I’d like to say that cooking comes naturally to me. I do have a theory behind this, let me explain. I grew up watching both my grannies and my mum managing their own tailoring class and teaching career respectively, yet making every effort at the end of the day to make sure the family enjoyed a lovely hot meal in the evening! Then comes my sister who likes to add sugar to Parsi classics like Dhans
ak! Obviously, my grannies and mum passed on their food genes to me! Back in the day, I was living ON MY OWN at my parent’s house, while they were taking care of grandparental duties at my sister’s. Given the regular antics and parties in the house, the odd surprise visits by dad were scary but at the same time it brought B. Merwan’s mawa cakes and Parsi Lagan nu custard (a special custard specifically served at Parsi weddings), so I wasn’t really complaining. The first two months were fun and Maggi noodle stock prices were at an all-time high, thanks to me! The local egg seller started keeping a ledger under my name, so I could pick eggs and then make the payments monthly. Finally, I gave in and decided to cook a proper meal. I called my mum and asked her to walk me through making chora (black eyed beans). At no stage did I realise I should write it down. So, I got everything ready and literally couldn’t remember where to start. I started thinking what does mom usually do? So, I started with the onions, then tomato, then ginger garlic chilli... hmmm familiar sounds, smells... Those sleepy neurons started firing! I cooked my first meal purely by my sense of smell and my photographic memory by tweaking it simply to match the colour of the gravy to what my mum made. Those neurons have never stopped firing ever since! I kicked the blog off initially because I was starting to wind everyone up with the amount of food pictures I was posting to Facebook and Instagram. My love of words is second only to my love of food, so to bring the two together as a legitimate hobby was a revelation.
