Made To Hors d’œuvre

“If Yan can cook”, he used to say, ’so can you.”

I took that seriously. I even tried the no-look coriander chopping trick that he used to perform to much applause. All I got was a bloody (painful) pinkie and a swift bottom-paddling. It was a pity meat was never allowed at home, for I was pretty darned sure I could cook the finest Mongolian Hot Pot in all of northern Chennai. By the tender age of twelve I could distinguish a cucumber from a courgette, an orange from a kumquat and a de-glaze from a demi-glace. I even baked a magnificent upside-down chocolate marble cake (it wasn’t meant to be ‘upside-down’ – the blasted tray slipped) with half a bottle of my Dad’s finest sherry.

My grand-uncle once spent two hours trying to get me to apply to Culinary School (“that’s where the money is. Oh, and your wife will be a lucky woman. Nudgenudgewinkwink.”). For my thirteenth birthday, the kind Mrs. Choudhary gave me a book called ‘The Ultimate Guide to Cooking, Baking and Grilling’; I still have it around here somewhere. Very soon, in addition to Yan Can Cook!, I was watching cooking shows starring a French guy called Pierre, a balding British chap called Floyd and a strange lady from nowhere called Madhur Jaffrey. I even took notes. I was barely into my teens and I was already a middle-aged woman.

 All this came to a screeching halt, of course, when I landed up at Stephen’s. I used to make Maggi occasionally, but that takes as much skill as removing lint from your belly-button. For six years (with the exception of brief holidays spent at home) I didn’t think about cooking.

And then this happened.

Every Monday evening, I find myself watching Nigella Express with the gusto of a hormonal teenager chancing upon his first episode of Baywatch. It’s not just that the lady is phenomenally good looking and that she refuses to dress in the vapid white overalls that make artists look unsuccessfully like scientists. (They stain easily too!) It’s her approach to cooking that is so refreshing. It can be easy, fun, quick and yet, magically, very stylish. Her desserts (which are what I rate chefs on) are fabulous. And she doesn’t skimp on the butter (or chocolate sauce, olive oil, parmesan, marshmallows, bourbon biscuits, m&ms). Mmmm.

In college, I saw a BBC Documentary called “In Search of Perfection: Heston Blumenthal”. This Heston chap is part of the elite group of fancy-schmancy chefs who call themselves Molecular Gastronomists. Forget what I just said about the buxom Ms. Lawson above, this really is magic. If only I had known about this while I was grappling with Solid State Physics problems in Delhi.

Blumenthal’s 3 (Michelin) starred restaurant in England is called The Fat Duck. Their £125 tasting menu has long been considered the finest, most plebian-friendly introduction to the science to-date. The key, apparently, is to focus not so much on taste or smell, but on the memories associated with food. Hence the Nitro-scrambled bacon and eggs ice-cream with sour tomato and red pepper ‘jam’ and caramelized French Toast. And then, there’s the Hot & Cold Tea – a Willy Wonka creation with two fluid gels that don’t coalesce immediately.

Which brings me to this morning: I burnt my toast, put too much sugar in my coffee and spilt some orange juice into a just-boiled pot of milk.

Maybe I should just stick to selling unsellable hotel rooms!

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Tags: Food

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