My cooking expedition

Staying away from home right from my 6th standard, I was receiving repeated advice from my mother that I should cook food myself than depending on outside food, implementation of which I kept resisting due to ROI (Return on Investment) factor. Because my calculation revealed that the time, effort and money spent on cooking as well as pre-cooking (shopping for groceries, cleaning utensils and preparation) and post cooking activities (washing utensils and cleaning the mess) was too much in comparison to the advantages of eating home made food.

However after I relocated to Chennai, and settled in a comfortable home along with 5 other colleagues, I seriously considered self cooking on a trial basis, primarily because my favorite tomato rasam was not available in the flavor I wanted, outside. My first cooking expedition was in Feb 06, when I made rice, and rasam, with tomato costing Rs.5 a kilo. Encouraged by confidence that nothing happened to me after eating that I started repeating that almost every weekend… But the sad thing is that tomato prices started increasing when Chennai realized that software engineer is buying tomato…In past two months, tomato price is on constant rise and was costing Rs 24 per Kg last Saturday… How can I protest this exploitation? Can’t influence the tomato market, but I plan to post another blog on the topic “How everyone loots software engineers”



There’re many other items that can be prepared without much effort, but so far I’ve failed to secure a higher level of cooking proficiency by say successfully cooking Sambar and other items. Twice I attempted them, but did end up heading towards hotel after the R & D failed. Advices on best cooking practices and quality assurance process are pouring in and if I loose my current job, I’m sure I can use them as plan B.

Further improvements in my cooking skills will be posted in another post. Till then eat it safe!