Welcome to my kitchen! Having grown up in a home of which the kitchen was most definitely the heart, I was bound to follow in the footsteps of the culinary queens who taught me everything I know: my mother and my grandmother.
One of the first stories I remember being told by my grandmother was one in which she would creep downstairs into the pantry to help herself to the piles of cakes which would always adorn the multi-tiered cakestand hidden therein. My grandmother's mother died when she was only nine years old so the woman of the household was a rather austere housekeeper who liked to keep Gaga (my grandmother) in dietary check. When caught with her fingers in the various pies and other treats she came across, the said fingers would meet with a crack from a giant wooden ruler or a wet-handed smack, but this was never enough to stop her. You see, from a very young age, Gaga had what she would later pass on to my mother (hereby known as Samik) who in turn would pass it on to me: an appetite. And a healthy one at that.
Much of my time as a child was spent at my mother's side as I watched her cook, bake and concoct. I was as an integral part of the kitchen as the wooden spoons that stirred the golden brown syrupy butter I so loved to lick up as I mixed it with oats to make Flapjacks. I was encouraged to get my hands dirty, to experiment, to mess up as many times as I needed to in order to achieve what I had set out to do and I do believe that the endless patience with and remarkable enthusiasm for my kitchen exploits shown by my parents is what led me to really FEEL cooking as a pleasure and an expression of self, in much the same way as I do music or literature and so on and so forth.
I very rarely follow recipes and I almost never measure. I like to use fresh ingredients whenever I can and cook from scratch. I have what could probably enter the running for Smallest Kitchen In The World and in keeping with that, I also have what can't be far from the smallest oven in the world. By way of this blog, I mean to share what I truly believe about food: that no matter how small your facilities, how limited your time, how short your patience, a really good meal is right there at your fingertips.
One of the first stories I remember being told by my grandmother was one in which she would creep downstairs into the pantry to help herself to the piles of cakes which would always adorn the multi-tiered cakestand hidden therein. My grandmother's mother died when she was only nine years old so the woman of the household was a rather austere housekeeper who liked to keep Gaga (my grandmother) in dietary check. When caught with her fingers in the various pies and other treats she came across, the said fingers would meet with a crack from a giant wooden ruler or a wet-handed smack, but this was never enough to stop her. You see, from a very young age, Gaga had what she would later pass on to my mother (hereby known as Samik) who in turn would pass it on to me: an appetite. And a healthy one at that.
Much of my time as a child was spent at my mother's side as I watched her cook, bake and concoct. I was as an integral part of the kitchen as the wooden spoons that stirred the golden brown syrupy butter I so loved to lick up as I mixed it with oats to make Flapjacks. I was encouraged to get my hands dirty, to experiment, to mess up as many times as I needed to in order to achieve what I had set out to do and I do believe that the endless patience with and remarkable enthusiasm for my kitchen exploits shown by my parents is what led me to really FEEL cooking as a pleasure and an expression of self, in much the same way as I do music or literature and so on and so forth.
I very rarely follow recipes and I almost never measure. I like to use fresh ingredients whenever I can and cook from scratch. I have what could probably enter the running for Smallest Kitchen In The World and in keeping with that, I also have what can't be far from the smallest oven in the world. By way of this blog, I mean to share what I truly believe about food: that no matter how small your facilities, how limited your time, how short your patience, a really good meal is right there at your fingertips.
Love love the 3 generational photo. Such beautiful women!
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