Once upon a time, I learnt to cook
Brief reflections on my decision to learn cooking.
For those of you who don’t know, eating out on a regular basis is quite cheap in India. In some ways, it may even be cheaper for a bachelor living by himself to eat out. Regardless, I decided to learn to cook.
I was living in Chandigarh at the time. To be honest, I wasn’t a blank slate. I had watched my parents cook and had attempted a few things for myself when alone at home with poor results. Nothing great really.
I started to cook my own food when I got a job and had evenings on my hands. I would cook every evening enough for the dinner and the next lunch in my office. I learnt how to make a general sabzi, daal and roti. After a few weeks I was getting pretty good at it.
I don’t really remember what my motivation was, it was something along the lines of being independent and such. Truly, I realized the value of this skill during the pandemic. So did my friends who started to make poha, but ended up with upma. Haha!
All in all, I was a decent cook before I knew about my celiac disease. I always feel empowered with my knowledge of cooking. I never took any classes or courses to learn the skills required. I simply started to cook more. Of course there were a lot of mistakes and I did eat a lot of subpar meals, maybe even wasted a bunch of food. However, it was absolutely worth it. After all the only way to learn something is to try it, and the first attempt isn’t going to be the best.
Now, living with celiac disease has added another dimension to my cooking. I can completely trust the food I cook. I have used my weekends and holidays to learn new recipes. Whenever I crave for something, I find the recipe and see if I can make it at home.Especially when it’s not available in its gluten-free form at restaurants nearby. I have become more patient with my cravings, willing to put more effort for them and appreciate the food way more.
This week, I was just wondering what would my life be like if I hadn’t learnt cooking in my early twenties. I think it would have been way more challenging than it was to learn cooking. I would definitely write more about it in the future.
Thanks for reading!
Would love to hear your thoughts about it?