Gourmets, Foodies and the Journey In-between

I like to eat. And I have ample amplitude to prove it and assumed that I was a foodie.  As per Wikipedia, foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food. Gourmets on the other hand apparently, simply want to eat the best food. I, it appears, am neither. I just like to eat - often the same things, in varied quantities, with similar set tastes.

What got me thinking on these lines was this new series I have started enjoying – My Kitchen Rules.  It is a cooking competition where teams of two compete among themselves for a 3-5 course meal. The meals are judged on various parameters other than taster- presentation, texture of teh food, the way the flavours mix together, and even how the whole menu blends with each course. It sort of opened my eyes to the fact that cooking is a science and that flavours are unique and each flavour has to be uniquely appreciated. If even on flavour is overwhelming, it makes for a bad dish

Being Indian, my palette is evidently too accustomed to spices and a single overwhelming taste of the same mixtures. Anything else is bland. 

My life story is also similar. I am used to action, I am used to activity and I am used to too many things mixing into each other.  So now I am seeking bland – appreciation and small steps towards a comprehensive menu. And, I am also changing the way I cook – which means the masalas are going down, new food is being tried and my poor husband who loves his desi palette is left wondering why I ever watched My Kitchen Rules!

Hum Of The Day

My life recipe always involved work, traffic, transport, haggling, stress, tension and a general fight for time. I assumed that how life works. Then I saw a different life, tasted a new way of living, and somehow, I am appreciating the subtle flavours - the flavour of having time; the flavour of pursuing my own interests; the flavour of learning my interests – and learning that all of this does not have to mesh into one blurred day into the other. I could turn into a lifeie. Or at least try to.