Cooking with Heart & Soul - A show by Kylie Kwong that is telecast on Discovery Travel & Living. Tall and lean, shoulder length poker-straight thick black hair with a streak of red, black chic glass frames, her casual ways, affectionate nature, warm smile and her beautiful versions of cooking! Whoa! I Love the way she loves to cook! Picking up the most fresh ingredients, the juicy bright red tomaatoes, enjoying the crisp spluttering noise while frying the ginger-garlic juveniles and taking in the aroma of the food as it’s getting cooked! The Wok, lots and lots of extra-virgin olive oil, the aromatic flavors…. hmm…. I Love Food! Thanks to her, my keenness to cook is always revived watching her shows.
Cooking, something which I had taken a keen interest in right from my childhood days, something which I would love to delve into but in my free-time of course! Unlike quite a few of them, I don’t remember fretting about cooking. Without knowing how the food would turn out to be I’d always enjoyed cooking.
Thanks to the “2 minutes Maggi”, which gave me the feel of being “on-top-of-the-world” when I could cook it the right way (without burning it). Wow! What an achievement it was for me. Well, I think it would be one for a tot in the first standard. My mother is a working mother. Thank God! Being a teacher, she mostly had afternoon school and by the time she would return home in the evening my stomach had already succeeded in travelling more than half of its way growling for food. It was since then that I had developed this immense interest in cooking.
The next step in learning to cook was the “Omlette”. When mummy had morning school, my aunt would babysit me. One of the days that I vividly remember, for some reason mum wasn’t at home and it was just daddy, my brother and me at home. Just before break-fast, I heard my dad call out to me. He said, “Come, I’ll show you how to make omlettes.” Daddy’s little innocent girl followed him to the kitchen and watched him make it. He needed to prepare for it first. From what I could see, he had just started to prepare it. At one side I saw finely cut onions and on the other side there were green chillies, few corriander leaves, two eggs, a fairly big bowl, something that looked like a big spring with a wooden handle, a knife and a fork.
Ah! No wonder he called me in after chopping the onions, else I would have ran miles away at the thought of being in the kitchen with tear-filled eyes. He then took the green chilly and had just chopped off the edge of it.
Excitedly, I screamed, “Can I cut it?” Please?”
“You need to be very careful, knives have sharp edges.”
“Yes. Yes. I will be.” Hyper-excitedly I said so.
He must have gently showed me one or two strokes and the rest I finished on my own. Just the way he had expected it to be. Yippee! My face flashed a smile from ear-to-ear. By then, he was done with the coriander leaves.
He then took an egg; broke it perfectly without disturbing its bond with the yolk and in it went into the bowl. He added the onions and the other ingredients needed in the fairly big bowl. And then he used the spring. He began beating the egg letting it blend perfectly with the other things in the bowl.
I saw him light the gas and turn the flame really slow. Within around 3 – 5 seconds, he added some ghee to the pan and gave it a slight rotation so that the ghee would spread evenly. Looked quite like a chef! Not that he always did it though. I saw him transfer the things from the bowl to the pan and saw that he covered it for not more than a fraction of a minute. He then gently turned it the other side using the wooden flat-faced spoon, kept it for maybe a minute or so and transferred it onto the plate. Tadaaa!! It was ready. And now, it was supposed to be my turn! Ahemm…. This one was quite different from the way Maggi was to be cooked. Yet, from what I could gather and of course with daddy’s guidance, I made it fairly well.
Good! Good! Dad patted me on my back! Tadaaa… I was on top of the world again!
The other times I tried to make it while I was alone, obviously, it turned out to be no-where near perfect. I did have a slightly harder time making omlettes for I had also cut the onions with my teary eyes. The initial omlettes which I had made always had two colours; one side was yellow and the other was blackish-brown. I had always put in the omlette in the pan, covered it and made castles in the air of how yummy the omlette would taste. Right then, reality knocking on its door, fumes from the pan. Ahem! How yummy! Eventually, with time and practice I could make fairly decent omlettes. Phew! With great efforts though!
The next thing I fondly remember was the “Lemon Sherbat” and the work-experience exam. This was one of the wonderful experiences that I remember from my old school. Instead of studying for my written exams, I was worried and excited about the work-experience exam. My first practical exam in fourth standard! ;) I would often practice for it with mummy’s guidance. She taught me, first squeeze the lemon, add a glass of water, 2 teaspoons of sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir it well and it’s ready. So simple! I thought I quite excelled at it.
In came daddy with his good, good pats on the back. “Now, I’ll teach you to make it even better”, he said. Even better? I thought, “I had NEVER tasted spicy sherbet. So what is he going to do with it?” Curiously, I looked around trying to see what else he would be doing with it. He took around 2 pods of elaichi, de-shelled them, crushed them and in they went. Into the sherbet and stir, stir, stirred!
This was what flavour meant! Of course, I did this for my exam and no wonder I got an “A+” for it! Wow! It felt like I had a little secret kept with me, that extra pinch of flavour. It was just yesterday when I went to my friend’s place, where her mum added in to this little secret. “Alongwith the elaichi powder add a pinch of jaifal(mace) powder also”, aunty said.
Hmm… surely, cooking seems to be like a timely experience. Like wine gets better as it gets older, it seems like with time I have happened to learn different ways of cooking a particular thing. Different ways to cook it and practice until and unless you’ve found it Perfect! Read in-between the lines and you shall find some insights as well!
These were the starters; I shall type in the main course as well! Till then.. Cheers n Bon Apetite! :)
Cooking, something which I had taken a keen interest in right from my childhood days, something which I would love to delve into but in my free-time of course! Unlike quite a few of them, I don’t remember fretting about cooking. Without knowing how the food would turn out to be I’d always enjoyed cooking.
Thanks to the “2 minutes Maggi”, which gave me the feel of being “on-top-of-the-world” when I could cook it the right way (without burning it). Wow! What an achievement it was for me. Well, I think it would be one for a tot in the first standard. My mother is a working mother. Thank God! Being a teacher, she mostly had afternoon school and by the time she would return home in the evening my stomach had already succeeded in travelling more than half of its way growling for food. It was since then that I had developed this immense interest in cooking.
The next step in learning to cook was the “Omlette”. When mummy had morning school, my aunt would babysit me. One of the days that I vividly remember, for some reason mum wasn’t at home and it was just daddy, my brother and me at home. Just before break-fast, I heard my dad call out to me. He said, “Come, I’ll show you how to make omlettes.” Daddy’s little innocent girl followed him to the kitchen and watched him make it. He needed to prepare for it first. From what I could see, he had just started to prepare it. At one side I saw finely cut onions and on the other side there were green chillies, few corriander leaves, two eggs, a fairly big bowl, something that looked like a big spring with a wooden handle, a knife and a fork.
Ah! No wonder he called me in after chopping the onions, else I would have ran miles away at the thought of being in the kitchen with tear-filled eyes. He then took the green chilly and had just chopped off the edge of it.
Excitedly, I screamed, “Can I cut it?” Please?”
“You need to be very careful, knives have sharp edges.”
“Yes. Yes. I will be.” Hyper-excitedly I said so.
He must have gently showed me one or two strokes and the rest I finished on my own. Just the way he had expected it to be. Yippee! My face flashed a smile from ear-to-ear. By then, he was done with the coriander leaves.
He then took an egg; broke it perfectly without disturbing its bond with the yolk and in it went into the bowl. He added the onions and the other ingredients needed in the fairly big bowl. And then he used the spring. He began beating the egg letting it blend perfectly with the other things in the bowl.
I saw him light the gas and turn the flame really slow. Within around 3 – 5 seconds, he added some ghee to the pan and gave it a slight rotation so that the ghee would spread evenly. Looked quite like a chef! Not that he always did it though. I saw him transfer the things from the bowl to the pan and saw that he covered it for not more than a fraction of a minute. He then gently turned it the other side using the wooden flat-faced spoon, kept it for maybe a minute or so and transferred it onto the plate. Tadaaa!! It was ready. And now, it was supposed to be my turn! Ahemm…. This one was quite different from the way Maggi was to be cooked. Yet, from what I could gather and of course with daddy’s guidance, I made it fairly well.
Good! Good! Dad patted me on my back! Tadaaa… I was on top of the world again!
The other times I tried to make it while I was alone, obviously, it turned out to be no-where near perfect. I did have a slightly harder time making omlettes for I had also cut the onions with my teary eyes. The initial omlettes which I had made always had two colours; one side was yellow and the other was blackish-brown. I had always put in the omlette in the pan, covered it and made castles in the air of how yummy the omlette would taste. Right then, reality knocking on its door, fumes from the pan. Ahem! How yummy! Eventually, with time and practice I could make fairly decent omlettes. Phew! With great efforts though!
The next thing I fondly remember was the “Lemon Sherbat” and the work-experience exam. This was one of the wonderful experiences that I remember from my old school. Instead of studying for my written exams, I was worried and excited about the work-experience exam. My first practical exam in fourth standard! ;) I would often practice for it with mummy’s guidance. She taught me, first squeeze the lemon, add a glass of water, 2 teaspoons of sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir it well and it’s ready. So simple! I thought I quite excelled at it.
In came daddy with his good, good pats on the back. “Now, I’ll teach you to make it even better”, he said. Even better? I thought, “I had NEVER tasted spicy sherbet. So what is he going to do with it?” Curiously, I looked around trying to see what else he would be doing with it. He took around 2 pods of elaichi, de-shelled them, crushed them and in they went. Into the sherbet and stir, stir, stirred!
This was what flavour meant! Of course, I did this for my exam and no wonder I got an “A+” for it! Wow! It felt like I had a little secret kept with me, that extra pinch of flavour. It was just yesterday when I went to my friend’s place, where her mum added in to this little secret. “Alongwith the elaichi powder add a pinch of jaifal(mace) powder also”, aunty said.
Hmm… surely, cooking seems to be like a timely experience. Like wine gets better as it gets older, it seems like with time I have happened to learn different ways of cooking a particular thing. Different ways to cook it and practice until and unless you’ve found it Perfect! Read in-between the lines and you shall find some insights as well!
These were the starters; I shall type in the main course as well! Till then.. Cheers n Bon Apetite! :)
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