Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sacred Chicken


For a Maharashtrian Hindu Brahmin boy, paneer and chicken never really meant much until he left home for better/bigger things. But then the engg college hostel canteen happened and the search for paneer and chicken in the canteen food carried the same exhilaration as those famed gold diggers of the gold rush days. Over the years paneer could not hold its charm but the chicken was right up there all alone at the pinnacle of the food pantheon.

Chicken delicacies were almost sacred because they were dished out by experts; be it the chefs at Blue Nile, Tirangaa or even the Konkani restaurant in Nashik. It was almost like a ritual performed by priests of the highest order. I could almost never imagine that such chicken delicacies can ever be conjured up inside the four walls of a domestic kitchen.

All this now has changed. It is almost like a barrier come down. It is as if the doors of the temples have been flung open to the untouchables. Where ever I see who ever I ask is busy cooking chicken. No not ordering chicken from a non veg restaurant but cooking it all by themselves!! It is not that I am against the entrepreneurial zeal of these folks who think that they can achieve divinity, but flirting with divinity every other weekend is outright blasphemous.

I have made up my mind that I will pay for your culinary 'foolishness'. No I am not saying I will taste each of your chicken experiments as now I am even fed up with doing that. Your culinary sins will be washed off by the sacrifice which now I have decided to make. I will be pretty much off chicken and for that matter any non veg for the next month. I guess in that time you will all have the good sense not to toy with the chicken but to leave it to the experts alone.

"Forgive them oh Chicken for they no not how to cook"!!!Kukdukoooooo

P.S: Over the years I have had the honour of bumping into common people and not chefs who dish out wonderful chicken dishes. I have nothing but respect for these wizards!! Its the wannabes I despise!!!