By: Abhay Bhingradia
I moved out of my parent’s house from a suburban Indian neighbourhood to study ISS at Sheridan and move to Canada right after completing high school. When I was back home, I didn’t care to know about grocery shopping as my mum would take care of it. I just knew what snacks I wanted but never about the rest of the items on the list.
After moving out to the residence, I went to do my first ever grocery. I made a list under my sister’s supervision, but still managed to screw it up. This was also the first time that I cooked something totally unsupervised. I got help from the technology at my disposal and watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to make my favourite meals.
Abhay’s comfort food while living away from home was a plate of poha, a western Indian dish packed with flavour.
I started preparing the ingredients as laid out in the video, but when the host said “we need two tablespoons of turmeric and powdered chilli,” I knew I wouldn’t get far. See, while grocery shopping, I got all the required veggies and snacks but forgot to buy spices, bread, oil, and dishwasher detergent.
I had to call my mom for reinforcements, and to my surprise, she had packed a travel-size portion of all the basic spices I would need. I guess she knew before I moved out that I would mess up somehow, and she played her cards correctly thinking I would forget to buy spices.
Just like that, I was back on track and ready to cook my very first meal away from home (and on my own). I decided to make Poha, a western Indian breakfast delicacy made from flattened rice flakes with robust Indian spices, mixed with sautéed onions, a dash of lime and a sprinkle of coriander and basil leaves. Supposedly one of the easiest meals to make from the Indian cuisines.
The YouTube video was helpful in terms of the process of mixing ingredients, but it didn’t taste how my mom made it. I messed up while preparing the rice flakes (Poha), they were supposed to be rinsed off and I left them submerged in water for a good 3 minutes resulting in flakes being like sticky rice. And towards the end, I forgot to add the two main spices: red chilli and salt. Even bland, it turned out to be one of the best meals in my life, because I cooked it on my own.
My mum always told me that no matter how bad the food is, you will find it satisfying if you cooked it. And as we all know practice makes perfect, so now after nearly 1 year of living alone, I have gotten good at cooking and others find my cooking tasty too.
By the end of 5-6 such meals, I realized some mistakes in my grocery shopping and food preparation. I came up with a list of golden rules for grocery shopping, but I’ll save that for another post.
Need help with groceries?
Have you heard of Sheridan Student Union’s Food First program? If you’re running low on money and need help paying for groceries at anytime during your Sheridan Life, reach out to us for a FREE $50 gift card to help you out!