Here you go, mim.
Picture this. Its New Jersey. With great difficulty we have found an apartment which is:
1. Walking distance to the train station
2. Affordable and
3. Has only a minimum number of creepos in the complex
So what if the trash-can was about 0.5 miles away? And the laundry room reminded me of ghost stories of yore? So what? Anyway I was not living there. My husband was. (DON'T tell me how weird that sounds, I know, I know).
Innocently I went over one weekend and we agreed, after discussion, that we should cook and eat at home. He scrounged around in his fridge and came up with a .. mmm.. certain vegetable. And of course, enough beer. The mmm.. vegetable was cut, rice and dhal (moong, if you must ask) were washed, the rice cooker was set up, and the pressure cooker goaded into the task it must often perform.
As an aside, in my defense, I always hated that pressure cooker. It was small, it was aluminum (see me drop the 'i' woo hoo). I dislike that material of cooker, generally preferring stainless steel. This one was especially hateful because it was black on the inside. I also hate circulon, if anyone is interested. Anyway.
So we switched on some music, twisted off the tops of some beers, straightened out the futon (placed conveniently about 1 m from the electric stove, this was a studio apartment of sorts, the 'kitchen' and the 'living room' were one married unit), and were, well, talking.
Ka Boom Crash Pssh Shakalaka
The vegetable was cabbage. I had followed mother in law's diktak that dhal should never be cooked without turmeric in it. Cabbage Moongdhal Turmeric. Splattered all over the tiny apartment.
The smell was something astonishing.
I still hate that cooker. It had evil designs from the beginning, I tell you. My fingers still smell of that .. that... we spent hours trying to clean it up. Fuck, we must have used up a roll of kitchen towels. And then had to do that walk to the garbage dump place (skunks ran away from us, believe me).
And soon after that, we moved.
(I think one should tag Perakath to re-narrate the story related to eggs, fungus, and electric water kettles.)
16 comments:
Did I already post about that? Half the time I can't remember what I've already written about. Am impressed/touched that you remember the story, at any rate!
And what is 'circulon'? Sounds like a particle accelerator - type X-Man.
pressure cookers hah! every non-desi kid (and his/her parent) who ever came to our house in london would get petrified every time the whistle would go. i'd pretend i'd heard nothing. n3 also soon caught on and we had the evillest fun.
Perakath-
I think you did! I remember because I thought it was a droll idea (and I would have never done such a thing, which probably accounts for my diminished muscle mass).
circulon is an evil invention in cookware. bad enough.
chox-
Yeah there are at least two more pressure cooker stories in my kitty. Thankfully only one of them involves explosions.
ooooooh perfect!
my grandparents have a dal-plastered ceiling, when the pressure cooker whistled its way to the roof...
now, this is what i call a tag
Which is why I stay far from them dratted cookers. The day I touch them they explode.
mim-
glad you liked.
kiran-
but i use it every single day, & of course, have other explosion stories to report. thankfully they dont involve cabbage. :(
Explosive combination...dal and cabbage!!Cabbage= Garbage.. That vegetable has left deep rooted fear ever since it appeared in several classmates lunchboxes, and the lunch hall smelt like chemistry lab- or a garbage truck.
Now could we have the explosion story also please?
Ohh I rememeber Perakth's story abt the boiling egss as well..
I hate them pressure cookers as well..
MIM I have been racking my brain for a horror story but so far cannot recall anything horrifying.
@sraikh: how can one live w/o pressure cookers?! i insisted on carrying mine along when we went to lake district one time and were staying in self-catered acco, despite stiff resistance from the H-Man.
basically you can take a desi out of des but not..
@chox: o i brought two here. (in case one whistled its way to the seventh floor)
We need a tag on exploding cookers! I've actually been blamed , while sitting in Kolkata, for an explosion that took place in North Carolina!
girls,
i am staunchly pro-pressure cookers. i also always have two. currently, i have a pressure 'pan' and a cooker.. They are a pain in the neck, its high time one of us sat down and did something with its technology, put a pressure transducer and auto-cut-off and meters for gasket quality deterioration and so on, but somehow, their romantic charm would go away then (sorry I might need to get my head examined or something).
(apart from everyday rice and dhal, I need it for idlis).
in the eight years in london i'd easily have used up like four dozen gaskets. there was some serious problem with that particular cooker. didn't ever explode or burst though.
there's a blip in gasket sales ever since i chucked that one off.
*dip in gasket sales
since we are on the subj.
what is the diff. between a pressure cooker and a p. pan?
mim,
well i think the pan is just a smaller cooker. although its just as wide, its much shorter. i like it because its perfect for everyday cooking.
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