Experimenting with food has always enticed me. Whenever I went out with family or friends I was always the one that orders the “vaila per nozhaya mudiyaatha” dish (which would turn out to be something mundane with a fancy name!). My mom was very strict with her kitchen and would not really let me try my hand at cooking while I was growing up. So my experiment with cooking started only when I had a kitchen of my own.
My funda was simple: Always try out your new recipes on guests! If it didn’t turn out well, they would still say it was good!! The very first time when one of my husband’s friends came over, I offered to make him Rasna. Now, Rasna comes with a little pouch of concentrate that has to be mixed with about 2 litres of water and then served in glasses. I honestly did not know that! So I went into the kitchen opened the pouch(kalakhatta flavour), added it to a glass of water and gave it to the friend. I think that was the only time when I saw a person taking about 2 hours to drink a glass of juice. He was actually invited for dinner and was probably terrified that if he finished the juice he would be posed with the greater risk of having to try out the food I made! Finally, I suppose he decided that he couldn’t take it any more! He said he had something very important to take care of which he completely forgot about and went away in a rush!! To this day, we have not been able to trace him!! On the brighter side, I learnt to make Rasna!
Today, most of the dishes I try turn out pretty decent but I will never forget the friend we lost in the process of becoming a Culinary expert!!
