“Amina, yanh ao!”

What is wrong with this woman? She wants me to go over there? 

“Jaldi se!”

Quickly? Okay, okay. Ten seconds to rinse my hands, 20 to the family room and…five full minutes to hear what she has to say? No, this is impossible.

As I’m standing there, trying to figure out how to stir my frying onions in the kitchen before inevitably receiving instructions from my mother in the family room, the fragrant cloud enveloping me turns suddenly bitter. I look down. What was a golden glowing nest a moment ago is now a charred tangle of slop.

Ruined. Again.

Read more: Cooking With My Pakistani Mother…And Losing