I had a glimpse of my husband’s culinary skills on the first night of my arrival in USA. It took almost 48 hours to reach Wichita from Chennai. I flew from Chennai to Singapore, Singapore to Seoul, Seoul to San Francisco, SFO to Denver, and Denver to Wichita. I had six hours of lay over at SFO.
A big group of my college friends came and received me at the SFO airport. Everybody worked for Silicon Valley companies except for CB. Most of them were in US when we got married except for one friend. He came to US few months after our wedding and he arranged the welcome party at SFO. We had huge respect from our friends during our college days and everybody who knews us wanted our love to succeed. We were the first ones to get married from our group , CB at the age of 26. I got such warm reception at SFO . They had planned to take me out for lunch but we came back to the airport after a traffic delay. I had to settle with smelly, yucky shrimp fried rice at the Chinese restaurant in the airport. I expected Wang kitchen fried rice quality but ended up throwing the entire food in the trash. We were regulars at Wang Kitchen (in Parthan hotel complex in TNagar) and Southern Chinese restaurant near Anand Theater in Chennai.
I boarded my flight to Denver with empty stomach. In Denver I had to catch a flight to Wichita within an hour. I had just peanuts for lunch and dinner till I reached Wichita at 8.00pm. But my hunger went away after meeting CB. I was so happy and eager to see him after six months.
CB had prepared the best dinner for me. He made my favorite Tamil lunch spread sambar with egg plant, potato curry and Halibut fish fry. The food tasted so good except for one small glitch – he used channa dal(kadala paruppu) instead of toor dal (thuvaram paruppu) for sambar. Not bad at all for a guy who never made a cup of tea. The aroma of vegetable oil permeated the entire house and it was different from the cooking oils I had used in India. Even today when I smell the aroma of vegetable oil, it takes me back to that night.
When CB was working for Microsoft in Seattle , I used to pick him from train station around mid night every Friday. He wanted me to sleep more during the weekends and took over the duty of preparing morning cup of tea from that year. He prepares the best chai.
Whenever I returned from my business trips, he would cook my favorite south Indian food Sambar, potato curry and fish fry every single time. He was comfortable preparing those dishes without any cooking disasters. I looked forward to coming home to have a tasty home-made food after eating in restaurants during the trip.
Fast forward to 2008 February when I was eight months pregnant with NR, I had gestational diabetes. I was in bed rest from 20th week and we got food from restaurant daily. Gestational diabetics required strict food regiment calculating carbs so CB took over the duty of preparing my daily lunch. He would get up early every day to prepare two big batches of vegetable dishes. I was pleasantly surprised with his cooking skills. He made my favorite bitter guard or Kovaikai(tindora) masala everyday . I controlled my diabetes with food and never took insulin shots. After pregnancy I leant that bitter guard and tindora are good for diabetes.
After NR’s birth he never cooked. His hands were full being full-time employee and dad. Thanks to my SAHM status, I fed them well. And this valentine’s day thanks to NR, he got his groove back. We had planned to go out for dinner but NR decided to take late evening nap. CB happily stepped in to make my favorite breakfast menu for dinner – French toast, egg omelet with onion/tomatoes and hash browns.
Life does get better when you reach your forties. As a couple you will start reading each other’s feeling so well even before we speak. We were like that from our twenties but with forties I could feel some extra dosage of care and love.
I am planning to induct NR into mama's culinary school as early as possible to get some brownie points from my future daughter-in-law : ).
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