Pinku-Enchanted Life

Dear Ringorotash, yes you of the million name fame i.e. my darling badmash daughter. You turned four yesterday. You have been insisting that you want to grow big but almost immediately you let us know that though you are four now you are still a baby and therefore we shouldnt expect so much from you. At Bookaroo - your first visit to a Book fair - both dadda and me hope that you will catch the reading bug, much like us. I wonder where you have got your logical mind from. Am sure your dad or me would never have come up with such complicated thoughts at age four. You tell us complicated stuff like, "babies too have feelings" when scolded and when I ask you where your feelings are you point to your tear ducts. You also tell lies and when caught say you were just playing a prank. You dont like being second guessed at all. And you are a self proclaimed 'genius' though you frequently forget your ABC's. At Jiya baby's first birthday - with your first...

Brownies are those gooey chocolaty things that one digs into with or without reason. To have a brownie is sheer indulgence. The high chocolate content gives me the perfect kick and while I will eat only a small piece of cake, a brownie is always in the bigger is better category. So it happened that I was holding onto a cupful of rum soaked dry fruits & spices which were leftovers from the Christmas cake.  I didn't want to bake more plum cake for two reasons. One the process is lengthy and secondly I had baked quite a few in December and didn't feel like doing it again. A brownie seemed a better alternative. I replaced the usual walnuts with the soaked fruits and hoped it wouldn't be too weird a taste. Well the outcome was a finger licking good brownie with just a hint of rum to take its addictive qualities a notch higher. Ingredients: 125 gm Maida (white flour) 1 TSP Baking powder 200 gm i.e half tin condensed milk 3 TBSP Butter 2 TBSP Cocoa Powder (I used Cadbury's...

The past saturday found us excitedly heading towards Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium to attend the Street food festival being organised there by NASVI . Last year I had heard a lot of good things about this festival and also read up a two page write up in Brunch by Vir Sanghvi which left me salivating for these treats from the streets. So off we went, the hubby, kid and me to check out the fare at the JLN Stadium grounds. Post working out the parking format (essentially about getting your car to climb the pavement and sitting there) we walked up to the gate, paid the entry fee of Rs. 50/- per head and were all set to explore. We decided to take a quick round of the place before choosing the stuff we would like to eat. Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam we looked at before settling for a Chicken 65 at the Karnataka stall.  A big chicken leg wrapped in a spicy batter and deep fried till the outer layer is crisp, the inner layer is cooked and yet the juices have been left intact is what we got on our ...

Christmas for me is incomplete without some serious plum cake eating. Since for the past year or so I have been baking with a vengeance I thought this year the Plum cake too should be home baked.  Research on the hows, do's and dont's took me through various books, blog posts and videos and I finally figured out a recipe that I was reasonably sure would work for me and was close to the taste and texture I had in mind. To me a good plum cake is a dark, well baked almost over baked, moist, filled with dry fruits kind of cake which is rich in spices and has a distinct aroma. Sharing herewith the recipe. Do give it a try and let me know how it goes: Ingredients: To Soak the Fruits ( do this atleast 4 weeks before you expect to bake. Remember to stir it atleast twice every week) 2 cups - chopped dry fruits - include all that you like. and then some. Add lemon and orange peels if you can, they add a lovely fragrance 1 1/2 - cups liquor - I used dark Rum, you can choose to use red wi...

Banoffee Pie seems to be quite the favorite of my office team mates going by the main dessert order at any office get together. Since I do bake a colleague asked if I could make one and bring it to office. Now I never eat bananas and therefore have never ever tasted the pie and had no inclination to make one either especially since even the partner didnt seem to think much of this particular dish though his sweet tooth is legendary. But since the colleague asked I thought why not give it a try. I checked on a few sites for the recipe and figured that its a pretty simple one actually. A few ingredients, no baking and almost child's play in terms of putting together. Though I didn't eat it, it got polished off in office and people have demanded repeats so am feeling emboldened enough to post it here. Ingredients: 400 gms digestive biscuits - I used Britannia Nutrichoice, crushed. If using a mixer remember not to make it too fine 200 gms butter - I used unsalted butter 2 tins cond...

We shifted from one flat to another the past weekend. While we are just a stones throw away from the previous flat yet shifting meant digging out things from all nooks and crannies and turning all parts of the home upside down quite literally. It is an exhausting task in most households and in ours more so with the husband’s ability at hoarding all sorts of paper memorabilia, our combined love of books, music and films and the fact that we both do not have a parental home where some of our childhood stuff could be kept. Instead lots of things from both homes are kept with us as they have too many sentiments attached and I find it very difficult to throw them away. So after four days of sorting through piles and piles of stuff, continuously sneezing thanks to the dust and body ache I wanted to eat something different and feel a little sane. Since it was also a work day and time was of the essence I decided fried rice with lots of veggies and thick chicken gravy would have to suffice. A ...

“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”  — Ayn Rand I have long been an ardent fan of Ayn Rand and admired her novels and thought. The partner who prides himself on his socialism traits has always found my Ayn Rand love to be in continuation of my love for shopping and by extension unabashed consumerism. I thought of clarifying my standpoint to him and then decided it might be exciting to hear what you guys have to say about my views as well, so here goes. My  favorite  amongst Rand’s novels is of course Atlas Shrugged . I am totally in love with the character of Dagny Taggart – as a teenager when I first read Atlas Shrugged my only grouse with Dagny was the ease with which she slipped into bed with the various men in her life (then I was a believer in the one life one love theory)....