In the average Indian middle-class household, guys are usually quite content to take the backseat in the kitchen, but some days, if the girls are especially lucky, they decide to cook.
Like today, when my husband decided he wants to cook the chicken. My mother-in-law, hovering near the kitchen, has that nervous look on her face that says something will go wrong any second now, just a matter of time before it does.
The kitchen is a flurry of activity, and every single well-meaning piece of advice is struck away with the force of a thousand suns.
Me: "Here, shall I cut the onions?"
Husband (starts attacking the onions with great force): NO!!!
Me: "Listen, did you remember to add the spices?"
Husband (gives me a withering look): "Yes."
He says yes, but his look says, "Of course I did you dumbass, I'm a better cook than you are!"
The chicken is cooked in ten minutes flat, give or take a couple of minutes. Normally, with the tender ministrations of a female hand it would've taken about three quarters of an hour. My mother in law assured me the chicken was tasty (me being a vegetarian blah blah). Luckily for me and my mom in law, my husband, while not a great cook, is definitely a good one. Others are not quite so lucky. Take my brother for example.
A few years ago, when the rest of the family was out of town, my brother decided to call his friends over for an evening snack. He had planned on making vegetable soup and astonishing the hell out of them with his cooking capabilities. How he thought people would applaud for emptying ready made soup sachets into a bowl of boiling water is a mystery we'll never solve.
So, he puts the water to boil and goes into the hall to regale his friends with some PJs, when ka-booom! There was a resounding exploding noise from, you guessed it right amigo, the kitchen. Everyone rushed to see if aliens had just somehow crash landed inside the kitchen but were instead faced with the gory sight of my mother's favorite glass casserole splattered across the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that my brother put some water into a glass bowl and set its ass upon the stove to burn. His friends were rewarded with the unwelcome task of cleaning the kitchen out before my folks came back. To this day, my mother has no idea where her favorite casserole dish went. She blames our maid. My brother blames her too, and all women for good measure. For failing to tell him what would happen if he set a glass bowl on fire. Go figure.
