Two Cooks, One Skull
A Classically Trained Chef Learns Ayurveda. Chaos Ensues — At First.
Namaste and bonjour!
For years there was only one person in my kitchen. Then I studied Ayurveda and another cook moved in.
She has opinions.
Let’s call her Sattva. It means balance in Sanskrit, which feels a little aspirational some days.
Now there are two of us sharing one body, one stove, and approximately three feet of counter space.
𑁍 𑁍 𑁍
Chef Me is classically trained (which is just a fancy way of saying that when I went to cooking school, the focus was on French technique). She has been cooking for decades, long before Ayurveda was even a word in her vocabulary. She believes in mise en place, she can tell you the difference between a brunoise and a chiffonade without thinking, and she believes dinner should show up on time.
Sattva is the newer one in the kitchen — less than five years in. She studied hard, asks a lot of questions, and has strong opinions about intention when cooking.
The two get along well enough. Mostly.
What follows are three scenes from my kitchen—dispatches from an ongoing negotiation.
Vignette 1: The Question
I’ve been eating a lot of khichari lately.
I make it several different ways, ranging from simple to even simpler. Lentils and rice in varying ratios, whatever vegetables seem appropriate, spices that feel right for the day.
And every time I make it, I have the same thought — this is awfully close to risotto.
I know there’s an uppity chef somewhere reaching for a cleaver.
I can’t help it.
There is real cognitive dissonance in that thought because I do love what classical training gave me. The technique, the clarity, the logic of it.
Take risotto.
What some might call a nakhra dish — a Hindi word for fussy, precious, a bit of a production — I find almost meditative.
Sweat the onions low and slow.
Add the short-grain rice and toast it until it deepens a shade or two.
Ladle in hot stock, stir, let the rice drink it up, repeat.
Risotto reputation says don’t walk away.
Experience says you can, a little.
Finish with butter or cheese, fold rather than stir, taste, adjust.
Done.
The variations feel like creativity.
Mushroom or asparagus?
Chicken stock or vegetable?
A splash of wine or not?
A hundred directions and all of them feel like play.
𑁍 𑁍 𑁍
Khichari has its variations too.
The type of lentil.
The ratio of rice to dal.
Whether vegetables go in early or late.
How much water? Depends on the consistency I am going for.
But those choices don’t feel like play to me.
They feel like questions I have to answer before I even turn on the flame.
What is this khichari for?
Is it to soothe a stomach that’s been upset?
Is it because something in the body feels depleted and needs nourishment?
Or is it simply because I want it?
No medicinal agenda.
No dosha to balance.
No virtue involved whatsoever.
Just the particular comfort of rice and lentils cooking together in a pot.
With risotto, I just cook. The cooking is the whole story.
With khichari, I must know why before I begin.
The intention isn’t incidental. In Ayurveda, it is part of the recipe.
And I find this both beautiful and a tad intimidating.
Sometimes you just want dinner.
I haven’t resolved the tension between Chef and Sattva yet.
One pot gets finished with ghee.
The other starts with clarified butter.
They are not the same thing.
And yet here I am, stirring both.
Vignette 2: The Argument
(My kitchen. Late afternoon.)
Sattva has decided to make khichari. Again!
Chef Me has decided to help, which is not the same thing as being asked.
Chef: What are you making?
Sattva: I’m thinking of making khichari.
Chef: Okay, let’s do it. I’ll be your sous chef. Tell me what you need for mise en place.
Sattva: I don’t know yet.
Chef: You don’t know?
Sattva: No.
Chef: But we’re cooking.
Sattva: Yes.
Chef: And you don’t know what you’re cooking?
Sattva: I know what I’m cooking. I just don’t know exactly what it wants to be yet.
Chef: That sounds exhausting.
Sattva: Not really. But you sure can be.
(A pause.)
Chef surveys the counter.
Sattva stands still, eyes closed, taking a deep breath in, which Chef finds deeply impractical.
Chef: So. Lentils. Which ones?
Sattva: It depends.
Chef: On what?
Sattva: On how I’m feeling. On what the body needs. On what the season is asking for.
Chef: (after a moment) The season is asking for mung dal or mung dal.
Sattva: You’re doing it again.
Chef: What?
Sattva: Rushing me. Technique-ing me. This isn’t a restaurant.
There’s no ticket.
Nobody is waiting.
Chef: There is always a ticket. That is a life philosophy.
(A pause.)
Chef begins organizing spices alphabetically, which nobody asked her to do.
Sattva: I need you to be calm while I cook this. The energy in the kitchen affects the taste of the food. The state of the cook matters.
Chef: The body can have feelings after dinner.
Sattva: The body is having feelings now.
Chef: That sounds inefficient.
Sattva: It is not.
Chef: The state of the cook matters when the cook isn’t trained. After that, the hands take over.
(Another pause.)
Sattva looks at the pot.
Chef looks at Sattva.
Something shifts.
Sattva: I think I need to do this alone.
Chef: You’re throwing me out of the kitchen?
Sattva: I’m asking you to wait outside the kitchen.
Chef: That’s the same thing.
Sattva: Yes. It is. Go.
Chef leaves.
The kitchen quietens.
Sattva fills a bowl with rice and lentils and begins washing them—several changes of water, patiently, until the water runs clear.
There is no timer.
There is no ticket.
The ghee goes in warm and fragrant.
She stirs without urgency.
This is not a recipe.
This is something else.
Outside the kitchen, Chef pours herself a glass of wine.
Vignette 3: The Proof
(Client's Kitchen. 4:45 pm. A seated, plated dinner for four, guests arriving at 7:30. Mushroom risotto.)
Chef has been here before. Hundreds of times.
Professional kitchens. Client kitchens. Every kitchen in between.
Sattva has been asked not to participate tonight.
She has obliged. Mostly.
The stock is already hot and simmering on the back burner.
Onions go into butter and oil, low flame, no rushing—not because anyone told Chef to be patient, but because she knows what onions need.
Salt goes in early to help the onions break down easily.
The rice gets toasted until it turns a shade she recognizes rather than one she could describe.
Then the wine. A splash. Hear it hiss. Let it evaporate.
Then the stock begins, one ladle at a time.
At 5:12 PM, Sattva briefly wonders whether mushrooms are grounding enough for late spring and is immediately escorted out.
Chef tastes constantly. Adjusts seasoning.
Turns the heat up, then down, then up again.
Listening to the pot the way you listen to a conversation you’ve had so many times you know all the words.
At 6:45 PM she tastes a small spoonful.
Closes her eyes. Adds another couple grinds of black pepper.
A knob of cold butter folded in at the end—not stirred, folded.
The rice is yielding but not resigned.
At the parmesan stage, Sattva clears her throat about dairy at this hour and is politely ignored.
At 7:28 PM the risotto is walked into the dining room.
Hot. Glossy. Exactly what it was supposed to be.
The guests eat. The client is happy.
Nobody’s dosha was consulted.
Nobody’s agni was tended to.
And yet everyone leaves nourished.
𑁍 𑁍 𑁍
Chef stands in the kitchen afterward with a clean apron and feels uncomplicatedly satisfied.
This is also a kind of nourishment, she thinks.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Some nights the chef cooks.
Some nights Sattva takes over.
Most evenings they negotiate.
Dinner still appears.
Perhaps this is what happens when you spend twenty-five years learning how to cook and then discover another tradition that insists on asking why.
The food still gets made.
The conversation is simply louder now.
Every kitchen has a negotiation going on. I’d love to know what yours sounds like.
Thanks for reading,
I love this conversation between Chef and Sattva. For me, enter not Chef but Life Partner who gets bewildered by watching me consulting my body.
Love this. Something similar in my household although between me and my children. They want me to cook the old favourites I used to cook for them, I want to feed them heavily veg based foods.