Joy of Cooking

Hey, what you guys are doing in the kitchen? That’s the women’s business. Go and study; do anything else, for god’s shake. That was the grooming we were brought up with. If, by any chance, there were no women in the house, it would be a domestic assistant who would do the cooking, but not the guys in the house, who be not even allowed to think about cooking, let alone do it. The guys eat whatever food we were served, without the faintest idea of the ingredients they were made of, or how they were cooked. It would not be exaggerating to say; majority of males in Nepal still considers ‘cooking’ as women’s territory. It was not until late that I realized how the guys have culturally deprived themselves, and by their female protectors, of this great god gifted opportunity, and unfairly conditioned them into developing a compulsive syndrome to remain outside the house or stuck to office work. Most of my friends and colleagues do not appear to mind spending time outside home spending time with their males friends or attending meetings on weekends and evenings.

It was only not until late, when I started living independently in a rented- house with my small family of four that I started to take interest in cooking, the tastes, the kitchen, the kitchen garden, cooking sets. It all started when one fine evening I took initiative to prepare fried rice for the family supper with the left over rice. I took it as nothing less than any professional consulting assignment, did the best I can using various source of information to make the food as tastier and healthier it could. It triggered my underlying passion to cook.

Since then, I took the pleasure of making breakfast for my family everyday and brunch on Saturdays, as I dare say, became an extension of my meditative exercises. Then our family went into some kind of transformation. Every one of the family members started taking pleasure in cooking, happily shared their hands to prepare food when we invite family friends at home. My wife, career women herself, goes out of her way to prepare lunch for the family, not because she is compelled by her traditional role, but purely out of her own desire to cook. Our sons take great pleasure in exploring, experimenting and serving new recipes, and new ideas in cooking, coffee making and mixing drinks.

A sudden invitation from one of the well know Nepali Magazine called Voice of Women ( VOW) to participate in a competition turned out to be great stimuli to trigger our family’s underlying passion in cooking. Thanks to them, the constant exploration of new recipes and method of cooking such as shrimp, prawns, and fishes, vegetables in Indian, Mediterranean Arabic way have became a way of life for our family.

Like the saying goes, seek and thy shall find, we were fortunate to have found a family (friend) which helped us refine our interest to more a sophisticated level. Our interest in food went up to a level whereby the family did not mind spending the hard-on savings to visit various countries using excuse ( we needed one) to explore various tests of food; for example, we went to Thailand several times to explore Authentic Thai test, Rome to test espresso and pizza, Germany to test various world famous breads. We become a great fan of Thai food as they are very tasty but almost fatless. We loved everything that is related to cooking and food, right from Newari Bhoj (Nepali -equivalent of western Fine Dining) to anything that relate to travels, cooking, and equipments, other culinary culture; we become fan of TV serial such as International travel and living shown in the Discovery channel, cook-books. Thanks to Google and You-Tube that offer unlimited and readymade recipe for every type of food conceivable in the world.

One day I brought a coffee machine in the local market. I did not exactly know what I would do with it. But my sons took over and started exploring the world of coffee, the art of brewing which is so sophisticated. It turned them into coffee enthusiast, popularly known as coffee geeks, which was quite unique in our social context. Who would have known that, one day, this passion would enable my elder son to support himself to study in Australia, by doing what he loves doing.

The benefit of family cooking culture goes far beyond making tastier and healthier food; it creates a deep sense of spirituality, family bondage, well being, self confidence and self esteem. I would say, until you learn to cook, you will never enjoy the life to the fullest.