My heart and Soul

Cooking has been the very breath of me since I was about 7 years old.  I remember as a little child standing on a stool next to my grandmother as she cooked in Sri Lanka. I had lived the first few years of my life in England and had just returned to Sri Lanka and  to bond with my maternal grandmother. She was a beautiful woman who also had a patience of a saint. She also cooked like no other I have ever come across. 

When I say she 'cooked' I mean that she put the ingredients together to make the dish.  Long before she graced the kitchen the servant would have ground the ingredients, sliced and diced the vegetables, onions, garlic and chillies. Yes ! I did say chillies. Some dishes could easily have had 20 chillies per dish!    And the coconut scraped ready for the milk to be made. The rice would be washed and ready with the correct amount of water and my grandmother would then be told that everything was ready for her to cook.

There were two kitchens in most houses.  One the servants used and one the lady of the house used.  The one the servants used was an open hearth and clay pots were used in this kitchen. In the other kitchen was a gas stove, where only Pyrex dishes were used and cakes were baked. 

Once summoned when the ingredients were ready she would then go into the kitchen, place the pot of rice on the open hearth. She would then take the prepared ingredients and put a pinch of that, a handful of this and prepare the dishes. She would then put them on the stove, and stir as she tasted, added other ingredients, and whilst she was doing this she would talk to me and explain to me what she was doing, and why she was doing something. How to stir, how to wait till the 'correct' time before you put the coconut milk into something and so on and so on.

At the time I had no idea that my love for cooking was starting to kindle. That I was absorbing all those little tit bits that she was sharing. To this date each and every time I cook I think of my grandmother. Remember little things that she told me. Sometimes, I would try to cook something that I had eaten as a child and I have no idea how I 'knew' how to cook it but I intrinsically knew how to do it. Was it words I had heard so long ago ? Or is it my grandmother whispering in my ear ?