The Boy who Bakes

Well, can a 40 year old still call himself a boy when he’s far from being one? Even If I can’t, for all practical purpose I shall stick to the title, after all I am a child at heart (which many of my friends and family would vouch for), a boy who refuses to grow up (but I’m no Peter Pan)!

Now that we have got that out of the way, there shall be no further debate (though I can still hear the snickering), let’s get back on track (did we ever get started,to go off it in the first place?)

They say “A way to a person’s heart is through their stomach” (see, I’ve tried to be gender neutral... but then enough of trying to be politically correct), but would it be right to say that a way to his mind is through his stomach too? At least in these strange and anxious times.

Whatever may be the outcome of that theory, cooking and baking has been the calming balm in these strange stressful times, except when it is the cause of the stress. Like when your dough doesn’t come together and is all runny, so your buns are end up looking like an amoeba, or when you try to grind tomatoes and cashews and add water to the content only to have it splash all over the kitchen, leaving you (and in most cases , your poor mumma) the task of cleaning it, or when your cookies keep getting burnt. All this could be quite stressful to a novice hobby baker like yours truly. 

But despite it all, cooking and baking have been proven pretty therapeutic to me. A proven outlet to escape the insanity. And the good thing is you get something delicious (well, maybe not always, but most of the time you do get something edible) from all your endeavours. It taught me patience, especially when it comes to kneading dough. It showed me how to succeed after failing a couple of times (a thousand times would definitely be an exaggeration). So I tried and tried until I succeeded (to be read as burnt a couple of cookies and a few fingers). It showed me how to roll dough without it looking the map of India, or any other country for that matter. But most importantly it taught me how to read, understand and follow a recipe (and here we thought that men couldn’t take directions).

So I have baked cookie6, apple pies , chocolate ganache tart with peanut brittles, cheesecakes, burger buns, as well as made aloo Parathas, chicken sukha, butter chicken, and not to forget, a mess. And mother has been the one reaping the benefits, or enduring the torture, of the fruits (or the outcome) of my baking and cooking l.

So in the end, whichever way you look at it, I can say with pride that baking and cooking has brought me joy, kept me sane, kept me from loosing my mind. Cooking and baking has indeed been very therapeutic to me. And so is this write up on my love for cooking and baking.