Of Kitchen Fires & Spilled Milk

The females of the human species are always regarded as the home-maker (or in some cases especially in Ekta Kapoor’s soaps, the home-breaker). Their job is to cook, clean the house, procreate, cook, clean, procreate… you get the drift.

When God decided to make me a female, I bet he was looking elsewhere. The cricket World Cup maybe.. So He missed some essential parts while uploading the ‘femaleware’ in my brain. I can’t enter a kitchen & leave it the way it was before. Most women can’t, I know but I rather end up howling and running out of the kitchen in most cases. On the rare occasions that Mom allows me to enter the sacred grounds, she always wishes I wasn’t born. Too late Mom.

I was set the simple task of boiling the milk. Oh, wait may be I should go sequentially. So I had to open 2 packets of milk & pour them in the pan. I used my stale stock of common sense & grabbed a fork to slice open the packet. Half my left foot was drenched in milk. I limped to the bathroom first to wash my leg & then cleaned the kitchen floor. I took out another packet & this time I used scissors (how msart…oops smart!). Having managed to set it to boil without any mishaps and taking 15 minutes in the whole endeavor, I went off to my room, plugged in my earphone and sat staring at my idle Facebook home page. I caught someone to chat with &the next thing I knew was Mom’s horrified scream from the kitchen. 

To be fair, it was more like a roar. I don’t need to go into the gory details of how I murdered the milk, let’s just surmise by saying that the pan had turned an angry black and somewhat matched my Mom’s red face.

And when I was a kid, I’d asked Mom to make me paapand . She didn’t oblige of course since I’d already had 3 of them. So after she’d gone to bed for her afternoon siesta, I rummaged in the cupboard for the paapands, got one and then proceeded to roast it. 

Poor Mom nearly had a stroke when I yelled “FIIREE” in that blood-curdling voice. I’d achieved the impossible-set a paapand on fire!

My boyfriend recently taught me how to make “Jeera rice”. Poor guy was hopelessly trying to inculcate some culinary skills in me. Future investment that is so not going to give good returns. I did learn however but whenever I need to throw in the jeera in the hot oil I yell for my Mom. And when I have to put the rice in, I stand 1 feet away from the pan, stand on my toes , throw in the rice & run to a safe place as it sizzles.

Did I mention I have a phobia of pressure cookers too? Whenever the soft hissing noise emanates I clamp my ears dreading the shrill whistle.

I tried making besan (gram flour) ladoos once. I burnt my fingers trying to crush them to shapes that remotely resembled balls. I proudly put up the picture in Orkut where my friend left a comment saying they looked more like sand-colored rocks. I still can’t delete the picture though.

So I am giving up my “I am the best attitude” in this particular field & humbly I give the tag of better cooks to guys. Though I have mastered the art of making Maggie noodles & tea.