Although food has been a big part of my life, I have always been into taste than nutrition and availability. If I am to look back in my life and count my favorite cooks, then it’s four. Although my grandmothers cook and so do my other aunties, my favorite is always going to be my mother, maiju, maili fufu and maternal grandfather.Their cookings are the only tastes I remember and cherish the most. And there are many memories attached with the food they cooked.

It’s funny how food can remind you of people. It’s funny no matter where you’ve eaten, home is where your favorite food gets cooked. Because it becomes your favorite food after your favorite person cooks it. It’s also funny how the best cook at home is always women. And that makes me wonder whether mom, fufu or maiju really enjoyed cooking or they just did because they have to. Baa (grandfather) on the other hand, enjoyed it fully. This is proven by the fact that he was always in kitchen even if he didn’t need to be. And he also enjoyed feeding people. He would make sure I had unlimited access to my favorite food every time I visited him, even when he later got sick.

Sometimes I do think fufu and maiju also love to cook. Maiju loves feeding people, she always loved company, talking with kids and making them stay with her. On the other hand, one of the reasons why kids at my home love to go to fufu’s home is because of the food she cooks. And as far as I know, she loves having us over and cooking us all the delicacies. Just today, she made kwati (a soup of beans usually drank during Janai Purnima) and roti (bread) for mom.

But I don’t know about mom. Mom does a lot of things because she is expected to. Mom also doesn’t do a lot of things because of the things she is expected to do. Sometimes, I wish I was big enough to understand these things when I was a kid so that life could’ve taken a different course.

You can never say no to Kwati-Roti made by fufu. Originally posted in Ek Cup Chiya (Tumblr)