Soup.doc

‘Get one kg of tomatoes and half a kg of onions’
‘Get the big pack of knorr instant soup. Tangy tomato is a nice flavor’

Appa* heard these 2 overlapping instructions one from each of his daughters.
Pati* was down with a cold and since Mummyji* was not at home, A* offered to make soup.

Here is a clarification that I have to make; when I say A in circumstances involving cooking, cleaning, and artificially cloying and annoying relatives-visit, A is a collective noun which includes both of us. Since I had to make soup irrespective of whether I wanted to or not, I decided to be smart and ask for the instant soup. But, A, as a rule hates all instant food. Given a choice between a lettuce leaf and MTR’s Pav Bhaji, she would obviously pick the leaf, add some pepper to it and eat it for a meal. In fact she has taken it upon herself to educate the entire family about salubrious food habits and appa is hardly seen at home ever since he has been put on a diet consisting of brown rice, no oil/ ghee/ butter, only one cup of coffee per day and rationed sweets.

Since the bully decides, Appa bought the tomatoes and A was excited about making soup. There was a small hindrance to our plan though, since we did not exactly know how to make soup. But Google answers it all!

A quick Google search later A donned the mantle of the head chef and was quick to give out orders.

‘Ok, let me read the recipe. You cut the onions. Don’t cut them too small or too big. Just the right size.’
‘How many onions?’
‘Cant you decide? I am not a chef here. Just use your discretion.’
‘Well, I did not offer to make soup. It was your idea!’
‘Pati is not well, don’t you have the slightest consideration? How mean can you BE?’
‘Ohhhh k. I ll help.’ Long pause ‘How many onions again?’

‘Ok all the recipes just say the same thing. We have to cut the onions, the tomatoes, beat them in the mixer, add water and boil till it becomes thick.’
‘How many onions?’
‘Do we have pepper powder? Or do we have to grind the pepper and make powder out of it?’
‘How many onions?’
‘Just cut all of them ok?’
Ok.

‘Will you cut the tomatoes or do I have to tell you that too?’
‘How many tomatoes’
‘All of them! Why do you think we bought so many?’

‘Cooking is a simple algorithm. You just have to follow the steps and the final outcome is good,’ is something A always says. So saying, she mashed all the ingredients and put them all into the cooker, added water and let them boil.

In the meantime we were discussing how to serve the soup which was still not even in existence.

‘Do you think we should serve some bread too?’
‘No way! You know we have to toast it with butter and it is a million calories. NO!’
‘Hmmm.. Lets get that fancy cutlery out. You know the nice looking soupspoon and bowl. Mummyji will be impressed!’

But, even after half an hour of boiling, the thin mass of purply-red liquid refused to change color.
‘This does not look like tomato soup.’
‘You bet’
‘What if we add kesari powder, the color will change then.’
‘Hmmm, but would it not affect the taste?’
‘Oh yeah, I completely forgot!’

After some deep thought A said, ‘Che, why don’t you taste it. Probably it tastes like soup.’

‘I can only tatse onions. We need more tomatoes!'

‘Appa, get one more kg of tomatoes.’ This time it was the combined voice of both daughters and knowing us Appa bought two kilograms of the vegetable (or is it a fruit?) to avoid further visits.

After 6 more tomatoes, some more boiling and a bruised finger, the soup still did not resemble the picture in the word document. A finally gave up. ‘Appa please buy some Knorr soup. Get two packs. You never know when we might need another.’

Our diet over the weekend predominantly consisted of the wannabe-soup. There is a soup.doc still sitting on the desktop at home. The algorithm was completely wrong. We followed the steps correctly. Blame Google!

Glossary

A : Sister. The slim, more educated, non alcoholic, vegetarian daughter to my parents
Appa : Dad. The figurative head of the family
Mummyji : Mum. The original head of the family
Pati : Grandmom. The only person Mummyji is scared of