Guest blog featuring a Guest Home Chef or a Fellow Biryani Lover---
Chethan D. Bio given below.
"I was just 15 when we had a career counselling day at school. It wasn't
an oddity since that's when parents start talking to their kids about
their life choices and the future."
"The day was unlike any other, it opened up the world of careers to me
and my mates at school. Men and women dressed in their best suits to
impress us lot about their line of work, and being at the impressionable
age that we were, many career options stood out. Some of us wanted to be
pilots, doctors, architects but for me one thing stood out... Chef!"
"Coming from a middle class family, becoming a doctor or an engineer was
the norm on the other hand Chef??!! Practically unheard of.
I can't really recall the name of the Chef who spoke to us that day or
where he worked or what he liked cooking/creating but the way he sold
his career choice to us was just fascinating. Or maybe it was just me
and my love for food. Maybe some back drop to this would help.
My mother was a working lady and my father was in a transferable
Government job. Our family was based out of Bangalore and Dad would
visit as often as he could. Mom's culinary skills could only be seen on
Sundays and that too only if she was in the mood to whip up something
special for us. I say whip up because, being a working woman she was
always in a hurry, our daily nutritional needs were met in the
healthiest and more often than not almost tasteless food. There was
hardly any time for her to experiment with her cooking or make something
off the beaten track.
I used to help out in the kitchen as often as my services were required,
so I had picked up the basics of meal prep, cleaning vegetables and
meat, chopping and grinding, I could even manage the odd tea or coffee,
cook rice or the very basic scrambled egg or omelette as early as age 8.
So when my grandma visited us, I would excitedly wait for Saturdays,
since I didn't have school on Saturdays, I would try to experiment in
the kitchen with my grandma and her rustic flavours. I always wanted to
eat tastier food... and what better way to make that happen than cooking
it yourself?
20 years ago when I got back from school from that career counselling
day and told my folks that I wanted to be a Chef, the laughs were
unanimous and never-ending. My sisters can't have enough of it even to
this day. My plans of becoming a Chef went down the drain like Remy the
Rat with the incredible palate from the movie Ratatouille.
But, like Remy, I believe in Chef Auguste Gusteau, that "anybody can
cook". Especially in the connected world we live in, it's not too
difficult to come by good recipes for your favourite dishes and more
often than not we tend to tweak it a little bit, either procedurally or
the ingredients to make it our own. There are multiple websites and apps
specifically for this purpose and God bless all those beautiful souls
who share their recipes online and forever become a part of someone
else's kitchen, their recipes and their lives, because the way I see it,
eating is a social event and a lot of stories and experiences are shared
at the dinner table. Cookpad became that app for me. It opened up an
exciting world where superior cooking was just a click away on your
mobile phone. (Which is an extension of your hand anyway!) And the other
thing that really helped me was that the dish was cooked by another
possibly (untrained) or non-professional home chef like myself. So the
dish became less intimidating right from the get go. And it gave me more
confidence that I could do it as well.
20 years ago I didn't really know what I wanted to be and I still don't
know what I want to be. I am an Engineer and a MBA, and both from one of
the top 10 institutions in India, all the things that a middle class
family wants their kid to be. But I kid you not I still love cooking. I
find it therapeutic. It's fulfilling in its own tasty way when my
sisters kids come over to my place craving for my Biryani. I have a
legacy to leave behind. There is no better feeling than that.
After I wrote this, I strongly started feeling that all kids should be
allowed to dabble in the kitchen from a very young age and help their
parent out as much as possible. So they can possible discover a hidden
love for cooking as I did. Albeit a very very long time later than I
would have hoped."
So the Cookpad team thinks this is the perfect opportunity to tell all
of its users that: SO, Go ahead, GIFT your kid a chef's hat on his
birthday this year. Make it worth his while. Also allow him to get
creative in the kitchen. Take his or her suggestions as it's the most
easily accessible place for a kid to try out experiments in lieu of a
lab like Dexter had.
And many new shows like Masterchef (KIDS version) has literally blown
our minds on how talented and amazing kids in the kitchen can be! So
with a little supervision and a whole LOT OF LOVE and PRIDE --- Let your
kid come in and bond with you in the kitchen.
BIO of Blog Writer:
Chethan is just another one of those humans who always told/joked with
his friends that he would NEVER step inside a kitchen and let the
"Woman" do all the work. (As a joke to get all his women friends riled
up.) It was when he really started cooking all by himself did he
discover the huge hidden world he had never thought he would like. But
now, he is known for his love for Biryani eating and Biryani cooking (of
course). And he takes great pride in being able to say he is a convert
into the wonderful community of "HOME CHEFS".
Who knows a good restaurant who might be a hiring?
