I am a terrible cook – you don’t know about this embarrassing incident, do you? This was a few years ago. A couple of maintenance guys were doing some repair work at our place, and my parents were out. One of the guys asked us (my sister and I) to make some tea for them, as they were tired and some tea would be good. (That’s the thing with Indians – a cup of tea is considered perennial refreshment for any time of the day – courtesy the British, of course). My sister couldn’t care less, so the responsibility fell on my shoulders.
Trying to remember all the ingredients for making tea, I gathered everything and after a couple of minutes of simmering, I poured out three cups of very strong tea. It took me half an hour to do this. (My mother’s record is 7 minutes and 3 seconds). I felt a distinct sense of pride as I carried the tea to the maintenance guys who were now chilling out. They eagerly took their cups and I just sat and watched to see if I was any good at making tea.
“How is it? Would you like some more?”
“[Coughs] No… no thanks. This is fine. Thanks a lot.”
When I came back a little while later to collect the cups, I noticed that they were still full. My enquiring glances met a strange stoic dedication to their tasks I had never seen before. After they were gone, my sister asked, “Did they like it?” I replied that I wasn’t too sure, that most of tea was left undrunk, that perhaps it was a little strong. She took one look at the tea and said, “Wait a sec. Did you put water in there?”
I had forgotten to add water. Shit.
My mother generally uses long-life milk instead of a creamer whenever she prepares tea for us. It had never occurred to me that there was water in the tea. I thought that the liquid in tea was all milk. It was really careless, I know, considering I had drunk tea without milk plenty of times. God, it must have been terrible. Since then, none of the maintenance guys who came to our place ever asked for tea.
(My sister still tells anyone she can lay her hands on about my “Tea Disaster” and my ineptness at cooking in general. I consider this to be a little unfair – she cannot even turn on the stove. Everything she knows about cooking begins and ends with the microwave.)
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Actually tea made purely with milk doesn't seem like it would taste that bad! In fact, it seems as if it would taste richer and creamier. That's not the case, I guess?
ReplyDeletehahahahaha XD i guess it depends on what kind of milk you use?
ReplyDeleteit might taste good with whole milk, but maybe not 2% or 1% or skim XD
or soy
Luckily, growing up with two sisters who were relatively good at cooking, i was never given the responsibility of baking or cooking anything that took more skill than following a simple set of directions. Although i was a professional at pre-heating ovens and setting timers, im sure my tea wouldve taken even longer and tasted even worse. To top it all off, i wouldve ended up committing a chef's sin by following directions step by step. Where to start...
ReplyDeleteI had a similar incident but with making coffee. It sucked a little more as I didn't have to grind the coffee.. it was just a matter of getting the gizmo to work. XD
ReplyDeleteHahahaha.Classic incident.I can correlate with the fact that Indians always have tea during the afternoon.The 'Afternoon tea time' is a precious 2 hours,for sipping of tea along with engaging in heated conversations.(what I almost always do when I'm over at my grandmother's).Not to mention, coffee is always consumed in the morning usually in hot steel tumblers(mostly in South India).
ReplyDeleteHaha I love it! I would probably destroy the tea because I do not even drink tea so I would not even know where to start if I had to make it. The only good thing about the incident is you do not have to worry about having to take the time to make something for the maintenance guys anymore! Good luck next time!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback guys! I really feel that our class blog is very proactive in this regard.
ReplyDeleteI can actually prepare some good tea now, I just prefer working with teabags and creamers rather than milk and tea-strainers and stuff. There's a lot more control in the former.
@Aakash: Yes, you're absolutely right. We never get tired of it, do we?
@Erin: I guess looking it in a positive way makes me feel a teeny little better, but the humiliation I had to suffer was disproportionate to that advantage.
@Adrian: I never use recipe books while preparing anything (if at all). I prefer memorizing them and using my instinct to guide me where my memory fails.