Food Scene

So, I was living in China for 8 months and now in SF. Being a vegetarian, I had to cook bloody everyday to survive in China. SF is a different ball game. Pretty much every restaurant here has at least one vegetarian and one vegan option. Unlike other parts of the US, vegetarian doesn't mean just cheese between bread here. Its pretty healthy. People here are very health conscious as well. Anyway, I don't feel like a single working mother taking care of myself now. I just feel like a working "bachelor" again.

So, now that I don't _need_ to cook for survival, I go easy on what I cook. I experiment. I even went to the extent of letting Raghu, my colleague, cook today. Not that I knew if he was good or not. But, generally, I was prejudiced against him (I am old now. I don't beat around the bush anymore about these things. If I am prejudiced against/about something I say so) and hence hadn't let him cook. But today, he convinced me that I don't need to work and that I can relax and do the dishes! I had a momentary lack of control and before I know, Raghu was in control of the kitchen.

He asked me to cut spinach, onion, 3 different varieties of salad leaves, coriander, curry leaves, some carrots and green chillies. He boiled Moong daal in an oven. He fried some sprouted fenugreek seeds, mustard, chillies and asafoetida in a generous amount of vegetable oil. I had a feeling he also had something to do with a lot of cummin seeds and powdered coconut. Somehow, the very acetic smell that was coming from the pan was not reassuring. When the dal just wouldn't become soft in the oven, not before all the water in the bowl had overflown onto the glass plate (which apparently is the expected behavior. Software engineers never learn how to speak normally), the whole of the said contents were transferred into a big, evil looking vessel and copious amounts of water was added. All this was followed by the official covering of the lid and the infamous, "There is nothing left in our hands now" sigh. The fact that both of us were now talking to our girl friends over long distance calls helped only a little in getting the cooking done. He hurled statements like "All this smoke (aka steam) is not letting me see inside to figure out what's happening", "I will add lemon. It will definitely help" and "You add the salt" which did not do much to improve my confidence in the whole fiasco. Even by Indian standards, 3 PM was pretty late and I was hungry. Within 5 minutes, Raghu called it and pronounced the dish to be complete. And then, I took the bold step of taking the first serving...

It was fucking awesome. I have no idea how he managed to pull it off, but he is apparently pretty famous in Thoughtworks for his daal. The confused statements and requests for random ingredients are all to mislead the partner to increase the overall experience of the daal. This succeeds so well that you actually start imagining the daal to be more good than it may actually have been. Also, the careful planning of cooking late and making his friends very hungry never fails as well. All in all, it was a good eating experience today.

We were thinking of cooking some new food. Random cuisine. Lets see how well can we do it. Suggestions are most welcome.