A moment too late…

Chocolate Fudge

I’ve said this before – I don’t cook, I run far from any hard work in the kitchen, no smelling fruit to see if ripe or sweet, no sifting grain to check for keedhas, no washing vegetables to make salads and such. And yet, each and every memory of mine involves food. The smell of freshly baking bread…. Her at the table surrounded with bottles of Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, Tomato sauce, Vinegar, Soy sauce - mixing, dabbling, tasting like she was making some magical potion. Truth be told , it was magical, an explosion of flavor and colour be it for spare ribs, or the butter filling for a chicken–a-la-Kiev;  salad dressing or home-made mayonnaise; her famous fudge to be distributed to many on Diwali or packed off for her nephew Jasmer in Indore.  Some smells were not so pleasant to me but oh how the dogs would go crazy … a brain wave of hers if I stand correct, nutritious liver biscuits for her 4 legged children baking in the oven.

Barbeque Spare Ribs 

There were only 2 places where this magic took place…. The dining table – mixing pots, steel bartans, bottles and ingredients all laden on the table or sitting on her bed with each surface covered with raisins and candy peel being cut, cleaned , chopped and whisked off to make room for dry fruits and other such!

And when not laden with ingredients she would be sitting there with her old recipe book, spectacles on the tip of her nose, patiently repeating instructions or changes in quantities depending on the number of expected and unexpected guests, add-ons to fuse in for a bit of a variation, what to be kept out depending on individual quirks...if Kuckoo chacha was coming then it had to be Pudina ka chutney no daniya in anything, while if Munna chacha then it had to be Daniya ki chutney and no pudina, Cookie chachi – likes her Vegetarian fish (a self coined title to a paneer dish!), Arvind tau must have his hot phulkas , Lynda thai – gulab jamuns, samosas for Abu… some of the things I learnt along the way, the list of people’s favorites and dislikes endless.

Closer to home she and didi had a food bond that I could never break into – Brain curry, karela, aloo mangori, gunpowder on idlis, fried chilies! But never one to discriminate or favor one over the other, we had our special inner circle moments, just me and her …. A good steak, Cadbury’s milk chocolate, which Siddhartha always brought big slabs of, on every trip just for her, club sandwiches with bacon and lettuce, midnight snacks of Grapenuts and cream with just a dash of milk for texture. 

Glazed Ham

But the most special of all would be Sunday lunches. Ever since I started working or even college I had a 6 day week. The only lunch together with her would be a Sunday. As the years passed, it became a given that I would not, unless dire circumstances, accept a lunch invite on a Sunday. That was our special meal in the week. How she thought of making it a treat for a meat loving me – prawn curry, fish curry, vindaloo, matar paneer, thehri, sambar with drumsticks, saag ghosht, every Sunday one of my favorites. And once the babies came, khichdi, idlis, fried chicken , whatever was there favorites too.   

Nandsingh Bhaiya is a great cook. Far and wide, he is known for his scrumptious food, be it lunch, dinner, festive occasions or just day to day normal khaana. I've always thought that as has everyone else.

And then everything changed.

No tantalizing smells of Pork chops in the oven, no leftovers in the fridge to be whipped into something new to snack on,  no new treats to just ‘see if you like it’, no sniffs of disdain at being too fussy …..empty table tops, hollow silences, no special nights with a glass of baileys on ice and bitter chocolate conversations, funniest of all was Nandsingh bhaiya’s food lost all flavor  too..."too salty", "too burnt", "too spicy", "too tough". Favorites were favorites no more, food meant nothing but a morsel here or there to survive. 

Confused I looked far and near to figure what was the missing ingredient, what had changed, every nook and cranny, every room I searched for her, for answers, for the food I craved, for my stomach, my mind, my heart and my soul.

Answers will remain unanswered for I waited too long to ask them and now she is gone.