Like many firsts in life, this has the unmistakable label of adventure written all over it.
It was a typical hot summery Sunday in Trichy, circa 1970. We lived in a boisterous family, overflowing with severals aunts, uncles and their children – a family so large that often in the conundrum of daily chores people routinely forgot who else lived in the house and what the children were up to. My father, an engineer in the Department of Telecom (DoT) was the supposed patriarch of the house, much feared by many children of the house for being a disciplinarian but extremely kind at heart.
He made it a practice to buy us Chocobar ice cream (which costed just 75 paise in those glorious days) every Sunday.
On this particular Sunday in the summer of 1970, when the Ice Cream Vendor came along with his bell, the whole family suddenly discovered that I had gone missing from home…well, not just home but apparently from the entire locality. I wasn’t indulging in my regular Sunday games.
Meanwhile a couple of kilometers away in a dry thorny forested area, two little heads with twin pigtails each were bobbing over a fire. My friend Gomathi and I had decided that 9 years was a good enough age to venture into cooking and we weren’t prepared to take the “no’s” we’d hear from our family. We were itching to cook – and our mothers and aunts wouldn’t allow us to even enter the kitchen.
So, as I was telling you, on this hot afternoon of a 1970 Sunday, we stole some chutney dal, sugar and a couple of utensils from the house. We built an aduppu (stove in tamil) with some stones and made a fire with the twigs, and made ourselves Kadalai Urundai (Chutney Dal Laddoos).
The laddoos turned out really yummy , though no one has had a whiff of them for all these thirty seven years.
We returned home after a good five hours of relishing this exciting experience. I slowly merged into the large overflowing family – no one really prodded me much – I had a hundred friends and could anytime easily pass off by saying I was with x,y or z.
Besides I was hardly at home on Sundays, except for ice cream (Ah, there are so many more adventures to share 
).
What about your first cooking experience?
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What a yummy blog! I love the ‘first cooking’ story and the gorgeous header. Is it bamboo? ‘Can’t wait to try the recipes.
Thanks Emily. Nice knowing you. We ( My daughter and I )too plan to try all your veg recipes.I’m adding you to my blogroll.
Bye.
regards latha.
WOW….
I’m sure my first cooking experience (well.. atleast nice enough to share is only going to be once i go to singapore…) and IT MAY just be fine cuz u have so many recepies on ur blog!
YAY!!!! KUDOS to u for all those cuz ma life in s’pore is gonna be easy - yaicks, i dunno for sure yet - at least sounds easier now
cheerio
Vimal
[...] girl who dint know cooking After my first enthusiastic attempt at cooking, the kitchen dint seem to excite me any more – especially during my teenage years. I was a highly [...]
Thanks Vimal
This blog is specially for people like you.I will try and include as many recipes for beginners. You are welcome to ask for any vegetarian recipes.bye.
latha.
got a smile on to my face mami. great going
Thanks vani! Welcome to my blog! latha.
Very nice lathamma…imagine..doing all that yourself!…maybe just for the fun you should tell your father about it now??..
Well i grew up in Italy and my first cooking experience was with pasta (spaghetti). I was nine and waiting for my mum to come back home from work. So i thought to be helpful by starting to cook the spaghetti, since the sause was ready from the night before. I brought the water to boil and put the spaghetti iinto the pot. Then left, went to play a little bit and then came back to find all the pasta stuck (and burned) around the inner edge of the pot. So i undesrtod that it should be stirred once in a while, and i started again with good results! Thanks for this blog, its cool and useful, i have lots of friends from different parts of India, with whom i ve also been living. So tasted and learned several good recepi which myself love to cook. Love and regards! r.