A bitter tale

One of the things that has changed after marriage is my interest in cooking which has increased by leaps and bounds…Though I had spent a year on my own in Cbe and another ten months in LA,I cooked when I felt like it but never really tried out any new dishes mainly cos its never worth the trouble when u cook for urself….and I wud rather cut up a salad and chomp on it for any meal than cook for myself .But after marrying a man who loves to eat and is always excited abt my cooking(I still cant understand why) ,I found myself looking up recipes on the internet and trying out new things. And having a hubby who loves fish, I discovered that there are umpteen ways of cooking fish and I was more interested in the process than the ultimate result which was my hubby’s concern. Now I never really followed a recipe exactly. I always tweak it a bit here and there to suit my tastes and the ingredients I had on hand.
And I always felt there wud be something missing in a curry. I never came across what I called the perfect yum fish curry except when I used the recipe my mom provided. That was yum indeed….but then for the sake of variety and for the sake of experimenting, I always hunted up new recipes. There was a time when a recipe looked like Greek and Latin to me , and my dear cousin (who is my age and much more clever than poor ole me),was baking cookies, cakes and what not………My mom loved cooking and baking while I loved eating .Mama is an awesome cook while everyone was after me abt how I cud not even make a decent cup of tea .(I still cant make a decent cup of tea)At that tender age I decided that I must have been adopted…chuckle. I wish I cud see my mom’s face. She wud whack me blue and black for this one.
So on a day when I was at home and the hubby was at work, I decided to make an awesome fish curry and was determined to follow the exact recipe.

There is this internet cookery site which has videos of a chef demonstrating cooking. Let’s call the guy Mr.Chef.Now the only funny thing abt this guy was that he wud finish cooking his dish of the day, taste it himself and invariably put up his hands in the air, close his eyes and exclaim “Owww, Gawd!!!”He was inspiring and the tagline of the site is “Inspire others to cook”. I shud have known better than to follow his recipes considering that no one tasted his dishes except him and that closing ur eyes and calling out to God did not necessarily mean that the dish was awesome. But, alas, poor naïve me.

Anyway my dish of the day was tamarind fish curry. Now I normally use the basic stuff like ginger, garlic, coriander powder,garam masala,pepper and salt. So when I saw the guy roast a cupful of fenugreek seeds, I hunted for the same in my cupboards. I found just half a cup of the same which my ex-roomie had left behind. I decided to use only half of that since I may need it when I make the dish next time. So fretting that I had used way less fenugreek than Mr.Chef,I roasted my fenugreek seeds, coconut powder and then ground them up. Since my laptop’s battery was not working I had to connect it to the charger and leave it on the bed. I ran to and fro between the cooking range and the bed, pausing and rewinding the video umpteen times to make sure I missed absolutely nothing. I religiously squeezed out tamarind, stirred piously and then prayed over the pot all the while. The result? A beautiful brown fish curry. The texture of the curry itself was enuf to make me believe that I had created a masterpiece. My hubby walked in from office while I was watching the final touches on the video. He sniffed and said “Wow, something smells lovely”. Needless to say I swelled with pride. Now I don’t know why it is so but after marriage every meal I cook never seems to turn out to my satisfaction. But this was a homerun indeed and I was sure of it. Now all I had to do was taste it, put my hands up in the air and say “Owww Gawd!!”. So I bade my husband to wash his hands and sit down .I took a spoon, wiped it dry and scooped a lil bit of the hot curry up, blew hard on it, closed my eyes and tasted it.

Uggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!I don’t know what it was, but the darned thing tasted so bitter at the back of my throat that I gagged. I still get goose bumps at the memory. You cannot imagine my plight. I can normally conjure up a decent to good meal in an hour. This curry had taken me an entire 2 hrs on my feet and then it turns out to be bitter????There was no way I cud save it. I tried everything from adding chilli powder to telling myself that I imagined the bitter taste. Somewhere in the back of my mind glimmered a memory of my mom telling me that fenugreek was bitter.(and I had been worrying that I had not used as much fenugreek as that rat of a Chef had?!!!)While my hubby waited patiently with an expectant smile, I was in the throes of despair. I looked in dismay at my curry and then at my hubby’s bright face.
I tell you, it took me guts of the gutsiest kind to serve my hubby rice and that curry. But I did it. He almost broke my heart when he asked “Aren’t u eating?” Here is this nice considerate man whom I serve bitter fish curry and all he can think of is if am not eating. I put on a brave smile and said I really did not feel hungry. (O.K. So I did not want to eat the bitter curry and so wouldn’t u.So stop jeering)
He tasted it and I bent down to see his expression. He frowned, looked at me, and helped himself to a second mouthful while I stood with my heart in my mouth. He grimaced and asked “What recipe is this?”
Sigh!!!I had almost convinced myself that it was just my tastebuds.Owww Gawd!!!