CRUMPLE THIS!

It was time. Half a million honey buns, packs of instant noodles and peanut butter-jelly sandwiches later, my taste buds had given up and my stomach was threatening to quit. I sat there, my eyes switching between the clock and the recipe book, knowing that it was only a matter of time till the grumbling down below started. That recipe book was a parting gift from a hopeless mother, and by now it had gathered as much dust as a book of chemistry in a childrens' museum.

The kitchen till then was more of a room meant more for storage than for cooking. Something that had made it so alien a place, that when a friend came around asking for salt, I promptly handed him a jar of sugar. Which, by the way, he promptly used for his "spicy" fried rice recipe. We still argue about who is the greater genius between us. So it was only a matter of time then, till I decided to venture into it for what the room was meant for. Trouble is, I did not have a good feeling about it. That feeling you get when the thought of knowing something is going to go wrong is bashing up the thought of hoping it won't.

What followed was an endless discussion with the roommate about what is make-able. The list was not too long after we narrowed down our options, mostly on the basis of not being able to identify the ingredients.

"Ofcourse!" we sighed in unison as the book opened up to a recipe of the potato curry, probably the easiest thing there is to make. There we were, two fully grown guys, massive on appetite..clueless about cooking and hungry as if we hadn't had so much as a snack bar for years, all ready for battle. And battle we did. Jars flying off the shelf, clouds of powdered spices and vegetables being cut as if maniacs are having a go at them. At the end of it all, we stood in a place that seemed ravaged by a small storm. And what we had on the stove was nothing that remotely resembled potato curry.

"Umm..Smells nice!? We can call it tomato curry with potatoes and onions?".A trying-to-be cheerful me.

"OR! We can call it it tomato-curry-with-potatoes-and-onions-only-you-will-have!" shot back by friend before stomping off to his room. I could hear him a tear open a honey bun pack and chomp on it furiously. His face was that of a desperate man who had thought he found an oasis in a desert, but only learnt later that it was a mirage..

So as I enjoyed that dinner in sweet solace, I had one thing firmly decided in mind: Learn how to cook and be good at it. And although it was far from smooth sailing, full of more solitary dinners and new not-so-perfect "inventions", I can now safely say that I am not half as bad a cook that I was then. I can't say it is my favourite thing but I do enjoy it at times. After I moved and got a job, I actually started watching that food channel they have on telly. I can't imagine being a part of those cook-master-in-your-face-shouting shows though. A year ago, I would have probably faced his wrath by being tied to a rotating overhead fan.

So anyway, what starts like a nightmare doesn't always end like one. All's well that ends well isn't it? Experimenting in the kitchen has taken a whole new meaning now. It does not mean "Try cooking". Rather, it means "Try cooking something differently".
And when you have that odd bad day in the office,a pack of instant noodles awaits!