Sunday, November 30, 2008

You got to be kidding Chef!!!

I chanced upon a cookery show the other day when I was channel surfing. Last weeks episode was titled 'Getting Your Child to Eat Veggies". It looked like another one of those programs for mommies with small kids, so I decided to change the channel. As I was about to switch to the News channel, I saw an incredible sight! The program hostess was giving a brief glimpse of some mouth watering veggie preparations that the Chef was going to show and I was tempted to watch the rest of the show. It was not a show on baby food mind you. But regular vegetarian preparation, with an eye on the fussy kids’ palate to entice them to eat veggies. I looked at my kids…my three doggies and decided not to try it on them. Either they would walk out on me or push me out of the house.

The first preparation was a starter. The Chef took a couple of slices of bread, beamed at the camera and trimmed the sides off with a flourish. Next he took some tomato ketchup and drew eyes, a nose and a smiley on the bread slice with the ketchup. Then he drizzled some canned corn above the eyes to make it look like golden tresses. Next he arranged the decorated bread on a nice kiddie plate and viola the most delicious, healthy and nutritious yet revolting snack was ready to spit out...err eat!!

The audience clapped and I gave the Chef's wife a standing ovation for tactfully throwing hubbies preparation into the dustbin and feeding the kids some healthy Samosas and Chips and Sauce as starters. The man beamed as the hostess of the show showed off the creation in front of the camera, gushing over the color, content and sheer creative genius of the recipe. She urged moms watching the show to make the dish right away and give it to their kids asap. I could imagine the scene at some homes across the country.

Mom: Kids come and see what I have made for you.
Kids: What is it ma?
Mom: I have made a delicious smiley face on a slice on bread with tinned corn!!!
Kids: *barf*

The next item on the Chef’s list was the main course. The Chef was of the opinion that kids were fed up of the usual diet of Roti and Dal and Rice. He showed a simple yet delicious and nutrient packed ‘Kaathi Roll’ for the kids that he claimed they would enjoy eating without a fuss.

With a flourish the Chef laid out a Chapathi on a plate. Next he doused it in tomato ketchup. He then laid some lettuce leaves over the ketchup and sprinkled it with toasted Paneer cubes and chopped Capsicum. He finished the whole preparation with a drizzling of lemon juice and coriander leaf and when I was back after throwing up, he rolled the Chapati into a roll and pinned it with a Mickey Mouse tooth pick. Delicious, nutritious, lip smacking ‘Kaathi Roll with Summer Salad’ was ready to throw into the nearest dust bin err I mean eat!!!!

I could visualize kids all over the country packing up their bags and leaving homes by the dozen. Since we do not have Milk cartons in India, Ice Cream boxes would now feature mug shots of kids gone missing from home and presumably hiding till mom stops making them healthy and nutritious food as shown on TV by this Chef.

Next on the menu was dessert! I watched with disbelief and nausea. The Chef made a ‘Bursting-with-Calcium and Goodness of Wheat Kheer’ that he said would be hard to resist for the kids and would be polished off within seconds!!! The recipe was simple. A cup of Dalia (broken wheat) that seems to be synonymous with "health food" in India, cooked in milk and sweetened with Jaggery (for health) seasoned with cardamom powder and garnished with cherries *ugh*. The concoction was served in dessert bowls and a tube of jam was used to draw smiley faces over the concoction and viola…delicious ‘Milky Wheat Delight’ was ready!!! According to the Chef each serving had enough calcium and potassium and Vitamin A to Z to persuade the runaway kids to come back home.

The entire gruesome buffet was shown in the end in case there were viewers who were yet to puke and or finding it difficult to puke. I pitied the kids and thanked my lucky stars that cookery shows for kids were unheard of when I was a kid. My mother’s idea of a kiddie treat was chips and cola and other stuff that we gulped down with amazing efficiency. And by the time she was wiser, we had learned to eat these on the sly or lie that we never touched them at school and that we spent our pocket money on actual food.

Notice: If any kid between the age of two and twelve is reading this post please don’t return home till next week. The Chef is showing "Healthy and Tasty Tiffin Treats" this week!

Healthy Tiffin? For gods sakes is there nothing sacred left on this earth anymore??!?!?! *sob*

30 comments:

Boundlessdreamz said...

I like your posts, but i would like to read them on my feed reader. Please enable full feeds

Anonymous said...

Wow im the first commenter !
nice one ! Its unbelievable the kind of stupid programs that are shown on TV.
And i agree, tiffin box is where the line should be drawn !

-V

Usha Pisharody said...

Lol!
Cookery shows must be seen to be believed.

Hereabouts, a mal. channel even has a reality show called "Pachakarani" :D!!!

I love the humour in your writes:)

Thank you. Perked up my day!

--xh-- said...

ah! the cookery shows - no, i wont comment on them - and no, i have not tried and made some of these delicious treats (and no - you are not supposed to go and ask some of my friends from where I got the brainstorming idea of the delicious dishes I prepared, which was kept in the fridge for a whole week and then thrown away when I was out of home :|)

Anonymous said...

totaly hilarious post..........
i will never dare to experiment one of those......... :)

Anonymous said...

man you rock,monday mornings are better with ur posts,is it a concious decision to post on sundays? and where do they come up with such fancy names for bland preperations?

Unknown said...

Your ability to bring out humor even from the most boring cookery show... hats off!...:D

I am equally thankful that they didnt have such dumb shows during our child hood... Jai DD!

mathew said...

clever title!!:-)
Well we belong to a generation which copiously consumed complan to make us more "smart".

Poor kids these days have to survive on salads...thank god they didnot have such shows in my time..I would have been a nomad by then!!

Scattered Thoughts... said...

hey so your kids ;) are still at home or they are hidden some where in closet after seeing you watching this show :D

BTW, jokes apart and the presentation might be kiddish and dumb but isn't it a fact that good old dalia, daal and roti is better than a pack of chips and cola? in terms of nutrition of course.. but yeah.. who cares..

Pramod Abraham said...

Ur doggies remind me of my Brahmin neighbor's Pomeranian. This Pom is fed curd rise almost every other day. But curd rice is one of his pet hates and he abhors it to the core. Whats surprised me is that he found a ingenious way to turn over the curd rice filled plate as soon as it was served. It was like " I did it again" and was seen to have a smirk on this achieved .

The owners even changed the cook to see if it made a difference! Hah, no twist in the tail, the Pom always held the upper hand.

Cheers

silverine said...

boundlessdreamz: Thank you! Reg the full feed, in some time! :)

Anon: The tiffin box was one of the joys of school days. I cannot believe that idiot is trying to spoil that too! :(

Usha: Thank you! :) Pachakarani? LOL!!

--XH--: lol! Sounds like my early cooking days! :p

Devil incarnate: Thank you! :)

Kumar: I try to post on Sundays as I get time during weekend to write and many people seem to like to start the week with my mad rantings! :)

Abraham: Thank you! :) I miss the DD days! :(

Mathew: lol! You are right. Kids these days are under pressure to eat healthy. We never had these pressures as we did not have many unhealthy options I guess! :)

Scattered thoughts: ".. but yeah.. who cares.." Spot on! :p

Pramod: My Marwari neighbors have pure veg Alsatians and I think they cook good food as it is wolfed down immediately! I pity that poor Pom! :)

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silverine said...

RM: I adore Nigella's cookery show and have watched most of them! :) She is a bit hit in Blr!

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trying2beperfectmom said...

LOL, I guess the chef never had kids. Or they grew up and left home a decade back! enjoyed reading!!

Anonymous said...

So it doesn't take too many cooks to spoil the broth then. I always knew those old sayings were hogwash.

The kids I know know what they want; they even know what to do with their mama's 'healthy foods'. I don't think they'll be fazed by TV antics like this. They may even consider this amusing...
:D

So fear not, Anjs. The kids are safe.

Slogan Murugan said...

I'm sticking to Nigella Lawson and I'm not watching any cooking.

Manu said...

lol.. You really remind me of one of my favorite authors ,Christopher Moore, in your writing.. You have an innate humourous streak..

Sampige said...

One third of ketchup is SUGAR!!!!!!!No wonder they think the kids will eat anything it is slathered on!
As a mother of a teenager and a pre-teen, let me tell you, they will pretty much eat everything you put in front of them. UNLESS the mother starts making a big fuss about the food.
I love your blog and sent it to a friend who is still doubled over with laughter and will hear from her after she stops laughing ;-)

Sashu... said...

lolz!!! i like the sublime humor in ur posts...reeli nice how u gv perspectives to it :) nice one anjali!!

Abhi said...

Lovely post. I thought you were attacking some chef who'd fed you something really bad at some party, but i'm now happy that i'm wrong. It was really wonderful to read your take on the cookery show. I've loved the comedy of watching a particular cookery show in kairali channel where a lady with glasses does the cooking. Quite a funny expression she has when she smells the things she makes.

ARJUN MS said...

"A day without laughter is a day wasted" and today I think I haven’t wasted, I enjoyed every bit of it. And to make it more exciting, today we (my family) made a cake, to be more specific "white chocolate cake" as advised by the lady with glasses, broadcasted in kairali channel. In the end we got an entirely different cake which I suppose is more delicious than hers.
ARJUN MS

Anonymous said...

Careful! Someone sued Seinfeld's wife for writing a book with similar recipes. :-)

Unknown said...

sounds like a ketchup-sponsored cookery show... but then again they probably call that the goodness of lycopene!
am surprised there wasn't ketchup in the payasam - thank god for small favours! :D

Anonymous said...

Bah - all our moms and aunts and assorted chachis/nanis rushed to whip out their notebooks to listen to these tele-chefs and the things we had to suffer... gooseberry wine, wheat halwa and barley juice! The only decent cookng tip I ever learnt from a TV progam is how to make a Jello Shot (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Jello-Shots)!

Magical Homes said...

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It's a fun tag but involves some googling so may take time. So do it at leisure.....

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silverine said...

tryingtobeperfectmom: Thank you! :)

hammy: Good to hear that! :)

sloganmurugan: Me too!! :)

Manu: Thank you buddy! :)

Sampige: Thank you so much! :) And that is news to me. No wonder he thought the way to a kids heart is via Ketchup in the stomach! lol!!

Sashu: Thanks and welcome to my blog! :)

Abhi: That lady with the glasses is a cartoon. You should see the squirrel on her shoulder at the end of the programme. :p

Arjun: Thanks buddy! :)

mathew: I don't think anyone is gonna sue me over this horrible goo! :p

CJ: LOL!! Ketchup in payasam *ugh*!!!

Ganja Turtle: Good to see you back! :)

Mumbai Diva: Thanks but sometime next year. Am too lazy to blog in the holiday season! :)

If I tell ya, I'll have to kill ya said...

hey silvering, long time girl. have been catching up on your posts. i have been gone so long i dont know what's changed and what's still the same. your sense of humour and writing is even better than i remember :-) this post reminded me of this mom and pop food shop that opened in my punjabi neighbourhood. the lady was serving szechuan dosas - noodles wrapped in a dosa. what a way to kill two cuisines. why she thought kids would go for a 5 rupee dosa when they could have 2 rupee gol gappas is beyond me. needless to say the shop closed a few months later and i'm sure she was back to torture her own kids. ever watched yan can cook? i used to watch it after school everyday. loved it even though yan lied to me - "if yan can cook, so can you"..err no.