Culinary-Integration

Cooking is one of my favourite past times. I am not talking about bookish or "play by the rules" cooking, but my kind is always "below the belt". It could also be scrupulously put as culinary-integration (CI). Yes, I just made up that term. And it may seem obvious to some, but here is how its done : use atleast 50% of the ingredients you possess in the kitchen cabinets that is hidden beyond the first row i.e., salt, pepper and masala containers. The end result may vary as to how and why you mix certain things. I once experimented with broccolli, zuchinni, garam masala and tomato sauce and I wont go into detail about the end result but suffice it to say that the dish went uneaten until it got rotten with fungus. Fungi fascinates me. Fungi cause or cure diseases depending on the kind. But the kind that was in my fridge was sure not the one that cured food poisoning. Mushrooms make any dish taste good and are pretty versatile in that respect, is what I thought until I experimented them with parseley, olive oil, rice wine and tomatoes. Seems pretty normal, until I added broccolli and bananas. Dishes that have fruits and vegetables enthuse me. Some of the best dishes I have tasted in certain parts of western India have a tinge of sour and sweet flavours mixed. I wonder if that was due to the french influence. Cooking is fun as long as the pre- and post-cooking events are taken care of by someone else. Sometimes I think kitchen sinks should be equipped with built-in grills to arrange dirty plates and dishes. Ofcourse dish-washer is the other alternative but most often the dish would have to be rinsed before which makes matters worse. With the infusion of so many engineers in the past 20 yrs not one could come up with a solution to the dish-washer. Hats off to the many inventions they came up with. But, I would have to admit a fundamental issue with engineers: social skills. I need'nt comment more. All their lives they have been working on math and science equations preventing them to be normal in a social setting. Its like everyday is halloween for engineers. In my most desperate attempts to look "cool", I once went to a friend's party in a stripy shirt with a huge collar (which is surprisingly sold at H&M), tucked in tight-jeans and pointy leather shoes. Some Indians mistook me for devanand and some wondered if I forgot a cow-boy hat. Our perception of whats cool and whats not is completely different from the norm and that makes us unique. In some cases like the cooking example unique may be good i.e., European food especially french and east european are unique and so the restaurants can afford to run on $30 entrees. Whereas Indian food is not so unique any more. I was shocked to run into an indian restaurant in the middle of a ghost town in nevada on US-50 which is also knick-named "the lonliest road in America".

Well, let me stop rambling for today. I will be back soon.