Writing about food and cooking has been an idea that I have been thinking about for some time. I hope with Millennial Taste Buds to share some of the experiments, journeys, travels and recipes. Some mine and some of others and I hope it lets me get out and meet people!

As a kid, I was actually scared of cooking or kitchens in particular. I remember a pressure cooker blowing up just after I left the kitchen and thinking “Boy, this is a dangerous place”. As a teenager, my brother made an omelette for me when I came back from school because I didn’t know how to.

In school, I cooked because I had to in home science and at those times my dad and mom were always proud. But the reality, I didn’t know how to cook. Even thought my sister went to cooking class to learn the basics of home cooking and turned out to be the most amazing cook I have seen, I didn’t want to try it!

I am a technology geek at heart and would tell my parents, give me every gadget in the book that will cook and cut and even measure for me and you might get some food out of me.

From those stories as a child to being in Richmond, USA and realising that either I cook or I go hungry. What saved me was this lovely recipe book that my sister made for me with even attaching samples of the dals, so I can identify them! I couldn’t believe that the first thing that I made was Rajma and that also in a pressure cooker!

Another person who influenced the way I cook was my sister-in-law who lives in the USA, she taught me that Indian food doesn’t always means hours of cooking and that you could adapt the ingredients based on what you had at home!

Today at home, I have no microwave, I rarely use the mixer but instead enjoy cooking in a traditional oven or using a mortar and pestle! I don’t like packaged food, I enjoy fresh herbs! I travel around the world and India and have to visit the local markets! Buy local spices, local produce! Talk to local people about their food and get inspired!

So join me in this adventure of instinctive, intuitive and interesting food and cooking!

Shilpi

Follow me @Millennialbuds