Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Sweet tooth

I have this crazy sweet tooth... teeth really... Being a Bong might have just added to it marginally... Give me sugar and I will eat, rather give me anything with half a spoon sugar in it and I will find the sweetness in it.. That's where the Bong bit kicks in, don't know too many non-Bongs who like Sandesh.. the one with Jaggery is mind-blowingly brilliant.
Anyways given that kind of love for sweetness, it would hard for me to judge how good a dessert is... but I will be your friend for life if you treat me to it and believe me that's no trifle!

The place that really taught me to distinguish between rubBle and ruble was Spoonful of Sugar, not Soviet Union... Russia added immensely to my childhood in the form of fairy tales, Perelman's experiments, Misha and pen friends... also the crazy cultural shows that basically dealt with acrobatics they called dance!
Digressing comes naturally to me as you can see :-)... You should really taste a slice of their Banoffee cake and then you would know what they mean by just right... the right amount of sweetness... wow, I really never imagined a measure like that.. how can too much be bad, too little I can still understand. Well you have to be an Indian to relish too much sweetness. Try our jalebis, jamuns and the like.  Anyways that Sugar place did it for me... I really can't eat anything sweet without playing the critique..

Oh there is a section I dont really relish, fresh fruits and cream... absolutely off my list... I can't deal with cream, though fresh strawberries and cream are a vision to the mind... Hate cakes with cream for instance... But then chocolate is my first and only love. Once in a while though I admit, a good whipping is all the cream needs... must try some of that turkish dessert recipes that come on tv... whipped cream, orange juice, egg and sugar, a pinch of salt... maybe a trace of vanilla.

Salt reminds of my first black forest cake. It came out salty like it truly should but hard as a cricket ball... All thanks to the power cuts that day and the fact that I moved it from upstairs to downstairs playing with the phases of KEB. Everybody actually finished it, maybe most of it was eaten by me :-)

One of these days I am going to sign up for these baking classes I have been meaning to go for a very long time and bake me those delicious marvels I can only dream of tonight!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Winter

I don't know if I would hate it if I had to bear with severe winters every year of my life. I mean the West had to conjure a cheerful Santa and use up all the white, green and red. But today when I get a glimpse of its severity when I travel once in a while and at home where I get pampered by its moderation..I can't help but romanticize it. The nip in the air, the fog at dawn and the other at dusk, the many reasons to celebrate, the right setting for a nightcap, all of it makes winter especially in December  the most favorite part of the year. Among the thousand reasons.. my beloved's b'day, b'days of other friends - mostly his, my parent's wedding anniversary, Christmas parties and numerous others without a specific reason.

Winter bites, makes me feel alive even in my most dead moment. Have lost myself in the snow one winter, so much so that another round of losing myself I would have died of frost bite or something... but the adventure it gave me, the chill through my spine was all worth it... The numbing, the moment just before the point of no return, hmm is quite a high!

It brings out the vagabond in me, not that I am not otherwise, but I understand why the Saggis seem to be born with wanderlust... give me my day and I would be walking the streets of my city from dawn to dusk, finding unknowns, chatting up strangers, reading withered old forgotten books, downing Suleimanis,beer and wine, stuffing my face with chocolate, cuddling up with my man, pampering my boy, rustling up gourmet every night .. well almost :-)

And then the year end and start bit.. one night of super madness, promises, dancing....
Lets see how this year ends. For now though let me have my moment, with Mr Winter