Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride

This past Christmas, my mom was lamenting the fact that no one would carry on the family's renowned Christmas fruit-cake tradition after her time. A laborious process, the completion of said cake is a true test of one's culinary prowess. Not only does the chef need the skill to reduce pounds of sticky, candied fruits to chunks only slightly larger than a grain of sand, but the cake also requires the successful completion of a proper caramel. The latter is a lot harder said than done, primarily due to the similarity in appearance of a perfect and a burnt caramel. Both are particularly viscous and dance the delicate line between deep amber and charcoal gray; what they lack in physical dissimilarity, however, they more than make up for in flavor profile. While a proper caramel is rich, with mild bitter undertones to temper the cloying sweetness of the sugar, a burnt caramel tastes much like what I imagine burnt tire rubber would taste like, an acrid, almost sulfurous, smothering of both the organs of smell and taste.

My mother's well-founded concerns raised a few musings of my own regarding my culinary skills. Having run my own tiny, university kitchen for the past two years, I feel that I've reached a point where a perfomance review is well in order. And unfortunately this review will have to be more negative than I would have liked.

Let me start off by saying that cooking is a lot harder than it looks. I've had plenty of kitchen, if not cooking, experience, to the point where I can effortlessly dice and slice onions and other vegetables into perfect, symmetrical pieces. In any task involving a mortar and a pestel, I am almost unanimously nominated for the job, having demonstrated time and again the strength to obliterate whole peppercorns to  dust with one fell swoop of the pestel. I am an expert puri-ball roller, and veggie peeler, and even the designated Thanskgiving mashed potato masher. And yet, when in comes to cooking I come off looking worse than a complete amateur. Hence the title of the piece, or perhaps more aptly modified in my situation to read "Always a sous chef, never a chef."

Granted, I have come quite a way from where I first started. I remember a time when I couldn't even make pasta, a dish well summarized by the following recipe: boil water, add salt and noodles, drain when cooked and add store-bought sauce. I remember a time when I would pull the noodles out of the pot, still as crunchy as when they first went in, and when my sister would complain that her food wasn't cooked (which it wasn't), I would casually brush it off as her lack of appreciation for the "al dente" texture. Another time, by another stroke of my culinary brilliance, I had forgotten to drain the pasta after it had cooked. The result was that each strand had swollen to an alarming size, and when prodded with a fork, disintegrated into a watery, starchy mess. Needless to say, that wasn't a particularly pleasant meal in the household.

In managing my own kitchen, without the direct tutelage of my mother, I've picked up quite a few invaluable lessons, chief of which is never cook when you are hungry. Hunger is a fearful influence, on par with drugs and alcohol. Hunger has the power to manipulate one's judgment regarding doneness, leading to such egregious mistakes that people who are not under hunger's influence will have great difficulty understanding the thought process that got you to said point. I remember an early attempt of mine to fry fish. The recipe is deceptively simple, just salt, turmeric and chili powder, mere child's play in any South Indian kitchen. My mom left me unsupervised, confident that even I wouldn't be able to mess up such a simple process. Much to her shock, I did manage to mess up, and that too pretty badly. Suffering from severe hunger pangs, amplified by the smells of frying fish, I had been pulling the fish out of the oil too early. Each piece was still partially frozen and a pale white in color, a sharp contrast to the expected golden-brown. I'm pretty sure everyone in the family spent a fair hour or so perched on the toilet that night.

Another thing that I learned is that one can never underestimate the power of salt. Many a time have I undertaken a recipe and everything seems just perfect: I didn't burn or undercook anything, the spices are just right, and the smell is heavenly and just like mom's. Only when I sit down to eat do I realize that I have forgotten to salt or undersalted said food, and down the drain or into the garbage the food goes.

Granted, there have been a few instances where the food I made was amazing, like my first and only attempt to date at fish cutlets. These instances, however, have been few and far in between, and each time it happens I find myself having to pinch myself to believe it's real.

Since, I'm taking the time out to reflect on my culinary experiences, I also thought it would be appropriate to write out an apology letter to my future husband, well in advance, just so my legal bases are covered. Here goes....

"Dear Future Hubby,

I am sorry if you were expecting a wife that could cook. You may have me confused with my mother, or my aunts, or any other one of my female relations who do possess such skill. I, unfortunately, am not a cook. Actually up until we married, the only job title I have ever held was student. Job description includes lab work, especially lots and lots of chemistry lab- gen chem, o-chem, you name it, I did it. As such I feel that my lack of skill in the culinary department is well-justified. If you approach cooking with the same mentality as a chem lab (take 1.657 grams of compound x and add to 3.425 grams of compound y; place in crucible and heat over medium high flame, etc.), I imagine the end result would taste just like one of the compounds I made in lab. After all, cooking is an art, and not a science, lacking the rigid procedure and precision of a chem experiment.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, please do not be fooled by the vast amounts of kitchen related items my mother will undoubtedly pack me off with. I hope you have been amassing a catalogue of your favorite take-out restaurants. Trust me when I say that the phone directory will be getting a lot more use than any of our pots and pans.

On a more positive note, I have great confidence in the fact that our future children will be born with an iron immunity against all sorts of intestinal disorders. After years of eating my own cooking, I know I am resistent to pretty much any stomach-related illness, so it's only natural that they will take after me.

With love,
Shirley"