Curdling

Yeah, you read it right. Not cuddling; curdling. If that's even a word for what I am about to write.

Ladies, back me up here. What is the one biggest, unaccountable responsibility as a married woman that goes unnoticed all the time? It’s not the back breaking duty of doing the dishes when it mounts to the height of Mt. Everest. It’s not cooking sambar with all those sambar powder and daal and tamarind and whatever it is that people make sambar with. It is not even the taxing job of making your own sambar powder, standing in the kitchen for over half a day and then begging the guy at the “maavu machine” shop to grind it to the exact consistency of sambar powder, which he will eventually flop which is still okay because we need that guy in our life to blame every time something goes wrong in our kitchen. No it’s none of these. It’s the act of making curd. Again, you read it right.

When I was ready to get married I thought to myself, “Cooking? Yay or Nay? Let’s go with Nay!” and decided to have a cook in my home. But we are living in 21st century. You don’t get cooks that easy. It's easier to find a terrorist hidden in Pakistan. Until then, my mother and my mother-in-law insisted on learning one thing: to make curd. Huh? It’s easy right? I mean how can anyone go wrong in making curd? Just add curd to milk, leave it overnight and voilà. Nope! Wrong! You have just been eliminated from the game of marriage. There is science behind this. Women have been researching on it for eons and have come up with the perfect formula. Only problem is everyone has their own “perfect” formula. That’s where we amateurs go wrong.

“Boil the milk and wait for it to cool down completely.”

“Can it be lukewarm?”

“No!”

“A little bit…….”

“No!”

“Alright!”

“Boil the milk and wait for it to cool down, but not completely. Otherwise the milk won’t curdle. It will taste bad.”

“Lukewarm?”

“No! Not that warm. It has to be colder than lukewarm.”

“Add one spoon of curd. That should do it”

“Add one spatula of curd.”

“Add one cup of curd. One spoon is too little.”

“Try soy milk if you don’t get cow milk.”

"Get buffalo milk. It produces the best curd ever."

“Buy curd. You won’t get this right anyway. It is an art.”

“Boil the milk and wait for……”

“Squeeze lemon if you don’t have curd.”

“Add salt for flavour.”

“Add water to milk.”

“While you are at it, throw in a pinch of pepper…”

“Add ginger garlic paste…”

“Boil the milk and wait for……”

“Leave it overnight.”

“Wait exactly for 2 hours during summer and 5 hours if it is winter.”

“What about during spring and monsoon?”

“Boil the milk and wait for……”

I waited too long one day only to find that the milk had gone bad. We found a cook but she said she wouldn’t take the responsibility of making curd. So we had to let her go. I guess she saw that coming. I need curd to survive, to sustain life, to exist on this planet. We all do, don’t we? If you don’t then you must be from another planet. So if you think it is that easy to make curd, why don’t you try it? I bet you will be ranting in a blog very soon.

Offo! As I write this, I realize I waited too long for the milk to cool.