In search of Jeeves...or Anatole...or any plain genuine cook

A fairly depressing week came to an end, not a day too soon in my view. These preventive medical checks spook me out frankly…its an eerie experience where doctors gang up and spring sinister sounding “diseases” on unsuspecting patients. I thought I was in the pink of health till this fang-wrencher peers into my mouth and shakes his head and says its high time he mangles a molar. The ECG guy assumed I was a chain smoker, given my heart rate kinda jumps over the top at a particular point in the graph. And the ultrasound doc said my liver looked like it was buckling under a deluge of alcohol – as if I drink like a fish. I still need to see the head honcho - the doctor who'll put it all together and give me the complete story, but I've lost hope that these blokes bring good news.

Atrocious, given that I don’t smoke at all; and drink once in a blue moon. When I say blue moon – I mean once in 6 months, which is fairly blue moonish by even the most strident standards. And I think any normal liver had better take that in its stride.

I just discovered that there’s a drink called ABSINTHE from Discovery Travel & Living’s “Not Your Average Travel Guide” serial (Anthony Bourdain) and I decided right away that sampling it ONCE looks well in order, since it's highly alcoholic and delivers that knock out effect much earlier than the stiffest of whiskies. As mentioned before, I’m not a compulsive drinker but I believe everything needs to be experienced at least once in life. I read an article about the Virgin Group’s boss Sir Richard Branson running riot on an airplane with activities I’d rather not sully my blog with (when he was 17 or 18 years old) and I don’t think its excessive. One needs to do stuff like that to spice up life – at least once in a lifetime. And it’s disappointing when a liver groans prematurely.

I think its time to launch a multi pronged attack to get back to being healthy and add some much needed mass: First, a cook, to stop me haunting my office canteen on weekdays and vague joints over the weekends. The problem really is finding these blokes….a friend dismissed the idea of googling for cooks. I still tried google for "cooks in Delhi" because I’m an incurable believer in its ability to throw up the right answers, but it threw up doubtful stories about a woman falling in love with a cook, another cook who burgled a house, and a third cook who was arrested for some other heinous act. Looks like cooks are a violent lot, which isn’t the most helpful beginning on which to begin a hunt. This friend instead suggested discreetly speaking to chefs in hotels – an idea I don’t entirely subscribe to, because I can’t imagine hotel owners looking on benignly at open solicitation of their star chefs. But I’m still determined that other methods exist.

The circle of women I know – and when I say women, I mean “Aunty” kind of women who have a couple of kids and run a household - is limited to my own houseowner’s wife. I’m hopeful she’ll find me a cook, and not somebody who can clean up the house and cook too. I like to think my food is being prepared by an extremely hygienic person and I can’t see a maid servant double up into a cook.

My search continues….I wish Jeeves existed in real life. I’d buy him till the last penny I had. Or Anatole, who was Gods Gift to the Gastric Juices – where ever has this species vanished?