All Those Great Moms and Their Magnificient Kitchen Machines

This post is dedicated to Ma.

My Ma is a super chef. May be one of the best in certain ingenius cuisines a la Bengali style such as Fish and Chips, Lentil soup, Malai Chingri, Aloo- koraishuti- posto (green peas), Doi Maachh and half a dozen more which I have had the fortune of being reared on. In all her hum drum in the kitchen she is an extremely organised and meticulous chef, the eye for doing things methodically is native to her. Although I have learnt from her but am quite the opposite in method cooking. So many a hours have I spent in our Hibachi kitchen and dining area watching Ma dish out these miracles as I was the designated soux chef and taster at home.

But the most exotic escapades with her were rarely regarding cooking a perfect meal, it was more in the area of mechanical disasters that she so eagerly experimented with. Ma is always the first one to buy any new invention created for the kitchen. May it be gas tandoor or may it be a steam cooker or the never ever working instant roti maker. In between are thrown the petty disaster of electric tandoor, fancy, very fancy kitchen machine which cuts, grinds, slices, grates etec. etc.

Never have I seen her actually use all those gadgets to turn out the perfect gourmet dishes she would cook up but there they are lying in our cupboard without have seen the light of the day. These appliances only seem to perform in the fairs and exhibitions where they are promoted. I am yet to see functional and trustworthy kitchen appliances beyond the good old mixie, OTG and now the heating instrument microwave. It has loads of unexplored potential and has been a life saver whenever there is a scarcity of LPG and the local cylinder wala fails to deliver on time.
But beyond these the beautiful kitchen machines are absolutely useless in terms of simplifying the act of cooking. Not to mention the space they occupy and the extra work that goes in maintaining them. But the laughs are greater than the disappointments doled out by these super efficient machines and I shall remember them ever so fondly through out my life.

Comments

Srobona RC said…
Oh man I am cracking up here. My mom was your mom's antithesis. She cooked edible things, that’s all. And she looks at all mechanical appliances like they are alien inventions out to get her. We bought her a mixer, which she rarely uses cause it "growls"..can you believe that. However, the microwave has been well appreciated and used for heating as my dad prefers his food hot. I personally think mom took to it cause it resembles my small TV which is the only other mechanical appliance she handles quite well

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