The weekend,Cooking and Bubblegum!

It was a super relaxing weekend. Mr.ISB managed to spend with me by taking a detour from his business trip. It was like that splash of cold water, which makes you relaxed-refreshed but it stays for a moment. Two days were joyful but stayed there only for 2 days. You know what I mean!!

Movies, books, dinner outside with constant cooking incidents and accidents!

Laccha Paratha , Pudina Chutney , Garlic toast and Spaghetti Aglio e Olio - I crafted them all in my kitchen thanks to some brilliant chefs (almost, for me!) in the blog world and both of us relished all of these dishes followed by a super tasty dinner pending since long at a nearby favorite restaurant.  Creating magic in the kitchen is more relaxing then staring at the mail box in the office to let things move! Ah..By the way, not mentioning a loaf of bread which failed to rise came in between my otherwise good (read: awesome) mood.

A little bit of shopping, a dinner date and a movie or two were enough for me to forget the failure and start afresh. Another reason which made me stand up and bake again, was my frustration. Baking always leads to a much needed distraction, followed by some time in introspection.

The introspection which used to push me in a black hole aka depression before, now makes a calm play. Day by day, I am getting convinced where my real interest lies, accepting reality, gathering courage to do what I want. Slowly but steadily. Just like my first bread which I baked. Yes, finally I baked my first tasty loaf of bread!

I am in love with the beautiful rise thanks to the wet yeast procured from a near by bakery, whose owner failed to  know why I need to know Everything about the wet yeast and bake my own bread! His recipe was simple. "Thoda atta, thoda salt, thoda yeat, milao thikse, fulane do and bake karo." followed by "Aap banayegi?"

When I followed her blog post step by step (Though I replaced dry yeast with wet fresh yeast) and finally after hours , while cutting the bread loaf, I was almost drooling due to aroma! Enough self praising! ;-)

The satisfaction of crafting something for the 'Paapi pet'! ;-)

I have  also realized coming days are going to be even more frustrating in office. Worst is yet to come. Professional world might turn upside down or even worst, crush me,mince me. I am ready to seize the situation. Once and for all. With my cooking adventures on. Every single freaked out day will be a bake out day!

I promise.

Bubblegum who bakes, now!

These all, baking stuff started with my dad. Really. He loves this machine with top and bottom heat elements,one motor and some sheet metal- metal parts. Do you realize he is a hard core engineer?

Whatever I baked at my home (Sadly, people call it now 'my' parent's home and I disagree with all of them), he became the most enthusiastic member of the family to taste those cookies, cakes and well breads. Some of them were really good, beginner's luck may be. Some of them were disgusting and he tasted all of them with same smile. Poor dad!

Slowly , dad's girl started building up interest in baking. For years, all I did was using ready made mixes or Indian dishes like 'Bati', baked potatoes with some masala. Now when my Bua who is equally into baking (beside being an 80 years old young doctor) decided to gift me an OTG, the ball of choosing an OTG came into my court completely.

That is how things started going haywire.

Yours truly got impatient and did extensive research while the husband was away. Rubbing shoes in different stores to hunt for that particular model did not work, so I did nothing but ordered it online on Amazon India. One of my then favorite site to order anything under the sun. Things went dull when I received my consignment in the form of a damaged OTG.

I lost my mood, temper and tempo to even talk to any one. Some where the madness to bake and practice to bake some cakes and knead some breads before my parents visit my home,made me almost a depressed a soul. I registered for the pick up for returns and refund. I was not ready to take the risk of replacing the product any more.

It took some 20 calls to 20 different customer care employees, 4 apology mails, some 100 sorry-s , boiling approximately hundred liter blood  they successfully picked up the wrong dispatch after 7 days.

Meanwhile my parents had arrived and they stayed without any trauma in the form of baking by me. Lucky guys. Anyway, daddy and the daughter had decided to get an Oven so it was. So while my parents left the city, the Oven arrived at 10 in the night! I do have some regret for not being able to harass them with my experiments but then, I am happy for the new OTG!

The OTG which finally came home!

How can I sleep when the OTG has been installed ? I followed chased her for this cake recipe!

Please do not stare the picture, rough baking is allowed for the first experiment after months, in your own OTG!

This is what I got. I swear, not so healthy for a midnight snacking, but yummy all the way!

Yummyness all over!

With the first successful baking experiment, I can say,

Bubblegum now bakes!

Frustration, Food, Books!

These three words sums up my life since some days. I would also like to put up a disclaimer that this is a 'Blah' kind of a post!

Last one week has been a roller coaster ride which took a depressive path and it is yet to collide with anything which can stop it. The only positive part of the tenure was the election day in the state and with no right to vote here, I quietly enjoyed the peaceful holiday with Mr.ISB. I am dreading today again, as the ride is going to continue.

Lately my office and my work has been draining my last 1% of peace and energy for nothing. It is no more challenging my urge to take up thing any further. I just feel like escaping from each and every molecule the office is made of. Right from my colleagues , friends and my work. Everything.

Every morning I have to pull myself away from the bed bribing me a cup of my type of tea. I drag myself to pick that laptop which would be lying on my bed as last night I would be working on it,  like a ghost with burning eyes and in between reading my current ongoing book-love. Trade offs are never easy.

The house maid has decided to never (not even a single day) to come on time and thus making me late for the office, every day. I am not sure if I am slowly striding towards inhumanity but I really feel like asking her not to come the next day, as the deal is over. I am yet to implement and it will take forever. No, I can not do that to any one. Freaking expenses these days, they need work too.

In such days, only cooking and reading apart from understanding semi-motivational speeches given by the eternal optimistic Mr.ISB keeps me alive. I have also changed my loyalty from paper books to Kindle App due to my over shooting expenses on books and the need of keeping them with me all the time. Of course the feel and the smell is missing big time but then there has to be a trade off.

When I am in office, I take everything to slow down my metabolism. I do not go for the lunch, I hate the all-women-girls lunch group talks to the core. I do not even go with my guys-group of lunch as well. In short my calls with stake holders affect my mind in such a way that, I throw it on my body. Not acceptable, I know.

When I am at home. I cook (Good or bad!) out of the overwhelming feelings towards food. Seriously, I feel satisfied from within. I guess each and every droplet of my blood celebrates the joy when I cook and feed two souls.

Yummy pancakes!

Masala Tomato rice!

Pithado - Besan ki sabji - Mom's Input!

Kofta - Healthy No fry!

Super healthy Atte ka sheera - With minimum Ghee and Jaggery!

Stuffed Grilled Bell Pepper - Waiting for Oven to make it properly !

I guess the amount of frustration I gather in office every day, safely turns into a unique food dish. Not in my life time I took so much of interest naturally in cooking. Cooking is therapeutic! My cooking adventures are truly supported - guided by her and both moms, in Eklavya style! 

Yesterday, after Repeating cooking-reading-sleeping cycle for three times we managed our asses to move out and as usual we went for a long walk which ended with a dinner and the Crossword visit. 

I was happy, things were soothing out and I realized the working day is knocking on the door! 

Frustration, Food and Books - Here I come again.

Domesticated?

Then there came a message from one of my colleagues, " You are cooking fancy stuff! Finally like us, you are domesticated after marriage. Hahahahaha. Welcome to the poor working women's gang!"

I was offended big time. It is not the truth. 'Domestication' is not negative at all, for me.

Reasons are many. I am free to do whatever I want to do. Whatever I want to wear. I have developed my hobbies in last four months, more than I did in last two years. I love having a kitchen of my own and not the shared one with my room-mates. I love keeping my home spick-and-span. Does that mean I have forcefully changed myself? Is doing domestic stuff so bad that makes you a part of that 'Poor Working Women's Gang'?

Well there are gazillion perspectives and all are based on situations but this led me to a long introspection. I was flabbergasted when I concluded, the so called 'Domestication' is something I love, at this point of life'.

I remember the rebellion self ,yours truly,who abhorred cooking in teens. I had some limited food dishes in my wish list and was never driven towards cooking them for any one, forget myself. I was the 'career conscious kind of a Mechanical Engineer'. I was ' I will get myself a cook' kind of a young girl. The happiness was in challenging everything my class-mates and friends do in the male dominating field. My mom dad supported me in whatever I wanted to do, crowded by 89 guys in the class of 90 students and with my several groups which contained guys most of the time.

My OCD to keep things clean appeared from my DNA gifted by my mom once I left my home town for the very first job. Till then mom was there to make me do the stuff like organizing cupboards and helping her in the kitchen to keep it clean as if the whole kitchen was bought from Ikea, every single day.

After moving three cities in India and a country on my own, I have picked up some curiosity to make all of our meals delicious. I crave to keep my kitchen spotless, my drawing room cozy with sunshine. Well, there are days when I just have to leave with the dirt on the platform due to the tired body and frustrated soul continuously worrying about work at office. Even after office hours.

I make Mr.ISB the guinea pig for cooking experiments, believe me, I am a toddler in this journey which gives me immense satisfaction after feeding two stomachs and thus my heart. I feel the brilliance of the light at the end of the tunnel when I smile after cleaning and organizing things piled up in all those corners of my house. I love spending some time with my plants who managed to survive my regular absence due to travelling.

I feel the marriage made these things possible. I realized what I do in the day time at office is nothing but chasing this male chauvinist field of  Mechanical Engineers, proving my efficiency in doing things better than many of them but the whole I-am-as-good-as-any-of-them feel does not give me joy any more. I feel drained, I feel gripped by some jaws. May be the salary drives me and pushes me to keep doing what I do.

I do not think, house-stuff home-stuff makes me that poor working woman included in the so called bothered gang of ladies. I have started loving cooking, cleaning, buying grocery, experimenting unique dishes which I hated in 25 years of my life.I am not that poor thingie, domesticated after the wedding.

The word 'Domesticated' is not at all worth what I feel.

The sense of meeting your soul, with each of the tasty meal I cook is not worth so much of negativity.