Chocolate and other emptiness' of the sumptuous.

There are minarets rising above clouds, spooning a sun on its way to slumber. Perhaps these are beacons of an imaginary castle where never-lands abound, ascending like notes of hymns sung at Notre Dame on a silent day. Or, air traffic control towers, rising up to find their ground - adorned in a mist of tears, densely guarding a city by the bay.

As I shuttle between fantasy and reality, desire is an assiduous constant. It wants and wants alone - a self fulfilling prophecy indeed. I wake up with a longing for the dream castle, the solemn sound in prayer and a warm abode - all in the womb of reality.

And I wake up with a hunger for Chocolate.

Bittersweet chocolate chip pancakes are a perfect panacea for Sunday morning hunger pangs. Bob's Red Mill  whole grain pancake flour was gifted to me very kindly by a loving friend. Add to that, Euphoria Chocolaterie's unsweetened ground cacao, bittersweet <always fair trade> chocolate chips, pure vanilla and almond extract - et Voila!

Chocolate Creme Fraiche frosting is not for the faint of heart. There is a certain tangy romance between the melted butter-semi-sweet chocolate-creme fraiche trio. I add vanilla to soothe frayed nerves for the first introduction. Then we are all friends.

Bu today, I wake up with a deep burning desire to drink chocolate. Not to sip the insipid hot chocolate seeping in water. Or even the version that I have previously imbibed with smug pride, spicy cocoa with milk and cream, laced with vanilla ice cream and Kahlua.

No - I want to drink deep from the cistern of pure dark forbidden pleasure as all do here. They won't share the conspiracy behind the concoction. I won't ask. I will willingly be a prisoner every morning and every evening and in between if they would have me. I will give in to longing as an end in itself.

Good Bye San Francisco. Good Morning Madrid - Citadel of Desire.

Vers la quai

Pause. Breathe. Pause. Breathe. Stop.

That was to be the epitaph of a certain Ms. Boat. It may still be.

Ms. Boat was born from a song. As a child of the Baul's, she too is a wandering minstrel, tumultuous in her own lilting melody. An ephemeral being oscillating on incessant waves searching for the invariable - a conundrum indeed.

For eons, Ms. Boat has been following the dawn - lost in the night. Her search for light, perpetual, her joy, perpetually transient. To the onlooker and to the passenger alike, her journey seemingly futile. Rushing through towns and waters, movement is her static state. Inertia weighs down her anchor, never dropped, just held in suspension somewhere between the throat and the heart space.

Winds replace winds, tattering her sails already hanging by a thread.

If the dawn does not lose hope, how can I? - she rhetorically asks the night waters - their cold caresses her only solace through winter nights.

Perhaps on any one of these glacial nights, the "stop" ought to come. It would be simple enough really to break the tenuous string of her music, what with the epitaph preordained, prepared. One wonders if fate orchestrates all funerals with such expedience and maybe even in harmony with conception?

As her song ascends to a close, we expect the crescendo to reach the final note of silence. After all, if the universe itself is conspiring against her, wherefrom then is Ms. Boat finding voice to hold song, we ponder. She should be sitting pretty for her epilogue, not gasping for breath and buoyancy at the precipice of terminal gravity. 

Are you still delusional with your visions of warm waters and steady winds, Ms. Boat - we ask just as we urge her to capitulate.

She is silent now and dark as the one moment before day break. 

Will the light forever be a mirage or will you find it in its entelechy? we ask again. 

Eternity will find me always within ambsace of a sunrise where the sun and its light are one - she responds.

El Quesedilla de piedras....

Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled. - Nietzsche

An empty stomach grumbling about a heavy heart does not make for a good evening or a good night's sleep -That is a conflict indeed; and one raging within the confines of oneself - a lonely uphill battle that cannot be won, that cannot be lost. I march towards victory and loss, armored with courage, shamed with remorse. Lead me to a rock greater than I - the Bible doth expound. My prayer and my salvation are one... my soul, lost in translation, understands only that it is yet just a bruised, hungry fragment searching for light within the dark recesses of thought and desire.

From this empty evening emerged but a shadow of a stony silent night. I remained hungry for life, for a voice.... stoically patient...in fear that movement would disturb the equilibrium of inertia.

And a voice comes knocking! Smiling, angelic in hope and reward. Suddenly the grumbling and groaning subside into elegant coordinated movements, that of fingers leading the knife..arms grabbing out and holding the pan for support and direction, swirling in olive oil to set back in movement the one who appeared to have never paused. 

The faux chicken is roasted on cast iron then chopped. The fridge ransacked for onions, tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, to be melded into a harmonious one. Kale and Broccolini, already soul-mates, find friends in leek and garlic fragrant in butter. We are finding love in togetherness and togetherness in love. It's a party!

When she walked in I told her my fridge was empty; It was really rather the opposite, bursting at the seams with unnecessary, expired, rotting remnants of yesterday... The very yesterday that had left me empty, forlorn and not anticipating any joy for I had not forgotten that after hope flirts, reality commits.

At first glance we thought we may be able to scrape up a tortilla with some cheese.. call it some sort of a poor woman's quesedilla.... but then as the stone soup brewed, we found we had much more within to offer it; that hope had died and reincarnated into strength.... yesterdays and tomorrows collapsed into this one moment of peace with my friend cooking supper and bunny chewing on leftover kale.

On a full stomach and a purged heart, I embrace you - sleep.

Waiting to exhale - Ragoût d'insatisfaits..

My breath has been on a pause. Subliminal forces have taken over, holding me hostage balanced at the precipice. Stationary and restless as a tree with shallow roots, I await he storm. But no storm arises. All there is, is this dull ache, and a paradoxically hopeless dream of a roof in the sky.

If I could reach and grab a piece of this sky and slice it and gobble it up and hold it and love it and need it and want it and consume it...  would I be back again, incomplete at the precipice? Is there such a moment as 'trupti" <loosely translated - divine contentment and peace> on the menu?

No. Which is why today I am cooking up moments of anxiety and endless wait into my "Ragoût d'insatisfaits" . The stew of the unfulfilled.

Desire for this stew starts simple - the craving for a warm, tangy, all encompassing feeling. And it takes just one ingredient really - a spark. But as the flame grows, so grows what I feed into it. I keep adding to it and stirring it and scraping it and watching it condense into rich colors and yet, I never ever really know with certainty the moment of the first bite. And when I do finally have the courage to taste heaven, Lao Tzu reminds me that the cup is already is broken.

Yet I continue to stir desire - if you are anything like me, you too will not learn from the folly of the past. Each time, you will start out trying to contain this plethora of emotion in a tiny shell, only to realize and forget - that pain and sorrow when blended together, grow to make one ebullient soul curry that brims over, sweeping the past and the future into one.

I will dip into myself today, fragrant with basmati rice and garnished with chopped cilantro.


Ingredients -
1 red onion
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 green chillies
4 fresh Curry leaves
1 tbsp Curry Powder
2 cans Garbanzo beans (15 oz each)
2 yukon gold potatoes, peeled, cubed
2 cans (15 oz each) diced tomatoes and juice
1.5 cans Coconut milk (15 oz each)
4 tbsp Oil (Safflower / canola)
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a pot which at the onset should very obviously be too small to hold all the ingredients (not!!). Add curry leaves, green chillies, garlic and onion and sauté until you are satisfied with the color - I like mine almost burnt. Add potatoes and cook. Add Chickpeas and curry powder and cook for a few minutes - then add the tomatoes and the coconut milk and salt and stir and stir and boil and stir and boil and cover and simmer for as long as you are winning the game with patience. Ideally, you should let stew for at least 2hrs and if you are one of those who can hold out a flame for a slow cooker you can let it go for about 8hrs.



Did I tell you that it is now 2pm and all I have imbibed today in anticipation is water?

Foggy Blue Bird Mondays...

Mondays are perfect for leftovers - food and emotions.

After a week of work and a weekend of social inactivity, Mondays are always a conundrum. Ever notice how the colors are brightest around you when the day is the dullest? But you have to step out of the moment at times to experience it fully. I can only ever chew on Mondays when I am not in them.

Mondays predictably are mundane. Reminding us of the repetitive cyclical nature of life; but sometimes this boring mundane Monday becomes our existence for the rest of the week...month...year. Is that because while Monday's are most dreaded, they are also the safest..? That shrouded in the dread of boredom and apathy, Mondays come to signify for us stability, routine, same-old packaged in a new week.

For once I wanted to experience Monday as a beginning. Not a fear but an excitement. Not the crawly "5 more days to go till Friday" dread, nor an anticipation of Tuesday.. just a warm regard for the day, as it is. All my days from September onwards, start with a foggy outlook and some clear up as the day progresses. Monday's however seem to have the foggiest outlook, not clearing the choking down my throat, even if the sun peers.

But this Monday was different. This Monday, the blue bird sang a song, no less sweeter than another day. The blue bird knows not weeks or days, just the moment. And in each moment, it re-invents life. Just as it re-invented all my Mondays from here on.

So much so that, Tuesday is here, and look at me - reminiscing the Monday blues :)

Can-do the-Laddooo!

I have to risk a repetitive title to make two points - One of the "Kaddoo" (pumpkin) already made elegantly by my mother, and one of "Laddoo"that I am making today!
Husband asks if there is any similarity in the two words.. Linguistically no, but I suppose if there is, then perhaps this will be known as the "Dooo-day", the day to make happen.

Laddoo's are as colloquial and quintessential to India as PBJ's to 5 yr olds in the U.S.  Halwai's as sweet vendors are traditionally known, prepare heaps of these for festivals, weddings and holy Tuesdays. There is never an excuse needed for Laddoo's, they are always consumed in all their glory without guilt.

Considering the "love handles" I live with, I cannot consume the traditional laddoo's without guilt, so I made the laddoo my own and it embraced me too! You can make it vegan if you skip the ghee, which I added purely for awakening childhood memories in my olfactory's!


1cup almonds
3/4 cup cashews
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup dates
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup flax seed meal (ground flax seeds)
1/4 cup Agave
1/4 cup warm water
2 tbps of melted ghee (optional)
Pinch of Saffron (optional)
Pinch of Cardamom powder (optional)


In a food processor, grind the almonds, cashews and walnuts one by one to a coarse powder, not too fine but just enough to make a dough but also taste some texture. Combine with the flax seed meal and set aside in a dish.
In the food processor, add the dates, raisins, agave, saffron, cardamom powder and puree to a thick paste. Add to the existing mixture and with your hand, mix it into a dough. Slowly add the warm water and the ghee to make the dough. Make small round portions by hand and roll it into shapes / size of your preference. Roll them in the flax seed meal to finish.

et Voila! We have the healthiest laddoo's, sans sugar with only health benefits! Add it to your breakfast or dessert, I have it for both :)

Can-do the -Kaddooo!

Pumpkin (Kaddoo as I know it) season is here and everywhere!

Our journey into cuisine, will take us and the vegetables we know, to places familiar and new.
This journey is not going to be one of technique and precision but one of discovering the styles of souls around the world. And food will be our common language for emoting.

My mother's favorite vegetable vendor picks up fresh vegetables from one part of Mumbai at 5am drives his tempo - his wife and child in accompaniment and arrives at this tiny suburb by the ocean.. fondly referred to as "7 bungalows".. where originally only 7 homes lined a street facing the ocean.

Now this little suburb is filled with high rise apartments, the original seven bungalows not in appearance except in name alone.

Along the same street, a throng of people, early morning walkers and the like come to this "sabji waala's" (vegetable vendor's) tempo and buy out all his stock in 1hr! All cash of course, and some bargaining too.. Not much different and not much similar from buying one's vegetables at a temperature controlled supermarket in the U.S.

In making Kaddoo, as in-elegant as the name may sound, my mother is reminiscing and recreating very elegant memories - those of her father's favorite dishes found traditionally at Indian weddings. One of the funniest things I remember about my nana (maternal grandfather) is that when eating any food that he found particularly delicious, he always commented on how it paled in comparison with another dish he had eaten at a wedding. Eaten perhaps in the 1930's, decades before I was born, or even my mother for that matter. It is amazing how people and events pass, but sounds and smells and tastes prevail. Just like my nana's tastes show up in my mother's cooking today.

My nana, always the raconteur....It was my earnest wish that he had captured all his memories on paper.. I remember begging him to do that, knowing then when he was smiling at me with his mischievous smile, that he was not eternal. But he had other plans - I suppose he wanted his legacy to be discovered, for all of us to dig for the flavor that one can only find in self exploration.

So my meditation today, as I cook and eat.. will be to taste in each morsel, the generations whose taste buds are sewn in mine.... whose work I now create as myself.