My saga of epic cooking fails stretches back a couple of decades. Back then, I was a bachelor stationed at a remote post in the Himalayas, unskilled in the ways of the kitchen. Among the five-member staff was a cooka boy still in his late teenswho knew as little about cooking as I did. I never insisted he learn, leaving the daunting task of feeding myself squarely in my hands. The kitchen was sparsely equipped, and my first attempt at cooking was to make rice in a pressure cooker. What could go wrong, right? Turns out, a lot. There’s a simple way to measure how much water to add when cooking rice: for pricier brands like Basmati, it’s one inch of water above the rice level; for cheaper local varieties, double that. I had no clue about these ratios back then. The result? A near disasterthe cooker almost exploded, and… My saga of epic cooking fails