About me:
Hi, Hello and Namaskar!!! Welcome to my kitchen, easysteps2cook. Easysteps2cook is my recipe blog, just like my another kid. Yes, another kid. I am Sumana De Mallick, blessed with a baby girl, Sharini, just three years old now. Actually easysteps2cook is now our family member.
I am born and brought up in West Bengal and was a student of Bengali literature. Like many other girls of my generation, I did not cook much before marriage. But I was not scared of it also. After marriage, I was away from my native and as well as elder family members. So I did not get a chance learn cooking from my mom or mother in law. So for me, cooking started as a necessity but slowly I started enjoying it. And now cooking has become my passion. Cooking gives a freshness and kitchen is one of my favorite place. Cooking is fun. Actually, I believe kitchen is a laboratory and cooking is chemistry.
How I conceived the idea of blogging about recipes:
After marriage when I started cooking, I did not take too much time to be adept to the dishes normally prepared every day in Bengali households including bhat (rice), dal (lentils), macher jhal (fish curry) and amer chutney (a sweet and sour mango chutney prepared in Bengali households). To come out of the monotony of the regular dishes I started trying out varieties of other Bengali dishes and recipes from other parts of India by learning them from different cooking shows in television and internet. I started sharing the pictures in a social media popular at that time. This prompted some of my friends, who were also looking for different recipes to try out at home, asking me to send the recipes to them by mail. I mailed them some recipes.
The biggest encouragement came from Haoa Badal, a supplementary of the online version of leading Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika. One of my recipes got published in the “Apnar Rannaghor” (your kitchen) section of Haoa Badal. Not only once, my recipes were published several times in that section. At that time my husband gave me the idea of starting a blog of my own as I was already clicking photos of my dishes to publish in the social media and has written a few recipes to share with my friends via email.
What is there in my blog Easysteps2cook?
Easysteps2cook is a collection of recipes, mostly Indian, with a good number of international and fusion recipes. I am not a chef; neither do I have any professional degree/training on culinary skills. Some of the recipes I learnt from cooking shows in television, print media, internet and some are obviously over phone from my mother. Some are authentic and some are mixed with one another and from my own idea. This process of my learning is so smoothly mixed with one another that it is difficult for me to give credit to any particular person/media for any particular recipe. But what I can assure you that all the recipes that I post in my blog are all tried and tasted/tested by me at home. The photographs in this blog are also taken by me or my husband, who also helps me in publishing this blog.
Some of the recipes are so complicated when prepared in good restaurants or are historically prepared in a complicated fashion, that they are very difficult to prepare at home for lack of time and resources. But in Easysteps2cook, I have toned them down to make them suitable for home cooking. When trying to make some authentic dishes, I always want to maintain the authenticity as far as practicable. But some times it is not possible for me as some ingredients are very rare, costly or may not be available to me at that point time. So I try to replace those ingredients with the ones which are very close alternative to them. For example in some Mahashtrian and Goan dishes, kokam is used. But if I do not have Kokam at home, I use Tamarind as a close match to Kokam.
Though being a Bengali me and my family is very fond of non-vegetarian dishes, but definitely for my vegetarian friends, there are quite a few pure vegetarian dishes, to help them prepare an enjoyable dinner.
Anything else:
We have recently moved to Pune in India from Hyderabd. Here I have seen a culture of giving stalls by house wives in different occasions, especially Ganesh Chaturthy and Diwali. I have also participated in that event in my society during Ganesh Chaturthy. Initially I was a bit apprehensive as I have never cooked for so many people. I prepared Gokul pithe (a traditional Bengali dessert) and fusion recipe Pasta kheer. Both were very well received. There is nothing more satisfying than the expression of happiness that I saw after so many people tasted my desserts and the words of encouragement that came in my way. The second stall was at my daughter’s school on the occasion of Diwali Mela. Here also Gokul pitheand Choco coconut laddoo was very well received. I got a few queries for cooking classes through social media and my friends in the society. So I have recently started conducting cooking classes also at my home. If anyone is interested you can get in touch with me through facebook or phone number mentioned in my facebook page.
Thanking everyone:
I would like to thank you all for stopping by my blog. If you have any comment/suggestion on the recipes or blog, please leave a comment. If you are not interested to make your communication public, send me an email. I would like to reply you all, though I might be late by a few days as you know I have to manage my home with a little kid also. Come again!!
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