Cook away to success
Cooking is the next big thing on TV. After Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, yeh toh hona hi tha. Pehla desi in the genre of food-reality is Kitchen Champion (Colors). Naam se toh one would think that this is a cooking show. But no, nothing of the sort. KC, which has assorted churails and chanchal chicks competing for the title, is an idiotic game show where recipes are hidden and have to be found, and then ingredients are hidden and have to be found. And finally, when all the shrieking and tamasha is over, the
contestants cook dreary dishes that will remind you of the disgusting deep-fried blobs mummyjis churn out every time there are disgusting leftovers in the fridge.
In the show, Mihirji is Ronit Roy the MC, but the competing chicks are all in their TV avatars and regalia. There’s simpering Anandi, bombastic Ammaji, her beti Amba daku, chatur Punpunwali, pretty Guddan and other lesser-known vagehras. The only incentive to tune in to KC is to catch TV’s choicest churails getting humiliated. Asli cooking ke liye toh go to Discovery Travel and Living and watch my three favourite ladies.
Kylie Kwong, in her very cute Chinese-Australian accent, explains every aspect of Chinese cooking while using chopsticks to mix, fry and stir food in a wok. I toh go into deep meditation just watching her chop — she’s the undisputed Julienne Queen. I tried her version of egg fried rice. It was yummm.
Then there’s Rachel Allen: Bake! This show is all about butter, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, cocoa, milk, flour, hot ovens and other diet-busting items. Rachelji visits British bakeries and then proceeds to her kitchen to show us how to make cakes, meringues, biscuits, gorgeous breads, quiches... She makes the most daunting desserts look so easy that even I’m thinking of buying an oven.
Then there’s my favourite, Nigella Lawson on Nigella Bites. She is toh, you know na, the queen of food porn. A voluptuous domestic goddess, she cooks wholesome, stunning dishes while teasing the camera, the food and us. Nigellaji’s style is rough, untidy, rustic, but sexy and so much fun: She tears food with her hands, kneads, tosses, mixes, licks, and when a dish is ready, licks again. My favourite shows are when she does midnight cooking, and then enjoys the dish in her candle-lit bathtub. If you are planning something of the sort, try this: Cut a small papaya into two, stuff it with cold berries and top it with cream. Ummm.
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