Moving house

It's supposed to be a traumatic experience -- but I must confess I rather enjoyed it

I’ve had to move house many different times in my life. And while those who say that moving home is as traumatic as experiencing the loss of a loved one may have a point, I must admit that I rather enjoyed the process of uprooting myself and setting up again in an entirely different locale.

 

There is nothing quite like a house move to clarify your priorities for you. For me, whenever I have moved into a new space, the first thing I have done is set up the kitchen. I get all my appliances – coffee-maker, oven, microwave, electric kettle, fridge, etc. – up and running well before I move in. That’s because when I wake up for the first time in a new house, the one thing that makes it feel like home is a cup of coffee made exactly how I like it. And if I can’t cook myself a meal in a house, then it fails the ‘home-test’ as far as I am concerned.

 

Setting up the bedroom comes a distant second for me. I will happily camp out on a mattress on the floor for weeks on end, so long as I can roast some vegetables in the oven, or even just heat up last night’s leftovers in the microwave. And as for the living room, I take my time putting it right because sometimes I need a space to speak to me before I make any permanent design choices.

 

I realize that I am probably in the minority here. Most people would make sure that they could sleep in comfort in their bed (with their stuff piled on the bedside table) before they moved in. They would happily live off takeaway meals so long as their bedroom was set up to their specifications. But what can I say? That would be a deal breaker for me. As far as I am concerned, the kitchen is the heart of every home – and if it’s not functional, well then, neither is the home.

 

In the end, it all comes down to priorities. Some of my friends maintain that the first thing you should do when you move into a house is fix the in-house entertainment system. Make sure you have a wi-fi-connection that is strong enough to stream Netflix or Amazon Prime, get your TV hooked up and connected to the surround sound system. Then, once you’ve done your unpacking for the day, you can order in some food and chill in front of the television. That, they say, is the best way to make yourself feel at home in a new space.

 

I guess, when it comes to the crunch, it is a case of each to his or her own. But I think it gives us an insight into our own personalities to examine when we truly start to feel at home in a new house. Some people prioritize getting a good night’s sleep; others may want the public areas of the house (where they would entertain guests) to come together at first; some would be lost if they didn’t get their daily streaming fix every night; and then there are those like me, who only feel at home if they can rustle up a meal for themselves and their loved ones in their own kitchen.

 

Which of these categories do you fall into?

 

Feeling hot, hot, hot

And yet there is no getting out of the kitchen…

 

You know how the saying goes. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. There is just one problem with following that piece of advice, as temperatures hover around the mid to high forties in India. We can’t stand the heat; we would love to get out of the kitchen; but we can’t do that because we have a family to feed. 

 

No matter how scorching the day, you still have to rustle up three meals a day for yourself and those in your household. And there is a limit to how much – and how often – you can order in. So, how do you cope?

 

Well, here are some pointers, based entirely on my own experience of keeping everyone fed during the blistering summers of Delhi.

 

1)    Keep actual cooking to a minimum. Instead, rely on fresh vegetables, fruits and herbs that you can turn into scrumptious salads. Not only will this reduce the amount of time you spend by the range, these meals will be both cooling and nutritious for the whole family.

 

2)    I know, I know, getting a salad prepped is no joke. You have to chop and peel endlessly and that can be a sweaty business. But who said that you have to do all this in a hot and humid kitchen? Spread some old newspapers on your dining table, and set up your chopping board in air-conditioned comfort. You can, in fact, do all your food prep here; even if you are making a full meal.

 

 

3)    This is the time when you should get your oven to do all the heavy lifting. Chop up all the vegetables you need, arrange them on a baking tray, throw in some sausages (if you are a meat-eater) or chunks of halloumi cheese (if you are vegetarian), sprinkle with oil, bung them in the oven, set the time to 45 minutes (or an hour) and sit back and relax while your dinner is cooked. This is my go-to dish when it’s simply too hot to slave away on the stove. And it’s delicious, to boot. You can come up with your own variations.

 

4)    The other kitchen aid that I rely upon completely at this time of year is my Insta Pot. This is the best way to cook meat curries, stews, or even dals and subzis. Most days I don’t even bother to fry the onions, garlic, ginger and tomato with the masalas. Instead, I put all the ingredients in, press the button that says ‘Slow Cook’ and then let the Insta Pot work its magic over a couple of hours while I have a shower and then sit back with a nice cooling drink and a good book.

 

5)    Life is too short (not to mention, too hot) to make rotis on summer evenings. When I was young, I remember my mother sending off our dough to the neighbourhood tandoor, and getting hot crisp tandoori rotis back in a matter of minutes. But those days are long gone now. And I can’t really justify ordering in rotis and parathas. So, I compromise by ordering in some interesting breads that I can toast, butter generously, and eat with my subzis and dals. 

 

6)    This is the time to make one-pot meals that require minimal stirring and watching. So, ditch the stir fries and bhuna ghoshts; instead make a khichri with vegetables. Forget about the risottos that need constant attention; restrict yourself to pastas that can be put together in a jiffy.

 

7)    Batch cooking is what will save you endless botheration in the kitchen. If you are making a pasta sauce, make three times the quantity you need, and freeze the extra two portions to use later in the month. Fry up enormous amounts of ginger-garlic paste and keep it in the fridge to use for the rest of the week. Whatever you are cooking – whether it is dal or a Thai curry – you can’t go wrong by making a few extra portions and freezing them to use on a day when cooking seems like too much of a palaver.

 

8)    The best part of summer, of course, is that the heat is the perfect excuse to stuff yourself full of ice-cream. And, thank God, that requires no cooking at all (though you might want to slice a mango to eat alongside!).

 

Homing In

It’s a house when you move into it; you have to turn it into home

What makes a house into a home? That is a question I have grappled with over the last couple of decades, ever since I moved to Delhi and began living in an endless succession of teeny-tiny apartments. 

I still retain the fondest of memories of the first house I moved into in the capital, a small barsati in Defence Colony, where the enormous terrace was more than adequate recompense for the cramped rooms. But despite my love for my first Delhi home, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of achievement when I could finally afford a ‘proper’ flat, even if it was rented. And moving into a house of my own came with its own sense of joy – and relief (as anyone who has had to shift homes every two years when the lease is up will understand only too well).

Looking back now, I often wonder what was the moment when these living spaces went from being a ‘house’ to becoming my ‘home’? Was there a magic moment when that transformation occurred? Or was it a slow and steady process that crept up on me while I was busy doing something else? And what were the elements that went into this process?

What, to go back to my original question, makes a ‘house’ a ‘home’? 

In my case, the process begins with paint. Every house I ever moved into had its walls painted that regulation, anodyne off-white. A nothing shade, it depressed me just to look at it. So, the first thing I did was splash some colour on the walls. Dusky rose pink for the drawing room. A bright sunny yellow for the den. A brooding blue for the bar. Soothing tones of grey and lavender for the bedroom. And the odd splash of lime green to add interest to a boring corner. 

Everything looks so much better once the walls come alive with colour. The house is on its way to begin looking like a home – my home.

And then, come the books. Only once I have unpacked the many cartons containing what I rather grandiosely term my ‘library’ and arranged its contents on the shelves according to my preferred scheme (thrillers in one section, biographies in another, food books in a nook near the kitchen, and so on), do I start feeling truly at home. It’s like when you are surrounded by old friends in a new, unfamiliar place; their presence alone is enough to make you feel more at ease. That’s how books make me feel in a new house.

But that is just the starting point. The circle is only complete once I have identified a favourite corner (or a favourite chair or couch) to read in. Once I’ve found that little nook, spent a day (or two) ensconced in it, a steaming cup of coffee at hand, I know that I have found another home for myself.

Next comes the kitchen, which is – when you think about it – the heart of the house. So, the third step in turning a house into a home is to get the kitchen up and running. The spice rack must be stocked with everything from fresh haldi to Herbs de Provence, from Chinese five-spice powder to Mexican seasoning, from powdered lemon grass to sachets of bouquet garni. All my pots and pans – the cast-iron ones for cooking meat, the non-stick ones for healthy sautéing, the large one for making a cassoulet, the small one for the perfect omelet, and so on and on and on – must be within easy reach. The fridge and freezer must be heaving with cold meat, Greek yoghurt, cheese (the smellier the better), and ready-to-cook frozen aloo tikkis (don’t ask!).

Once all of this is in place, and more importantly, I have used all my pots and pans and assorted ingredients to cook a meal in that brand-new kitchen, well that’s when I begin to feel at home.

The last and final step has nothing to with the house, and everything to do with the neighbourhood. Strolling on the streets to get the lay of the land; walking in the local park every evening; buying vegetables from the subziwallah around the corner; getting a takeaway cappuccino from the nearby coffee-shop. A couple of weeks of this and the area – not just the house – begins to feel like home.

Of course, the process is different for everyone. And each one of us has his or her own criterion for deciding on what makes a house a home. A friend of mine insists that it’s only when the newly-painted walls start showing a stain or two, the kids spill some stuff on the sofa and the dog chews up one end of the carpet, does she feel that she’s finally made the home her own. 

For others, making a home means having friends and family over for an evening of food, drinks and laughs. Some feel at home only after they have an elaborate Grihapravesh puja. And then, there are those who need to generate enough clutter before they can call a place ‘home’.

But whatever the process, it invariably involves putting our own special stamp on the space we occupy. At the end of the day, like all animals, we need to mark our territory to truly make it our own.

Stirring stuff

Hey ladies, it may be time to reclaim the kitchen!

I spent part of this weekend on the fringes of a cooking competition, watching as eager young amateur chefs tried their hands in a professional kitchen. There was an even gender divide, and quite frankly, there wasn't much to choose between the men and the women as far as skill sets went. The winner got a substantial cash prize and a cooking show on Youtube. (And no, sorry, I can't tell you whether a woman won...)

The day after the competition ended, I found myself at lunch with some friends in the hotel business. "So," I asked, fresh from my experience at the cook-off, "do your kids like to cook?"

"Oh no," replied the lady, "I told my daughter from the beginning that the kitchen is a trap. Once you get in there, there is no getting out."

I must confess to being startled, never having seen it quite like that. Is the kitchen really some sort of swamp that sucks you in, or even sucks the life out of you? Is the gas range a place where the dreams of young girls go to die a fiery death? Does roasting, grilling, frying, baking, make a kitchen slave out of you?

Well, I have been turning over this conversation in my mind ever since and while I totally get where my friend was coming from, I think we are doing a disservice to our daughters by telling them to get out of the kitchen or else...

Yes, there was a point in time when kitchen work was sheer drudgery, when women could end up spending entire lifetimes sweating behind the stove, putting food on the table for their families. There was an era in which men wouldn’t be seen dead cooking; the mark of masculinity was to be waited on hand and foot. And yes, it wasn't that long ago that women would routinely be told that their place was in the kitchen; and I can only imagine how bloody annoying that must have been.

That's probably why the first wave of feminists regarded housework as something to be rid of, why they saw the kitchen as a cage within which entire generations of women had been imprisoned, and why friends like mine advised their daughters to steer clear of this stifling jail.

If you ask me, though, those days are long gone. We now live in a world in which the kitchen has become an intensely glamorous space. It is a place where high-powered careers are forged in the fire, where celebrity chefs pout and preen, where food bloggers find their inspiration and their place in the sun. These days, it is entirely possible to get both fame and fortune from behind the kitchen range. Just think how Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson have spun their cooking abilities to gain world-wide celebrity. Or even how Manish Mehrotra and Gaggan Anand have become household names in India.

Men have cottoned on to this transformation and no longer treat the kitchen as a no-go area, and cooking as something beneath contempt. They experiment with recipes, they write food blogs, they review restaurants, they publish cookbooks, they pitch for TV shows. They realise that the kitchen now represents a career opportunity like any other.

Don't you think it's time women caught on as well? Well, some do, and have made the most of the opportunities cooking represents in the modern world. But there are still too many women who view the kitchen with suspicion, as a cunning trap set to lure them in and tie them down. And that is truly a pity.

But even if we leave all this stuff about careers and fame and fortune aside for a moment, and just think of the sheer pleasure involved in making a meal for those you care about, the kitchen begins to look like a far less scary place. That's when cooking ceases to be a chore and becomes an act of love.

And just for that, it might be worth it to put on that apron, break out that recipe book your grandmum left you, and reclaim the kitchen.

eom

Kitchen Confidential

Why is the woman who cooks dismissed as downtrodden while the man who cooks is seen as emancipated?

Growing up, I never once saw my father enter the kitchen. He did not know how to cook; in fact, I doubt if he even knew how to make a cup of coffee for himself. The kitchen was always the exclusive preserve of my grandmother, my mother, and the other ladies of the household. The men never ventured inside; no, not even to fetch themselves a glass of water.

It may sound strange now, but this was pretty much the state of affairs in every home. Women did the ‘womanly’ things like cooking, cleaning, serving, fetching; yes, even the ones who held down jobs outside of the home. And men did ‘manly’ things like go out to work and bring back the daily bread (to be toasted and buttered and served up to them with a strong cup of tea). Men were very much the hunter-gatherers. And women remained nurturers and carers.

There were some men of our acquaintance who knew how to make a decent mutton biryani or a chingri malai curry, but their excursions into the kitchen were treated as momentous events that were marked down in the calendar months in advance. And even then, they were assisted by a flock of women who did all the dirty work – peeling, chopping, cleaning – for them. Once the mise en place was set, the men would sweep in to do the frying, sautéing, roasting or whatever else. And then, they would sweep out leaving the kitchen in an absolute shambles, to take their place at the dining table to be served like the kings they were.

I am glad to say that things have changed since then. Men no longer treat the kitchen as alien territory. Nearly all of them know enough cooking to be able to feed themselves in the absence of a mother or a wife. And many of them actually enjoy cooking, and take pride in their achievements behind the stove. But even so, based on purely empirical evidence, the bulk of the cooking in most households is still done by the women (either the lady of the house or the hired help).

What intrigues me, though, is how cooking has become another battleground of sexual politics. New-age feminism seems to think that a working woman who still cooks (or is expected to cook) at home is downtrodden, the victim of an age-old patriarchal system that decrees that the kitchen is a woman’s preserve. She is buying into sexual stereotypes and letting the sisterhood down with every perfect chapatti she rolls out.

On the other hand, a man who works outside the home and comes back to cook for his family is seen as an enlightened being. We even have a name for him. He is called the New Age Man. He is confident of his masculinity and not afraid of being in touch with his feminine side. He does not buy into any kind of sexual stereotyping. He is equally at ease in the boardroom as he is dexterous at the chopping board. We should all be so lucky as to end up with someone like him!

So basically, a woman who loves to cook for her family is a sell-out. But for a man, cooking for his family is a unique selling point. Can you figure this one out? No, me neither.

Why should the same impulse – to nurture and feed your loved ones – be seen through two such different prisms depending on the gender of the person concerned? Why should a woman be mocked for doing something that a man is congratulated for?

Clearly, as we enter into the second decade of the 21^st century, gender stereotyping has come full circle. But while men are admired for stepping out of their gender-defined roles, women are pilloried for staying within them.

I can still hear the jeers that greeted Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor when she admitted on national television that she enjoyed being a housewife and cooking dinner every night for her husband. How could she possibly say something like that, her critics tut-tutted. Didn’t she know that women were expected to be emancipated from housework now? Being a woman of substance meant having a career outside the home. Admitting to being a homebody, and worse, confessing to cooking for your husband (and actually enjoying it!), was a complete no-no.

And yet, I am sure if the tables had been turned, the public reaction would have been quite different. If Shashi Tharoor had said in an interview that he loved going back home after a hard day at the office and rustling up a nice meal for his wife, he would have been hailed as the epitome of the New Man, an ideal that every male should aspire to.

What is going on here? Why is Sunanda’s goshtaba or tabak maas bad while Shashi’s meen moily or avial is good? Why this double standard when it comes to appraising a primal desire: the impulse to cook for those we love?

The truth is that all of us are good at some things and rubbish at others. Some women enjoy the prospect of cooking for their families while others wouldn’t be caught dead before a stove. Similarly, some men love the idea of cooking while others steer well clear of the kitchen.

So, here’s a novel idea. Why not allow each one of them to do as they please – and what pleases them – without any value judgement? That’s not asking for much, is it?