How to Follow a Recipe

I remember the first time I cooked chicken for LH. He said it was more like chicken rasam (soup) than chicken gravy. So after the wedding, armed with resolve and my mom's recipe, I went forth into the chicken..er, kitchen to amaze one and all with my culinary skills. No one would call my gravy as rasam this time because I was going to follow that recipe like Hercule Poirot on the tail of a clue.

Not ignoring a single hint from my mother that I had scrawled on the margins of my notebook, I diligently chopped, stirred and added stuff. It looked right, it smelt right, the initial tasting was quite passable and I patted myself on the back for doing a good job.

On went the lid of the pressure cooker. The steam hissed out as expected. I put on the weight. All was well with the world. I prepared to wait out the ten minutes watching TV, but kept a vigilant eye on the clock. That chicken was not messing with me this time.

Five minutes passed and there was an acrid smell of burnt food in the kitchen. I rushed in waving my hands like a fan in a pitiful attempt to make it all go away. The problem? I didn't know the right heat settings for the induction stove. I called up my mom and informed her of this development. She laughed. Then she reeled off heat settings for possibly everything I might ever attempt to cook in my lifetime.

Thanking her for the late information, I did  the only thing I could: damage control. After transferring the slightly burnt chicken to another cooker, I finished cooking it and then spent fifteen minutes scrubbing away at the blackened remains of scorched chicken from the other vessel. Fun night.

And it wasn't that bad. I thought it had a smokey flavour, but I think LH only ate it because we were just married and he didn't want to say anything except, 'Yeah, it's nice. A little burnt, but uh....nice!'

Three months and many chicken gravies later...

Yesterday, I made chicken gravy again. And this time, I said to myself, 'screw the recipe!'And what do you know?
The damn thing tasted pretty good.

Advice from the Future

What would you tell yourself if you could go back into the past one year and tell yourself, 'Dude, you're going to do some stupid things. Please don't do them.'

Would you never get that credit card? Would you quit your job? Would you break up with that guy/girl earlier? Would you get off your arse, go apeshit crazy, give away everything you own and go off on a cross-country motorcycle ride with your ingenuity and naught else?

The point is, sometimes there are things we wish we could change. And usually, I would be all 'Oh God, it sucks that I can't do that. Woe is me!' I haven't become wise overnight. There are huge things that I would like to change. I would have liked to be more in charge of myself and not listened to other people's opinions to make important decisions. I wish that I had gone out more, learnt to drive a car, or do what I was meant to do in life and not take drastic detours which cost loads of cash.

But you know what? I don't know how my future is going to play out. And I've learnt by experience that listening to someone else telling you what you should do will never work. Not even if the someone else is me.

Women's day is the day us lucky women get spa discounts.

What's up with Women's Day? Why are there discounts on stuff for women for simply being...well, women? Does the fact that girls are generally undervalued make society feel guilty enough to give us a 15 percent discount on one effing day of the year? Why is there no Men's Day? (Whew! That's too many questions. Even for me.)

Women's Day originally had political roots. It was a socialist movement by working women to break out of the cooking and child bearing mould they were forced into. It was a sign by the women that they wanted to be treated equally no matter what the other male half of the planet thought about them. 

If they wanted to work, work they would. If they wanted to vote, they were going to get that vote. If they wanted to bring up their kids teaching them to respect and not deify women, by God those kids came out of their vaginas kicking and screaming and they would, thank you very much. 

Today, Women's Day is a more like Valentine's Day and an end-of-season sale rolled into one.

Buy that special woman in your life a diamond ring.

Treat her to a facial at our salon for half the price!

Show her you care by getting her the best kitchen gloves. Buy one, get one free!

On this special day, ABC&Co., applauds all women for their vague moral attributes.

Yeah, nothing spells equality like a diamond ring and hair straightening.