Cooking for One
The first time I cooked was the day after the lockdown was announced in March 2021. I woke up, opened Swiggy, and saw that all restaurants in my area were shut. That was when I walked into the kitchen, watched a Youtube video on how to shut a pressure cooker, and made rice and dal. The rice was overcooked, the dal undercooked, but somehow we managed to eat it, and even pretend like I’d done a good job. Small achievements, my therapist says, must be appreciated. I hadn’t burned the house down, so I’m putting it down as a pretty big achievement.
Growing up, no one in my family cooked. It’s not like they didn’t know how to cook, and it’s not like they hadn’t tried to teach me. They could all cook when the need arose but it was not a regular, everyday business. Or even a fun thing to do, once in a while. I do want to acknowledge our privilege here, and admit that really, none of us needed to cook. We were lucky enough to afford help at home, and even when I moved cities, I could always get food delivered or eat at a restaurant if the PG food was bad. It was a tremendous privilege, one that I exploited for years.
I think, looking back, that one of the reasons I never picked up cooking was because I, and my whole family, saw it as a chore, and not a fun thing. “You have to learn how to cook- it’s a survival skill.” What a terrible thing to tell a teenager, who is both rebellious and depressed. I didn’t want to learn survival skills. I wanted to sit in cafes across the world, write a book and feverishly dig into brownies while I was at it.
In 2020, now 26, I wasn’t sitting in cafes across the world or writing a book. I was cooped up in my 1 BHK in Versova in the middle of a global pandemic, trying to understand the ratio of rice and water needed to make edible bhaat. I was expecting that I’d mess up, and lose a lot of weight in the three weeks of lockdown (remember when we thought it’d be done in three weeks?)
What I was not expecting was how much I’d enjoy it.
Because it was fun. It was fun to watch endless Youtube cooking videos, and compare the dishes made by Kabita and NishaMadhulika. It was fun to read books on the science of food. It was fun to talk to friends about cooking- some who had started cooking in the lockdown, like me; some who had been cooking for years, and could give tips on how to thaw pork and how much onion to put in a gravy (thanks Joel).
I lived with my boyfriend (we're married now but during the lockdown, he was still my boyfriend). We took turns to cook, and often cooked enough to last a couple of meals, to reduce cooking and bartan time. But he’s also vegetarian, and if I wanted to eat non-veg, which I did want to eat all the time, I just had to cook it myself.
So I did. I usually cooked in the morning before starting work when R was still asleep. It was my alone time. I just got into the kitchen and played my “Favourite Bollywood Songs” playlist and started cutting vegetables.
Cooking-days always made me feel better. I usually got a sense of accomplishment, mostly because there were still so many new things for me to learn. I also got time to experiment and be creative with my recipes. I would potter around the kitchen, singing along tunelessly to the music, swaying my body to the beats of the song as I stirred the ingredients. For that hour, I could forget that I had deadlines and that my payments had been delayed. I could just focus on the 1 tablespoon of haldi, on using more red chilli powder than the recipe demanded, and trying to not mix up jeera powder and dhania powder.
Some of my experiments went off well- I can now cook chilli pork and lau chingri exactly the way I like it, without any help from any cooking channel. Some were disastrous. Especially the bengali food where I have declared that it’s beneath me to look up recipes for maacher jhol, and tried to recreate it from my memory of what it tastes like at home.
A lot of my friends, especially those who live alone, complain about having to cook for themselves all the time. It’s no fun if you can’t share, they say. It’s a little like going to eat at a restaurant alone. But just like there are people who will swear by sitting alone in restaurants (me actually), I swear by cooking for myself. I don’t have to worry that someone else won’t like my food. I can cook exactly what I want to eat that day, without having to share with anyone. I don’t have to care about how much salt they like in their food, if they’re allergic to prawns, or if they like elaichi. I just have to cook what I like. It’s all kinds of satisfying and empowering.
It’s also a great way to know yourself and your own taste. I’ve discovered so much about myself and the kind of food I like. I’ve realised I will avoid tomatoes if I can help it, and I will want to put ghee in everything. I’ve realised I’m more impatient than I am fussy. I’ve realised I don’t care enough to either make, or eat, roti. I have also realised that I love bollywood music from the 60s and 70s, if the songs play while my pressure cooker gives seetis.
The first time I cooked for someone other than me and R, I was petrified. What if he didn’t like it? What if I’m a sucky cook and I just didn’t know it because no one was eating my food? What if…
But while we were eating, I didn’t care if he liked it or not. I took my own serving and tasted it and loved it so much, I would have been happy if he didn’t eat one more bite so I could eat his share too.
He loved it.