Monday 22 March 2010

Gifted Gourmet (Thanks Liz)

Hi Folks.

Sorry that you've had to wait almost 2 years for my next blog post. I would like to make some excuses but the only thing that feels right to say is that it just hasn't felt right. Today it does.

Many of you will be familiar with Simon Marnie. He's the morning radio host of 702 weekends. He's been a foodie for ages. My sister -in-law dobbed Barbie and I into a his radio segment called Gifted Gourmet. The segment gives non-professional cooks an opportunity to share their cooking skills using what's in season.

Simon choose me. Barb's bio of me for 702 (that never got published) explains why:

Like her South Indian head wobble, my mother used cooking to express a thousand things. Mostly love, but it could also show ambivalence (cabbage thoran), displeasure (a slightly over cooked cutlet), indignation (the spit of fish fry). But like I said, mostly love (a mountain of prawn biriyani).

As an adult I try and use words as my main means of communicating – but I am still infuriated and delighted by the subtlety of my mother’s ability to communicate through food. I think growing up with this connection between food and emotion has developed my ability to know exactly which food I need to eat to suit a particular mood or situation. Thus, I need to eat the right food to make an experience right, which necessitates my need to be able to cook what I need to eat, in order to express and complete a moment or experience.

My wife, who grew up in a meat and seven soggy veg kind of family, is doing her best to become a good Malayali wife – at least in the kitchen.


The edited version

If you want to hear the segment just click on the link below:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/10/16/2392624.htm

Many friends and family listened when the show was originally broadcast on the 16 October 2008. Speaking to my Mum (many of the recipes I learnt from her) after the show aired I had to laugh when she chastised me about the amount of tumeric I said should be used in one of the recipes. Not to worry, tumeric has many medicinal qualities.

3 comments:

Andrew said...

Welcome back Jake!

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you've returned! I love your blog, it's like eating a good meal. Al.

Jakey said...

Thanks fellas.