Cooking with Shail

” Zindagi ek safar hai suhana yaha kal kya ho kisne jana”…

The past decade has taught me that changes are a part of life and welcoming them with a positive attitude helps a lot. I learnt to find positivity in small moments of life and rather than cribbing for the things not happening I learnt to appreciate and welcome the changes in my life. One such biggest change that happened was my love for cooking. 

A little glimpse in who I was before the decade began:

I was a science student and wanted to be a veterinary doctor after clearing my entrance exams I joined law which was a shocker to myself and many others. I was a gangly girl (literally just 45 to 48 kgs) when I joined the law college. I was never interested in cooking or entering the kitchen and never thought that I ever would. All I thought about was clearing my exams and do justice to my change of career choice. 

Enter “the Decade” :

Now lets get to the theme of this #DecadeHop.

The start of decade already saw three years of dating my boyfriend (now my husband). Initially, we took time to know each other and on my part to understand what he liked and disliked. It was during this period and the start of this decade that I started learning how to cook. The major reason for me entering the kitchen was my husband (then my boyfriend)  he is a foodie at heart. I realized soon enough that the way to his heart is through his stomach. Initially I learned just the basics of cooking from my mom. While learning the basics I started to realize that I actually loved cooking and started experimenting with the flavors. Just small changes that I would try with the regular vegetables and dals that my mom cooked. Soon I started getting compliments from my parents which further encouraged me. 

2010 saw a major change in food industry and encouraged many home chefs to pursue their passion as the first season of Masterchef India was aired. I still remember I watched every episode with new found fervor and enthusiasm and noted down every recipe tried. It was a new experience for me seeing such new dishes tried that I never even knew existed. This was when I started watching videos and noted recipes which I would then try at home. It was around 2012 that I considered learning baking and cooking professionally. I joined various classes and widened my horizons professionally. I started accepting orders for baking which encouraged me further. 

What is your idea of date with your boyfriend? A romantic dinner, a walk under the moonlight or a romantic gateway. For us the idea of date got converted into dinner dates at my home where I would cook three to four course meals for us and experiment on my poor unsuspecting guinea pig (that is what I call my husband lovingly). Cooking had now become my stress buster and my passion. I could not imagine a day without entering into the kitchen and trying out new recipes. I soon started working full time after my graduation and hence struggled to balance my food passion and my work life during which my mother was my major support and my backbone I cannot imagine what my life would be if not her support in my cooking passion. I could not imagine my life without cooking and hence the weekends were my major experimenting days. For many it was difficult to comprehend this sudden change in me and often chastised me saying that why are you wasting your time in cooking when you have such a bright corporate career ahead of you. Even today it is difficult for me to explain how this passion of cooking has kept me afloat and out of bordering depression at tough times. 

In 2014 after a bit of resistance and movie style drama I finally got married to my boyfriend after dating each other for 8 years. Marriage bought another wave of changes for me as I now had to take over a lot more responsibilities than before. My passion for cooking kept growing stronger after marriage as my husband encouraged me to think about starting my blog to further pursue my passion and reach out to the masses. Finally after a lot of contemplation and self doubt I started my baby “alawyerskitchen” my blog in 2018. Initially it was a very slow journey for me I was still grasping on how to keep my blog afloat with new posts, food photography (which was alien to me), big fat terms of SEO and Alexa rank where equally puzzling. I hardly had any audience and almost gave up on my blog but my blog had turned into my addiction which pushed me to learn new recipes and innovate the old ones. It took almost a year for me to even be recognized on the alexa scale and slowly my blog gained audience. Though my blog is still a baby being just 2 years old it has given my life a new purpose. I am still working full time and at the same time managing my blog. The happiness and exhilaration I get at every new post being posted is something I cannot describe in words.

I have changed a lot in the past decade from being a gangly girl to an over sized girl I was ridiculed often. I even started a healthy dieting course and even during that period I experimented with diet food and cooked a new item each day which complimented my diet requirements. I am still plus sized but happy at heart and very thankful to the past decade which gave me my passion for life my cooking and my blog. Hoping to self host my website in the new decade alongwith trying my hand at my own youtube channel and hopefully publishing my own cook book. 

“This post is a part of ‘DECADE Blog Hop’ #DecadeHop organized by #RRxMM Rashi Roy and Manas Mukul. The Event is sponsored by Glo and co-sponsored by Beyond The Box, Wedding Clap, The Colaba Store and Sanity Daily in association with authors Piyusha Vir and Richa S Mukherjee”