I believe my habit of watching cooking videos was born out of my desperate attempt to fit some free time into my very busy schedule. The cooking videos are short enough that I finish watching them, but also dull enough that I stop watching them when needed. The only problem being that they leave me hungry. Often at inopportune times.
That being said, as of 2:15 am right now, I decided to record how long I can watch food-only videos, without ordering/cooking food outside of my regular diet. To make matters awkward, when I say diary, I mean write an article about my pathetic attempt.
Day 1– I am more than my appetite
When watching these videos, I focus on other aspects of the videos first. For example, how clean the kitchen is in the video, to distract me from the actual food. I even went so far as to be inspired to clean my own room in the middle of the night. My mother was very happy to see how clean my room was in the morning. She even made me fried chicken when I came home from work that day as a thank you. Did the chicken help quell my innate need to order food? Not really. Did I try to imagine that chicken was the food I craved? None of your business.
Day 2 – Review my finances
Miraculously, despite the similar cooking videos, I still wasn’t bored. Instead, my appetite increased. So, being the responsible adult that I am, I decided to prove to myself that I was already over budget this month, and therefore couldn’t order food. Going through my finances, I realized that I had fifteen taka under my belt. Because now that would mean I have to browse the internet to see if I can buy something for fifteen taka.
Day 3 – Completely forget about videos
My quest to find food worth ten taka took almost half my day (I decided to save five taka for later). Having accepted defeat, I finally gave up and bought a bag of crisps from the nearest store. I then suddenly remembered what the main purpose of this quest was and went straight back to cooking videos on Youtube.
Day 4 – Cooking attempt
Who needs to order food when you can just cook it yourself? After browsing through thousands of Youtube videos, preparing all my cooking utensils and ingredients, I then asked my sister to cook for me, because all I wanted was easy food without any effort to make on my side, only to be rejected. Why do things have to be so complicated?
Day 5 – Convincing myself that I don’t need it
Different cuisines correspond to different palettes. What if the food I see is not compatible with my palettes? I would be wasting my hard earned money. It would be much wiser to stick to the flavors I know, and who am I kidding?
Day 6 – Order
I have no regrets. One hundred percent worth it. But I will never repeat this again because I am once again over budget in terms of expenses, and now I owe money to a loan shark. Maybe I should adopt a life of crime. This is the kind of profession that could actually fund this lifestyle.
Bushra Zaman loves books, art and is only contacted by email. Contact her at [email protected]
