I am Samrat Roy Chowdhuri, a techie by profession at Infosys and a passionate foodie.
I am a born foodie.
However, I learnt cooking pretty late.
While I am a native of Hooghly, Bengal; currently I am based out of Bhubaneswar, capital of Odisha, a beautiful city in Eastern India.
This is my story.
Growing up, I was very fond of fried rice and chilly chicken. No one, I repeat no one, can beat my maternal-grandmother’s recipes.
I was never interested in how food was prepared, what went into preparing all the magic on plate.
In 2013, I traveled to Hyderabad for a project at Microsoft’s. The stay at Microsoft was short-lived and I was happy when the assignment ended. That however, did not end my journey in Hyderabad.
I stayed at Hyderabad for the next eight months and that is where I started taking keener interest in food.
Sooner than later food became my passion, and I started taking interest in all aspect of food – from ingredients, to methods of cooking, the final result, the industry, etc.
I came back from Hyderabad in 2014.
In Bhubaneswar, I bought my first cooking utensils – an instant tea pot, a cup, a plate and a spoon. To prepare myself a cup of tea, cook maggi and serve food bought from the neighborhood eateries (or locally called dhabas).
Soon, I grew tired of eating food from these eateries. It was monotonous, the taste did not excite me and I faced issues with health.
That is when I planned to set up my kitchen.
For someone, who had only made occasional rounds of the kitchen to fetch a dish, a cup, or a spoon when mom needed one, setting up a kitchen was nothing short of a challenge.
I consulted a few seniors from the office and got my kitchen ready. It was a basic set up with an induction cooktop, a cooking pot or kadai (as they call it in India), a couple of ladles and bowls.
And a pressure cooker, of course. “What’s an Indian kitchen without a pressure cooker!” everyone told me, urging the necessity of having one in my kitchen.
Pretty soon, I realized that setting up a kitchen was an easier job, cooking regularly was a challenge.
Once the initial period of excitement (of new cooking utensils) was done with, I fell-back lazy, found it challenging to cook regularly.
I went back to the local eateries and started eating out most of the days.
Every now and then I switched back and forth between cooking and eating out.
This continued for five years. I had only improved from cooking a couple of times every week to cooking the entire week, and a couple of days every week. Some improvement!
All this while, I learnt cooking complex Indian recipes and also cooked for my friends a number of times.
And then the Zomato and Swiggy economy took over.
I did not need to go out, buy food and get them home.
I installed the app, and voila! Hundreds of restaurants ready to deliver food to my home in thirty or forty odd minutes.
That’s not all! I can choose from the huge menu, and before payment can also punch in a discount code.
Restaurant food at home at discount. WOW!
I have a spicy, tasty dinner and off to bed to fiddle with my mobile till I fall asleep.
Unfortunately, this is the same story of the young population of our country.
This does not help anyone except the CXOs of these new-age Indian startups. I grew fat around my belly pretty soon and faced a riot of skin problems.
I finally put my foot down, and decided to no longer order food through the food-delivery apps. And I decided to cook every day.
That is where this project was born.
Cook every day.
Document.
Share with the world.
I am hopeful that I will succeed. You will know if you follow the blog.
If you have read this far; or someone interested in Indian cuisine and wish to whip up some exciting dishes in your kitchen (both easy and complex), you might subscribe to this list or follow me on Instagram.
I have a soft corner for Bengali cuisine and you would find many many recipes that are common to Bengal (and Odisha since both share a similar culture).
Start Your Cooking Journey Today. I assure that it will be a healthy, interesting and an intriguing experience of life.