A few things I learned in the kitchen

Onions frying in the oil. 

The overture. It's the intro. It's the sound of gentle cymbals at the beginning of a beautiful jazz track. You know you are in the kitchen. And, then the tempo and volume will build up from a gentle ticking sizzle to more notes and pops and bubbles. 

I thought of music, orchestras and grandness when I was chopping up onions and making enough ginger/garlic paste for the next few rounds of cooking. However mundane the task might be, however humble your kitchen arena might be, why can't we imagine we are creating something privately grand? 

After many many years of attempting mastery at cookery in the kitchen, I have come up with some ground rules: 

1. First clean up your whole kitchen. Wash any dirty dishes in the sink. Tidy up. Clear some counter space for chopping veggies and what not. 
2. Make your kitchen a joy to work in. Let it be full of pictures, light, some souvenirs, flower vases, even a nice-smelling candle. 
3. Chopping up onions continues to induce stinging tears. Very annoyingly stinging tears. Soaking onions in water reduces the fumes. 
4. I learned a trick while watching Nadiya’s Time to Eat. Soaking garlic in hot water for a few minutes makes peeling the skin so much easier. It just comes off. 
5. Plan ahead and buy veg/meat on the day you are cooking instead of filling up the freezer and fridge. 
6. Plan ahead and, designate cooking for twice a week if you can't cook every day. 
7. Trying new recipes every week isn't as daunting as it sounds. Decide on one that you think you could easily tackle, note down the ingredients you need in your 'Ingredient/Recipe Notebook', and enjoy making a wholly new creation. 
8. Spice mixes are cheating. Don't cheat. Don't get a biryani masala mix or a mutton korma mix. If you are going to step into a kitchen to cook, enjoy the friggin' cooking. Get whole spices and grind, mix them as required by the recipe. Don't be no cheater. 
9. Cooking is relaxing. A few hours in the kitchen, performing non-cerebral tasks is relaxing and rewarding especially if you have a way to go about it. I clean the kitchen. I plan ahead. I get the ingredients ahead. I enjoy chopping up veggies and, then tossing them into the pot. I enjoy the process. Many of my go-to dishes are now made with such practice, they cook themselves.

Now for some sore points. 

Working in the kitchen can also be a real drag. As much as it is rewarding, relaxing, there are some moments, days, even periods of weeks where one doesn't even want to wash a dirty cup let alone chop onions and, stand over a pot to cook something. 

These periods are an imaginative, barren and dull time. One wastes an exorbitant amount of money on take outs, ordering in and, junk food. 

Resist the laziness. One can always find time to cook a simple meal. I know enough cookery and, some dishes that take as little as 20 minutes. I have many many go-to comfort foods - daal chawal, murgh pulao, pasta with meat sauce, chicken karahi, aloo keema, steak and potatoes, vegetable soup - that take me so very little time to make because I have years of practice. It is better to have food in the fridge than to fall into deeper laziness that has already settled in. Better to rise up from the sofa, from the chair, from the computer, from the middle of it, enter the kitchen for an hour or two, interrupt, nay, wipe away the slump and, make some food. 

Cooking for friends can also break a sense of laziness. Try a couple of new dishes , telephone your friends, ask them over, ask them to bring desert and salad, and, enjoy good times at home. Maybe you can ask them to wash the dishes afterwards.