Cooking With My Grandmother

I still remember this memory like it was yesterday…It was a Sunday night and my parents went out with my cousins because it was their first time in Canada my grandma was sick so she didn’t want to go and she asked me to stay home with her so I did.Little did I know my grandmother was just lying about her sickness because she wanted to spend quality time with me because she was only here for 7 days and the house was filled with guests so she didn’t get time to spend time with me.My grandmother knew I loved to cook and that my mother never let me in the kitchen because she was afraid I would burn her kitchen down because of that ONE incident when I was 12 and when I went to make a surprise dinner and I lit the oil on fire because I let it overheat to the smoke point by accident because I got distracted by the chocolates my uncle had brought and it wasn’t my fault he brought GODIVA CHOCOLATES

and no one can resist or complain about that except for my mom and my dad and my uncle and my aunt, cousins, grandfather, grandmother, cat, homework, etc.So as I was saying, my grandmother had won a lot of awards for her food during her school time and she had also catered for 10 years before she was married and I always asked her to teach me a Pakistani dish because I had no clue on how to cook it.So when my parents left, I and my grandmother decided to make a dish called Biryani.

This was my very first dish made with my grandmother and my first biryani cooking experience. I  was so excited and happy and I cried because my grandmother actually had faith in me and believed that I wouldn’t burn the kitchen down.I know it sounds kinda funny to cry but hey I was an overly 13-year-old girl what else would you have expected from me.The experience and memory stayed in my heart till now and forever. My grandmother started with teaching me the basic knife skills needed and how to cut vegetables in strips, circles, and cubes.In our biryani, we added a lot of vegetables and barbecue chicken.

While waiting for the biryani to cook I set the dinner table and my grandmother made her cookie batch for after dinner.We listened to old songs because my grandmother liked it but I couldn’t stop laughing at a number of random tunes in the music, but she was enjoying it somehow.After the food was ready we enjoyed eating it together and then ate cookies and let me tell you that my grandmother’s cookies were delicious.When my parents came in with my cousins they were shocked by the dinner we had made because they thought my grandmother was “sick”.We laughed all night on how we fooled my siblings and sent them to a boring outing.I loved that experience with my grandmother because it was the last experience I had with her before she passed away because of sudden heart stroke and when remembering about this cooking memory it brings me to tears because I just wonder what if I hadn’t stayed home with her that day…I love my grandmother and I will always miss her forever and always.