights. I was secretly determined to banish the ‘foody halo’ but waited because things were simply too much to handle.

I didn’t wait for long. When my daughter turned two and a half years and started exploring different types of food, I knew it was time to put all my thoughts into action. Now! you can’t fool a toddler with thousand extra taste buds than the adults(phew!). To spice up my predicament she had inherited everything from her dad except her taste buds. Yes it is happy feeling when I watch her gorge down full servings of my favourite paneer curries, light poha or upma for snacks and chapattis with sabjis for dinner. I detested strawberry and Koyal wouldn’t even taste a chocolate of that flavour. We both enjoyed paneer while my husband wished for something else on the menu. I pity those who do not like paneer and my husband is one of them.

Though I was fairly good at cooking, in crisis, I always turned to my gourmet guru, my sister and her guru, mom. I liked to try new cuisines but always felt nostalgic towards simple and typical bihari recipes cooked by mom passed onto her by grandma. My best memories from childhood revolved around piping hot curries, yummy pickles, snacks and sweets made by mom and I wanted my daughter to cherish those tastes and pass on to her next gen too. So here I m, with my 2nd baby ‘my blog’ longing for your encouragement. Yes my daughter has been the biggest driving force behind my new venture (though she disturbs the most) in blogging on my lifeline, cooking.