Despite the many Michelin star restaurants in the world, nothing can really beat a hot meal right from the stove in the comforts of your own home. I am in a way, quite spoilt that A is a talented and passionate cook. It was him who taught me how to taste. And how to balance the ingredients in a dish. He taught me different textures of food and how to be patient in the cooking process. Since he is in town, I am blessed to come home to his comforting cuddles and delicious culinary creations. He loves to experiment - for instance there was this one night when I had a particular bad on-call shift, I came home to a living room with dimmed lights and candles on the dining table. He had spent the evening making us a little Indian feast (as pictured above)! I was particularly craving naan bread at the time, and he was thoughtful enough to make some from scratch. Needless to say, they were the best naan I have ever tasted. Tasted even more delicious with the chicken masala curry, chick pea daal and sag paneer. All engineered and crafted with great attention and care.
Home cooked meals are the best. Eating out could be an intermittent treat, but if done on too many occasions, I find myself being overwhelmed with overpowering flavours. Well, it depends on where one eats out, really. If it is eating out at good restaurants, one can be overwhelmed. But if its just at the generic chinese/thai/indonesian fusion takeaway place next door, one can feel the complete opposite. Probably I prefer spacing out my restaurant eating adventures with mundane home cooked dishes in between. The familiarity of my well practiced nasi ayam and spaghetti bolognese offer me comfort. I know these dishes very well, and they are always there when I need them.
But in desperate times, out comes the cheap takeaway food. Through weekend on-calls or nights where there is nothing in the fridge and I have no energy to go out to eat, I have to unfortunately resort to Plan C. Just Eat app opens up on my phone, I would scroll down and pick whatever that looks remotely edible and click order. Forty minutes later, food will appear in takeaway tupperwares or pizza boxes, most likely cold from the journey. Nine out of ten times the food will be disappointingly bland, but I devour it anyway because the alternative is to sleep hungry. It will take me back to my university and college days. Days when I knew almost nothing about good food. The only categories of food in my mind back then were: 1) edible 2) inedible. I ate just to sustain.
Thankfully I have grown up a lot since then, both as a person and as an eater. One of the biggest lessons I have learnt from A is the joy of eating and feeding. A loves cooking for other people - he inherited this trait from his parents, who are both passionate community cooks. Through him and our many sessions of dinner parties with friends, I have learnt that there is so much barakah in cooking for others - may it be in big occasions with friends, or simply feeding your small family everyday. The food you craft with your hands will help those who eat your cuisine acquire energy to go about their day - spending time at work, or with family or time gaining knowledge. The food you feed them will make up their muscles, blood vessels and nerves. Like oxygen, water and sunlight, food is a necessary aspect to life. We need it. So why not try and make as many meals you can that much more special.
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