7 pm, Tuesday night
I texted A last night, before I started preparing food for myself. I plan to cook an extra portion for our meeting tomorrow.
I prepared the beet root, potatoes to make vegetable cookies. L came up with this word, and I have adopted it.
My mind is racing. I’m frustrated and tired.
I can’t do ovens! I turned the timer off without realising that the oven is still running.
I go to bed, thinking about the food the whole night in my sleep.
By the morning, I’ve come to terms with it.
Sweet bowl of warm fuzzy oats will fix the rest of me.
It’s -2 degrees outside today, every winter I re-learn to bare the cold. This winter too, I am surprised that it can get so cold,
An hour later, I get up to prepare mere jigar ka tuda (piece of heart) coffee.
I make another cup and sit quietly next to the heater, realising that I need to stop doing or thinking about 5 different things at the same time. I don’t know how to calm myself.
I know the bike ride will help, since I am not a pro biker, I need to stay focussed on the road.
12 pm, I am in a meeting and v hungry.
S applies lip balm, and I innocently ask her if that’s food. No, it’s not.
1;30 we make a run to Morrisons, A and I decide on gherkins, vegan meat, hummus, gluten free bread. Good sandwiches is another thing that I can’t make, so I follow suit,
I have some broccolli and mashed potato which is placed on the center of the table,
There’s already clementines and Morrison Deli’s Vegetable Pakora,
To the mix we add the sandwhich ingredients,
We eat from the jar,
We eat with our hands,
Eating a different food in every bite,
Many combinations are tried,
Gherkins with mashed potato goes for the win.
S remarks how this is the best meal we’ve had together, and I agree. I love communal meals, I love sharing to the extent that sometimes I take it to heart if someone says no to my offering of food to them.
4 hours later I am home and I go into the kitchen and stop just before putting some music or a podcast.
I need to be mellow, and calm.
I let the room be silent today and start to chop an onion to put in chicken soup.
One cut into the onion I decide that I don’t want soup, so I caramelise the onions instead.
I put gur in it and it works! That too really well!
New plan includes cooking chicken as whole with mushrooms, kale and caramelised onion on side.
Mushrooms are done just with salt, while the kale has garlic, chilli flakes, black pepper and salt.
K comes to the kitchen and I ask him if he thinks Gochujang would be good for the chicken. Learning from him, I put Gochujang in many things now. He usually always says yes to it.
Thereafter, every time he walks into the kitchen he complements the nice smell from the Gochujang, reassuring me that I have done fine.
My nose is running.
I under estimated the chilli flakes and black pepper combination in the kale.
The onions neutralise it thankfully, though I continue to have a runny nose, deep red in colour, from the cold outside, like the Gochujang which is everywhere in my kitchen now.
Find Ragini on instagram here.