A good wife, my grandmother would admonish her indolent daughters-in-law, is gifted with ingenuity, including the art of producing a meal out of nothing. I must hasten to add that this was long before the era of political correctness and no offence was intended towards women in the household.

My grandmother, in fact, was quite an emancipated woman and wielded absolute power. In her scheme of things, women were supposed to have skills and abilities far more awe-inspiring than those of men, including the skill to conjure a meal out of nothing and the ability to serve it without letting out how she managed the feat.