Like all regular couples, on New Year’s eve, the man and I pondered over what resolutions we must make for the coming year. We went over the usual - eat perfectly, exercise regularly, throw in meditation for good measure, read a book a week and solve global warming. Given the number of times we went around the Sun, this of course, was a pointless exercise. So, we decided something unusual - that we would cook something fancy every Sunday. 52 fancy meals for the year. So, here we are, the first Sunday of the year. I receive a forward from my mum that says “start this Sunday with a clean heart.” So, I wipe the kitchen counter clean, call the man in and ask him to get to it. The dish for the day is Chicken Lasagna. The fancy ingredients, viz. pasta sheets, Thai basil leaves, paprika powder and grated parmesan were procured the day before. The fact that we thought lasagna is a fancy dish gives you a good baseline of where we are in this journey. The man begins by putting two mobile phones into action, one where the Youtube recipe lady is droning on, the other where he is playing a video game. The scene is enhanced with a half-filled, precariously-perched wine glass and bottle next to the stove. I am in the living room trying to set up a board game for the afternoon (the rules are as complex as the fancy dish). A few minutes on, I hear the first of the profanities from the kitchen. Turns out the recipe asks for the chicken to be cooked and then minced, instead of just suggesting we buy minced meat. I carry on. Nary a quarter of an hour passes, when I hear the sound of glass shattering and more profanities. It seems the paprika bottle was sacrificed at the altar of the aforementioned cacophonous scene. The game set up is paused. I roll up my metaphorical sleeves. Which brings me to this - how are women supposed to roll up their sleeves and get work done if most of our clothes are sleeveless or worse, so tight around the arm that you have to roll the skin up along with the sleeve? But I digress. Some of the paprika is rescued, the glass pieces are swept away, the counters are wiped clean and eyes are rolled at the man. Son rushes in wanting to know what happened, he is asked never to enter the kitchen again without slippers. He consoles us with the fact that at least the glass is not outside the kitchen. He’s very wise, like that. A quick google search on whether eating glass powder kills you, reveals that it is in fact ‘ineffective’. The recipe lady now says a béchamel sauce is required. I am enlisted and called to report immediately. I cook the sauce, while the man cooks the chicken. The pasta sheets cook themselves. A fine lesson in independence. I take out the very new, very cool baking dish that my mother in law had entrusted me with earlier this week. We take about another hour to line the dish with infinite layers of chicken, sauce, sheets and cheese. The oven is warm, the time is 1.30pm, the wine bottle is empty and the son is wondering if we are now doing lunch less Sundays, when all of a sudden, the oven refuses to be big enough for the cool new dish. Not vertically, not horizontally, not diagonally. The man is close to tears, we hug it out. We start the process of moving these layers into three small dishes. With each transfer I make, he does wild hand gesturing and makes cooing noises in fear. The Thai basil leaves end up not being neatly arranged on top. No matter. The oven is warmed yet again. The dish is shoved in. The son is given strawberries. 30 mins on, it is finally done. It doesn’t look bad and is obviously the best lasagna we’ve ever had. 30 mins further on, the board game is still half set up, one dish is fully polished off, one transferred to the fridge for tomorrow, and one baked and standing on the kitchen sill, waiting for orders.
PS: The Thai basil leaves were burnt to a crisp, a complete waste of fanciness. PPS: If anyone knows what to do with leftover boiled pasta sheets sticking to each other and daring me to throw them away, ping me.
4 Comments
shankar sundararaman
3/1/2021 08:36:36 pm
That is so cool da... At least you tried and got one of them to perform. Very soon even the pasta and the man will ...
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Icy
4/1/2021 12:35:15 pm
Is this a riddle? Who performed? Who didn't?
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shankar sundararaman
4/1/2021 12:44:27 pm
I thought that was clear... The oven performed... :)
Arathi Uchil
12/1/2021 06:52:38 am
A very very good read Aishwarya.... enjoyed every bit of reading it:)
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Aishwarya KalakataThe loss of and search for individualism has never been felt more acutely. Everything changed after I had a kid. But this blog is not about me being a mom. It’s about the things I do when I want to stop being a mom. It’s about telling myself that it is possible and that it is ok. It’s about my little escapades. Mostly travel - sometimes physical, sometimes mental. A desperate bid to stop my identity from being rolled into a single word. CategoriesArchives
March 2021
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