Strange title, Right!! Lets see why.

As I start writing, I remember the dialogue that Poo from K3G gave! (I accept I am old; I still love KJo movies.) Coming back—Poo says to herself, “How dare she look so pretty!” No, that is not my start line… but it will follow.

On a fine, exhausted evening, I asked my help to make a coffee for my husband, who dislikes it if it is made by anyone other than me. (Well, see, I am that great cook who is fancied by the members of the house. Please don’t ask for external validation; I am my own source of truth.)

I was tired, so I thought this time she would manage. Out of generosity—and years of experience dealing with creative interpretations of instructions—I placed the sugar, coffee sachets, and milk neatly in front of her so that there would be absolutely no room for experimentation.

Well, the coffee turned out to be good and he was satisfied.

At that moment, I should have known life was setting me up.

Now enters the fish.

After my cook leaves, I enter the kitchen all set to prepare Fish fry and curry. (Again complacency and reservation that I am a great chef and this feeling does not let anyone else cook the fish or any special dishes.) Well, there were two types of fish—a Pomfret fry for the starter sort and the famous Bengali favourite, Tangra. (Well, see, I have less vocabulary now!!! And I don’t shy away from this. A Bengali discussing fish is generally too emotionally involved to worry about vocabulary anyway.)

With lots of love, masala, ginger-garlic paste, salt, turmeric, chilli powder, and rava, I marinate the pomfrets. While they are getting coated, I start with the tangra. With salt, turmeric, and chilli powder, I shallow-fry them. Then I begin preparing the gravy with onions, ginger-garlic paste, masalas, and bodi (Bengali-style dried lentil dumplings).

In parallel, I start frying the pomfrets too on a low flame. The aroma spreads through the house like a marketing campaign with an unlimited budget. There is eagerness in the eyes of two Homo sapiens whose hunger pangs intensify with every breath. One keeps casually walking into the kitchen every three minutes asking, “Almost done?”—the universal call of a hungry husband.

Everything is going perfectly.

Which, as every experienced cook knows, is usually a warning sign.

As I am almost in the last phase, here enters the villain to destroy the evening.

Wondering what it is??

To introduce the villain, I go back to where I left off.

I taste the gravy and find it strange that the salt is less. I sprinkle some more.

Nah!!

Still not working.

I add a little more.

Nothing.

At this point, my confidence starts leaving my body faster than my salary after a visit to the supermarket.

I wonder what happened.

I taste the salt.

And—Voila!!

It’s sweet.

Not slightly sweet.

Not “maybe I am imagining things” sweet.

It is sweet enough to qualify as a dessert ingredient.

So here’s the villain.

The “sugar” that I generously placed in front of my cook to put in the coffee is now sitting proudly inside the salt jar because she thought it was salt and needed to be topped up, as the actual salt was going to get over in a few days.

A noble intention.

A catastrophic execution.

Now, why did I start with Poo’s dialogue?

Because the humble ₹25 salt is looks as beautiful as the ₹1300 Monk Fruit Sweetner. The salt was looking so attractive that evening that the Monk Fruit Sweetener decided to copy its entire personality and infiltrate a Bengali fish curry.

The fish, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea that it was preparing for a crossover episode between MasterChef and Crime Patrol.

I leave it to you, my dear readers, to guess what happened to the dinner that night.

Let me just say this: two hungry Homo sapiens, one devastated confused chef, and a fish curry that was spiritually committed to becoming kheer met at the dining table that evening.