Stained Glass Cookie Ornaments

All cookies call out to my inner child, but there's something special, almost magical, about stained glass cookies. I've been fascinated with them ever since I first came across the idea (and hats off to whoever came up with it!) I'd been wanting to try my hand at them for a long time, and what better occasion to do that than Christmas!

If you've never heard of stained glass cookies before, they're just regular cookies with shapes cut out from the center which is then filled in with crushed candy. As the cookie bakes, the candy melts, giving the center a glass-like effect.

You start by getting your dough ready. I used the sugar cookie recipe from Glorious Treats, enhanced with two generous tablespoons of orange zest (those would be the flecks you might spot in the cookies). While the dough is firming up in the fridge, get your candy (or lollies, as they're known in Oz) sorted out. You have to use single-coloured hard boiled sugar candies. Separate them by colour. Next comes the bashing.

Now, the way most sites tell you to do it is to place them in ziplocs, and then bash using a heavy rolling pin or mallet. However, I read a comment on one of the sites, where the candy was too hard and after multiple whacks, the ziploc tore, possibly leaving bits of plastic among the candy pieces. This is what happened with me. So I tossed that batch, and searched for an alternative. Which turned out to be close at hand - my mortar and pestle. This works equally well, and is safer than the ziploc method, especially if the candy isn't easily smashed.

Roll out the dough and cut the main shape. Then using a much smaller cutter, cut out a piece from the center. You can re-use this piece. Transfer the cookie carefully to a parchment-paper lined baking tray, and fill in the center with the smashed candy. This was the only irksome part for me in the whole process, as the candy pieces became quite sticky and spooning them in was a real challenge. This could be because it was quite humid, it might be easier in dry weather.

Anyway, here you have to be careful that no candy flecks fall on the cookie itself, as it will colour the cookie. Of course, if you're going to ice the whole cookie, it doesn't matter, go ahead and be careless! If you're planning to use these cookies as ornaments, use a straw to cut out a hole at the top. Once all your cookies are done, bake them for a shade under the stated time. Take them out as soon as they get the barest hint of brown at the edges.

The candy centers will be bubbly when you take them out, but settle down as they cool. Most places ask you to leave the cookies on the tray for 10 minutes, so that the candy has time to set. Move them too quickly, and cookie & candy will part ways. I left mine on till they were completely cool, before gingerly peeling them away from the paper. To store also, I kept them in parchment-paper lined tins.

My cookies didn't turn out perfectly, clearly glassy. Next time, I'd try bashing the candy (a different brand, definitely!) to smithereens, and then see how they turned out. Anyway, they were still a lot of fun to make. You can leave them as they are, or go nuts decorating them. I used royal icing and left them overnight to dry. Once dry, you can tie a ribbon through the hole at the top, transforming your cookie into a delicious decoration. Now, to eat, or decorate with .... tough choice!

Birthday Baking Part 2: Pooh-kies!

If there is a Tardy Blogger Award, I nominate myself for it! This one has been pending from the past few months. Here we are in December already, so I'm just going to get this done before the Christmassy posts. (New Year's resolution: blog on time!)

When my daughter turned 3 earlier this year, we'd celebrated with a Winnie-the-Pooh themed party. Along with this cake, I'd also baked sugar cookies to include in the kids' goodie bags. Now, I'm still a decorating novice; I'm nowhere as quick as I'd like to be. So given the amount of work I had to do for the party, I wanted a relatively easier way of decorating the cookies while still incorporating the theme.

The solution was simple: royal icing transfers. Royal icing is one of those brilliant things that is easy to make, and that you can create decorations with that will last indefinitely. My royal icing recipe is adapted from Sweetopia, over here. Since this makes quite a bit of icing, I scaled it down considerably so that I don't end up with too much left over. I will put up my version in a separate post (soon!)

So, about the royal icing transfers, or run-outs, as they're also called. You begin with a template of your desired shape, that you trace out quite boldly on a piece of paper. Or, to make things easier, that you print out all over a sheet of paper (so you don't have to keep moving the same piece of paper repeatedly). My template was the shape of Pooh's head.

Properly speaking, you need two consistencies of royal icing: piping icing, to outline the template, and flood icing, to fill it in. I'm lazy, so to spare myself the bother of having different sets of piping bags, I made an in-between consistency that would stay where I piped it, but could also be pushed around smoothly.

You then need to place a sheet of parchment / wax / greaseproof paper over your template. I actually cut out several squares of paper thinking it'd be safer to move each transfer individually without disturbing the others. But you know what, once they're fully dry, they lift right off. So you could just use a single sheet of parchment paper, especially if you've got your template printed out. Once you've secured the template below the parchment paper, go ahead and start piping on the parchment paper using the template as your guide.

I piped the yellow first, let it set a bit before piping the red. Although in hindsight, I think I should've done it the other way; there's less chance of a lighter colour bleeding into a darker one. Either way, once you're done filling in the transfers, it's best to leave them overnight to dry completely. Once they're fully dry, you can add the features. I used a food colour pen, but if you don't have one, you could dilute a bit of black food colour in water or clear vanilla extract and paint the features on using a fine brush.

Once the features are dry, which should be pretty soon, carefully pack the transfers in an airtight container. Royal icing decorations will not spoil, however they are quite fragile. So you can make them well in advance, but always make extras in case some break. I made these ones a couple of weeks ahead.

A few days before the party, I baked the cookies (recipe from Glorious Treats). Then all I had to do was  cover each cookie with green royal icing, and immediately place the transfer on top. As the base icing dries, the transfer adheres to the cookie. Once the cookies were fully dry, I outlined them with yellow royal icing.

One lesson I learned from this project was to ensure that the icing on the transfers was spread thick and even. If you look closely, you can see where it's a bit thinner. These didn't come out perfectly flat, which may be okay if you're going to just serve them at home. But if you're after perfection, or your cookies need to be packaged and transported (which these did), it's well worth the effort to ensure completely flat transfers. Any bits that jut out (like some of Pooh's ears here) are easily breakable when you place them in goodie bags with other stuff.

Luckily, most of my Pooh-kies survived intact. I packed each cookie in a plastic treat bag. I sealed the bags with tags I made out of red cardstock, yellow paper and some stickers. Each child received one cookie along with a couple of other knick-knacks in their goodie bags.

Rangoli-inspired Diwali cookies

While I enjoy all of India's many celebrations, Diwali has always been my favourite. To me, there's something magical about all those diyas and lights glowing from every home. That is one of the things I miss the most, being outside India.That, and the sweets!

I wanted to do something special for Diwali, but since mithai-making is not my forte, I decided to stick to my usual - baking - and go desi-style for the decoration.

These are simple sugar cookies (recipe from Glorious Treats), covered in home-made royal icing (I will post my version soon).

Of these three designs, my favourite is the blue-petal one.

I had really wanted to take step-by-step shots of these, but had to keep rushing between the kitchen (where I had my set-up) and the dining table (where the child had her set-up) to supervise. I'd been telling her about Diwali and how it's a special time. Since she loves decorating too, I thought I'd try to instil some of that Diwali-buzz by letting her decorate her own cookies.

I gave her four of the flower-shaped cookies, 2 piping bags and a plate of sprinkles. Unfortunately, she got so carried away ''piping" (read: dumping mounds of icing on cookies), that most of them set before she could get the sprinkles on, with the end result that the sprinkles meant for four cookies ended up on one, like so:

Anyway, here's wishing you a peaceful, prosperous and of course, sweet Diwali!

Cake Pops: Initial Observations

People's inventiveness never ceases to amaze me, especially in the sweet decorating domain. I mean, for years, bakers everywhere have ended up with crumbs & chunks of cake after leveling and carving .... what do some bright sparks decide to do? Bind the pieces with frosting, shape into rounds and voila, cake balls! What do brighter sparks decide to do? Poke lollipop sticks into the cake balls, and voila voila, we have cake pops!

The cake pop craze has been sweeping the world for a while now, but it was only a few weeks ago that I got around to trying my hand at them. Before starting, I read this great post and watched this short video by Bakerella, the lady who's widely believed to have pioneered pops. Thus prepared, I made my first batch for a friend and her kids.

For these, I used chunks of vanilla cake I'd frozen. I left the chunks to reach room temperature, crumbled and combined them with melted dark chocolate, instead of frosting. After chilling the rounds as described in the links above, I dipped them in melted white candy melts thinned with canola oil. Needless to say, with that much sugar, they were a resounding success especially among the kids.

For my second batch, I wanted a different flavour. I used the same vanilla cake crumbs, and I whipped up a small amount of buttercream, only it was enhanced with one of my favourite ingredients - orange zest. Instead of the candy melts, I dipped these rounds in melted white chocolate (I used Nestle's white choc melts). The orangey taste came through beautifully. The piping on these was with homemade royal icing.

So two batches down, I just wanted to share some thoughts on pops:

- You don't necessarily need frosting to bind the crumbs; melted chocolate works just as well. Only, use white chocolate if you want a light interior. I think condensed milk might work too.

- For coating the pops, I found that both candy melts and chocolate work well. You will have to thin them down to get the required dipping consistency. The Americans prefer shortening, however clear, unflavoured cooking oils work just as well; I used canola oil. Add it gradually to the melted coating till you get it flowing smoothly.

- I find white chocolate more economical than candy melts, for the simple reason that you can colour the chocolate using regular paste / liquid food colours. Whereas for candy melts, you must either buy them in the colours you want, or use oil-based colours that are specifically for candy. While candy colours are available here in Sydney, they are quite expensive.

- For dipping, I found it easier to put the melted candy melts / chocolate in a coffee mug instead of a bowl, as it provided the necessary depth. This is also preferable if you're only making a small number of cake pops; you don't need as much of the candy melts / choc as you would if you used a bowl.

- When shaking off the excess coating, I recommend Bakerella's method of tapping the wrist of the hand holding the stick. Tapping the stick directly against the bowl tends to make the cake ball wobble on the stick.

- Both the chocolate and candy coatings dry in minutes, so if you're going to put sprinkles on, do so quickly while the coating is wet. The other way to decorate is to let the coating dry fully, and then pipe designs on. I tried painting with food colours, but sadly, it doesn't work. Invest in the best quality food markers you can afford, to be able to draw on cake pops.

Well, that's all the tips I can think of at the moment. Do try these out. I used to wonder what all the fuss was about till I made my first batch: they were loads of fun to make, ridiculously cute to look at, and pure indulgence to savour.

Birthday Baking Part 1: Winnie The Pooh Cake

A tiger. A donkey. A pig. And a whole lot of flowers. The best part? They're all made in sweet, sweet fondant! And they all featured on my darling girl's birthday cake this year.

I began planning the cake a few months ago. I knew I would do a character-themed cake and that it'd be two-tiered. But my early ideas veered towards the Teletubbies, who were the child's obsession at the time. Fortunately fate intervened: we'd borrowed a Pooh DVD from the library, and she absolutely fell in love with all the characters! Me too, for that matter. I have to say, of all the current popular cartoons, Pooh and his pals are my favourites. The clincher was when we checked out a party supplies store and found this Pooh candle; the only Pooh candle in the store, and it was with the number three. Perfect!

 I had only briefly dabbled in fondant figures, prior to this. I had a rough idea of how to proceed, but wanted more guidance. So I went to Youtube looking for answers. I made Tigger more or less as per this, using the materials I had on hand. Watching this video helped me learn how to analyse a picture and break it down into smaller parts that I could create and combine into the final product. It took me a few tries to get Tigger reasonably ok, and then I decided to try the other two figures without watching any tutorials.

Of the lot, I feel proudest of Eeyore. I think he turned out the best. If you'd like to try your hand at fondant figures, there are plenty of good tutorials on Youtube for all sorts of objects / characters. Most figures will take at least a couple of days to dry out, so you should make them well in advance. I did these almost a month ahead, and left them on a plate dusted with icing sugar (so that they wouldn't stick to the plate), for 4-5 days before placing them in a box loosely covered with plastic wrap (fondant should never be refrigerated or frozen).

The flowers are absolutely straightforward: thinly roll out fondant on a surface dusted with icing sugar and cut out with cutters of your choice. This is a really fun process; I had a good friend help me out with them and she enjoyed herself thoroughly. You can either make centers with tiny fondant balls or just pipe them on with the icing of your choice. To secure them to the cake, I used water for some and royal icing for the others, and the moral of the story is use royal icing everytime. It's like cement in cake construction.

The cake itself is adapted from Rachel Allen's recipe for Marble Cake, except that I skipped the marbling part :) I love this recipe, especially for stacked cakes, as the cake is not too moist, neither dry, making it firm enough to withstand the weight of the fondant covering and decorations. The other advantage of this recipe is that it keeps fairly well at room temperature for nearly 10 days, perfect when you need to get decorating a few days in advance. (This cake was made during winter; in a hot and humid climate, it might not keep as long). I baked the cakes 4 days before the big day.

We'd invited a few friends to celebrate with us at a nearby park. It was the first time I had to transport a cake, and I'm relieved to say that minus a few flowers falling off (the ones stuck with water), the cake made it intact. I'd carried the fondant figures separately, and placed them on just before we cut the cake. One of our guests is a photographer and I owe him for these on-location shots :)

My Take on ABC Cake!

I am a passionate baker, always on the lookout for the slightest excuse to get baking. However, I'm also particular that my family eat healthy (for the most part ;D). So my usual everyday baking is not what I would call indulgent, with the heapings of butter and sugar that most baked goodies require.

I'm always browsing for healthier alternatives, but more often than not, the results are just so-so. They're not bad per se, but nothing worth mentioning, certainly nothing worth blogging about. So you can imagine my delight when one of my healthy baking attempts produced this gorgeously moist cake!

I came across this recipe for Low Fat Banana Cake, which was easy enough. One hitch: it called for three bananas, and I only had two at the time. So what to replace the missing banana with? The answer was right there in my fruit basket, next to the bananas: apples! Or more precisely, applesauce.

That issue settled, a vague memory surfaced: I'd read somewhere about an ABC cake, which had apples, bananas and carrots. I thought, there are two fruits in this already, do I really want to add carrots to this? No! There's only so much healthy eating you can do. Then it struck me, I could still do an ABC cake; only chuck the carrots, and bring on the choco-chips! And by using dark chocolate chips, I satisfied the health criteria too :D

Here are the stars of the ABC cake. I deliberately left one banana with the peel on. I know it looks unap'peel'ing (sorry, couldn't resist :D), but when you bake with bananas, the riper they are, the better. They mash up well, and the end product goes deliciously gooey.

Low Fat ABC Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce*
2 medium-sized ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup choc chips

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C / 350 F. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch round or 8-inch square cake pan (I used the square one), or coat with nonstick spray.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl.

3. Place brown sugar, egg in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Add oil, milk, applesauce, mashed banana and vanilla extract and mix until well blended.

4. Gradually mix in flour mixture until just moist. Fold in chocolate chips gently, taking care not to overmix.

5. Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

* For the Applesauce

You can use store-bought sauce if you can get it, but it's easy enough to prepare yourself. I peeled, cored and diced two medium apples, placed them in a saucepan and covered with water. Bring it to a boil over medium heat and then simmer 15-20 minutes or till it's easily mashable with a fork. You might need to replenish the water in between, but add a little. You should end up with a thick, smooth sauce, not something too runny. With two apples, I got 1 cup of sauce. This cake recipe requires only 1/2 a cup, so once it's cool, you can refrigerate the remaining half in an airtight container. It should keep upto a week. I used my leftover sauce in pancake batter the next morning :)

Quite a homely looking cake, but don't judge it by its appearance. I had just managed to get one quick shot of it, before a couple of unexpected guests dropped in. As they themselves noted, their timing was perfect ..... there is nothing quite like walking into a home filled with the scents of baking. A third of the cake disappeared in the next few minutes :)

 

A Zest for Life

So here goes my modest little foray into the world of food blogging. I have blogged about food before, but those were casual one-offs, not written with the intention of making Red Moonrise a food blog. But that is what I'd like to focus on now, for the most part - my love of food, specifically all things baked, and even more specifically, all sweets decorated.

More on the sweet decorations later, though. For now, I'm going to go on about one of my favourite ingredients. Yup, 'ingredient', not recipe (I did say this was a modest foray :D).



Citrus zest! Or the peel, or the skin, of citrus fruits. Pictured above are the three most commonly used in cooking - orange, lemon and lime. I love them all, but am especially partial to orange zest. I toss a couple of teaspoonfuls of it into almost every cake, cupcake, pancake, muffin or cookie that I make, whether the recipe calls for it or not.

I use a zester to get those fine shreds, and you can see the tiny droplets of oil being sprayed into the air as you zest away. The fragrance at that moment is just heavenly! I love the extra dimension the zest adds to my food. Its not an overpowering taste (unless you use heaps of it!), but more of a subtle presence.  

You can coax even more flavour out of the zest by following this one tip I came across recently over here (ha! at least I can direct you to a good recipe!) While baking, mixing the zest with the sugar before creaming it with butter greatly enhances the zesty flavour in your final product. I tested it out with two batches of sugar cookie dough: introduced orange zest after creaming butter & sugar in the first, and then before creaming in the second. The orangey-ness was definitely more intense in the second.

It might seem weird, but I try to ensure that I'm never out of oranges. I always feel a blissful contentment whenever I glance at my fruit basket and see them nestled there. Whether its pancakes or muffins for breakfast, cookies for teatime, I know I can always give them a delicious boost with a bit of zest.

Revival, Revamp

Yup, a heart still beats in this space. This isn't a proper post, more like a mini-post to pave the way for the future proper posts (I hope!) I almost gave up on this space, almost decided to start afresh altogether. But I have roots here, and the Red Moonrise name is just too dear to abandon. So I will be back, and I hope you will too as I attempt to take this blog in a new, delicious direction!  

Older & Grateful

A lot of people crib about getting older. Many women especially, are very touchy on the subject and will either give you the "its rude to ask a woman her age" line, or else, outright lie about how old they are.

I don't understand why.

Too many people are snatched way before their time. Too many don't make it into their 50s, 40s or even lesser. Too many don't even make it past childhood.

Thinking of all those millions of unknowns who die young, I promised myself some years ago, that I'd never, ever lie about my age, never moan about getting older; instead each birthday, I would just truly thank the Lord that I had made it through one more year.

The thought for this post came to me yesterday, on the eve of my birthday, and I felt that I must take the time to put this up, despite the numerous distractions that have kept me from this blog for so long.

I woke this morning, not with the euphoric thrill of childhood birthdays, but with a more mellowed contentment that I had arrived at another birthday with so much to be thankful for. I began my daily routine, interspersed with calls from family members, wishes also pouring in online, and that sense of contentment grew.

Then we got the news that a neighbour at home in Bombay, my sister's best friend's brother, had died in an accident yesterday. A young man, barely in his 30s. Completely unexpected, and even more tragic because that family lost their mother just last month. That dear lady's death too was just as out-of-the-blue, a sudden heart attack.

I actually staggered when my mother informed me. I can't begin to imagine what that family must be going through: two deaths in two months, both before their time. And I came back to the thought that propelled this post: why many people hate the fact that they are ageing.

Growing old is such a blessing! Its nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide and you realise that all the more in the wake of tragedy. Each day, each year you live is a privilege, a miracle, that so many, too many, don't get.

I don't know who said this originally: "I'm not getting older, I'm getting better!"

"Better" or not is debatable; "older" is indisputable. Why even bother denying that???

Today, I turn 26. Some might scoff that its easy to be frank when the number's small, but no matter how high that rises - 36, 56 or Inshallah 96 - I will always gladly & gratefully celebrate growing old :)

Looking Back at 2009

I'd wanted this to be my last post of 2009, but with one thing and another, couldn't get to it. Though its not as timely as I'd intended, I still must go ahead with it to keep a record of one of the most defining years of my life.

I have always been a creature of stability, but stability was the one thing that was a stranger last year. Barely had 2009 begun, than I was knocked off my feet with the realisation that I was pregnant. Before I could fully come to terms with it and its life-altering consequences, the physical changes hit full force, and I spent the first two months of the year in a nauseous daze. This period was a total emotional roller-coaster: wonder, resentment, guilt, excitement, depression ...... I swung between them all and more.

All thanks to God, that terrible energy-sapping nausea passed off over the next couple of months, and slowly, from the lowest point of my life, I blossomed into the best I've ever felt ...... refreshed, rejuvenated & revitalised!!!

As those first flutters of movement started within me, I began truly bonding with my baby. The nesting instinct kicked in, and I realised that while our then flat had been adequate for hubby & me, there wasn't much room to accomodate a baby and the 101 things needed to comfortably raise it. So thus began our house-hunt.

Most of our family & friends couldn't understand why we wanted to shift when I'd entered my last trimester, and I don't blame them because I too previously used to perceive pregnant women as incredibly delicate. But my actual experience was the exact opposite: I felt immensely strong!!! Firmly believing in 'God only helps those who help themselves', I put my good health to good use by actively looking for a more spacious flat.

It wasn't easy. It took much longer than I'd thought with many false hopes along the way. But right when I'd slump to thinking that maybe this wasn't possible, I'd hear some messages, either in church or on Joyce Meyer's show, encouraging me on. The message with the greatest impact came on Joyce's show. It was:

If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of your boat.

This awesome sentence not only motivated me towards getting the new flat, it has transformed my attitude towards life in general. I have always clung to stability, facing change only with great reluctance. But this one simple statement gave me the strength to be more accepting of changes, to deal with uncertainty without being afraid and renewed my faith in God and His guiding power.

That power led us to our new flat, at the beginning of the ninth month. With the support of family, the shifting and transition took place smoothly. Three short weeks before my due date, we moved in. Ten days later, my baby moved out :)

Life since then was a total whirlwind! Right after coming home, we were absorbed in planning my daughter's baptism, to be held just three weeks away due to the work schedules of my dad & sister. The occasion was a success; most of our family could make it & it was lovely to have our home bustle with so many relatives.

After this, the first major event of Kris's life, things settled into a routine.... for a bit! Both my mom & MIL had come to stay with us. Under their care & support, I recuperated and hubby & I both received a proper initiation into parenting. There were so many things that seemed so frighteningly huge at first: feeding, diaper-changing, massaging, bathing the baby ..... even just learning how to carry her properly, soothe away her tears. But with the guidance of our mothers, we learned.

Around this time, I heard another message on Joyce's show:

God is a God of excellence; if you want to be a real worshipper, you must be excellent too, especially in the mundane, ordinary things of life.

It hit home, and it hit hard. No, its not that overnight I have become this super-excellent person (just look at this blog post, for example ...... its been languishing half-done in my drafts folder since last month!) But that awareness that I can improve - that I'm expected to improve - has set in, and now, in every big or small thing I do (and in many things that I've yet to get around to doing!), there's a voice going "excellence, excellence" in my head. Honestly, I wish I could shut it up sometimes; its bloody difficult pursuing excellence especially when your biggest faults are laziness & procrastination. But I cannot hush it.......

So anyway, that again spurred me on to give my best towards everything. These messages, and the absolute belief that God was watching over us, gave me the strength & courage to accept uncertainty when our new routine was shaken up: first my mom had to leave way earlier than expected, then MIL had to go home for a few days, leaving hubby, me & our baby alone for the very first time.

Well, we were not completely alone; we did have a truly wonderful maidservant who took care of the cleaning. But still, it was my first time running the house, handling the cooking & taking care of the baby by myself (while hubby was at work, at least), ....... and I did it. Hubby & I both did it. We used to function well as husband & wife; now we learnt to function well as papa & mama too :)

The last few weeks of 2009 were again a bustle of activity as we prepared to travel to the UAE, to spend Christmas with my family. Not just hubby & me, everybody was apprehensive about how Kris would handle her first flight. Very fortunately, she remained as cool as ever through the journey (I pray this continues whenever she travels!)

The few days that hubby was here too now just seems a blur, but a wonderful one! Christmas was heart-warmingly crowded, with my uncle & family and some other relatives all gathered at our place. Hubby had to leave a couple of days later, and so he was the only one missing here when 2010 entered.

For me, 2009 zipped by so fast, I still find it unreal sometimes that we're in 2010, more so because 2009 was such a momentous, life-changing year! It was not just becoming a mother, it was also those two messages that make me feel like a different person. Which way this new year will take us, I don't know. The only constant is the infinite grace of God, and in that infinite grace, the support of the wonderful family He has blessed me with. As long as I have these two things, I'll be fine.

So now, finally, I can bid a proper (and a looong overdue!) goodbye & thankyou to 2009, and look forward to the rest of 2010!

A very happy & blessed year ahead to all who read this!!!

Our First Conversation!

My 3-month old girl: Heh!

Me: Heh!

She: He-eh!!

Me: He-eh!!

She: HE-EH!!!

Me: HE-EH!!!

And so on and so forth for another minute or so, volume getting louder & louder, till:

She: HE-EH-(hic)-EH!!!!!

Me: ????

She: HE-(hic)........(hic)........

Reduced to hiccups by the sheer force of her "Hehs", thus ended our first mother-daughter chat!!!

When "Justice" Itself Is Injustice

In the initial weeks after the 26/11 attacks, when Ajmal Kasab became the face of the worst terror strike our country has seen, a debate raged as to whether or not he deserved a fair trial.

I remember commenting on one blogger's furious tirade for him to undergo every physical torture possible, that, no matter how heinous the crime, the system had to be allowed to function; if we set a precedent of executing even one criminal without trial, slowly but steadily the system would lose meaning. So even though my gut reaction demanded that he be mercilessly crushed right away, my sanity reasoned that the justice system had to function.

In the year since, the justice system has "functioned", it has "functioned" to the extent of 31 crores, and is still "functioning".

31 frikkin CRORES!!!!

Thoughts of 26/11 haven't been far from any Indian's mind over the past few days, and one of the things I wondered about was how much it was costing to keep Kasab alive. But never did I imagine it would work out to 31 crores! And counting!!!

Yes, he absolutely deserved a fair trial, but come on, when the whole damn world knows he's guilty, how can it possibly take so long to sentence him??? How much more evidence, how many more witnesses does the court need??? The mind reels when it thinks of all the good uses that much money could've been put to.

Is our coastline better protected than it was last year?

Are our policemen better equipped than they were last year?

Are we more secure than we were last year?

NO.

But yes, Ajmal Kasab is better protected and more secure and probably more well-looked-after than he's ever been in his whole life, courtesy the Indian government. The system that should've dealt with this in a matter of months, if not weeks, has churned on for nearly a year, until the whole thing is nothing but a farce. This prolonged pursuit of justice itself is the greatest injustice being done.

No one is going to feel any better the day Kasab dies, because killing him doesn't bring back those lost that day. No one is going to heave a sigh of relief, because we know there are many more Kasabs out there. But Kasab must be killed, and must be killed soon, for no other reason than to stop this ridiculous drain of resources, resources which could be diverted elsewhere to actually accomplish something positive.

Keen on Clean: Thanks Mom & Dad!!!

So this is one of those times when I've read something that just compels me to post immediately (or as 'immediately' as my lil baby will allow :D) I was casually bloghopping this morning, when I saw on someone's blogroll, a post with the intriguing title "No one ever thanked their mom in an acceptance speech for keeping the house clean".

I was ridiculously happy on reading it; I mean, there I was battling an oncoming headache, trying to think positive and keep it at bay and then I read this post, was grinning from ear to ear, all potential aches & pains vanquished!!! That's how great it feels to know that there are other people who take cleanliness very seriously, because as I have resignedly observed, most of the people I know, don't.

And I guess that's due to the fact that as Sraboney Ghose titled her post, no one ever thanked their mom in an acceptance speech for keeping the house clean. As my mother noted several times over the years, housework is a thankless job; there's no reward in it other than your own satisfaction of living in a clean home and the occassional recognition from those rare souls who think like you.

Growing up, both my parents raised us to be particular about cleanliness. We pitched into help and did whatever mom asked us to do (sometimes a bit later than when she wanted it done :D). We enjoyed living in our clean & beautiful home, but I have to admit that most of the time, especially in my younger years, I took it for granted. It was only towards the end of my teens and later that I really started observing other houses, seeing the very noticeable difference between others' and my home, and realizing the worth of my mother's tireless daily efforts.

But this post is not so much about her's or my dad's hard work, as it is about my response to it. Sraboney's post drove home a point: it struck me that, in comparison to how much sweat & blood they've given to the maintenance of our home, I haven't thanked them nearly enough. Sure, I've mentally thanked God countless times for parents like them, but I haven't said it to them as often as I should have.

I have been a homemaker for almost two years now and try daily to live up to the same values my parents instilled in me. I have an additional responsibility now of fostering the same in my little girl, and its easier said than done. Looking back at my own life, I know how many years it took me to realize what my parents had done (and are still doing!), let alone acknowledge & appreciate it.

My mother once said that its thanks enough when she comes to my home and sees that I'm living the way I was raised, that I run my home the way I was taught. But a verbal (or written!) expression of gratitude never hurt anyone, right?

I might never have a chance to deliver an acceptance speech in front of the world, so I guess my blog is as public as it gets for now. Nonetheless, Mom & Dad, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU FOR RAISING ME TO KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN!!!

The Life Behind the Fiction

It was through the magical writing of Enid Blyton that I first realised and appreciated the power of a book in transporting the mind to a different time & place. I have many happy memories of being curled up with one of her books, reading with delight, secretly longing to solve those mysteries, go on those rambling walks, attend those wonderful schools and of course, sneak away for a midnight feast or be a part of those amazing tea parties!!!!

So it was with an increasing sense of disillusionment that I read this article this morning, about a forthcoming biopic which describes the popular author as she really was.

First thought: how could the woman who created such wonderfully warm worlds be the complete opposite in person??? She is said to have been quite the adulteress, but what truly shocked me was her own daughter's description of her as "arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct".

However, the article also states that the author's father left her mother & her when she was 12, and that emotionally, she remained a child. Writing was therefore her way of escaping that pain.

Every Enid Blyton work that I've read, I've loved. There is an innocence and purity in those stories, and nearly all the characters she developed have real integrity, so as a child, I guess I naively transferred those qualities to the woman behind them and that's the impression that remained till date.

Its difficult to reconcile the sweet, motherly person I'd imagined her to be with the reality revealed by that article. I feel sorry for the child she was and sorrier for the woman she made of herself. Its saddening to know that the stories I've treasured all these years stemmed from a desire to avoid a painful reality.

Someday, my daughter's bookshelf will definitely hold a collection of Blyton's best because I would love for her to experience the same wonder, the same sense of revelation and excitement those stories gave me. Will I relive them the same way though? Sadly, perhaps not.

A Tagful of Tasty Memories :)

I've seen this tag on a few blogs and have elected to go ahead and do it, because complete and total foodie that I am, how could I pass up an opportunity to write about:

"Five memorable meals ever eaten: It could be anything that makes the meal memorable - the food, the place, the place you were in your life when you ate, the company, the weather, the ambiance - heck, the guy who served the food!"

In doing this tag, I face a problem of plenty. I come from a majorly foodie family and consider it one of my greatest blessings that I was born to the couple who're the best cooks in not only my family, but among all the families I know. So food has always been an integral part of my life, or rather, amazing food has always been an integral part of my life.

Understandably then, it becomes difficult to pick just five out of a lifetime of memorable meals, but it was a process I thoroughly savoured :D

1. Festive Meals - As long as we were based in Bombay (a timeframe which spans the first 22 years of my life), our routine for Christmas, New Year's & Easter was almost always the same. Breakfast was at home, a meal which in the later years was mom's homemade bread and roast chicken. Our mouths would start watering the day before with the house fragrant with the aromas of baking bread and roasting chicken! Lunch would be at my maternal grandparents' home where my grandmom would lay out a spread of Indian delicacies. I say "Indian" because she travelled all over India with my granddad and her cooking reflects that diversity in addition to the flavours of our native Kerala. The Christmas sweets post-lunch also were just as versatile. Dinner was at my paternal grandparents' home where my grandmom favoured Western flavours more. So we'd have a roast again, and she'd make a yummy stuffing to go with it. Surprisingly, what my sister & I both looked forward to were granny's salads, because the dressings would be 100% rich mayonnaise (not the healthy yoghurt like our mom usually made us eat!), and aside from the veggies, there'd be crunchy croutons (again, not on our mom's usual menu as its deep-fried bread), and of course, extremely generous chunks of cheese!!!

2. Murg Shifta at Ivy Restaurant - This is a place close to home in Bombay. We checked it out some years ago, and have been hooked since our first meal. My favourite is this heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth chicken kebab - the Murg Shifta. The first time I bit into one was the first time I was moved to tears by the sheer exquisiteness of food. Whenever we've visited Bombay after settling in the UAE, no matter what else needs to be done in the short time we're there, we ALWAYS eat from this restaurant. If we can't go there, then dad orders in advance and then picks up the food. This restaurant was also the setting where I had a meal with this dude who'd come to see me; food came second to the conversation that day as we each evaluated whether or not we could spend the rest of our lives together, though I made it a point to mention the Shifta and how it was a favourite :D I later married that dude, and when we visited Bombay post-marriage, we all went to Ivy again (or as he puts it, we returned to "the scene of the crime"!!!)


3. Stamp of Approval - My mom & grandmom came to visit us a few months after my marriage. As soon as she freshened up after reaching home, mom came straight to my kitchen to check out what I had prepared for dinner, and on seeing the dishes, she couldn't resist sampling one of them. As I had learnt how to cook only after marriage, this would be the first time she would taste a dish by yours truly. Though baking had become a passion some years before and she liked the cakes & desserts I made, I think its somehow different when it comes to the food you eat on a daily basis. So there I stood, making tea and watching with some nervousness as she took a bite of a chicken preparation - one of her recipes itself :). To my dying day, I will never forget that look of surprised admiration & pleasure that lit her face!!!


4. With My Oldest Friends - Most of our socialising in Bombay was with the families of my dad's two oldest friends. Their kids are my oldest friends and we've gotten together countless times at all our homes. The atmosphere is always comfortable & relaxed the way it is when everybody goes back donkey's years and every get-together was loads of fun. But there are two meals that especially stand out in my mind as I do this tag. The first was my 15th birthday party, which was just 11 days before my tenth standard board exams. When everybody else was feverishly cramming, we partied on till 3 a.m.!!! (And yes, I did do pretty well in the exams too :D) The second meal was a get-together when I visited Bombay in January this year. Hubby couldn't get leave, so I had gone alone. I knew I was pregnant, but as I hadn't seen a gynec yet, my parents & I didn't share the news with the others. That night, us "kids" played cards like we've done nearly all our lives, and we laughed and laughed with the same abandonment as when we all really were kids and even as I was laughing, I was filled with this bittersweet feeling that this would be the last time we were together like this. My life, at least, had changed forever, and the next time we would all meet, I'd have a kid of my own.


5. Thankful for the Blessing - The first trimester of my pregnancy brought on nausea so intense that for the first time in my life, the mere thought of food made me sick. The culinary sights & smells I'd savoured all my life suddenly became so unbearable that not only did I keep out of the kitchen, I'd stay shut in my room if somebody else was cooking. My diet was reduced to a chutney sandwich for breakfast and either a simple khichdi* or chapati** & curd for lunch and dinner. With my energy level at an all-time low, I couldn't make even these basic meals; first my parents, then hubby & my ma-in-law took over the kitchen. So the first day I re-entered my kitchen and was able to stand there and cook a decent meal was a huge blessing for me. As I made a proper, tempered dal*** and marinated mackerel for frying, I actually had tears in my eyes! I was that happy and that thankful to have regained my old strength and abilities, and I vowed then that I would never take them for granted.


So these are some of my most delicious memories :) Anyone else wanting to take a tasty trip down memory lane, feel free to pick up the tag!

* khichdi - rice, lentils (and vegetables if you want ..... I didn't!) cooked together.
** chapati - Indian flatbread.
*** dal - lentils cooked to a soup consistency.

Going Ga-Ga Over Gu-Gu!

My baby girl is nearly 10 weeks old now, but even within this short span of time, she's changed (and changing!) so fast!!! Its not only her appearance, but also her personality. The near-silent, frail little child who only uttered the softest mewling cries post-birth is now a sturdier, bigger version who's not shy at all about being heard!

While previously she only tested her vocal range in terms of how loudly she could yell, these days she's started making those typically baby gurgling sounds and its the cutest thing ever!!!

Her word of choice as of now is "uh-gu" with the ocassional variation thrown in, so when she's awake & content, that's what our vocabulary gets reduced to :D We're gu-guing and gurgling and coochie-cooing, and sometimes (when we go a bit overboard, I think :D), she looks at us with this half-curious, half-amused expression almost as if she's thinking: "What the hell???? These guys are supposed to be the adults!!!"

But its not as if we're only indulging in baby talk; I've read about the importance of speaking to babies early on itself and so I keep talking to her just about everything and anything, not at all difficult if you're me ..... I can yammer on and on and relentlessly on ...... all in the hope of hearing one little "uh-gu" :) That's the sound that makes our day these days!

The Best of Us!!!

I'd mentally started off on this post a hundred times, but floundered when it came to taking it forward. It wasn't for a lack of things to write about; rather, just like it happened after marriage, I feel waaaay too much for words to express.

So I'll just simply shout it out from the rooftop (or rather, my laptop :P), that

I have a DAUGHTER!!!!!

God!!!! I remember the first time I used the words "my daughter" in a conversation some weeks ago, I stopped mid-sentence, wondering if it had all really happened or if it was a dream. Well, it did really happen, so here's the when, where & how:

'When' was 31 Aug - she surprised us by arriving a week before the due date :) 'Where' was Bangalore and 'how' was a normal delivery (thank You God again!!!!), following a completely "uneventful" - to use the word from my medical file - pregnancy (more heartfelt thanks to God).

But while the pregnancy itself was uneventful, life in the last trimester and in the two months since certainly has been very eventful, hence the long absence from the blog. I missed this space terribly, missed writing, not to mention the dear friends I made here (thanks to all of you who enquired about us!), and I definitely will catch up with everyone soon. Now that I've put up this initial piece, hopefully the blogging will pick up pace again.

In the meanwhile, here's my darling little Kristyn, born a mini replica of her papa, but now slowly starting to look like me. Either way, she remains the best of us :D

On the Palm

With a couple of occasions to celebrate, we joined up with my uncle & his family to do something a bit out of the ordinary over the weekend. We drove onto Dubai's famous Palm Jumeirah island to see the Atlantis resort (pictures uploaded on my photoblog).

Atlantis is the only commercial establishment there open right now; the rest are in varying stages of construction, currently stalled due to recession woes. The residential apartment complexes and villas are up and ready, and its nice to see from the monorail that runs the length of the Palm.

There are many attractions within the Atlantis, including its water park, aquarium and what I think is a dolphin show. I believe they have an area where you can swim with the dolphins and feed sting rays. Someday perhaps, it'd be fun to try, but in this murderously hot weather, none of us was game to be out in the open for too long. So we just rode the monorail and clicked loads of goofy photos with the resort as a backdrop.

Having lived in Bombay and Abu Dhabi, we're no strangers to reclaimed land, but I have to say, the Palm is certainly the most creative of them all and also the most controversial. On the one hand, it is a stupendous engineering feat, but on the other, the project has also drawn intense criticism for the resultant environmental damage.

I fell into the latter category initially, but having actually been there, I'm torn between both viewpoints; I can't decide if its a testament of human ingenuity for mastering a bit of Nature, or of human stupidity for messing too far with Nature.

Either way, it is a sight worth seeing at least once!

Spellbound: How It All Started

April 2002.
It was almost the last week of our vacation in Dubai. We were staying at my aunt's place and on the particular weekday afternoon that this story begins, my uncle was at work, the older of my two cousins was at school, my parents were off browsing kitchen appliances or something, and since at 18, I didn't give a damn about cooking, I was stuck at home with my sister and the younger cousin running amok, and my aunt who was escaping for her siesta.

I had already emailed & chatted with my friends back in Bombay, the younger kids were getting on my nerves, there was nothing good on TV and what I was desperately craving was a good book. Reading has always been my favourite pastime and though there was a library just up the road, it would open only in the evening, meaning that I was facing a long afternoon of utter and complete boredom.

On arrival itself, I had checked out my cousin's book collection, but the reading choices of a 7-year old are obviously limited. I definitely didn't want to read Panchatantra or Aesop's Fables, and of Enid Blyton's many books, I've always preferred the school and mystery series over the magic tales on my brother's bookshelf.

But there was something else on that shelf, something that I'd already sneered at and then dismissed without another thought. On that afternoon though, Bored Beyond Belief, I reconsidered. An old friend's passionate pleas echoed in my head: You have to read it, you just HAVE TO.....its awesome!!! I had just as passionately argued back: its hocus-pocus for kids!!!! To which my friend emphatically declared that there was NOTHING kiddish about it!!!

Thinking some book was better than no book, I resignedly curled up on the sofa with Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets, and with a highly skeptical look on my face, I read ........ and read, and read, and read ........ till the next thing I knew, it was evening and my blissful solitude was shattered by everybody else returning home and making plans for dinner out.

How can I go out, I thought wildly. How would I find out who the heir of Slytherin was?? What if it were Harry himself??? What was this monster in the Chamber???? What if it killed off one of the characters, characters who, in just a few brief hours, I already thought of as friends.


And then an even worse thought struck me: what of the story after this book???? The fourth book in the series - Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire - had been released some months earlier and with it, Pottermania had hit India big time. I had scoffed at the fools who'd queued outside bookshops hoping against hope they'd be lucky to get a copy ...... but now I totally empathised!!!


My mother has always been against buying fiction, and she has a point: with us being members of two libraries, we usually got to read the latest books for a negligible monthly fee, and, most importantly for my mom, we didn't fill up precious storage space with books that we'd likely never re-read. So I knew there was no convincing her to let me buy the book. And the chances of getting a copy from the libraries back home any time soon were very, very slim, what with so many Potter fans around.


The only hope seemed to be the library up the road. I insisted on going there that very evening, though I still hadn't finished the second book. I practically ran there, hoping, yet not daring to hope too much in case it was all in vain. But, Hallelujah!!!! There they were, all four books in the series sitting pretty on a shelf!!!!

However, now I was in a dilemma: which to take??? The situation demanded some quick thinking and advance planning (Ma, you'd have been proud!!!) I knew for sure that the first book had been lying around in one library back home and since I'd already begun from the second book, I figured the first could wait some more. But I was still only halfway through the second ...... would I be able to finish the third and the fourth, which is a really chunky volume, especially since I had just a week, and that too with many outings planned???

I had to try, didn't I? :D

And with a single-minded determination that would've produced wonders had I applied it to academics, I gave my goal my all. Not stopping to savour the thrilling end of the second book, I dived straight into the third. But the leap to the fourth was not as direct; I had to go back and re-read the third book's climax, because it is just ....... beyond thrilling!!! My vocabulary can't do justice to just how shockingly brilliant it is, so lets leave it at that.

However, that little deviation cost me precious time: with everything else that was going on, we now had just two days left in Dubai, and the mighty Goblet of Fire loomed large before me. I was facing my single greatest reading challenge in the midst of more going out and the added burden of packing ........ and I can both proudly and humbly say, that I did it!!!! I finished reading Goblet of Fire in two days!!!

Back in Bombay, I caught the first Potter movie on TV before I could read the book (and someday perhaps I'll do a post on exactly why I loathe all the Potter films so much!), and eventually re-read the others too. My mother not believing in instant gratification, we had to wait a while for the fifth book; it arrived a few months after the release as a wonderful surprise gift from the parents :). Same with the sixth book. I was working when the last one released, so that was my treat to my sister & me.

April - May 2009.
By mutual agreement, my sister had kept the Harry Potter series. So naturally, on this visit home, reading the whole saga from start to finish was high on my list of things to do. I have lost count of how many times I've read them all in these past seven years; but on each occassion, the magic of J.K. Rowling's writing is still powerful enough to make me forget all other hobbies & interests. No other books have captured my imagination as completely as this lot, and I think that will be the subject of a future post - why I love this series so much. In the meanwhile, in the current reading session, I am off to embark on the final part of Harry's tale, as spellbound as I was the first time.

Not Just an Economic Crisis

And so again after a visit to Renu's blog, I'm compelled to convert a comment into a post, because one thought led to another which led to a third ..... so on and so forth, till its just too long in the comment form.

Straight off, let me say that I struggled mightily with economics and finance in my formal education and still do not fully understand the intricacies of both. But what I do understand very clearly is this: you violate His laws, you will pay a price someday. As you sow, so shall you reap, or to borrow my sister's favourite acronym, JKVB - Jaisi Karni Vaise Bharni (and now look at the amazing coincidence that as I was going through some of my regular blogs, I came across Goofy Mumma's latest!)

In many places, I recall the current economic crisis being described as the failure of the capitalist philosophy. I disagree.

I see this crisis as the failure of regulatory authorities who should've ensured organizations didn't overstretch their limits. I see this crisis as a failure of organizations themselves in that they were over-ambitious. Most importantly, I see this economic crisis as an after-effect, the result of a much more deeper cause: a moral, ethical & spiritual failure.

Very simply, people got greedy.

Right from childhood, we're taught that greed is bad. In fact, Christianity considers it as one of seven deadly sins. Deadly sin. I find it really amazing that people get so immersed in their careers and money-making that they forget these basic truths along the way. Many will scoff at anything to do with religion & spirituality; they outright dismiss simple values as 'touchy-feely crap' and see them as having no connection to the "business world".

And yet, when this crisis first erupted, and companies - supposedly well-established industry giants - started collapsing one after the other, the first thing people ran towards was God. Churches, in New York City especially, reported record attendance as desperate souls from the corporate world turned to Him for some way out of the mess they'd gotten themselves into.

I repeat: you violate His laws, you will pay a price someday. You can't ..... restrict God to a slot in your life. You can't say, ok God, I'll come see you in so&so place of worship, I'll give some money to xyz charity and that's it, be happy with that, what I do in my job is my business, not Yours.

Many people (including some members of my own family), believe that their "security" and their "status" lies in the size of their bank balance. Everything else comes in second to the all-important goal of money. Instead of work being a part of life, it becomes their whole life, to the exclusion of God, their own health and personal relationships. So when you make that sort of uncontrolled greed your way of life ....... how do you expect to walk away unscathed? And for a crisis of this magnitude to have occurred, its not just a few people here and there who went astray, but entire generations, entire societies that are to blame.

Anything taken to an extreme is bad; so the fault does not lie in capitalism per se, but in the unchecked, unbridled capitalism and materialism. I still believe in the capitalist philosophy, so long as we operate within a moral and ethical framework at the individual and the larger organizational and societal levels.

The values of hard work, honesty, saving and spending within your means are extolled by most faiths, and they are meant to guide us in all aspects of life. They are NOT irrelevant or outdated in present times however "modern" we consider ourselves, and whatever our accomplishments, none of us is above them. Provided we adhere to these guidelines, we have every right to enjoy the fruits of our efforts.