A light in the darkness

Moving out of the house remains the biggest dream of everyone. Mine was the same. Studying in a college was quite good. I hardly remember missing my family. Getting a job was icing on top. Now life seemed settled. This was the moment when I felt relaxed and content. Then I started thinking about what to do next. My mother is a good cook. I always longed to cook like her, both creatively and tastily.      In my school days, I saw my friends cooking tasty dishes in sixth class, and I was nowhere. I also wanted to cook good food like my mother and like my friends.      I still remember the first dish I prepared. It was "aloo bhuji." I prepared three or four large potatoes. My potatoes were getting sticky to my kadhai, but still they were not cooked well. I put water on it, and it started sticking more. I have used more turmeric also so that I get a good yellow color. I also used more cumin powder.      My family members said it was okay, and whe...

  Image Credit:  sergiovisor_ph  on Pixabay      The first page in my food diary, which I started in 2006, I guess, after I secured a good salary job and was thinking of marrying, was a recipe that I saw in the newspaper. In those days, the internet was not so common, and newspaper reading was explicitly practiced.       I belong to a small city where hotels were not so very famous and meals usually used to be delicious home-cooked meals. So, after having a secure job and a good earning, I was living in a hostel. The life here was totally different. On one such occasion, our team planned an evening outing to a restaurant. I guess such an outing was the first of its kind for my batchmate and me, the hostellers.       Our other colleagues ordered a good starter and soup servings followed by a dinner. As they served, they named the dishes, and one of the chicken preparations was made in red wine. As we both unmarried new...