Where the Dream was Born
The choice was obvious, why hadn’t I thought of it sooner!
It was a gloomy Wednesday afternoon in November 2020 and I’d just put down the phone to my family, having asked for the recipe to a dish I’d eaten dozens of times but didn’t know how to make. Normally I’d be sat around the table eating it with them, but we were in the midst of another national lockdown and visiting my family hadn’t been possible for months. I was running out of things to occupy myself with on my days off and needed a project to give me some sense of purpose and achievement as well as distract me from work and the worldwide pandemic that was engulfing us.
I looked at the scrap of paper in front of me where I’d jotted down a list of ingredients to make the dish for tonight’s dinner. The method was sketchy at best, in fact… I didn’t really understand what I’d written down and wasn’t sure my Mum’s confident “well you just put it together then like we always do” was going to get me through it! I made a start, phoned Mum at least twice more during the process and eventually produced something that wasn’t quite up to family standard but wasn’t a bad first attempt!
This was one of hundreds of recipes that I’d always enjoyed and promised myself I’d learn to make “one-day”. But what if there weren’t enough of those days to learn them all, what if I forgot a vital secret ingredient or hadn’t quite understood the tricks and techniques to get it tasting just as it should? That’s when it hit me… my project was going to be to collate and write our family recipes into a cookbook!
I started a list of dishes I loved eating and it wasn’t a small one. Then I thought back to my childhood, remembering foods that would emerge at family gatherings; I realised that the creators and cooks of some of these were no longer with us and their personal recipes had already been lost. I was determined not to let any more recipes disappear with time and I had a plan!
More on my crazy plan soon. Did any of your dreams and ambitions start in lockdown?
About the Author
Ansuya is a food photographer specialising in Indian and global cuisine.
