Chitra Ramswamy: ‘Anyone lucky enough to have a job will know the feeling of dread at the evil looming over the horizon (otherwise known as Monday)’

For me, it's about rice. White and starchy, bubbling on the hob until the water is sucked up by thirsty little grains. What's left is mixed with ghee and pickle, then scoffed down in miniature steaming pyramids piled on to a tablespoon. A memory that I can recall any time with two handfuls of basmati and the twist of a knob. Then, here it is ... the whistling pressure cooker, condensation on the windows, Radio 4 playing and Ma Ramaswamy in the kitchen. A cuddle in a bowl. Pure comfort food.

It's Sunday night and I’m suffering from the Sunday terrors. Anyone lucky enough to have a job will know what I'm talking about. The feeling of dread at the evil looming over the horizon (otherwise known as Monday). The strange and terrible fear of Antiques Roadshow (it should use the Jaws theme tune and be done with it). The irrepressible need to watch anything directed by Julian Fellowes. There is only one cure. And so I head to the kitchen.

We don't celebrate comfort food enough. We're too busy angsting over where our cuisine comes from, how much saturated fat it contains, how Michel Roux would rate it and how much it costs. But what about the magical powers of tea and toast in a crisis? Or the way basting a chicken can be elevated into an act of love? Or the ability of a vat of bolognaise puttering on the stove to resolve an argument? Even the A-listers were at it at the Oscars, sinking their capped teeth into chicken pot pie, pizza and macaroni cheese at the post-ceremony dinner. OK, so the baked tatties were wrapped in gold and stuffed with caviar, but you get my drift. If it's good enough for Brangelina, I'll have mine with beans and cheese.

Comfort food should be big, easy and a bit naughty, the kind of fare you don't want your partner to know you eat until at least a year after they have said, “I love you". My rules are as follows. There should be a cavalier attitude towards cutlery. It should be eaten in front of the telly. You should spill some down your front, or at least make the buttons of the remote greasy. Why choose between ketchup and brown when you can have both? And finally, if in doubt, grate cheese.

Growing up, my comfort foods – usually Indian, usually vegetarian – seemed vastly different to everyone else's in the world (apart from India, which was too far away to matter). Going to a friend's house for tea was terrifying. The sight of a fish finger sandwich struck fear into my very heart. Peas rolling around a plate seemed pitifully orphaned of spices. I chewed and swallowed and dreamt of dosas.

Then I tried macaroni cheese for the first time. It was nothing short of a revelation – a rite of passage into the rich, padded world of British comfort food eating. The following day, I bragged about my inauguration to Ma Ramaswamy, who – being a kind of Heston Blumenthal in a sari – saw an opportunity. I was dispatched to the sofa. She headed for the kitchen.

A little while later, a bowl of macaroni cheese arrived. It was a suspicious shade of red. “It's supposed to be more yellowy," I noted. Ma R looked unperturbed. “It was," she said. “But it looked a bit bland so I put chilli powder in it." And that, people, is how east and west collided and macaroni chilli cheese made it on to my list of comfort foods.