Barodians cherish lockdown cooking

In this fast-paced life where we barely have time for ourselves, cooking does sound like a luxury to some of us. Lockdown has made everyone resort to their kitchen to for themselves at home. In fact, Tv and cooking seem to be the only activity that has managed to keep one engaged. TV and the internet have provided all of us with an escape from the alarming rise in cases and deaths across the globe. With minimum options for food delivery, everybody is finally trying their hands, on cooking. It has also become a lot of fun as everybody is staying and is participating in the house chores, getting more time together, picking up new cuisines and recipes from your family members, and the internet.

Foodies in Our Vadodara is a community of 1,80,000 members which sees around 150 to 200 posts of homemade food like soups, baked food, pizza, healthy breakfast dishes, cocktails, shakes, smoothies, sweet dishes, different chutneys, varieties of khichdi, traditional dishes, icecreams, etc. Many of the members from different fields have actively engaged themselves in cooking are enjoying these small moments and they talk about their cooking experience in lockdown.

New Techniques:
Bhakti Paun, a content strategist, did basic experiments with traditional flavors and mastering the basics.
Kein Shah, a businessman by profession, made an attempt at baking by going through online recipes, like a casserole, enchiladas, muffins, pizza, etc.
Arihant who works in a private company has picked up recipes of roshogulla, cake, Mohanthal, pizza with home-made base, dalgona coffee, etc.
Kirti Laungani works in an advertising and marketing startup agency and has learned to make wraps and Matar Paneer.

Family Involvement:
Bhakti lives alone and does her work on her own, but her brother participates in the household chores at his place. While Kein stays with his family who get completely involved during the cooking process by gathering the ingredients and cleaning up together. Arihant’s family divide their work and for Kirti too, cooking has become a team effort, where her sister would prep, she would cook and her brother-in-law would do the dishes.

Cooking more now:
Working from home gives Kein some extra time and he has been cooking much more frequently than before. Arihant makes at least one meal of the day. Kirti makes 2 meals of the day and incorporates more of fruits, home-made juices for proper intake of Vitamin C. Bhakti has found happiness in cooking for herself as it makes her feel special.

Street food eating habits:
Kein believes that making food at home would definitely decrease the street food eating but once in a while, he’ll definitely have it. Arihant believes that he has attempted making food with so much of passion, utmost hygiene, and with minimum expenditure, that he might prefer home-made food. Kirti also decides on reducing her intake of outside food to ensure safety and precautions. She might not re-hire her cook but would definitely eat out because of her love for outside food.

Cooking is an important task and after the lockdown, it’ll be extremely important for people to be able to feed themselves. Lockdown has brought the families closer and made cooking a merry activity and it’s actually interesting to see that everyone has dedicated a few hours of their day to cooking.
The restaurant and cafes might open up again, but being able to cook those delicious food items at a minimum budget sounds like a safe plan.