Dear Reader,

I’m reading ‘In the Kitchen’ during a family emergency as I navigate a kitchen I’m unfamiliar with. I packed the book without much thought as I left for the trip, but somehow it fits neatly into my present state of affairs. You know how some books make you want to write and some make you want to eat? This one is unusual, it makes you want to cook.

The kitchen I’m attempting to cook in is intimidating in size, history and a few specifics —mainly that my mother-in-law is an exceptional cook. She isn’t home, but her imprint is all over this large, old kitchen built nearly ninety years ago. Noticeable changes have been made- it was someone else’s space once- but it’s all hers now. I often think about each kitchen is a portrait of the person who cooks in it. For instance, my mother’s shelves are full of memories–– her mother’s handwritten notes, a masala box from a long ago vacation, a tiffin box I won at a quiz contest in school and various other little objects that are not entirely useful except in that they’re meaningful to her. My mother-in-law’s, kitchen tells me that she’d like to be prepared for any eventuality. Her shelves and drawers are stock-piled with every anticipated need. One shelf in particular makes me gasp as it glistens in the sunshine with rows of empty glass jars waiting to be filled and stored or sent away with children who may demand fresh pepper pods, homemade kachampuli or butter cookies before they leave. This is a kitchen where everything has been thought of, so there isn’t much for me to do. Even food is usually pre-prepared for any event from celebrations to emergencies. And each time I open the fridge, I know I will find mutton curry, a comforting sambaar, and even a chocolate cake I love. 

I’m not expected to cook anything but maybe it is this book, it makes me want to try. Besides, it’s the only way I feel I can help out. 

As I think of what to make I read Mayukh Sen’s tender account of Archana Pidathala’s journey of grief, from cooking, to writing. I feel a secret thrill coming across this essay about my favourite cookbook- Five Morsels of Love- which I’d read as I blundered about my tiny kitchen in Bombay, learning to cook through the pandemic. In some kind of homage I make Archana’s daal from memory, but I use a different variety of pulses, and the daal turns out strictly ok. What does turn out well is a poriyal of beans, made with freshly grated coconut and freckled with browned, crunchy urad daal. In this inspired mood even a humble omelette turns out beautiful, sharpened by local gandhari chillies that my sister-in-law plucks on her way back from a morning walk. My good streak finally ends in an attempt to steam nendran bananas in a puttu vessel. The bananas aren’t tough but they’re not soft enough either. And yet none of us can resist the tangy-sweetness of hot nendran, slit in the centre with a thin line of ghee and we eat without compliment or complaint. Ruby Tandoh’s essay on sweetness is partly to blame. I crave the vivid sweetness she describes so strongly, that I’ll forgive myself anything.