From bbcgoodfood with minor modifications

Ingredients

Vegetable oil – 2 Tbsp

Honey – 2 Tbsp

Maple syrup – 125ml (Recently learnt that maple syrup is healthier than honey. I am super happy.)

Vanilla extract – 1tsp

Rolled oats – 300g

Sesame seeds – 4 Tbsp

Sunflower seeds – 50g

Pumpkin seeds – 50g

Almonds – 100g (I used flaked, but roughly chopped would be good I think)

Dried fruit (raisins, cranberries etc) – 100g

Coconut – 50g (I used desiccated, but flakes would be good too.

Other things that might be welcome in the granola are walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped.

Method

1. Heat oven to 150C /130 C fan

2. Mix the liquids (oil, honey, maple syrup, vanilla extract) in a bowl. Add everything else, except for the fruit and coconut. Mix properly.

3. Spread on a large baking tray or 2 small trays. Put it in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, but keep using a fork to turn the mixture every 5 minutes to ensure even cooking.

4. After 15 minutes, mix in the dried fruit and the coconut. Mix properly.

5. Put it back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes, again turning every 5 minutes to make it crisp. You can choose how crisp and roasted you want your granola.

That is it. Super healthy granola.Tada!

You can have it with milk or yogurt, people who had this (friends, brother and AMI), tried all different ways and liked it. I ate it like a snack (in a movie hall actually), very nice. If you want to make it fancy, make a parfait.

Please try. This is fool-proof, it will turn out nice and very easy too.

P.S. The heart attack on a plate comment I made earlier reminded me of this: www.heartattackgrill.com. Am speechless.

The story of these baked eclairs in my life is quite interesting actually. During my graduation days in Delhi University (it was aaaages ago. Sigh. Old age.), a friend offered to drop me home in her dad’s car.A welcome break from DTC, I accepted imediately. She stopped at a shop called Jain Bakery (I know!) in Kamla Nagar and said ‘they make excellent eclairs, I will get one for you too’. I expected her to come back with a version of the Cadbury’s eclairs, instead she came back with this big pastry filled with cream and topped with chocolate. I told her that I was surprised that this is called eclair too. She was already eating hers, I don’t think she heard me. As soon as I bit into it, the memory that was triggered was again of our holidays in Jallandhar. There was a small shop there, where we kids would be sent with 10-15 rupees to buy some sweets, the only condition being whatever we bought would be shared with all. I used to always buy cream rolls, which I have not had in ages. I think it might be a bastardised version of some firang dish but it was this sort of puff pastry-ish roll with sweet cream in it. From the first bite to the last, it was awesomeness. Eclair reminded of exactly that.

Ages have passed and I never had cream roll but eclairs I have once in a while, conscious of the calories and all that nonsense. Paul’s which is my favourite bakery in London (even though it is a chain) makes excellent eclairs. But that is not the reason I made them last week. I was going through the Rachel Allen book ‘Bake’ (which is brilliant) and saw the different kinds of pastry making techniques. Usually, I think of the fancy recipes to be beyond me, but the AMI is very encouraging, so I gave it a go.

The recipe is surprisingly easy, though we had disasters with substandard piping equipment. The Ikea piping bag turned out to be like a fountain when we tested it with water and the cream split the first time, so it took much longer than expected. I know that the next time will be much more glitch free. The taste though was awesome, a few more tries and my eclairs will look as good as the ones at Paul’s. They already taste as good (I am modest like that).

The recipe should make around 25 small eclairs. Because of piping issues, mine were all of different sizes. I like the small ones since they are healthier and very honestly, a little piece is perfect to satiate the appetite.

There are 3 parts to this recipe:

1. The choux pastry (also used to make profiteroles)

2. Creme Chantilly (super easy, even though I messed up the first time. I will tell you why I messed up soon and also how to avoid it)

3. Glace Icing (which is basically fraud icing but tastes very nice)

Choux Pastry

Ingredients:

Water – 150ml

Unsalted butter – 75g

Eggs – 3 beaten (might need adjustment) + some beaten egg for egg wash

Plain Flour – 100g

Salt – a pinch

Method:

1. Sift flour and salt in a bowl and keep aside.

2. Place water and butter in a saucepan. Set over medium high heat, stir and wait until the butter melts.

3. Let the mixture boil properly (also called a rolling boil. I just learnt that means properly boil or also called more than simmer)

4. Remove from the heat and add the flour and salt and mix well (the recipe asks for a wooden spoon, not sure why). Beat very well, till it all comes together.

5. Reduce heat to medium, return the saucepan and stir for around a minute or till the mixture starts to stick to the bottom very slightly (also called furring).

6. Remove from heat, allow to cool for a few minutes (1-2).

7. Put a quarter of the egg and beat well. Keep beating till the mixture comes together.

8. Slowly add the remaining egg, repeating step 7 again and again till the final mixture becomes soft, shiny and has a dropping consistency. You may need to adjust the eggs to ensure consistency. Add more egg or keep back some egg as you see fit.

Baking the pastry:

1. Preheat oven to 220 deg C/200 deg C fan. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

2. Place the choux pastry dough into a piping bag with a plain nozzle (1 cm roughly). Pipe into roughly 10cm lengths with around 4cm gap between them. Use a wet knife to ensure the dough stops coming out between each eclair.

3. Lightly brush the eclairs with the beaten egg and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 200 deg C/180 deg C fan.

4. Cook for another 15-20 minutes or until they puff up and turn golden and crisp.

5. Remove from oven, make a roughly 3mm hole in the eclair using a skewer. Return to oven and bake for another 5 minutes.

6. Cool the eclairs on a cooling rack.

Creme Chantilly

Ingredients:

Whipping cream – 400 ml

Icing sugar – 1-2 sifted tablespoons

Good vanilla extract (1 tsp) or half a vanilla pod

(I think essence might not be a good option, since the cream has a nice vanilla flavour and essence might make it taste artificial)

Method:

(The mistake I made was that the cream had been lying outside the fridge for a long-ish time before I started whipping. Cream is fairly sensitive to temperature, so it split while I was whipping, since whipping also increases the temperature. Also, like a genius, I tried whipping with manual whisk which took longer and increased temperature further. A trick is to keep the container with the cream over ice while whipping)

Whip the cream with a electric whisk and start adding the sugar slowly. Once you see stiff peaks in the cream, fold in the vanilla extract. Folding, i.e. slowly mixing the liquid in the airy cream, ensures that the cream doesn’t start deflating.

Chill until ready to use.

Glace Icing

Ingredients:

Cocoa powder – 25 g

Icing sugar – 200g

Boiling water – 1-2 tbsp

Sift icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the boiling water slowly and keep stirring. Keep adding water and stirring till it gets to a spreadable consistency. Sort of nutella consistency, maybe a touch thinner. (Hopefully this is not confusing.) You can adjust as you go along.

Assembly:

1. When eclairs are cool, spoon creme chantilly into a piping bag with 3mm nozzle. Pipe the cream through the hole in the eclair. The eclair will puff up and make sure you fill them well.

2. Using a palette or butter knife and spread the chocolate icing on the top. To make the top icing look clean, dip knife in hot water between eclairs.

Serve.

They are delicious! There are quite a few steps in the recipe but they are not difficult. The most amazing thing for me was, why does the pastry rise (and it rises a lot) when there is no leavening agent in it. Another thing was the pastry is sugar free but with the cream and chocolate it is a perfect balance of taste.

If you don’t make it, go buy one and enjoy. Maybe have a speed eating contest with someone and you know what to do.

Though, be careful, it can backfire once in a while. I played the speed eating trick on my younger brother once with cadbury’s eclairs. After I revealed my strategy, he started to bawl and my parents gave him another eclair. Hmmph.

Yesterday I was sorting the multitude of free and bought recipe books and papers at home and saw this recipe in a BBC Good Food supplement. The two reasons it caught my attention were: I had some plums lying around, and I desperately wanted to use them before they rot like the plums which have been in the fridge for ages. (At any given moment in time there is a rotting plum in my home.)

The second reason being it needed cold butter and I didn’t need to worry about softening the butter. (Yes. I am VERY lazy.)

We have signed up for a service here where a fruit and veg box with organic, local (all those fancy words) produce is sent to us every fortnight. They send us really good food, even though sometimes some veggies/fruits go waste. And I have learnt how to use vegetables which are not normally used in Indian cooking–things like parsnips, courgettes, leeks and so on.

So anyways, back to plums. This recipe used up the latest set of plums and the result was really good. I modified the recipe for one simple reason, I did not have the right ingredients. Another selling point of the recipe is that it seems healthier than other desserts. I am just basing this on my judgement, no scientific basis but what the hell.  Do make it and let me know how it went.

Ingredients

8 plums, halved, stone removed

4 tbsp honey

50g butter , cut into pieces

50g plain flour

50g rolled oats

25g caster sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Handful of almonds (as you like them – flakes or chopped roughly or chopped finely)

1. Preheat oven to 200 C or 180 C fan

2. Place the plums with the skin down in a baking dish/small roasting tin. Put 2 tbsp honey on them and place in the oven for 10 minutes.

3. Prepare the crumble by mixing the flour, sugar, butter and oats in a bowl. Rub the butter with the fingers till the mixture looks like rough bread crumbs. Add the almonds.

4. Spread the crumble over the plums and drizzle the remaining honey over the plums and crumble. (I ran out of honey at this step, so the crumble was a little less sweet than would be ideal)

5. Place in oven for 15 minutes or till the crumble turns golden.

And that is it.

We (me and AMI) tried this on its own and the consensus is that it would be great with Vanilla ice cream to make it slightly unhealthier but also moist and tastier. Let me know your experience if you do end up trying. Speak (post?) again soon hopefully.

This food blogging idea has been in the works for ages now, more than 8 months back I had written a recipe blog on cinnamon rolls. Somehow it never found its way on to the blog. I will definitely post that sometime in the near future. I intend to blog every week from now. I make sure that at least one of the 2 days of the weekend, I do some baking. So those recipes will find their way here and also any experiments in weeknight baking.

I moved to London around 6 months back. And for a month after that baking went for a toss  while I was staying in a serviced apartments. Then later, after we moved into a proper rented place, I was completely befuddled by the controls on the oven. I went through major mental trauma with experiment after experiment failing. Finally the husband figured out everything and things are working awesomely now. I knew I married him for a reason!

(There are gas ovens and convection ovens and fan-assisted ovens and grill ovens and… it took us over a month to figure out which one we had.)

OK, before I go into the details of what the recipe is I have to tell you this: you know how some people replace the emptiness in their life with food?  Well I replaced the lack of successful baking in my life with hajaar cookbooks/books on baking.

From one of these books, the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, I made something which I’d tried earlier with iffy results. Chocolate Brownies. Now I am not a chocoholic, but I REALLY liked them. The reason I picked this recipe (despite the lack of affection for chocolate) was because I didn’t have butter at room temperature (and it takes ages to bring it to room temperature in the cold here). This recipe can do with butter at any temperature, which is awesome.

I always try to make sure that what I make is healthier than what one gets in the market. And, even though baking is supposed to be an exact science, I have taken chances. For example:

1. Using half all purpose and half whole wheat flour for any bread recipes. Ideally this should need some adjustment in the amount of yeast one uses, but I have not had a disaster yet. (touch wood)

2. Using a little less sugar than what is mentioned in the recipe. It helps that I do not like overly sweet recipes.

3. Avoid/reduce any kind of glazing/icing. My experience is, the unhealthiest part of the recipe is in the icing. Again it helps that I am not fond of too much creamy icing usually.

This is the easiest brownie recipe I have ever seen. So even those who are shy of baking should try this and chocolate fans must!

Here goes: Modified from Hummingbird bakery cookbook – Makes around 12.

Ingredients:

(All recipes include ingredient lists given in cups, grams or spoonfuls. I use wikianswers to check conversions and google for substitutes.)

200 g dark chocolate ( I used Green and Black)

175g unsalted butter (I think it could have done with 150g, was quite rich)

275g caster sugar

130g plain flour

3 eggs

icing sugar to decorate

Method:

1. Line a square/rectangular baking tray with greaseproof paper. The height of the batter has to be around 5 cm ideally. Otherwise some time adjustments would be needed.

2. Preheat oven to 170 deg C (150 deg on fan assisted oven)

3. In a heatproof bowl (Glass bowls like Borosil are best), put the chocolate (break into pieces by smashing it on side of counter, quick and effective) and butter.

4. Put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (Medium heat). The water should not touch the base of the bowl and the steam should not touch the chocolate. Water coming in touch with the chocolate is not good at all.

5. Leave until melted and smooth.

6. Remove from heat and add sugar. Mix it completely.

7. Sift in the flour and mix properly. There should be no specks of the flour left.

8. Beat eggs lightly and add to the mix.

9. Transfer the mix to prepared baking tray and bake for 30-35 minutes (Reduce time by a third for fan assisted ovens).

10. The top should become flaky, do not overcook.

11. Remove from oven, cool completely and then dust icing sugar through a sieve.

Ta da!

P.S. I haven’t yet been to Hummingbird bakery, shame on me.

I have noticed that whenever he is not around, I update my blog. This post is slightly different though. This is a topic, we discussed for many hours and our disagreement was stronger than on most topics.

So how the thought came up: I recently read Palace of Illusions. Retelling of Mahabharat from Draupadi’s point of view. I started thinking, if we are told Indraprastha is where Delhi is now and Kurukshetra is where the war happened. Maybe someone should look for archaeological proof to prove how old the story actually is and what is the scientific explanation for what is mentioned as miracles. I have always been fascinated by this epic. Unlike the goody two shoes nature of characters in Ramayana, this one has gray shades in each character, including Krishna. Interesting way of highlighting that the human race is flawed, even Gods in their earthly form will fall prey to human shortcomings.

The hubby is psycho about history and guessed that since Harappan civilization is dated back to around 2600 BC and the society in Mahabharat is much more advanced technologically(weapons, vehicles, construction etc), the story would have to be set much later than the claimed 5000 to 6000 BC. That is, if it ever happened. (Since Ramayan is supposed to be older than Mahabharat, the same questions apply to that too)

I think many historians and sociologists have in the past said these epics could be retellings of tribal tales which have been combined into one epic, thus explaining multiple side tracks. And that these stories are full of hyperbole, so hanuman didn’t really fly but was a very fast navigator. Things like that you know.

Till this point our discussion was very cordial. Then came the issue where things fell apart. I was wondering, given that he is in media and writing, why noone researches and writes about these things.

His contention is: “People who write about/question these things will be targetted by extremists. And the moderates have to take part of the blame for this situation”

Why? What is a moderate expected to do?

The same argument of moderates being at fault has been used against moderate Muslims when it comes to terrorism. It now is being applied to moderate hindus, who go about quietly following whatever they believe in their homes.

Just because a moderate believer (of any religion) doesn’t come out on the road and behave like the extremist idiots, they should not be held responsible.

So basically I have at this point 2 main questions:

1. What is ideal moderate behaviour? Come out on the streets as a counter balance to the extremists. Make noise about your religion and beliefs being different from that radical group? Doesn’t that go against the definition of a moderate. If I vote for the party I consider capable of making decisions on freedom of religion, behave in a unbiased/un-prejudicial way, isn’t that enough.

I recently saw how a mob behaves when they were outside the Headlines today office. In my opinion, the controversial news article was anything but that. It was like stating the obvious – in fact it didn’t even need a sting. The RSS is increasingly a bitter group of people who don’t want a solution to their problem, they want ‘their own’ solution. Not open to debates about their ideology. Just like the mullahs of Taliban or many madarasas who think they have all the answers and don’t entertain any questions. Should I and others like me become like them screaming at everything and telling others to shut up?

2. Who will ask the questions and find the answers? If as an researcher/historian/author, I have to fear for my personal/family’s safety and also the reach of my work, what is my incentive? It the best research on Hinduism and Islam can not happen in India, with everything becoming a cause for mob violence, the times to come will be sad. IMO at some level, everyone has to accept that all religions are sexist/regressive/outdated. You can’t take them literally all the time, if you want pick the right things. Let the ones who have the knowledge answer the questions or give their theories about things you don’t understand.

Recently Priya Ramani mentioned her opinion on Ram and his behaviour towards Sita in an editorial. Some of the respondents were full of rage with no valid points, except for “how could you?”.

Same thing happened to Salman Rushdie with Satanic Verses.

If this pig-headedness was shown by a country on any basis other than religion, they would be boycotted by everyone (e.g. North Korea).

I will leave you with this:

If  every time a Hindu questions their religion they are labelled ‘Pseudo secularists’ and if they like something about their religion, they are labelled ‘Extremists’?

Similarly, if a Muslim questions their religion, there is a fatwa against them and when they like something, they are labelled a ‘terrorist supporter’.

Will they ask questions? And if they do who will answer their questions?

 You see, the ones I want to forget are the toxic friends. Friends who would never be happy when I was happy, and try undermine my confidence at every step. Here is how:

- After XII result: “SRCC is such a boring college. In any case, nowadays, getting admission by paying money is so easy” or ”Everyone is doing computer engineering, it has no value anymore”

-  After MBA admission: “This admission is good but how long will you keep studying? Don’t you have to get married?”

You might wonder why I was friends with them, honestly I don’t know why. I guess, I didn’t realize their impact till I went to college and met nicer people. At that point, I tried to cut off from them as much as possible. Distance helped to a large extent.

I was a naïve kid till I was 18. Having grown up in a protected environment, I was quite a goody-two-shoes type person. I realize that this doesn’t make me a very likeable person, but then that is what friends are for to accept (even if they point out and try to correct) your flaws.

I have, with a lot of effort, left such friends out of my life and it is a big relief! You might be wondering if they are no longer a part of my life, why I am talking about them. That is because I have recently realized there is another source of toxicity which affects a lot of people – Family. I have realized with my own experience that cutting ties with anyone you have closely been associated with is tough, family I am assuming would be horribly tough.

In all the years, I was growing up I saw one dysfunctional family. The parents in their own pettiness would encourage kids to behave badly just to spite the other person. This led to the kids not respecting either of them and misbehaving. As shocked as I was hearing such stories, I treated it as an aberration and didn’t give it much thought. 

As I went out of my house, city, circle of friends I realized duniya kaafi screwed up hai. I will tell you 2 small stories where 2 different people coming from f****d up families realized the worth of sensible, open, loving families after they got married.

The girl, a door ki relative, came from a family which was messed up in the sad way that they didn’t even see their dysfunctionality. Their problems according to me:

- Her parents spoke about the time they( which means their grandparents) were rich, and then their drunkard sons had squandered away nearly all of their money. They had the ego to give gifts, the cheapness to buy fakes and pass them off as originals and the stupidity to believe others would buy their charade.

- Her parents went through life with the cockiness that they had a superb family. So what if they didn’t discuss what problems their kids were facing or why their kids preferred to spend all their time outside the home. They were still an ideal family because they thought so.

- Despite everyone, including their daughter being highly educated they were still living in the last century. They believed in all sorts of biases against the girl child, against inauspicious days, against people from different gotras and all that bakwaas.

She married a nice boy in an arranged marriage and realized for the first time that parents could talk to you sensibly and you didn’t need to run away from them to solve problems. Family loyalty still kept her from saying anything bad about them. Everyone spoke about their fears that she might turn out like her family, but everyone gave her a chance. She has turned out fine till now and is happy with her husband’s family. Now married for 5 years with 1 kid, she is doing well. The catch is: she has considerably cut ties with her family. Noone seems to mind really, except when her parents have to use senti to pain their daughter.

 The boy, a friend, came from a family which was full of selfish people, who treated their son as an ATM and as a problem solver.

- The only time he would get a call from them would be when there was a problem.

- Noone would call him before a big exam or on his promotion or on his birthday. He would see his friends around him, who would count at the end of a birthday if anyone from family had not called. He got used to this fact, and started avoiding family at all costs.

- The family was bothered more about “log kya kahenge” than about “what will make my child happy”. This meant he suffered every time he did something different.

- To avoid social pressure, the freeloaders in the family would keep asking him for money. Irrespective of his financial situation. This, when they are stinking rich themselves. They didn’t care if he fell back on his loan payments but some relative should have a new bike.

He kept buying his way out of problems for a long time. He had a love marriage and found in that family love, appreciation and respect. He would call them when he needed guidance/help/company. He met people who would try to see things from their children’s perspective and adapted to her family’s ways. They still use him as an ATM and are still as selfish. However, he can never go back to them and discuss issues with them. The few attempts he made were met with disproportionate responses, so he gave up.

What these two stories made me think is – Is there a way to solve the problem of difficult families? Is cutting off from toxic influences a solution? Given the increasing role of friends in one’s life, can friends take the place of family?

Most of all what it made me think is – Apart from the economic situation of the family you are born in, is family the next most important factor determining your personality? 

I have too many questions and no answers. Let me know what you think.

After moving to Delhi, two things happened: 1.we finished a long overdue purchase – a Morphy Richards OTG; and 2. Soon after we shifted to Delhi, I found the awesome Le Marche department store in Vasant Vihar and Saket.

As a result of these two, I have started trying my hand at cooking again, and I am happy to inform that the experiments have been quite successful. With the new-found interest in photography, the combination has been more than satisfying for me.

Following are the pictures of my experiments, hope you like them:

Tomato, cheese and Herb Pizza: The first preparation in the OTG. Both the hubby and I are fans of the thin crust. Here I made the crust first and once that was done, I baked the pizza. Both of us loved it.

Borough market brownie: Last year, the hubby and I went to London for a vacation. On that trip we went to Borough Market, I absolutely loved it. We saw the farmer’s market, also the smoothie stalls, the sandwich stalls and the famous brownie stalls. We tried most of those things and on the whole had a great time there. So, when I saw the recipe called borough market brownie, I knew I had to try it. The brownie turned out to be just the right amount of sweet and chocolaty and quite gooey and rich. There was only one problem – I don’t like gooey brownie much.

The hubby loved it. Though to his credit, he is very encouraging and would never say anything bad about my cooking.

Chocolate cookies with chocolate chips: When my parents bought our first microwave way back, I wasted what I thought was biscuit/cookie batter more than once. I was disappointed not to have a good recipe which would work in a microwave.(By this time, the oven in my parents’ house had died a slow and painful death)

With the OTG I did make chewy jumbo chocolate cookies with chocolate chips as soon as I got time and ingredients.

Cheesy Bonfire Bread: This is a yeasty bread made with generous amounts of cheddar cheese. It was an 80% success, slightly doughy but quite tasty. The doughiness was I guess because I tried to make the bread healthy and use multi grain instead of regular atta + maida mix. Anyhoo nice bread, will make again, especially since hubby brought excellent gruyere type cheese from Zurich. He interview the CEO of Hublot, the watch maker, and the kind man gave him a slice of cheese he made in his personal dairy. Here is the Hublot CEO’s photo.

Other fair successes have been chocolate chip muffins, fancy bagel sandwiches, pastas.

Super Success: Oatmeal and raisin cookies. I loved them completely! So did everyone who tasted it. Even my mom loved it. Who is living in constant fear that I will quit one day to cook. (I might) Yay!!!

There have also been some near hits and some disasters. e.g. my tiramisu tasted perfect but didn’t set properly, the cauliflower soup was slightly too thick and the scones. Oh my God, the scones. They were too salty and not nice at all. But we will not talk about the scones. I am very touchy about the scones. Sob.

All in all, excellent experience till now. Wish me luck, I am planning to make a coffee based cake soon and I am hoping I can use my newly made vanilla sugar for it. Tell me about your cooking experiments and send me any good recipes. Also any tips for good ingredient suppliers in Delhi?

Any compliments on my cooking will be highly appreciated. One day when I start my world-class muffin delivery business, I might send you a free box.

P.S. Check out bbcgoodfood.com for the warm fuzzy feeling which good food can bring. Also check passionateaboutbaking.com and purplefoodie.com. Both women have great sites and yummy food photos.

When we were kids, we were taught not to open presents immediately. ‘It would look like we wanted the presents’. I have always followed this religiously. Whenever I get presents, I keep them politely with me, with a polite “Iski kya zaroorat thi?” or “You shouldn’t have.” This is what the world sees. What my hubby sees is slightly different:

Me: Get in the car quick. I need to open my presents.

Hubby: Now?! Can’t you do it when we reach home?

Me: What??

Hubby: Umm…errr…I mean, if you have to open them now, let us open them here. You know…before we start driving. You can do it in the car if you like.

Me: No!!! We have to be out of sight when I open them. Otherwise I will look greedy. Stupid.

Hubby: Sweetie, so you want me to drive? While you open the presents?

Me: Yes. Thank god you finally get it. Now Let’s go.

So. Net net, I made my non-driver non-emotional atheist hubby, drive us home in the middle of the night, while he was alternating between saying tearful goodbyes to his family and praying to all sorts of gods. Meanwhile, I happily opened my presents – a kurti, an iPhone, an SLR camera, a handbag and a saree. Yay! Delights well worth risking death for.

We did reach home safely and I loved all the presents.

As you would know, I have not updated my blog for a long time now. A lull in the office and the increased wisdom due to my age, have inspired me to write again. I am thinking about how I became the person I am today.

Well not really.

Mostly I was thinking of random things and I am going to write about them. Am sure all of you are nice people, and you have been told to be nice to old people, so bear with me and read on.

Ok, so where were we? Yes. My presents. Now the thing is I love nearly all presents. I have no clue why.

My hubby thinks I like all presents, even the bad ones. I think that is absolute rubbish.

But then he has proof.

Incident 1: When I was quite young, Barbie dolls were fairly new in the market. I really liked them but I would never mention it to anyone that I wanted one. I think it is because I thought they were too expensive and I didn’t want my parents to buy it for me if they couldn’t afford it.  I don’t exactly know how my parents figured out that I wanted it. I think after many  years of coveting it, I told my mom “it is nice, if only it was not so expensive.” I got it as a gift for my 13th birthday I think. The second I touched the nicely wrapped gift, I knew it was a barbie. The only time, I screamed like a girl in my life. I loved it completely. Even now, my mom talks about how excited I was. Even though, I was past the age of playing with dolls, I played. I was super happy and then after a year or so, I gave it to my 10 year old cousin.

Incident 2: This next incident is still a point of disagreement in our marriage. For our wedding, a school friend of mine gave us a small silver supari box. It had a silver top and the bottom was transparent but very good quality plastic. It was quite pretty, and I genuinely liked it. He, on the other hand didn’t. He still cribs about it and this is where you come in. Please tell me that a good silver and plastic supari box is a good gift. Am sure you will take my side. The hubby made me give up the present. Though really I’ve just hidden it away somewhere safe.

Sidin the hubby: Yes yes. This is very prudent. You never know when you will urgently need the cheapest gift ever gifted by man.

I am still looking for the gifts that I don’t like. I mean, I am not actually looking for those gifts, I would just like to prove my hubby wrong. Tell me what are the bad gifts you have received and I am sure I will find gifts which even I would not like.

Help an honest well-meaning wife get one moment of “You were wrong idiot husband. You suck. Some supari?”

It’s a good cause.

Burp.(Muffled and graceful in that womany way)

Around 95% of the time, the absent minded idiot (AMI) and I love the same tv shows: House MD, Law and order SVU, Will and Grace, Frasier, Friends and so on. There is only one choice of TV series where we have a major disagreement. We can never watch it together: Sex and the City.

So now that the AMI and his set of roll-prone eyes were far away in his newsroom, I decided to binge on some SATC. Also, blame the sugar high, I started thinking about his reasons for hating the show, and mine for loving it.

He thinks: All the characters in the show are fake. And the fact that the quartet of divas make fun of the fake-ness of others is annoying

He thinks: All the characters are selfish and therefore unlikeable. Unbearable.

He thinks: The show has bad dialogue: “Unreal! Forced! Unnatural! Sensationalist! Boring! SLAP! Actually when I think about it I like it…”

He thinks: The show sells cheap thrills.

He thinks.

Fool.

All this from someone who likes the most random movies, and dragged me along to watch 2012.

2012 is one of the worst movies ever made. Really. EVER. Roland Emmerich is every ounce as grave a threat to mankind as is global warming.

So, I need to tell AMI, SHUT UP YOU FOOL! YOU KNOW NOTHING! NOTHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE OR SEX AND THE CITY! NO HIDE AND SEEK FOR YOU! I ATE ALL OF IT!

So why do I like SATC so much? Let me count the ways:

Well, first of all, the lives these women lead are, in a way, glamorous. They always have time for sunday brunch with best friends. They have few or no chores. They shop for things that they clearly can’t afford. Their lingerie is never boring. They always have blow dried hair. They always eat out but don’t put on weight. I think these things are fun. Impractical, clearly impossible, but fun. What I consider luxury is, for them, routine.

To quote one of my favourite literary characters: “Me likey”.

Carrie and company do what they like, say what they like. They may be selfish. In fact, I am sure they are all selfish characters in their own ways. But there is something aspirational in all this no?

I think we all end up doing a lot of things in life to please others, which only complicates life. Keeping up with social obligations is a source of stress. I think its cool that Carrie & co. just cut off from unpleasant situations and run.

It would be awesome to only meet and interact with people you like. Don’t you think? I interact with way too many people, on a daily basis, who I want to strangle with my dupatta. And then run their bodies through wood chipper.

All four of them love their jobs.

This is rare but also awesome. I especially love Carrie’s job. She sits in front of a pretty window occasionally looking at rain or snow. Starting all her columns with “I couldn’t help but wonder…”. Clearly her job pays fantastically well. A house like that in Manhattan and the huge collection of shoes, including all those Manolo Blahniks… Drool. Sigh.

I would happily write a column every week, writing about the many wonderings of my mind. When I think of her low involvement, high paying job, “I can’t help but wonder…”

But you know what I REALLY like?

The cheesy dialogues, and Carrie’s thoughts narrated out loud. I have always thought that my mind is full of random thoughts, sometimes stupid and sometimes profound. It is comforting to know that others, yes even Sarah Jessica Parker, have them too. Things like Twitter and Facebook status updates are great for people like me. They let me vent all those incessant musings that stream through my mind like a CNBC ticker at noon. Of course, the completely stupid ones still stay only in my head.

But there `
So, net net, I like this show.

To paraphrase yet another towering literary figure: “What’s not to like? Glamour? Good. Selfishness? Good. Fun jobs? Good. Random musings? Good!”

Agree/Disagree? Tell me about your random thoughts. About the Sex and The City. Or anything.

Anyways, our last long trip was to the UK. Our primary stop there was London, with some time in Edinburgh and Inverness. The hubby is a huge fan of the land of the stiff upper lip and of the scone, it was his third trip there and my first. Actually, it was my first trip outside Asia. I fell in love with the place instantly. I could shift to Edinburgh today. Maybe someday, or the TV show might take us there.

Our trip to Scotland was spent in great company, some friends from campus and my brother. All of us travelled by train to Edinburgh in a quiet coach. This effectively meant every joke or fit of laughter was succeeded by us checking our volume and whispering for the next several minutes till the cycle repeated itself. We drove around in the highlands on the way to Inverness. I found the place I want to retire to when I am old – its a tiny village called Braemer. It is the most quaint and pretty place I have seen ever. It reminded me of the kind of place where James Herriot’s books are based. I could imagine the church bells being the only loud noise and everyone going about their business at a most relaxing pace.

London was awesome from a touristy perspective – despite walking around enough to end up with aching feet everyday, we could not see everything in 2 weeks. In fact, a mix up of our return tickets gave us an extra day in London, where we enjoyed the services of the most entertaining guide. None other than one of the beef eaters at the tower of London. A delightful sense of humour and an enthusiasm for their work made it a fantastic experience. There is much I can talk about every experience there. I might, depending on the free time in office and the feedback to this post.

The idea behind this post was to showcase a few of my favourite photos from the trip, but I have rambled on.

Anyhow, as they say in my office: Please find below, some photos from the Scotland trip. Do let me know in case there is any feedback. Regards.

Idle day at the St. Andrews golf course

Our B&B at Inverness

Pretty Flowers

Hope you like them, if yes, please let me know. If not, well, I had fun taking these photos, so shut up.

p.s. Click on all pictures to magnify. Click. Now.