31.3.11

The bite of the new

It feels awful. When things change, they can be so difficult. I have always been resisting change I guess but there are times when you just have to give into it and sit back and watch it allpanning before your eyes. And if things work out, then the going gets good. And if doesn't, I pack my bags. What is it going to be -- I wonder.

22.3.11

O Walt Whitman!

"Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?"

The Have Tos

It is good to have less work to do once in a while. For example, sit and browse through blogs – blogs that talk about random stuff really, spout out quotes, recipes, fashion updates or put out individual pieces of life for you to share.

In doing so, I am re-discovering old passions that I have to rekindle.

The first thing I do next month is go and buy myself an oven. I have to, have to start baking. There is a rare joy in blending batter, tasting it raw, savouring the buttery flavour and then watching all of it swell to perfection in the warm insides of the oven. Baking eggs. Or grilling a piece of fish in lemon and butter and herbs. Oooh I am so kicked about it.

It’s been ages I have danced. Maybe it is time to re-join my jazz classes. And this time around maybe – just maybe – I could execute the most perfect pirouettes and those painful looking splits.

Spanish. I have to learn it. Love it somehow because of the simplicity with which I could pick it up from random online classes with a voice called Maria.

On another note, I have to build on my sari wardrobe it seems. Practically everyone around me is getting married and the only good sari I have is the one I bought for my own wedding. It is a beautiful mustard colour Benarasi sari with paisley motifs. I do not know if I will get to save it up for my own. The thought of it never fails to make me wistful, even though I know I shouldn’t dwell upon it.

Destiny is funny. I do believe in it. Because at times there is no way you can push things. They just happen or they do not.

But in the meantime, you just strive. Strive to find happiness in the small things in life and dream that one day you shall have it all.

As a Chinese proverb says: "If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come."

21.3.11

That Icing On the Cake


A little note: This is not a love post. It’s time to lay them to rest awhile.

No, this is an ode to my abiding passion for cupcakes. Cupcakes that have been my comfort food ever since I stepped inside that most luscious bakery called Theobroma. When I first laid my eyes on them after a long day of sauntering around Pali Hill, they made me think, “Oh look, food for the fairies!”

There they were, these pretty little things with delicate, sugar sprinkles on them.

Unable to resist their charm, my friend S and I quickly chose a cupcake from beneath a glass cover with great anticipation. My first spoon of it happened to be of the portion peeking beyond the icing ( You see, I am deadly scared of stiff, sweet icing. You could kill my appetite with them, even if it calls for a teeny weeny bite).

“Give it a try, come on!” said S. After some convincing, I gingerly bit into the icing.

It was love at first bite, yes. And what a pure, delightful love it was. It was the kind of flavour, a perfect mix of the salty and the sweet, that had also made me fall in love with caramel popcorn at once at a cutesy popcorn stall in Disney Land. The icing was made of salted butter -- it was most decidely not your run-of-the-mill unsalted buttercream icing.

Now I cannot eat just any cupcake. I have tried my fill of an array of them out there. In malls, niche bakers, bakery shops...

But today ND, my coffee-and-what’s-happening-with-our-lives-yapping companion (we go out for a cuppa cappuccino almost every day), called me from outside office. She had baked a batch of cupcakes.


My input had been that she use only salted butter for the cupcake icing. And guess what, it was the cupcake I had been lusting for all this time! It was perfection as I sunk my teeth into the tiny little round thing with the pale white icing, topped off by a gazillion colourful sprinkles.

And even though ND has promised me another batch tomorrow, I cannot wait to get my very own oven. To start baking.

So here’s to dreams of fluffy white icing and buttery doughs!