My cooking experiments began shortly after I started learning Yoga. To be honest, the Yoga course that I did, can be called a Yoga cum cooking cum reality check course. No – not cause I learnt cooking in Yoga class, but applying the Yogic philosophies, I could bring myself to start cooking.
As a kid, I was not only not a foodie, but also not very fond of eating real food. I mean I loved to eat chocolates, pastries and ice-creams almost every other day. My shop then, had an ice-cream box and a chocolate box and it greatly supported my habit too. Hello in-house sweets!
In 2016, for once, when I mustered up the guts to start cooking – making salads. I picked up something from Reliance Fresh that is not popular in Indian homes – a broccoli. And the story goes like, the broccoli had insects in them, and I could not spot/ clean it well so I got badly infected and suffered from amoebiasis. This meant a few months bedrest and about a year or two to cure it completely. My fear for cooking got really solid even though, I knew I wanted to learn it so badly.
Here is how Yoga came into picture. In December 2018, I joined a Yoga course. And one of the things that I learnt in the very first months was Patanjali’s first Yoga Sutra, “Atha Yoganushasanam” which translated to “now begins the practice of Yoga”. This particular Sutra emphasised on the importance of now and its interpretation spoke lengths about it. It just struck me that how important it was, for me to take an action in the present moment, when it came to cooking for example instead of pushing it indefinitely.
It is still fine when the world criticises you, but when you criticise yourself, it stops you from doing things that you want to or you like.
I really had to keep aside my self critique for my cooking skills and turn a new leaf. I started with cooking tomato rice for myself everyday till I perfected it. I was still scared of cooking for other people thinking they might not like it. Then I graduated to making roti and later, capsicum aloo bhaji and daal tadka + jeera rice. Slowly, now I have started cooking for my family too.
This cooking would not have been possible if it wasn’t for my dear friend Reshmy who is/ was a professional chef and teacher. She trained me about the basics on Whatsapp and phone and some stuff I learnt from YouTube channels like Khana Khazana, NishaMadhulika, MadhurasRecipe Marathi and more.
To learn Yoga and Mindfulness from me, DM priyamvadamangal or mail priyamvada.mangal@gmail.com! Online classes open for everyone, everywhere.
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