“Dinner? Again? We Just Ate Yesterday!”

 

Have I ever talked about one more bete noir of mine before? I have a feeling that I have hidden this aspect of my life in shrouds and I do not like to unearth this side of my psyche unless forced to!

I have been told that the best way to treat delusional trauma is to speak about it with your psychoanalyst. And since I live in India, where going to a psychiatrist is considered more scandalous than coming out of the cupboard, I’m appointing you all, yes, the whole world as my psychoanalyst. Consider this my therapy session.

For the last thirty-five years I wake up planning the days menu. That is three full meals and snacks as and when required. There have been breaks (I have to confess!) when we have been on holidays (though I still have to decide what to eat) when I have been ill and when we go out on our frequent meal hunting episodes during the week, but mostly it’s been me, my kitchen, and the menu.

The most difficult part is the menu of course specially when the children were young. If one wanted rice the other would like roti, if one wanted Italian the other would want Spanish and so on and so forth. Now we are just the two of us. You would think that life is a cake walk in the paradise of eating, unfortunately our inner desires which had been strictly under check through our growing up years has broken through all the locks, all barriers have been broken down and we do not hesitate to speak aloud our thoughts!

I have no problems with breakfast; I have a varied menu to choose from; I am an expert at the dishes that we both like; I do not even have to plan for it. I can whip up a mouthwatering breakfast any day.

Lunch is the tricky part. For thirty years I have had to fend for myself for lunch. The brats had tiffin, lord and master also had tiffin or ate at work café. So I either fasted (If I was trying to lose weight!) or made myself a sandwich. Now with Work from home I need to plan an elaborate meal (means other that rice and dal at least three different items). I do cheat a lot – when I am in a cooking frenzy I cook more than required and spread it over the week or rehash old stuff to look like new!

Dinner of course is something I would love to obliterate from the world! I always run out of ideas here (Unless we are going out) I would be quite happy to settle for soup and pasta or a baked casserole. Unfortunately, I have a hungry partner who wants a full four course meal even after a seven-course lunch and there again I am at the grind stone!

 Some people find cooking therapeutic, the slow chopping of onions, the simmering of masalas, the gentle bubbling of something wholesome on the stove. Me? I find it exhausting.

Before you even touch a pan, you need to decide what to eat. That alone can feel like a full-time job. Scrolling through recipes, trying to balance nutrition, budget, and what’s actually in the fridge, it’s draining.

Thirty minutes to prep, forty minutes to cook, ten minutes to clean up. That’s nearly an hour and a half for something I’ll eat in 12 minutes. Is it worth it? I could be doing something better (scrolling reels, playing games, or gossiping on WhatsApp!)

One pot turns into three. There’s chopping boards, knives, plates, and somehow, a mysterious sticky patch on the counter that wasn’t there before. This part of cooking is something I do like so I am not complaining!

I think I was born a sous-chef: happy to hover, clean, and assist, but allergic to being the one in charge. Once in a while the partner (now a days anyone you cohabit with is a called a partner not husband, boyfriend or lord and master!) loves to cook. He has almost given up on me trying to cook mutton the way he likes it, so he cooks it (takes about three hours and the kitchen turns into a battlefield, I am not complaining!) I enjoy it a lot.

Somebody presented me with a fridge magnet as shown in the picture. My Niece who was a little girl that time looked at it with interest and then read it out and spoke aloud, “This means you never cook!”

There’s so much guilt attached to not wanting to cook, like it makes you lazy, irresponsible, or less “adult.” But here’s the truth: food is about nourishment, not performance. If you hate cooking, that doesn’t mean you’re failing at life. It just means you value your time and energy differently.

Some people garden. Some people knit. Some people make pasta from scratch. I don’t. And that’s okay.