From one parental failing to another.

I have come to find that there are two reasons why I am the way I am. The first is my pathetic gene pool inherited from Big Bad Baz. The second reason is that I have grown up with my mother's cooking, she is a culinary genius, no lie. See if you think about it its not really my fault at all - in fact it would seem that actually its completely my parents fault. I mean of course I ate the food, and I should have exercised more to aid my horrendously low metabolism - but I mean the actual cause of the problem is not me at all (I learnt something at law school - they are the factual causation 'BUT FOR my dad giving me the 'fat gene' and my mum's cooking I would be skinny).

This weekend has been exemplary of my mother's culinary skill - and I hold Alice and Rupert as my witnesses. People find it weird but I call my mum by her first name, which is Geeta. I don't do it all the time and I don't really know when or how it started or why I am actually allowed to do, but it has become a complete term of affection. Neither my sister nor my brother would ever call her Geeta - mainly because I know I'm her favourite. (At least thats what I tell myself - massively middle child issues...PLEASE DON'T IGNORE ME!!) So Geeta has 2 weeks off and instead of chilling on the first day of her holiday like most normal people she decides to cook all my favourite food... deliberately. Knowing full well I am trying to be good, let's face it I have been shoving the fact I'm having salad down everyone's throat and threw a hissy fit when Dad came back from Asda with a bag of watercress instead of rocket - the stalks make me choke. I see all the ingredients lined up on the kitchen surface and take a deep gulp - I'm in trouble. I know what's on the menu from one quick glance, vanilla shortbreads, 3 different kinds of curry including my absolute favourite and the killer - chocolate mousse cheesecake - yup it tastes just as good as it sounds.

I genuinely want to weep. Instead I take comfort by running (yes i know, hard to imagine - think of Shamu... but with legs), into the garden sitting on my swing chair and burying myself in Fifty Shades of Grey. Don't judge me. Yes, its pure filth and it is terribly written with pretty much the same adjectives used on each page but its addictive reading. When I get skinny - I'm getting my own Christian Grey (minus the Red Room, i.e. just filthy rich and GORGEOUS). Anyway back to the food. So the worst thing about having an AGA is that you can't actually smell the food when its in the oven (yeah yeah 1st world problems I know). So this one time (not at band camp) I was cooking some chicken totally forgot  (I know, hard to imagine I could forget about food, Gossip Girl must have been on or something) and because you can't smell it burning - it stayed in the AGA all day, it wasn't really edible after that. BUT you can smell what's cooking in the AGA when you are sat outside as this is where the vent leads to. Error in my part - I essentially ran towards the smell of biscuits, bad, bad move. However I found a strength I didn't know I had - believe or not I resisted the little devils.

The curry was not so successful. I tried but I am Indian after all - it's my right to eat curry. If my mum was a terrible cook, I wouldnt have these problems. Just to put into terms how good she is - someone once paid £3,000 for her to cook for a dinner party, of course it was for charity. But imagine that kind of cooking all the time - see now do you understand. It's really a hard life.

So here is it: thanks Baz for the shit genes, and thanks Geeta for cooking the best food ever. Naatt. Since I am the biggest coconut anyway - maybe its about time I continue to deny my Asian roots and leave the curry behind. Goodbye Paneer masala. I sharp pang just hit me straight in the chest. I doubt yoghurt and berries will ever replace you, but you're just no good for me anymore.

This post is dedicated to my self-proclaimed number one fan Jerry- Jane Pears, who eats the most amount of curry I have ever seen and still looks like a goddess. But babe, you can't eat that in front of me anymore, otherwise I might cry or worse take it away from you.

Fatty BB xxx