A Level Headed Idiot's Blog

Close enough!

“For my method of cooking the rice we buy, rice to water ratio of 1:1.75 and high heat for 4 whistles on the pressure cooker”, I lectured my mom on a weekday when the wife was sick and the son woke up early and engaged his gripping systems around my neck ensuring that I couldn’t work in the kitchen till he disengaged them for his toys, namely spoons, saucepans, spatulas etc. While she went about following what I’d just said I started thinking about what I’d said and a thought avalanche was triggered. The ratio I mentioned, the duration of each whistle on the cooker, the quantity of water and rice, are all approximations. The pinch of salt is an approximation too, so is the use of measuring cups, weighing scales etc for baking. Our lives are governed by the brain’s ability to match something close to what it already knows, which is already an average of the observations it has made over the years.

Let me explain why I think that nature is an engineer and not a theoretical sciences person. We are approximations all around. When you see someone from even the exact same angle as you did the last time, you are seeing the pixels differently, the photons aren’t the same either, no matter how hard you try. So your brain is processing information based on what it has seen and matching to the closest probable match. It’s the same with smells, sounds, touch, and taste. Every single plant, tree, flower, seed is different too, even twins are different. Which means that each time we assert that a certain something is indeed a certain something, it’s only a choice of what we feel is the closest thing we know to it.

It’s said that machines have excellent precision and can replicate things over and over, but are they doing exact matches every time? A geometry compass may draw circles, but are the microscopic widths of the pencil markings on the paper the same every single time? Probably not.

The cooker whistled 4 times, and my mom managed to turn it off after a few seconds. “Was it the exact same amount of seconds as the other times I’ve cooked rice perfectly, or was the mouth feel of the morsels the exact same as the last time?”, I wondered, as I ended my train of thought to get ready for work, approximately at the same time as I do every day.

Kitchen Tales

I am on such an anti-perfection crusade. I’m not perfect! Who wants to be? I’m not patient at all. I’m not saying everything has to be just right: you will never cook if you think the end result has to be four-star Michelin. – Nigella Lawson

The quote above sums up my cooking journey. I realized I had to sit down and recall everything I’ve experienced with this essential aspect of my life.

My earliest memory of the kitchen is sitting on a wooden chair twice as tall as I am, with a wooden plank held between the handles as a makeshift tray table to hold the plate while I devoured hot of the dosakallu ghee roasts with even more ghee and sugar that was made with love by Appamma (dad’s mother). That was also the place where I’d sit in the evening to recollect events of the day to my mom while she brewed tea for everyone.

It was also the place where we sat in wait while dad cooked his signature vegetable rice with deep fried bread chunks, shallots etc or the then exotic cauliflower in a curry that was enhanced by adding some tomato sauce.

When we were building a house to move into a few years later, my dad had only one demand to make to the engineers who were tasked with making the floor plan. “The kitchen must be spacious.” Little did I know that I’d spend more time in that room than I’d in my own bedroom. It’s where we’d sit and read the newspaper taking turns to stir the curries and poriyals. It’s where we’d talk about the goings on in our lives. It’s also the room where we mostly ate our breakfast or dinner, thereby reducing our dining room to the status of a guest bedroom because it had a cot. By watching and observing my parents, I learned the basics of what made a good dish and what didn’t. We also experimented recipes from restaurants as well as those shown on TV shows. We made some recipes our own with imperfections and the refusal to follow the instructions to the dot.

Bajjis, vadas, fries, cutlets, payasams, sadyas, chips, chakkavaratti all happened in that kitchen of ours. The greatest joy was in buying fresh produce from the market, or getting them from friends and converting it to dishes we loved. Sometimes they hit the mark, sometimes they didn’t. We ate all of it nonetheless.

Some time along the way, I declared that I wanted to try making some dishes and my parents trusted me enough to not reduce our house to flames. Chopping duties were off limits, as was deep frying. However, I was allowed to choose the ingredients, the quantity, everything else in between. These adventures brought me closer to food. It brought me to a zone where I felt comfortable. There was cooking and there was me.

I drifted away from it when I went to university, and then found myself in an apartment where we didn’t have the set up to cook. When we did finally have enough finances to set up a kitchen, we found ourselves short on time and hired someone to cook for us. Yet, their days off or our own deep desire provided opportunities to do what I loved.

Over the last few years, I’ve moved places several times and one constant has been a functional kitchen. From cooking only when I wished to, it became routine. Yet, it hasn’t turned mundane. Each day, I go into the kitchen trying to better a dish I didn’t feel good about. Each day, I go into the kitchen pouring my love into the food so that those who eat it can feel it. I think I express love better with food than with interactions.

I don’t have the skills to plate food and post them for the world to see. I don’t want the world to see what I have cooked anymore for it’s an experience I’d like to cherish, unblemished by likes, comments, or criticisms. I don’t have easy access to high quality or non-generic ingredients nowadays. Yet, I cook with what’s available and try to enjoy every moment of it for it’s a time when the family can bond while the stew simmers, and the onions turn a golden brown.

So what was that quote about perfection and cooking? This morning, I made peas curry and as I tasted it to ensure the amount of salt was right, all I could say to myself was “It’s a perfect day of cooking.” while forgetting that I’d added too much sambar powder to the sambar.

Concerning friendships

For the last few weeks, I’ve been pondering about the thing I miss most in life currently and have come to the realization that there has been a severe dearth of friendships.

There are colleagues, of course. The ones with whom I spend a good part of the day working on things, laughing, sharing some of the details of our lives, yet I wouldn’t call those friendships.

There are those on social media, specifically Twitter and an IRC network with whom I interact on a very regular basis. Those who share their insecurities, jokes, memes, some meaningful snapshots of their lives, wisdom etc, yet they aren’t friends.

What is a friendship then?

A friend, for me, is one with whom I don’t feel inhibited. A person with whom my deepest fears, worries, greatest joys, the falls, the highs can be shared without fear of being judged. A two way street where the person is as open around you as you are to them. Someone I can count upon and someone who will count on me when it matters. Of course, you may say that these qualify as the definition of a partner or a soulmate, but a friendship is different. They are the “3rd place that exists outside of family and work.” The layer that adds balance.

From being a son to being a father: A year later

Achcha,

Today marks 7 years since you left us. In case it was not obvious, I still miss you. I wish you could have been around to see me where I am at now. I wish you could have been around to guide me when I have faltered. I wish you could have been around to share the joy and laughter that my son, your grandson has been bringing us every day.

I firmly believe that I have done OK being a father. The first year of his life has been a journey of self discovery for us too. I have become a little more generous than I was before. I have become a little more possessive too.

I realize that I was wrong in disagreeing with you about the generosity trait. It’s OK to be generous. It’s OK to let go. It’s OK to see things get broken. It’s OK as long as he doesn’t hurt himself.

The young man has taught me patience too. I’m sure you would have laughed if someone told you that I have become a patient person.

I’m getting to feel things you would have felt when you were seeing me grow up. Seeing him do new things each day, trying to stay on his feet etc bring us a lot of happiness.

I only wish you were around to see this transformation. From a son to a father.

I am told by those who knew you that he looks like you, and has the exact mischievous streak you possessed as an infant. I can only hope that he grows up to be as equal a human being as you were. For now, all I can assure you is that I’ll try my best to take him there.

Weekly Digest : 2018 08-13 to 08-19

• https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/case-closed-work-from-home-is-worlds-smartest-management-strategy.html : Yet another endorsement for working from home.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXE-qbXAGp0 : This video (in Malayalam) explains the process of a post mortem in great detail.
• http://setosa.io/ev/markov-chains/ : A very good explanation of Markov chains.