I never cooked anything beyond instant noodles till I was about 30 years old. I did try at a younger age, but I managed to mix up cooking oil and lemon cordial. Don’t ask me how. All I remember was the confusion I got when the ‘oil’ turned sticky.

Later on in life, I gave cooking another shot, opting for fried rice this time. Again, I managed to screw that up by getting everything to stick to the pan. A non-stick pan.

Since then, I gave the kitchen a wide berth, thinking that cooking was reserved only for the select few who’d been blessed with the magic knowledge of spice and fire. The people who could effortlessly turn a slab of chicken meat into cordon bleu.

Then the pandemic happened.