One of the biggest problems I had adjusting in US, was cooking. Now generally I was a good cook back in India. But that was on a gas stove. Here in my apartment we had an electric stove. Not that I didn’t know this technology existed but full cooking on this electric stove? This was something I had never done, neither I thought it was a good idea. Of course, there was a reason for it. What do you do when you lose the power for a day; like on the day of load shedding? I explained the problem to Kartheek & asked him about the ‘load shedding day’. “Do people eat in restaurant that day?” I asked. Kartheek simply looked at me. I was going to learn this type of look from him & others on similar questions were a way to express all their emotions together. Dismay, anger, frustration and god knows which all emotions one can have to show pity on others.
First, he didn’t remember what load shedding was then why one needs to have it to eat in restaurant! But after I explained it to him that in India, we still have a chronic power shortage, so we shut the power off in different areas on different days… at least theoretically. I am talking about a situation 18 years ago. It is much better now. My town in India had load shedding any (and all) day of the week. After my explanation, he went on to a completely different track. He started discussing world matters and how political situation in India needs to change and how they can rectify these problems etc…. I was wondering why wouldn’t Kartheek go back and take over political parties? And more over why isn’t he answering my simple question? Anyways, all I learned though this was, that you hardly lose electricity in US and so I didn’t have to plan anything special for eating out. (By the way, Kartheek wasn’t correct. During my stay in the apartment the power went out 3 times in 3 years and not only did I have to eat out, I couldn’t even take a shower).
So, on the 1st day my roommate, Devendra, and I decided to make some tea. Devendra, another Indian guy who had joined me here and was staying with me while both of us were awaiting our families to join us from India. Tea, we thought was the simplest thing that any human being, at least an Indian human being, can make. Back home it wasn’t even considered cooking. In India any 2-year-old can make tea….well sort of. Here we were experienced electrical engineers and I boasted myself “a cook” so it was much less of an issue. So we thought.
We got the water boiling and had concoction made and added milk. As the milk started rising normally, I reduced the power but unfortunately the milk didn’t realize it and kept rising……and …… for next one hour we both smelled like burned corpses… needless to say we had to go eat outside. Till date I hate electric stoves.
After a couple days of practice, I became friends with the stove. At least it seemed that way. Making tea was actually a sort of game that I enjoyed playing. So, on one weekend we decided to make authentic Indian snack with tea. What else other than “Pakora” could I think of! Well for my American readers, I want to explain Pakora. It’s a fried food. It tastes exactly like onion rings except it’s a little more spicy. Normally eaten with green chili, so, the Pakora-Chilly combo tastes like Onion Rings on fire and as you eat it, it sets your mouth, esophagus, digestive track on fire for next 12 hours unless you are used to it. Most Indians are used to some amount of chilly be it red or green. Some of the Indians don’t even consider the chilly as “a chilly” unless it’s more than 500,000 on Scoville range. Well! I am not that Indian.
So, we got the oil in pan and heated it to it’s boiling point and we started frying. The 1st batch of pakoras came out nice, evenly brown, crispy and very tasty. Both Devendra and I couldn’t contain our joy and finished the 1st batch. The problem happened after this. We spent a little too much time in praising our own creation while the stove kept on heating the oil. We started with the next batch……And then…. it happened. Instead of normal frying; the pakoras caught on fire… well almost. The smoke started oozing out of the pan and we couldn’t even see each other for a few seconds. Quickly it filled the whole room and … oh my god!!! We started hearing sound of 100 railway engines blowing the horns in our kitchen. We had never heard the fire alarms before (as both of us didn’t have fire alarms in our houses back home and in those days it wasn’t so common) and by the time we were able to grasp what’s happening, there was a knock on the door and the building manager Mr. David asked us to get outside.
Although we had panicked, we turned everything off and ran outside… the whole building had become railway engines blowing horns & vomiting smoke. There were several residents gathered outside. We casually joined them and waited… like everyone except we didn’t know what we were waiting for. After a short while a long red truck appeared. Now Devendra & I were horrified. We thought we were in deep trouble. Everyone else seemed to be calm while we were trembling inside our pants that no one knew… and even if they had come to know about it, they would have thought we were cold. The firemen quickly alighted themselves and went inside the building. After 15 mins a fireman came out & said everything was okay. He talked to the building manager and we knew they had identified the source of the trouble when the manager, Mr. David, called us. I thought, well now it’s over. We are going back home next day. I was thinking how would I explain it to my wife that they deported me because I was making pakoras in US. As it is, she always disapproved my Extreme love for food & cooking.
As we approached Mr. David & the huge fireman; I was almost ready to hear…go home you idiot. Well, instead I heard the fireman saying “Sorry guys”. My eyes were popping out, I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, so I looked at Devendra and he was also looking like he had seen a ghost. The fireman again apologized and explained that how the fire alarm was mounted close to kitchen stove and how in winter we couldn’t open the windows so how the smoke could have triggered it…. and then he said “Well hope it didn’t spoil your food!” What!!! I was worried about booking my plane ticket home and this guys was worried about my snacks getting spoiled. I felt like hugging him and Mr. David & the whole fire department including the fire truck. Since that time, I have had some sporadic malfunctions with cooking but it never escalated to this level. A wise boss in India had once told me, it’s okay to be dumb, stupid or even plain idiot as long as you don’t make same mistake twice. The rest of that winter I came close to dying of hypothermia while cooking but we never had to call fire truck.
Not sure what you would think of me after this but I am sure my boss would be happy. God bless his soul in heaven.