Like father, like son!

We were eating Chinese one night when I recalled a cooking lesson my son had given me a few months ago. In the last year or so, my son had finally started showing an interest in the flavours that waft out of our kitchen, indicating perhaps that his hunger was growing. But that led to another zone where we ‘warred.’

For me, good food means simple varan bhat and cucumber raita seasoned with groundnut powder; for him it is tossed vegetables, stir-fried noodles and barbecued chicken.

It’s definitely in his genes — like father, like son, indeed! For, like my husband, he is definitely tuned into fine things that please one’s palate. “Mom,” he has so often asked me in the past when his father has been travelling on work, “When is dad coming back?” For all the dropping and picking up that I do, all the swotting and struggling that I am roped into on a day to day basis, he is Papa’s boy when it comes to ‘food glorious food’ (football, fun and male bonding) – and so is his sister.

Cooking is not my cup of tea. And by interest and inclination, no one in our entire family can match ‘dad’ for his knowledge and expertise there. Though my kids do say that my omelette du fromage is quite fluffy and a Saturday morning regular on the breakfast menu. But after eating that, my daughter trudges off with dad for a visit to the fish market, sometimes with the lad in tow to fill the kitchen with surmai, prawns and squid.

Once Gaurav called me at work and said, “We are making noodles today; the way dad does. I’ll tell you how to – he has showed me what to do.” Laughing out loud at the prospect of trying to match the absentee maestro in his department, I returned home to find the young chef of the day in the kitchen.

The flat pans were on the gas, the vegetables chopped neatly and the noodles boiled, just right. “Where is the oil that dad uses?” he asked me impatiently. “It’s clear and is normally in that corner of the kitchen.” He climbed up on the platform and brought a bottle down.

On went the gas and we put two tablespoons on the hot pan. But the noodles instead of getting crispy brown stuck to the pan. Out dashed my son, made a frantic call and came back huffing: “Mom, I think we took the vinegar by mistake. Dad told me that the olive oil is on the first shelf.”  After some quick damage control – guided naturally long distance to my chagrin – the meal was ready. “Wonderful,” I told him.

It’s become a family moment – the day I learnt cooking from my son! The question is still repeated whenever his father is away especially when his stomach grumbles at my offerings: “Mom, when will he return?” A more valuable lesson that sunk in was that while Moms are good for some things, dads are needed for a lot many others and that is how children end up having the best of both the worlds.