Cooking was an ordeal once upon a time.

I have been staying by myself for over 5 years now and the thought of having to cook a meal just for myself was something i dreaded. I managed to survive on rice and boiled veggies with some soup. Instant noodles were a great change for my taste buds. But the worst of them all were those days when i would return from work too beat to even chop vegetables or boil the rice. Those days ‘oat-meal’ came to my rescue.

I mastered the art of oatmeal boiled in milk with a teaspoon of sugar and survived for days on end. The only proper meal would come from the office canteen. The tasteless grub there tasted like heaven and eventually I forgot how to cook. To give the icing to the cake, few months at home, my family spoiled me crazy and I never ventured into the kitchen save to fetch a bottle of water.

Once in Thailand, I was required to start cooking again. And this time not just one normal dish. I was supposed to cook complete meals everyday. I was at a total loss. The first few days I somehow managed with the few recipes i remembered. Though some of it was tough to swallow everyone managed to eat it with a straight face. But I knew I would soon have to do better than I was managing so far because the excuse of me being new to this place was running out.

Desperately I would call back home and ask friends and family. But that was inconvenient. Thats when I turned to Internet for help. First search, I didn’t come up with too many results. Next time, it was a little difficult to follow the orders.

During one of these search expeditions, I came across one of the best websites for cooking Bengali and Indian food. It was easy to follow and most of the ingredients were available here. I have been following it like bible. Though I am innovative now and just take ideas and implement them, but all the confidence that I was had lost while cooking oat-meal porridge has been restored by Bengali Recipes on the web.

This website is a great help for all those people like me who dont know where to start when asked to prepare a ‘bangali bhoj’. All thanks to Ms. Sutapa Ray and her insight, we have our own weapon now.