I have my reasons!

l love being lazy but hate to admit it. I'll come up with the best excuses for why I don't do what I am supposed to do. And you'll believe them. You better.

I haven't come to this blog in months and this is why (actually there's more than just one excuse):

1. Theo - our Golden Retriever puppy that we brought home on New Year's Day, when he was 8 weeks old. He's very lucky he is cute, because he gets away with a ton of mischief. I mean, how can you say "Time Out" to this face?
Theo has spunk, personality and is what keeps me busy all day. I need to watch him all day and my spa moment in the day is the One hour he is willing to sit inside his crate while I watch the Housewives (never mind which city they are from).

2. Chocolate and More - If Theo keeps me on my toes all day, Chocolate and More keeps me up all night. My passion for desserts - eating and preparing, all comes together in this one package. I plan on preparing chocolate, cakes, and more for myself and others. I spend sleepless nights thinking of how my next dessert would be different. I now completely understand the difference between an idea in my head (which may be great) and execution (which may not be great).

But, I now have a Chocolate and More website that shows what I can do and this means I am my own boss. Yay!

This also means I worry about why I haven't had a hit on my website today or why no one has responded to my Facebook update or why no one else (other than friends and family) have signed up for my class.

Stress level - high
Theo's energy level - very high

An Aahaa moment!

Aren't there times in life that you wished you knew the answer to the one question that kept haunting you often? Just the "Damn, I NEED to find out" feeling?

And? How did it feel when you found your answer? Ecstatic? Disappointed? Mmeh?
Or, did you scream, "Hey! I already knew that!"?

I had an ecstatic moment the other day. I'm usually in my Zen mode when I'm cooking. I will mildly smile as I work with desserts. Am positively happy when I work with chocolate (at home and at work), and was absolutely thrilled to learn this technique of printing pretty patterns on dipped chocolate truffles!

Hence, I can make these! Super Yay!

Yes, I eat salads too!

When it comes to salads, well, I basically hate salads. Except when it has crisp apples, some candied walnuts and a good helping of Gorgonzola thrown in. But today I made a huge bowl of salad that I cannot stop eating. It's so good, I feel like I'm eating ice cream, or chocolate, or both. That guilty.

So what did it have? Asparagus, garlic, red onion, red pepper flakes, sea salt, cracked black pepper and olive oil. Use tender asparagus and trim their ends (basically bend the fat end, and when it snaps - that's how much you trim off the entire bundle). Mince a clove of garlic. Shave a quarter of a red onion into thin slices (yes shave it on a mandoline or slice it paper thin. This is important). This is your 'mise en place' - everything in place for your salad. Oh, also preheat your oven to 375F.

On a sheet tray, arrange the trimmed asparagus to form a single layer. Sprinkle some olive oil to coat the asparagus and to ensure all the seasonings stick. Add the garlic, onions and all the seasonings. Use your fingers to toss everything together and again, arrange the asparagus to form a single layer. The onions and garlic will hide between, over and under the asparagus and that's just how you want it to be.

Then place the tray in the oven and wait for 10-15 minutes. It should be done in 10 minutes. I let it go to 15 and the slightly over cooked asparagus was tender and creamy as I bit into them. And the 15 minutes helped the onions brown to sweet perfection (see this is why the thin slices are important).

The salad itself doesn't look great - limp green spears and browned onion bits. It was good hot out of the oven, but great when I let it sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. Then I started eating. Picking up each spear, trying to add the onions over each for the perfect bite.


I started with about 25 asparagus spears, and then there were none.
Not really, I left 2 for boy to taste.

Picture Frames

If a picture could say a thousand words, well, then last night I probably read two hundred thousand words.

Our bare walls are dying to have some works of art. Between art that even I can understand and not having to stand upside down to read, I enjoy having art that means something to me. I have some art. Some stuff I bought @ Landmark-Chennai, and some others, gifts that people gave me for my wedding or birthday or... well just anything and nothing.

But the pictures are my favourite. Simple photographic evidences of memory. Every image standing as a testimony to who/what made me smile, grin, laugh, sulk and cry even.

Sometimes it was the Teacup ride in Florida, or the Carousel during Christmas or a confession that there was probably a rip in the photographer's boxers, or when I was caught unawares while crossing the very busy downtown roads, or when I refused to smile while at the top of the London Eye. Then there is the "just pose for a bit and continue Kayaking" one, this between the humongous calving glacier and, God knows, Beluga whales below us.

Apparently the boy and I have a signature pose. My brother in law and his wife call it the "RD pose". You know the one... where the two of you stand at an angle, like a 'V', in the hopes of appearing thinner :)

I love the pictures of when I was little. When I used to smile at the birdie without worrying about how my hair looked or if my right eye seemed bigger than my left. I love my dog's pictures. I love pictures from college and those in front of Champa. I love pictures of my work in the kitchen.

We are now working on a Wall Photo project. The many photos on a real wall kinds. And having looked back at the years gone by, we just don't know what qualifies to go on the wall.

Do some moments in life really mean more than most others? I mean, if we bothered to take a picture, doesn't it mean the moment was important at the time?

Exams

How can I study when everything around me could be distracting?

The TV - What rubbish do I not watch?
The Kitchen - Has a new batch of my favourite foods from India, and dishes to clean
The Dining Table - Has my laptop, phone, newspaper
The Laptop - Gmail, FB, TOI, and this blog
The iPhone - Gmail, FB, Scrabble, NYTimes
The Windows - Have gorgeous views of a lovely spring day
The Bedrooms - The very expensive mattresses which are very inviting
The Books - Obviously not distracting, but why not? When all I do is sit, leaf through recipes and fondly remember the sights, sounds and smells of bread making

I have to get back to studying. Really. About baguettes, about yeast, about bread flour, about Starters, about Sourdoughs, about Wholegrain...

And now I'm imagining how good it would be to spread some butter on a warm piece of toast. Damn!

Artisan Breads

I've always been a fan of bread. I knew Modern Bread even before I knew anything about Branding. The healthier version my mom recommended? The regular bread without the Tutti-Fruity bits.

I've had bread with regular butter, jam, peanut/chocolate butter, spicy tomato salsa, and yummy paneer stuff. Not so much dinner food, but definitely a breakfast and lunch item. In fact a hot Tawa-ghee toasted bread with Tomato Hot and Sweet ketchup was a regular after school snack.

I was never a big fan of the bread and olive oil combination though, even with very sad unaged Balsamic Vinegar. The only reason I wolf it down at a restaurant is because I'm really, really hungry (and then I also get to doggy pack my favourite food and have it the next day. Yay!).

So what am I doing in a three month class learning everything about artisan breads? Actually enjoying it. I love the smell of yeast. Love to see it grow - double in volume and burst out of the bucket even. I love to touch dough. Sometimes soft, sometimes wet, sometimes elastic, and sometimes too darn elastic. Roll it into a baguette and it just comes back to being a small loaf. Sometimes it looks like a pregnant snake (I know!) or just a very hungry snake that's just had a giant rat for lunch. Oh so much fun!

What is actually fun is how our chef gets us to learn. To smell, to look for signs, to taste, to try, to poke, to stretch, to falter and to hopefully succeed at the end of the course. It's like being in a very fun play area.

In this class I'm thoroughly transported to a world I do not control. The dough rules. It tells us what to do when. And we watch. The mixer takes it's time to knead. The use-your-hands-to-knead technique is pretty much the 20 count fold and 20 minute wait process repeated six times. Then the resting process. Just to keep lifting the linen to look at a monster growing below is exciting. Then there's the pre-shaping, then the resting again before the actual shaping. Then there's the proofing. And finally the wait for the brown browns of a good dark crusty bread. No golden browns here. Did I mention the many days required for a proper fermentation even before we start with the breads?

At the end of three months if I do not learn how to make great breads, I'm happy to just have had a ton of fun and to have gained a lot of patience.

Pachchaaak!!!

So some or most of you know that I have this thing for shoes right. Most or all of you also know that I fall. A Lot.

I fall down stairs, on hard wood flooring, on carpets, on the road, in restaurants, in theaters, on the badminton court, in class, in my new class... As you see, everywhere. Sometimes I trip over stones, I twist my ankle, I fall off my high heel shoes (when I manage to walk in them, I mean) and sometimes I can just be perfectly still for a while and then magically my feet will ache to fall, and then they'll ache some more.

You pretty much know what my shoe closet contains. Even when I travel, I carry all kinds of footwear. Mostly inappropriate. High heels when I have miles to walk and flat, open sandals when going into the Absolut Ice Bar. But they are all mostly pretty. Except for this one. This one ghastly clunker they call "work shoes". Hate it.



They fit weird. Bumping my toes and yet loose around the heels. The are heavy. They drag along the floor. But they are supposed to protect my feet if a knife or a huge twenty quart mixer falls on them. They have anti-skid soles that keep me from falling on my ass on the slick, oily kitchen floor in front of everyone. Ha! Keep me from falling on my ass. My ass indeed!!!

Last night. We were just finishing with all the clean up in class. All the utensils were being washed, the floors swept and mopped. My french instructor was standing very pleased. He probably had his eyes closed and enjoying the beautiful scent that was enveloping the kitchen. The beautiful smell of Bleach. Some one should really manufacture chlorine scented room fresheners and gift it to him. And then it happened. The Pachchaaak, and as my brother mildly put it, a mild earthquake too, which he felt all the way in Bangalore.

The Pachchaaak was me falling really hard on my hands and knees on the very hard cement kitchen floor. The wet floor was all dried up. I wasn't carrying anything in hand. I was standing still and then took a step. My left foot turned on it's ankle somehow. One second my hands were flying and the next I was on my palms and knees.

It was probably the loudest Pachchaaak I've heard. And it hurts.