As a child, life was wonderfully simple. Alas! Age has the potential to drag every ounce of wonder from us. If we’re not careful we forget to view new things with potential, lest they get in the way of all the other stuff we have to do. The way I see it, if we have a tax return to fill in then we should just do it, any extra time spent moaning about the thing just takes up moments that could have been used doing something new and fun.

I decided today that this New Years won’t catch me out. Previously I’d woken up and somehow it was the last day on the calendar, time again to make resolutions. A list I would never write to forget about. However not to be outdone in my girl group I do spend a little while bothered with myself at all the inactivity I found myself doing in the year that has passed and making up an imaginary list with a levity which would have been hilarious  at any other occasion. That’s life! When you’re forced to do something that you wouldn’t otherwise have done it becomes a half-hearted exercise that leaves you with a feeling of slavery. One day, I can’t remember which; I resolved to do some things that I’d wanted to do for a while. Remarkably, it wasn’t anywhere near the beginning of the year – or the end for that matter – and I was gleeful with a set of resolutions that I’d chosen to create because I wanted to. I once read somewhere that only humans who are concerned with the trivial choose to kill themselves, and I realized in a flash that you don’t necessarily need to be dead to be in heaven. As a consequence, whenever I’m feeling rocked by life – whether it is debt or a long wait at the airport or the appearance of numerous gray hair – I choose to create something new, something mine, and something only I can breathe into life. Fitting really, because I’d like to wrap this up by saying that the latent confusion that highlights a new thought or idea is the very essence of it: just because we don’t have an answer for most of the things we do it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. So, lots of Yuletide glee and a Happy New Year, everyone.

Who chose December 31 as the last day of the calendar year? Why does it have to be such a big celebration? Another thing. What’s with the resolutions? Are you saying you’re seriously going to change yourself just because it’s a new year? If I see something that needs changing, I’ll change it then and there:the expressions on my face, seasonings in a dish I have prepared, a light bulb , a dress, the colour of my lipstick and many times the contents in my handbag;  that’s the range of my immediate list and I don’t need to wait until January!

I realize that a new year is but inevitable but honestly have never been a huge fan of it.  Call me anything but that’s a fact. I always feel more sad than optimistic.  When I was younger, I think it was mostly because the cheer and thrill of Christmas was over and school was starting soon.  As an adult, my New Year’s melancholy is usually due to either lack of plans or lack of reality matching expectations.  Sure, I had some fun years partying with friends or having that “dream date” on the “dream night.”  Usually though, I was out somewhere feeling like I should be having a much better time for the money I’d spent and the emotional investment I’d put into the evening.

Believe it or not I’m an underdog person.  While everyone else cheers wildly in anticipation of the New Year, I’m feeling sorry for the old. In my view, everyone is too eager to move the clock hands.  Unfortunately, for me, this most obvious symbol of the passage of time generates a golf ball sized lump in my throat.  The years go by too fast now.  Am I being a tad over melodramatic?  January has always been my worst month mood-wise, lost my Dad in January. When I was little, my dad used to say, “I wish you could have stayed five years old.”  I always thought he was joking.  Now I realize he was at least half-serious. Now I wish I had stayed a five-year old, he would have been still around.

Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.  I look at it as another chance to perfect the old habits. I am always at peace with my vices and at war with my virtues and neighbors and I haven’t yet found an amicable way of changing it. However, for those of you who have discovered ways to reconcile your resolutions I wish you joy and never ending New Years to resolve all your thoughts, wishes and actions.

So, here’s a toast to all of you to a grand entry into the second decade of the 2000s. May your lives be filled with the hectic blend of health, heart, happiness and harmony.

If a separate paradise exists for each of us, mine must surely be potted with spice trees and words (of wisdom???).

The dictionary of English proverbs assures me that this saying means a determined and sometimes reckless effort to succeed or die fighting putting death before glory honour and the like. However, I have always associated this particular proverb with cowardice and escapism. You die doing, now why on earth would you do that? I would like to taste and feel what I have done and not die doing it. God forbid that I should kick the bucket then let me declare here and now that it is not because I died, doing whatever it was but because of reasons extraneous and totally unrelated to the act. There are just two choices (if you can call it that, maybe option would be a better word). You do or you don’t, simple! In my case, more often than not the latter takes precedence, not because of a lack of motivation, inspiration or intention (believe me, I am surrounded and consumed by all three). It is a 100-headed hydra called laziness that grips me, and the single-most important factor that stops me from penning the myriad ideas that constantly run all over my not so svelte frame before being relegated or even elevated to the domain of cerebral posterity.

Getting back to the original proverb, I feel it is a very limited way to look at a purpose. It is universal knowledge that everything has one end but the Germans differ here. They have a saying that goes, “Everything has one end only the (Wurst) Sausage has two”. Now that is a thought indeed. Funny isn’t it how you never think of life that way? Life too has two ends:  the long-end and the short-end, and it is totally upto us how to use them.

Now that brings me to typing out what I call my DEFINITELY DO SAUSAGE CURRY AND POTATO SALAD. For the Sausage Curry you can substitute the Sausage with Sheek Kebabs, both taste just as good. To start, thaw 4-5 sausages/kebabs and cut into one-inch pieces. Thinly slice a large onion, make a paste of cayenne pepper and powdered carom seeds, blanch three juicy red tomatoes take off the peel and purée. In a heavy- bottomed pan heat oil, lightly sauté the sliced onions (don’t brown) and kip the sausage in it and sauté for a while. Add the cayenne and carom paste and continue to sauté. Add the tomato purée and season with white pepper powder and salt to taste. Cover and let it cook for 3 minutes. You can add a spoon of tomato paste if you want and about a quarter cup of tepid water. The gravy should look thick and a luscious red with the sausage pieces bobbing out tantalizingly and the aroma of carom and cayenne swirling in the air, now that is something to LIVE for surely.

The Potato Salad another German invention has infinite variations depending on the genre of the potato (yes it is so!) region, season and the revered Oma (Grandmother), Mutti (Mother), Gross Tante Gretchen, (Great Aunt Gretchen), and all other relatives and non-relatives as well. The one here is a mixture of all the above and my touch. I make it with big to medium-sized new potatoes, the ones that are yellowish after peeling. Boil them in salt water but please take care not to make a mush. Cool and cut any which way you want but in a chunky style. Now dice two shalots into miniscule squares and a couple of spring onions too. Take about 12-14 gherkins and do the same deed to them. In a bowl, layer the potatoes and the shalots, the chopped bulbs of the spring onions and gherkins. Sprinkle very little salt, some pepper powder and gherkins juice on the potatoes and leave the bowl covered for a while. What I do is, hang some good quality curd (commercial if you please and not home-made, it is too watery) for a short while just to take out the excess whey and mix it with a generous amount of mayonnaise. Add a little powdered sugar and nicely whip it up. Add this to the potato and mix with a loving and gentle hand holding a wooden spoon! The wooden spoon does the trick. All the while keep tasting the seasoning. Keep it in the fridge for a while but remember to take it out 30 minutes before serving,this salad should not be served chilled. Oh and yes sprinkle the green part of the spring onions on top for that LOOK!!!

And, folks if you don’t DIE from gorging on all this, then you must surely be DOING it RIGHT.

Talking about history the cartoon strip Tom and Jerry has become cult and the episode called The Cat Concerto won an academy award in 1946. In 1929 Mickey Mouse had to deal with an animated piano intent on making life difficult for him. Both times the music was Etude No. 2 from Liszt’s The Hungarian Rhapsody. Liszt maybe recognized by a selected group of classical music aficionados, but the tune has been immortalized by a cat and two mice .They have ensured that generations will listen to it. Now that my dear readers, is what history is made of.

Liszt was Hungarian and one of the best composers of pieces for the piano. He may even have been the first pop-classicist. He wrote and played music that dazzled and amazed audiences. What we call techno-music created with electronic gadgets, Liszt created on the wooden ebony and ivory keyboard, with other exquisitely fragile parts and the foot pedal to produce perfect harmony. He did not need to outsource either for sound or effect. His mind and fingers did all what sophisticated technology does today. He stretched the limits of piano playing to unknown heights. Cartoonists drew pictures of him playing with four hands and twenty fingers. No wonder Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry are the ones to establish Liszt in the annals of musical history.

The Hungarian Rhapsody has 19 etudes. My cousin who is one of the best pianists I have heard and had she chosen music over mathematics would have undoubtedly been one of this century’s greatest pianists, told me that the first 6 etudes are the best and most played. I believe her. In fact she remembered the Tom and Jerry connection when I pointed it out. This magnificent piece of music is based on a form of art music familiar in Hungary and fostered by Gypsy musicians. It is among the heirloom music pieces of Hungary.

This brings me to another heirloom from Hungary namely the Hungarian Goulash. History of this masterpiece can be traced to the north-west part of Hungary to an orchard farmer way back in 1806. His second wife is credited with the recipe. This lady became a wife even before she was 20 replacing an illusion called the PERFECT WIFE namely the deceased first wife. (Death surely becomes all wives and canonizes them too!)As the story goes the second intrusion, (sorry, wife) did her best to please and gain approval of her all and mighty man. And he keeping up with the age old tradition of being a miserable so and so (the male specie has neither changed or evolved) continued to complain of nothing being the same or as good. Feeling utterly bereft one day, the little lady accidentally burnt the meat dish she was preparing. Desperately she tried to add spices and to get rid of the burnt smell , the house was shrouded in the burnt aroma. She resigned to being yelled and shouted at by her husband, but to her utter surprise he did shout and yell but telling her that finally, she had learnt how to cook. So the perfect first wife was not flawless after all, she served burnt food …now isn’t that food for thought? This feisty lady gained the reputation of being a great cook who could cook a gourmet meal with a cup of water, sow meat including the ear and tail and paprika!

Now I give you my version of this very comforting dish. It is not the authentic Hungarian Goulash that goes back to the Huns but close enough. Like always, I have tried to make do with what is available and climate friendly. This recipe is made with tender pieces of boneless mutton; you can also make it with good quality lamb. I also add vegetables, in this case, chunky pieces of succulent red carrots and baby onions.

Cook about 500 gms of meat with two bay leaves, some grated ginger, grated onions and 4-5 cloves of crushed garlic and salt in 2 and half cups of water till tender. Set aside the meat with the broth. Grind sweet paprika or cayenne pepper and caraway seeds into a fine powder. Cut 2 red onions into rings and saute until golden brown, best to use olive oil. Add the paprika and caraway seed mix and give it a quick stir and add half a cup of tepid water. Do this quickly or the paprika will turn bitter. To this add about two table spoons of tomato puree, the carrots, baby onions, the meat along with the broth, a generous amount of freshly ground pepper ,a miserly amount of salt and half a tea spoon of sugar. Cover and let it simmer on low-heat. Now take the lid off and add diced red bell peppers (you can roast and take the peel off if you have the time and energy)and a pinch of nutmeg powder. To make a thicker broth add some cornstarch mixed in water while stirring.

Believe me it tastes fantastic with baguette, German rye bread or even the humble toast. A plate of parsley potatoes or Gnocchi also goes well. For me a crispy lettuce salad is a great accompaniment. The choice is yours but be sure to listen to the Hungarian Rhapsody and do not forget to raise a toast to Mickey, Tom, Jerry and the second wife.

It’s that time again …another year about to turn and usher in a new digit, newer trials interspersed with moments we call joy and happiness. I can almost smell the holly and mistletoe, cookies and cinnamon rolls, hear the tinkle of silver bells on sleighs as Santa readies to fill the socks.
The past year was the proverbial mixed bag. I have become a little bit braver, yet more anxious. Definitely kinder, I have learnt to reach out my hand despite many trepidations. A year wearier, but a lot more accepting and trusting in God’s ways. However, am I wiser? If it means that the simple things still thrill me then yes I am. If it means waking up to fixed realities and accepting them as a part of life, then again I am. I see beauty in imperfections, in making false moves and taking wrong turns, in losing my way and asking for directions. My mistakes keep repeating themselves with uncanny precision and regularity and where would I be without this constant and loyal elf? In a sterilized, stereotype world buffing my nails and wondering where the next right was coming from! What an odious thought!

I have abandoned the idea of making resolutions since they never meet their purpose. Instead, I have decided to reflect and not be resolute. My constitution does not agree with most resolutions and finds them meaningless, boring, mundane and plain stupid. I have accepted that LIFE IS A LOPSIDED MIX OF THE FAIR AND UNFAIR AND NO MATTER WHAT YOU RESOLVE IT HAPPENS EXACTLY IN THE MANNER YOU DON’T WANT IT TO. I chose to call these reflections MOMENTS. My 2009 moments were astonishingly diverse and some terribly fulfilling.

MOMENT No.1: I have been initiated and inducted to the FACEBOOK list of fame. This was a huge event since I am lazy when it comes to social networking. Having said that I must say it is a delight to have connected with many. My knowledgeable aunt started the tradition of WORD TWIST and now I am hooked. It can be so destructive. Never felt so good after destroying, must be close to what those Greeks and Romans felt after a great day of rampage and plunder.

MOMENT No.2: Reconnected with the St Xavier’s Alumni Association in Delhi. Memories flooded back. Eerie…like going back to a world that now seems never existed…yes it was that good. It is a universal truth that the past always looks good from the point of view of the present.

MOMENT No.3: Watched some great films thanks to TORRENT DOWNLAOD. Never knew all this was possible. This is a great moment; I have self proclaimed that I have earned the status of being net savvy or is it tech-net-savvy? Whatever it is, I am that now.

MOMENT No.4: Understood the bliss of ALONENESS. Nature and other factors notwithstanding, you cannot win all the time and funnily neither do you lose even if you would like to (this holds especially true when the case in point is your weight!). You are brutally let down by some while others find you indispensable and irresistible. You are loved, hated, missed and dismissed though not all at once and  in varying degrees and stages of emotions. You are either part of the crowd or standing watching from the outside. You are insecure, you are afraid, you feel used and mostly left confused. However, in all this, you are never alone. Suddenly you realize you want to be alone, you do not want the clutter. This is when you reach the plateau called BY YOUSELF. Here you are at the vantage that allows you to watch the world pass by without being an active part of it. I get furious when people trespass or disturb my area of ALONE.

MOMENT 4: The final moment that needs to be mentioned is a new mania I have acquired: blogging. After the initial hesitation, I took flight. Look at me now, almost a Frankenstein, monstrously eager to write my next post. Moreover, I am not (yet) curbing my enthusiasm.

There many other moments that have happened, are still happening or about to happen. Lessons have been learnt, hearts have been hurt and forgiven, and the long good byes have been said until we meet again. I thank all of you for making these moments for me: good and bad, happy and sad. Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. I do not want to wish you a happy New Year but wish the New Year lots of happiness because it has all of you in it.

The term toast comes from the Roman practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into the wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines the Romans sometimes had to drink. Even Falstaff said, “put toast in’t” when he was requesting a jug of wine in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. In the 1700′s, party-goers even liked to toast to the health of people not present — especially beautiful women. Very similar to what an award winner does when they get a mike, “…and I would like to thank my eighteen horses and twenty hens, my Godmother’s gardener and his scrawny cat called Toaster, not to forget the policeman who gave me my first parking ticket and the good officer who booked me for exceeding the alcohol limit or was that for speeding…”

Coming to the ritual of clinking glasses; there are so many theories behind this custom yet no real proof. Eons ago in Greece a toast was seen as a gesture of good faith. The clinking of glasses at this time may have been a sneaky way for wine to be passed back and forth to prove its safety. Many cultures believed that clinking glasses drove away evil spirits. Blame the evil spirits if you got drunk!!! That’s easy, and a great excuse. The sound of the clinks was considered welcoming at weddings and birthdays. The Italian toast “cin cin” sounds like the glasses touching each other .
Up until the 16th century, toasts were usually only made to “good health”. Today it is to salute a special day, marriage, promotion at work, a divorce (which many consider a happy occasion) and other special occasions. Etiquette says you have to clink glasses with all present at your table. Well over a crowded 20-seater it seems a tad difficult unless you crawl on all fours on the table-top and clink with each person one by one. Women should take the precaution of not wearing a skirt. So let us just stick to those within clinking distance and make an eye contact with the rest.
However the idea behind clinking glasses that I find closest to a rationale has to do with the five senses. Savouring your drink is a most sensuous activity. We see the colour of the liquid, our tongue touches and tastes , we smell the bouquet (aroma of the wine) but what do we hear other than a buzz in our head or a thump when we fall off our chairs, hence the clink of glasses to clinch the five senses together. We hear the lilt of the clink; kind of a get ready sound like the gun shot signifying the beginning of a race or a gun salute at a state funeral. Make sure you are holding the glass right when you clink. The long stemmed glasses need to be held at the base and the rims need to touch delicately to get the perfect sound. The sound also depends on how full or empty your glass is. Ask the Jal-Tarang exponent, he will guide you in the art of getting the best sound out of your glass. Just take care you don’t empty your glass too frequently to get the right quantity. Well if you do no sweat, you can always get a refill. Practice makes perfect they say.
This brings me back to the art of making a toast. It’s similar to being asked to kiss the Queen, considered a great honor (don’t ask by who), but nobody wants to do it! Maybe it is the fear of having to face a large crowd. There’s pressure to do it right and not mess up, but it’s not as hard as it looks. A great toast requires a little creativity, a little patience, some hard work, ingenuity and many glasses of good wine.

Here’s a spirit raiser which has helped me on many an occasion. I call it “War and Peach”. You do not need a stellar wine, a reasonably tolerable one will do (but no table wine please). The white version tastes better than the red one. So after you have procured the bottle uncork and pour it into a bowl and let it breathe a while. In this add approximately a quarter of the wine bottle of Peach Schnapps and an equal quantity of Grand Marnier or Cointreau or Southern Comfort Peach Liqueur. A half liter bottle of chilled lemonade and small pieces of crispy Granny Smith apples go in next. The best way is to dunk your glass in the bowl and drink and not SIP before you make the toast. You shall find peach!!

I end by (mis)quoting the bard once again…

“We eat, we drink and in communion sweet
Quaff immortality and joy.”

To begin with, think of something you enjoy doing and also ask what sciences are used to make it happen. The kitchen is a great place to start. There is science in any food preparation. There are chemical and physical changes that occur, bacteria and fungus work over-time and even the sensory stimuli and colour preferences are a part of science.

I just realized the holiday season is round the corner and baking a cake seems so dot on!! The smell of a freshly baked cake with candied fruits, allspice and that extra bit of nutmeg does delicious things to my senses. Very pleasurable, I must say. And having said that, I will not elaborate on it, maybe another time in the same space.

My baking is not limited to weekends, birthdays and other occasions. I do not need a day for disasters to happen, I call out to them!!! Similarly, I bake whenever I feel like it. Very therapeutic too. Add to that a great work out for the arms and torso and you have an all in one session, don’t discount creativity and the right to have the first bite!!!

I always baptize my cakes. The one I am making today is the constellation cake: it has silver balls on the chocolate icing that look like stars on the sky on a moonless night. You can let your imagination go wild here and chose whichever constellation that fits your mood.

A funny thing happens every time I bake with astonishing regularity the recipe calls out to me. Uncanny eh? Tell me about it…it is not I who decided what kind of baking will take place the cake calls out almost begging to be baked.

Baking a cake isn’t a cakewalk but it most definitely is not rocket science. It’s a deeply emotional experience where you get to bake your cake and eat it too. It is a great way to conquer your fear of flour and learn to love and cope with every step of cake making including the moment when you present your made-from-scratch masterpiece to bedazzled hungry-eyed family and friends. There is nothing intimidating about baking a cake except for the part when it comes to dividing it in a way everyone believes he has the biggest piece.

Let’s start baking folks. I have colourful bowls, pots, pans and gadgets in my kitchen. Cheers me up and of course my rudimentary cup of tea in a lime green mug. Am sipping a Green Tea called “Buddha On The Mountain” at the moment, something I picked up in a quaint little tea shop in Hong Kong, after being extolled of its many virtues including blood pressure controlling capabilities.

Coming back to my utensils they are a mix of orange, yellow and green. The cup I am using is a beautiful electric blue it looks great filled with the white flour. In fact I need to fill it up again just to see the sight once more but this time just fill half of it, so one and half cup of flour goes into my sieve with a heaped spoon of baking powder and half a spoon of fruit soda. I sieve it into my large orange coloured bowl. In the yellow bowl the eggs are cracked in three is not a crowd here and sometime you can even take four to make the score even. Into the eggs go three-fourth cups (the blue cup again) of cooking oil, olive oil and mustard oil are absolute no-no. Use the normal cooking oil. I avoid butter for the obvious reasons. Then add the sugar, use packed demerara sugar, it is healthier and gives the cake a lovely light brown colour. Now whisk it all together with the hand mixer till creamy adding a teaspoon of vanilla essence, I added some sweet almond essence and nutmeg powder just to make it richer. In the small green bowl go my candied fruits and raisins which need to be well covered in flour so that they don’t sink to the bottom of the cake. Yep that’s the trick. Ok, before I flex my muscles and exercise my arms with the whisk I have to coax and prepare the oven. I have chosen my 6” round cake tin in gray and lovingly coat in with butter and sprinkle flour and gently tap out the excess. The oven has been turned on to maximum, it is red-hot not with anger but anticipation!! The egg mix is poured gently into the waiting flour. The electric whisk will be called in only for the final round. With a wooden spoon fold it all in gently and then start whisking till your arms feels heavy and are ready to fall off from the socket. For heavens sake did you really think I did that?? Use the electric whisk for god’s sake, who does all this when science has made life and baking so much more bearable! Dump in the fruits and raisin and here use the wooden spoon and with utmost love and emotion fold them in gently into the dough, while saying a little prayer. Darlings, the cake is ready to be baked and will need to go into inferno and be readied for purgation. The best results are when you bake at maximum for the first fifteen minutes and then turn the temperature down to half and let it bake for another fifteen to twenty minutes before poking it to test if the inside is firm or wobbly. If your prayers were heard it should take only a few more minutes to be ready. By now the heavenly aroma of vanilla and nutmeg will have floated all over and the neighbours will know something is baking.

Take out the cake from the tin and let it cool before smearing it with chocolate icing which is available in any grocery store. Making your own is too tedious. And you get to lick the ladle now and then. Dot the icing any kind of confetti, silver balls or let lose the artist in you.

A word of caution: your cake will not be perfect and like old friends a bit battered and worn. My recipes are like those old pair of jeans you slip into when you want to get really comfortable and be yourself.  These homemade cakes are undemanding, cozy and there for you like a best friend.

After all it’s just a piece of cake!!!