It was just yesterday when I was married. Like any another just married person I had only one thought on top of my mind, how am I going to carry all these gifts to my work town? While thinking about it I was also helping my new wife packing for our honeymoon tour by instructing her from T.V. room. Same time my younger sister was preparing breakfast for me and post which my dear mother would make my special coffee. My father and brother had left for market to fetch me my favorite sweet which is the specialty of our town. All in all, it was pretty hectic morning and any more work would have been injustice to me.
It was then when I got a call from my Boss; you can always trust your boss for such a perfect timing. In a mix of commanding and favoring tone he asked me to start preparing for an international assignment. On my arrival from vacation he wanted me to fly to Paris for three months. He concluded the call with this short message as it was a time for him to make another untimely entry. Next moment I broke this news to family and my surrounding filled with reactions. In that chaos of opinions, suggestions & recommendations I understood two important things, one that my wife can not travel with me as her passport is still not ready and two, I can not afford to eat out for whole three months so I must take a crash course in cooking before I depart.
Crash course in cooking reminded me of a crash I caused a couple of years back. It wasn't that I didn't know anything about cooking. By then I had tried my hands at making omelets. On one occasion I agreed to demonstrate this skill of mine to my younger brother and sister. We carefully chose the time of my parent’s absence as we were brought up as vegetarians. I indeed did a good job of demonstrating life cycle of chicken from egg to omelet and audience was certainly happy. I was at the last stage of my demo where I flip omelet by tossing it in pan. Omelet had already left the pan and before it could take back it's earlier position doorbell rang. I knew that my parents are back which made omelet nervous and it directly crash landed on stove. This incident taught me a lesson that one must always plan for failure. Especially when failure means, cleaning whole house and living with GOMUTRA sent for next ten days.
Sound of pressure cooker's whistle brought me back from my memories and I found myself standing in kitchen. I realized that my mother is already on the job of training me and lesson was about cooking rice and dal. This was the only lesson she could impart before I dropped out of the course. And of course, this was the only lesson I practiced all through my three months of stay in Paris with omelet as a side dish. During this period I discovered another important thing. I knew that fridge is made to store food for longer period without spoiling it. But in my trip to Paris I discovered that rice and dal survive week long storage and they still smell fresh once you microwave them for just two minutes. It effectively means I cooked only twelve times in three months period. Isn't that great?
Eventually I came back from Paris and resumed my family life. I was just settling down when my phone rang again. Again it was my boss and again it was the same request. But this time I was better prepared; I had already invested in 2 months of cooking classes; 1 month of baking classes and few special home recipes. After doing all these classes my wife was best prepared to join me for my next trip to Paris.
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