Food, philosophy and Marco Pierre White

Let me say this upfront, I’m not a cook/chef/foodie or even a food blogger. I like reading about people’s experiences, and usually they are pleasant with food. There have been movies which transform food or cooking into a life changing element in people’s lives. Movies such as Julie & Julia, No reservations, Chef and so on. I haven’t had anything as major. Yet.

This time I returned home after two years of my education in the amazing city of Bombay with whom I had fallen in love utterly. Sometimes when I read what I wrote for my love for Delhi quite a few years back, it now feels like a betrayal. But nevertheless, like a seasoned lover or master, Delhi has quite forgiven me now, it hasn’t driven me crazy or punished me like it used to punish the poets of yore like Meer Taqi Meer by driving me into starvation, depriving me of patrons. Yet.

So when I came home from battle and betrayal, losing my heart to Bombay, it simply put me on house arrest and cranked up the heat to slowly boil me in her heat. I accepted it gracefully, by surrendering to a decadent and flawless laziness which involved cooking, eating, reading, watching and sleeping, sometimes writing. No talking to friends and compatriots from Delhi who did not know the transformation of my battered self, nobody got to know of the lessons learnt.

So while binge watching and binge eating to make myself whole again, I came across the sinful pleasure of Masterchef. Wow, the best of the best talking, making and eating the best of the food. The one guy that takes the cake and who surprised me through it all was Monsieur Marco Pierre White. The guy who terrifies and pushes the cooks to go beyond their limits and give the food that extra soul which makes it heavenly. Suddenly amidst the crushing of the garlic and the marinating of the chicken, there is life advice! His advice though was every bit as relevant to me who was watching as to the chefs cooking under him. He says, to a person who worked very hard but had to leave the show in elimination, “It is very easy to beat yourself up, I did it for years! What you need to do is to pick yourself up. Because what is inside of you (talent/skill) has to come out. You have a responsibility unto yourself. You have to learn from each mistake, and from every fall, everyday.”

And just like that, I forgave myself for all that I thought I had done wrong in the past months, the stress and the setbacks and the crashing and burning which had made me nothing less than a warrior. Success and achievements were there, hiding under the shell shock of what life had brought me. The external appearances I had to put up for normalcy had finally crumbled in the privacy of my own room, as I took deep breaths to tell myself, you made it back alive, stronger. Back from the little ways you hurt yourself and let others hurt you, back from holding back your pain, anger and frustration.

And so this month I healed, I started painting, coloring, writing, reading and cooking again as I used to in childhood, realizing the great privilege in being able to take that time out for myself again. Colors, flavors and words became friends again. From a point where staying alone by myself had become a burden and stressful, I started enjoying my solitude once again. I’m very happy to say to myself now, I’m still here, I haven’t lost myself like I thought. And surprisingly I am happy and content. The fears of everything going wrong and panic of not having done everything that I am supposed to be doing is slowly fading away as I take one step at a time. I say to myself, even if I don’t know where I am going from this point onwards, I will be able to make a life for myself and take care of my responsibilities as well.

The rule that Marco’s words highlighted both about life and food was to keep it simple.

And so I am. So, I cooked for my mother’s birthday for which my friend had come over. It was a very simple pasta, lovingly prepared, over a much needed conversation with a dear friend. And three of us sat down after a wonderful movie and ate it up. It was sheer pleasure. Here is the picture of how that went.