A novice cooking maestro : myself :P

Well, I am not very ashamed of praising myself, often and in public, with respect to my cooking skills. Probably this post is just another aspect of same thing.
The first time I had tried my hands on cooking was probably in 2nd std, when i had tried to "boil" a Maggie for myself. Since then there has been no looking back, and I continued to augment my cooking skills till my 12th std. Then it was a 4 years of looong break, when I joined college. After college, I again had a chance to try out my skills in the kitchen. Specifically last one and a half year has been a real enriching experience with respect to my cooking skills. I have graduated from a 'basic cook' to an 'advanced cook', thanks to all the cooking which I do for my dinner and weekend "feasts".
Be it cooking capsicum with potatoes with a complimentary cauliflower added or spicing the regular dal tadka with a couple of bay leaves and mustard seeds or frying the marinated chicken breast at the right flame, I love cooking all the stuff available in any regular Food-World store. No doubt there have been minor "mishaps" in the kitchen ( the worst being, when i forgot to put rice in the rice cooker, and the water continued to boil for one full hour, while I was cooking the most exotic stuff ;) ) , but all those can be compensated when you relish your own cooked food.
Tomatoes and onions when chopped in the right proportion and then fried with zeera and the dried red chillies, have the potentional to make even the most boring vegetable taste good. For example, how many of us like Karela (bitter gourd)... Atleast, I didn't like it and I would dread at the thoght of having it as a main "sabzi" for my dinner. But then, oflate I have realised that Karela doesn't taste as bad as it looks. You just need to pamper it little bit during cooking and then you can have a fantastic dish (which not only tastes good, but has lot of medicinal properties also). Just sprinkle some salt on the peeled Karela and keep it vertically down for some 15 -20 mins. Wash it off, stuff it with some mashed potatoes, tie a thread over it, and then deep fry it for 12-15 mins. Once fried, remove the thread and cut it into small pieces and soak it in a gravy of Onion, tomato, ginger, garlic along with tamarind , red chilly and garam masala (and ofcourse salt too :)).... I bet, it will be "finger licking tasty" ;)
Ofcourse, many of my friends have regularly complained that I dont invite them for the demo of my cooking skills, but that s mainly because of the lack of sitting space in my small rented 1BHK :P
And, I strongly feel that all of us should try out cooking in their respective places. I feel that cooking is a life's basic skill and surely not a difficult art to master at.
Hope this post gives all u guys a reason to cook and celebrate your life every day ;)