dinner at 8

2 huge organic onions, chopped;
2 huge vine tomatoes, chopped;
6 long organic kail leaves, courtesy of your generous closet hippie friend's 'standard veggie bag' because she's out of town and cannot avail of the weekly earth-friendly bounty she signed up for;
10 huge poisonous looking brown mushrooms;
4 misshapen mutant (yet organic) carrots, caked with mud;
1/2 kilo lamb cubes from the newly discovered turkish shop on s n high street;

fry onions till light brown in extra virgin olive oil (this is a morally upright recipe, can't have slutty olive oil). load washing machine and dishwasher at same time. do not, repeat, do not experiment with swapping tablets for either, just because they look similar to your indian bumpkin techno-unsavvy eyes. it DOES NOT work that way. jeez... Of course, your onions are on the brink of burning now, so soothe them with the tomatoes. sizzle... frantically chop kail leaves now, since you only have one small chopping board. wish you had 10 arms like ma durga so you could stir, chop, chat on gtalk and wax your moustache at the same time. then rethink the wish on grounds of practical considerations like clothes, and boys being scared off. once tomatoes and onions seem nice and friendly, add the kail and shake it all about a bit. then start exploring your overstocked and completely haphazard masala cupboard. once you've realised that most of the boxes of cream left behind by inky contain ground pepper, decide on simple ingredients like ginger, garlic and coriander powders. add almost fistfuls of them, totally eyeballing it (i swear, i'm really good at this. and to think i spent my early teens wondering how i would ever know how much of what to put in what and trying to observe and note my mom's methods.) oh and also add 2 pinches of hot chilli powder and one pinch of turmeric, for luck. then of course, you realise that you had forgotten that you were almost out of salt, so after putting in what you do have, you cut open the container and scrape the far ends for coagulated remains. then pop in the meat which has been soaking redly in the sink in a colander. add some boiled water, just enough to make the meat peep over it like icebergs. again mess the whole thing around with a spatula for a bit then cover it and put on low-ish fire. did i mention you need a biggish vessel with a biggish cover, and well matched, so that the stupid cover doesn't float? anyway, while the meat is stewing with the kail shail, cut and peel carrots into big pieces. halve the huge mushrooms, and try to avoid attempting to scrub the brown off them compulsively. it really takes time and is quite pointless. annyway, pop these last bits into the pot, move it around with said spatula, cover again and leave on even lower fire.
go watch tv and come back every 10 minutes to taste the soup seeping around the floating cover with several small spoons so that your saliva doesn't go into the mix.
watch more tv and check email and stuff for 45 minutes, then remember that you forgot to put the rice on the boil, but that's a minor thing, because now the pot is emitting lovely smells! after correcting the rice problem and letting the meatpot stand for awhile, help yourself to good, wholesome, yummy food, while watching sex and the city, and wonder why the fuck you ever think there's something wrong with the world.

growing up, growing up.. it'll happen :)