How cooking brings you closer to your near & dear ones

Guys if you don’t cook you are losing out on a fantastic skill to have. Not only does it save you time and money on food which you buy from outside, it can also contribute to improved health, bring you closer to your near and dear ones besides it is a great stress buster.  While stress numbs your senses, cooking stimulates them. It’s a sensory experience: touching, washing, cutting, chopping, grating, aroma, seasoning, the visual delight and even the sizzling sound everything can just rouse your senses.

How cooking is therapeutic

A psychiatrist working in London, Mark Salter suggests that cooking and baking activities could be therapeutic for patients with depression. They can stimulate cognition, get people working on memory tasks and allow patients to connect with a feeling of nurturing and protection. I’d argue that cooking and baking have another benefit: the possibility of sharing, and the enrichment of interpersonal relationships that occurs as a result.

His claims are supported by some counselors, therapists and mental health treatment centers all over the world which use cooking therapy as a tool for their patients. In addition to helping people learn skills for independence and self-care by teaching them how to cook wholesome, balanced meals, cooking can also help patients get more active, grounded and connected with their environment. And evidently the focus on tasks can be beneficial for a brain in turmoil.

How cooking can open a world of opportunity

You don’t have to love cooking, but knowing the basics and feeling competent in the kitchen can open a world of opportunity to improve your quality of life. We are busy doing so many things in our lives. We have better things to do than slave away in kitchen cooking a breakfast, meal or a dessert. Until you champion the task of cooking the planning, shopping, chopping, cooking, preserving and cleaning involved in making a meal can bore you to death. Frankly speaking it does.

I feel there is nothing else than cooking which offers instant gratification. If you’re cooking for people whom you love and care for, your cooking can nurture relations further. The praise and appreciation that you get for cooking from your loved ones is a feeling of elation. Cooking involves innovation, imagination, novelty and thinking. You can go on innovating mixing ingredients, styling your preparations with a variety, using different materials while dishing out new recipes.

Why Cooking is an honest work

Another thing about cooking is that it’s honest work. It takes you on a delicious ride and gives you a different high and yet keeps you grounded, in touch with reality. It helps you clear your mind, it stimulates new ideas, and it refreshes your outlook. It keeps you occupied – keeping you busy and helping you to forget about worries for some time.

So friends please don’t give up on cooking. It’s a great reliever. 

I think it is rare to find a person without a hobby. Most people have a hobby and do something interesting in their free time. Some people have common hobbies while some have unusual hobbies; your hobby either stirs up curiosity and delight in some people while many may have aversion for it. And when some people draw a long face and say that they have no hobby, they appear boring and drag. Your hobby provides a glimpse into your personality. It speaks a lot about your character, it allows you to paint a picture of yourself.  Progressive organizations all over world use hobby as key while hiring personnel as they look at the qualities required to perceive a hobby by a person.

For example, if you are a chess player, you might be good at making strategies. If you like fishing, you might be patient because fishing requires lot of patience. If you like playing Scrabble or doing crossword puzzles, you probably have a broad vocabulary and analytics – perhaps some untapped writing skills. If your love gardening, it shows your potential for creativity and endurance. The key is that each hobby shows some skillset a person has deep down in him/her. In a job interview, the moment interviewer asks about your hobby, the atmosphere eases and you feel little becomes hassle-free while it gives an opportunities for the employer to see your unwritten dispositions.  If you believe that your personality is an asset, then you have to get creative.  The employer also uses your hobby to get a broader perspective about you. Your life outside work may tell a lot about you. If you haven’t impressed the interviewer, here is a chance to impress him.

So, should you include your hobbies on your resume?  Well, there are strong arguments in favor of it and against it. While some people feel that hobbies are very personal and they should not be included in CV, others see is as a way to present their creative side as the best fit for the post in an organization.  Job seekers sometimes make the mistake of including hobbies that reveal too much about their dogmatic or religious beliefs that may cause the employer to have concerns about their regime or character.  However, if you never lose sight of the fact that you are trying to make the employer want to hire you, then it shouldn’t be difficult to stay on track.  There are some ways that your hobbies can make you stand out above your competitors. I think presentation matters.

Hobbies reveal your passions.  It is often said that you can tell a lot about a person by what they do in their spare time. Employers may look to find out your or to get a sense of your values.  Are you passionate about a particular cause?  Are you aware of surroundings? Are you concerned about what is going on in world around you?  Do you use your spare time to network, or instead you just like to relax? What are you, what kind of a person are your, your ethos, your interests and everything you are made of is of a great concern to the employer.

Your hobbies determine your skills.  You acquire skills from everything you do.  If you think back, you may find that you gained some of your most important skills through your hobbies. I know of this young lady who used go as an instructor in a summer camp without fail each summer, kids liked her and loved to be in her company, she was hired by a FMCG in their Human Resource Department where she rose to level of HR Director. Her hobby made her people’s leader. I think we need to review our target job and try to identify the key skills and personality traits which hobbies help us to build. If you have such hobbies which befit your job profile, then it is worth putting them on your resume.

Employers like to hire candidates who are involved in their community.  Employees who are loners and not social tend to singularly focus on their jobs, this is not healthy and may not work for the employee in networking with others. If you demonstrate through your hobbies that you are a go-getter and a friendly person, you may find that it makes your resume even stronger. Never forget that people are at the heart of the hiring process.  In addition to the required skills and experience, the employer is trying to find the right fit for a job profile.  There is a lot more to you than your professional skills.  If you allow the employer to get to know you, they will surely connect with you and decide that it’s you that they want on their team.

Yes, besides a job interview, if you have no hobby it is a sad thing. In fact it’s an alarming symptom. Probably, you just do not know how to organize your time and energy. Psychologists persistently recommend people to do some creative work besides work and house chores. Hobbies fill up our lives with new meaning and develop our creative abilities. A hobby should not distract you from your main profession or resolution of life. Don’t look at it as time killer. After all, a hobby helps you to grow in life, to broaden your mind and train your intellect.

GSBs (Gaud Saraswat Brahmins) are comparatively a small community (approximately 3 lakhs). The GSBs originally lived on the banks of the river Saraswati. The name Sarawat is derived from either the river Saraswati or from their spiritual leader, the sage Saraswat Muni who used to live on the banks of Saraswati. The Saraswat Brahmins have migrated to a variety of locations and are found mostly in Western coast of India. Their mother tongue is Konkani.

In the GSB recipes coconut, coconut oil, curry leaves and tamarind is primarily used. The GSB recipes are to great extent influenced by south Indian cuisine. Two recipes which are mentioned here are the most common ones. Most GSBs are grown eating toi and also batatyache song.

Batata Song and Daali toi 

Recipe Description: 

Potatoes cooked in stir fried onions and tomatoes mixture. This dish goes especially well with Daali Toi served over plain boiled rice.

Ingredients:  

2 medium size onions, chop them finely.
Two medium size tomatoes, chop them too finely.
4 medium size potatoes well boiled and cut into proper cubes.
Whole red chilies 10-12 (Bedagi chilies recommended)
Small seedless tamarind ball
Oil (coconut oil recommended for authentic taste)
Asafetida (hing) powder – half teaspoon
Turmeric (haldi) powder – quarter teaspoon
Salt for taste

Instructions: 

Fry red chilies in three teaspoons of coconut oil. Remove them after they are stir fried.   In the same oil stir fry chopped onions and tomatoes.  Add asafetida powder and haldi powder to the cooked mixture. In a mixture grind the stir fried red chilies, little portion of stir fried onion-tomatoes mixture and tamarind – make paste by adding little water while grinding.

Once onions and tomatoes are softened in the pan, add the ground chilly, onion-tomato and tamarind paste, salt and potatoes. Add enough water to bring it the consistency of a semi-dry curry. Bring to a boil. Batata song is ready to serve.

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Daali toi

Recipe description: Daali toi is a classic GSB daal style made with cooked toor dal tempered with seasoning of mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Ingredients:

1 cup toor dal
2 green chilies
1 inch piece ginger
quarter teaspoon of turmeric powder
quarter teaspoon of asafetida powder
1.5 teaspoon of coconut oil for seasoning
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1 red chilli
8-10 Curry leaves
Salt

1.5 teaspoon of ghee

Instructions:

Boil toor daal in pressure cooker with turmeric powder, asafoetida powder, green chilies, and finely chopped ginger.  Transfer the cooked daal (mashed well) to a sauce pan by adding little more water to it and bring it to a boil. Add salt to it as per your taste. For seasoning heat coconut oil, add mustard seed and curry leaves and red chili to it, when they splutter add it to the daal. Pour ghee on to the cooked dal for its aroma. Mix the daal.  Dalitoy can be cooked thick or thin as per taste.

Preparation time:  20min

Both daali toi and batata song go very well with plain cooked rice.