I, Me, Myself

Here's a whole page I created to brag about myself :

For starters, my name is Nisha and I blog from the most amazing city in the world (well after New York of course), London. An Open Book is what I really am and so I choose to keep that user name.

I am not that big a fan of cooking. Then why a food blog, you may wonder? Like all you guys out there I didn't start this blog for the love of cooking or because I wanted to preserve my moms or grandmothers' recipes. I started it for my benefit really. I used to spend ages researching a recipe online (because I would have absolutely no clue) and then taking bits and pieces from here and there and create something that would soothe our taste buds and then forget to bookmark the page and go absolutely crazy trying to recreate the same thing again. The research bit all over again tested my patience and so I thought I should start a blog to record all those recipes I try, because cooking from books were so passée :)

I am not creative when it comes to cooking, which brings me to my partner in crime...Ro, my other half (I choose not to say better!) who hates following a recipe. He will throw in all that he can find on the shelf and till now (other than the one time he decided to put some red wine into an Indian beef curry) he's been successful with the outcome. That drives me mad, not him cooking, but him aimlessly adding, changing, mixing and matching ingredients and procedures. So the days he takes over cooking I try and stay outta the kitchen...which means weekends are all for glugging down mugs of beer and watching TV. He even cleans up after himself and after me for that matter..he says cleaning and washing up is his core competency area...now I'm definitely not complaining about that. So a lot of recipes I post here are what Ro has come up with. Especially those seafood recipes are completely his work of art since I am not that big a seafood fan.

Baking was a whole new discovery and I started enjoying it sometime end of 2009 (well, evolved from Betty Crocker mixes to starting from scratch, that is!). It was absolutely therapeutic and I loved the outcome, well most of the time atleast. There were also loads of frustrating moments (like the numerous times I've tried to make the red velvet cake, but till today haven't succeeded) when I would declare I'm never baking anything but my guinea pig would totally support me and brave his way through even the eggiest of soufflés. I still suck at icing and piping and all that jazz but I am so determined to at least once make a full fledged icing cake and decorate it with flowers and ribbons. Lets see where that takes me.

Coming to the photography bit. I am completely amazed at how I'm enjoying it. Ro's photography craze has definitely rubbed off on me. I now cook so I can take pics. The irony is that I hated photography in college and the projects submitted were so horrible, I always used to scrape through. I now use a Canon EOS 500D and quite a few lenses- a Tamron 17-50mm F2.8, a Canon 75-300mm F4- 5.6, Canon 50mm F1.8 and our old Canon kit lens 35-80mm F4-5.6. I still have so much to perfect with the pictures, and since my patience levels are low, my styling sense goes for a toss once I'm done with cooking and that's an area I am definitely keen on improving.

I do have a long way to go with regard to a lot of aspects and I hope I keep my blog alive as long as possible. I love the fact that I have made so many friends online and totally look forward to the encouragement/ criticism you guys leave me. I love the fact that I have a place to pen down whatever I want without being worried about grammar checks and spelling mistakes and word count. At the end of it all...if the clumsy, non creative, lazy bum like me can cook and take a decent (I hope) picture, I think anyone can :)

When I am not blogging, I do my (paying) job as a freelance writer...something I love doing because for one, I am my own boss, I pick my clients and I work at my own pace..well unless my editors' keep buzzing me on gtalk when I have a deadline to meet and I'm no where near submitting (happens rarely, but it does happen). After working from home for about 3 years, I doubt I'd go back to a 9 to 5 office job, but i'm not ignoring that possibility altogether. For now, Im content with what I do.

If you have any queries, doubts, assignments or just wanna connect, shoot me a line at mykitchenantics@gmail.com.

Cheers
Open Book