365 Days- Book I

5. Food

July 5, 2018

"What's for breakfast? Dinner? Lunch? Or maybe you could write a poem about that time you met a friend at a cafe."

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"What's for lunch?"

No, this is not me asking my mother what she is planning to make for lunch. It is my mother wanting to know what we would like for lunch, the next day, just when we sit down for dinner. My brother and I exchange glances, similar expressions of resignation and grimace on our face and he replies, "Amma, we had not even started dinner and you want to know what we want for lunch, tomorrow's lunch."

Mom has the standard retort ready, "I have to plan and prepare, lunch has to be cooked and packed before the two of you leave the house and I would prefer to sleep at night, with as much as preparations done as possible."

I shake my head; it was a regular scene at our house. Amma always wanted to know what our preferences for the next meal were and the timing was also constant, at the start of the meal. So lunch meant telling her what we wanted for dinner and dinner conversation was about what would be for the next day's lunch. It was conversation that saw groans and moans, both my brother and me being of the opinion that ensuring a stock of vegetables was the end of our responsibility, what to cook was solely my mother's prerogative.

It changed the year my mother had to undergo surgery and I had to take over the cooking duties. I then realised how prepared one has to be when one has to cook a full course meal (dal, sabzi and rice) in a fixed time frame. The clock does not wait for you nor does office look kindly at you being late because you had to cook your lunch. Cleaning and chopping vegetables, measuring out the dal and rice and the spices, making breakfast and finding time to squeeze in a cup of coffee or two, all in the space of three hours sounds fine on paper, but once in the kitchen it is a race, a race against time.

And you must be prepared for mishaps, the mixer decides to act funny and either refuses to grind well or throws a tantrum spewing the tomato puree over the backsplash; the vegetables are being stubborn and take twice as long to cook; the pressure cooker collapses to the pressure and steam does not build up; the flame was set on high by mistake and your nicely chopped vegetables are now carbon cubes; anything can happen.

That was when I learnt why it was important to go to bed knowing what one has to cook for lunch and breakfast, some vegetables could be cut and stored overnight in the refrigerator, saving time in the morning; breakfast and lunch items could be coordinated depending on the complicity of individual menu items ( lunch involving a longer cooking process could have a simple breakfast menu and vice versa).

Now it is my turn to ask, "What's for lunch? And what would you like for breakfast?"

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Word Count: 501