dr.melanie’s debut dinner

dr.melanie works long and hard at keeping me motivated in the headless kitchen. she oooh-s and ahhh-s seductively over the gorgeous texture and flavour of my daals and soups and thai curries, moans over the divine creaminess of my impromptu experiments with paneer, coos over the perfect way in which i assemble salad, powder pepper, boil water…and yes, she means every word of it!

but even so, there came a day some weeks ago when the doctor was cornered into taking the desperate measure of cooking dinner. this was the horrific eventuality she had dreaded and evaded ever since erica flew back to the states...the day when her favourite diet of paneer salsa wrap, pop corn and coke would begin to lose its charm, to the point where she would have to take recourse in the headless *gasp* kitchen.

setting aside her reservations regarding cooking, the doctor elected to get creative with potatoes, the comfort food classic, for her debut performance.

first, she cooked the potatoes the long way: by bubbling them in an open vessal until they were soft enough to slide a knife through.

next, she placed the boiled potatoes on a platter and coarsely quartered them with their jackets left tastefully on.

thereafter, she opened the fridge door wide and stood critically contemplating its contents for a long time. i wonder what would happen if we put some cold blobs of butter on those piping potatoes…and hmMm, some nice blobs of cheese…mmmMMMm! since the doctor is a woman of action, each piping hot potato peak was soon drowning under a gleaming deluge of melting butter and cheese. swiftly, generously, fearlessly, dr.melanie's sure hands applied the brick of cheese to the scraper.

voila! she exclaimed as the trembling mountain of cheese gently began to sweat into the steaming potatoes.

wait, wait, wait…one last thing! i exclaimed, as she handed me a fork and took one herself.

wHAttttttTTTTTTt?! the doctor snarled back at me, clearly impatient to get started on a feast well earned.

p-pepper...this needs p-pepper to make it p-p-p-perfect... i stuttered, cowering under her blazing eye.

the good doctor put down her folk, pounded the five colour malabar pepper melange, sprinkled it like confetti over the platter and stood back to survey her mouth watering masterpiece one last time before she devoured it for dinner.