Slow roast chicken for the soul

On Wednesday evening as I began to carve the cornfed chicken Id purchased on Easter Sunday but didnt make then because I already had a spread resembling half a feast I struggled to repress the feeling of pride that had welled up inside meMany home cooks are daunted by the prospect of making a whole roast chicken in an oven Me I do it as part of my elegant routine of daily household chores as if I were simply toasting bread I allowed the chicken to defrost then left it in the fridgeThe next day I made a quick marinade using an olive oil base into which I spooned some gingergarlic paste balsamic vinegar Kashundi Bengali mustard the juice of one orange finally seasoning it with salt and pepper I massaged it over the chicken rubbing it into the skinThen I took the remains of the squeezed orange soaked it in the marinade and used it as a stuffing so the insides would be moist even while it was baking I left the chicken to marinate for almost two days On Wednesday I took it out around 630 pm preheated the oven then stuck it in controlled the temperature by relying on my intuition and continued with my packing while it cooked occasionally returning to the kitchen to check on it at intervals rubbing butter over and under the skin so I could get a satisfying glaze When I bit into the flesh later I was amazed by the warm orangebalsamicgingergarlic flavour that had seeped in so delicately and unassuminglyIve roasted many chickens in my lifetime But Wednesday evenings success inspired me to rethink my relationship with cooking For almost 10 years Ive been decidedly sure that the source of my most ultimate joy comes from the process of writing But of late because Ive been spending more time than usual in my kitchen experimenting with flavours playing around with recipes Ive found that Im more at peace there than anywhere else in the world Its almost as if it had become a studio space into which I carry everything I experience in the world within and beyond my apartmenthellip small instances of flavouring I saw on a television show a tip from a friend about plating memories of having savoured something profoundly tasty or encounters with strangers at butcher shops and ensuing anecdotes about tweaked recipesBecause Ive been feeling so burnt out by the sheer volume of freelance writing I have to do to earn my livelihood I began to wonder if it wasnt time to finally make the switch and derive my financial sustenance through the act of feedingCooking has been a part of my discipline I have many single friends who dont quite feel the same because theyre unable to wrestle with the idea of cooking solely for themselvesIve been trying really hard to dismantle this reluctance of theirs Their main qualm is that they are unable to accommodate cooking into their daily routines because by the time they return from work they feel too exhausted and cannot muster the energy required to play with ingredientsWhile making my third loaf of sourdough in a threeday span it struck me that the fundamental flaw is in how we have conditioned ourselves to conceive of our time as not quite belonging to us When you actively decide to be a home cook especially if you live independently you have to allow yourself to commit to a different notion of time You have to find ways to synthesize your work routine with your cooking routine In my opinion the best way to do it is to allow both to envelop each otherIts really not as complex as we make it out to beThe ability to feed oneself well and selfishly is one of the best virtues we can practice as single women If we allow ourselves to engage in it as if it were a discipline we might begin to allow ourselves to be transformed by the practice of it It is a strange irony that in this Netflix era we watch more cooking shows than ever before but dont really wrestle with ingredients in very meaningful ways Were we to put food at the centre of our lives it would immediately make us political beings because we would inevitably evolve a greater consciousness about the source of our ingredients the ethics of feeding and the very real problem of hunger and starvationMore importantly we would learn so much about deriving validation not from people but from ourselves while also allowing ourselves to be transformed and not defeated by occasional failuresAs single women we have the luxury of placing ourselves as the primary consumers of our own cooking If nothing else home cooking teaches us how you cannot truly feed anyone else unless you first learn to feed yourself daily because to do so is to allow for a radical degree of selfloveDeliberating on the life and times of Everywoman Rosalyn DMello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover She tweets RosaParx Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new 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