Of Shopping sprees , pancakes and Waffles

Ah ! the sheer bliss of sailing forth on a shopping spree  - the feeling is pretty much indescribable ! This time I was 'exploring' all the options at  the G.K market. Four hours and two laden hands later I was feeling even better - except that my throat was slightly parched and my tummy had given a couple of ( ofcourse lady like) rumbles . Just then I spotted a roadside outlet  selling Depauls coffee.... Depauls can never go wrong - the coffee was perfect, cold and strong. Sipping it I glanced at the  menu, handwritten on a small blackboard . It said :

Waffles with maple/orange/chocolate syrup

                          and

Pancakes with butter and choco chips

"what would you recommend ,waffles or pancakes"? I asked the young man behind the counter. He smiled and replied," both'. Just then a fresh batch of waffles was served to the person (another shopper) perched on the stool next to mine. They looked and smelled great and the die was cast. "A plate of waffles with maple syrup, please". Seven minutes later a plate was placed before me - but it had both waffles and pancakes. I opened my mouth to speak but the young fella spoke first-" the pancakes are on the house ,ma'm ". I looked askance at him. Turned out that the place was his baby; he had opened the previous week only and wanted my honest opinion on the pancakes. Well, the waffles were very good but what easily stole the show were the pancakes -soft, golden in color and just the way one sees in American movies where wholesome kids from wholesome families breakfast on them. But, I think our home grown young man did very well coz he teemed  them up with a topping of choco chips which was absolutely irresistible.

I came back home in a great mood. My shopping list was almost done and I had a great pancake recipe with me. Let me share it with you.

Makes 8 pancakes
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon butter
Preparation:

1. Combine dry ingredients and mix slightly. Add milk, oil, water, and vanilla. Whisk together until just combined. Be careful not to over mix. Set aside to rest for a few minutes.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. While pan is heating, add butter. As soon as the butter is melted, add melted butter to pancake batter.
3. Return pan to stove and stir butter into batter.
4. When pan is hot, with a measuring cup or ladle, pour 1/4 cup of batter into the skillet for each pancake.
5. Cook until bubbles form on the surface. Carefully flip pancakes with turner/spatula and cook until golden brown.

Note: This recipe also works well with whole wheat flour. Chopped fruit, nuts or chocolate chips can be added to batter before cooking for a unique treat.

1 comment:

 

Ummmm.........sounds absolutely mouth watering.....Please make it one of these days mom...Will save me the trouble of going all the way to G.K. just to try out the pancakes:):)

ReplyDelete

Why married men at fifty plus start hitting on other women

This is a mail I got from a very dear friend a few days back. I am sharing some excerpts from the mail.

The dinner is progressing well and  Ravi's ( her husband- name changed) friends wife has just been showing us photographs of her children, both in their early twenties. We make a cozy foursome, sipping decaf coffee and  bonding over shared concerns such as aging parents,empty nests syndrome  and flighty maids. Ravi's  phone rings and he excuses himself to take the call. The friends wife also gets up to go to the washroom. In all this pushing back of chairs I don't even notice when the friend gets up and comes to me and ever so casually and sincerely, hugs me and pronounces me to be 'such a lovely, open person' and does a 'God Bless' too. My first reaction is : this guy just hit on me. The second is: oh! he couldn't possibly have done so- he is such a doting father and a loving husband. The third is : did I encourage him in some way? The rest of the evening passes in a blur and it is almost midnight when they leave. I am confused whether to tell Ravi or to keep mum. The confusion continues as I change. just then my phone beeps- a message at this time? The message is from the friend thanking me for the lovely dinner and inviting me 'if I am ever his side of the town' for coffee.  The confusion clears. I tell Ravi about the hug . Ravi doesn't say anything. I know that he feels I am reading too much into the whole thing ; that his friend doesn't have a dirty mind; that I am too old for anyone to make a pass at me; that we should just go to sleep.The messages continue the next day. Nothing in them  can be pinned down as offensive or sexual in nature ,apart from the  fact that this 55 plus alpha male feels an  urge to communicate with his friends wife , and not his friend....

The mail is a long one . The upshot is : why did this man who has everything going for him, including an attractive,intelligent,confident wife, a prosperous career and children he evidently dotes on hit on another man's wife? More disturbing was the thread of guilt running through the mail- the 'did I , in some oblique,obscure,manner encourage him to hit on me'? This is what I wrote back to my dear friend.


The predator in your story is going through a mid life crisis.  MLC  can  hit men anytime from  their late 30s to their fifties, or even early sixties. For many men midlife is a time for looking back at their lives. For some people that can be a life changing exercise. Midlife can generate a sense that time - so generous during their youth - is starting to run out, that their youth has drawn to a close and that the image they will see of themselves will be of thinning hair and a fattening middle.  The end of youth provokes an identity crisis in which the middle-aged man (and sometimes woman) fights against being middle-aged. Hitting on women, in the hope that at least some will respond,  is one of things a man in midlife crisis does as he panics about aging, loss of youth, identity and masculinity. Men in midlife crisis become extremely selfish. They develop a huge sense of  'I'. Even if a man has been a doting husband and father for umpteen years, once he goes into crisis he will feel that absolutely nothing matters except himself and his needs and desires.  For a man in MLC, it's suddenly all about himself.
 Ravi's friend is obviously trying to get back to his youth. You have absolutely no reason to feel any guilt. I am hundred per cent certain that he extends the same 'warmth' to other women. The only way to deal with men like him is to ignore them, keep them at a distance and, as far as possible, steer clear of their beat.  

Meet my Neighbours

 The voice is very familiar -but it does not belong to anyone in the house. It is coming from  the house diagonally opposite ( left opposite, to be exact) to ours. My ears perk up- not perk up as in an Aunt Marplish manner, but more desultorily. I just want to check out what the matter is. Is it the colony dogs using the park adjoining aunty's house as a 'lavatory'( listen-i am not even beginning to use the hindi word !);or is it the MCD sweeper not doing his job properly; or is it  someone being given the blessing of having at least three sons! Well, it turns out to be the dog poo problem and the dog and the owner/domestic help get an earful. The earful is enough to reduce even the strong and fearless to tears because it is not an angry diatribe. Not at  all. The dialogues have been culled from ( I firmly believe) hindi movies of the era of Nirupama Roy and Balraj Sahni. They are all about the emotional atyachaar a poor widow is subjected to.( I always fear for the mental health of the dog by the end of it .)Aunty doesn't stop till the dog has its tail between its legs and the owner/domestic help is searching for his/her hanky. Then she turns to march triumphantly inside- but then stops to look straight up where I am .With practiced reflex I duck behind my palm plant. I have a love -hate relationship with her (though she doesn't know it).Most of the time i am fond of her. The opposite happens when the boy irritates me. O.K  I know i need to explain  how the son  and my less than neighborly feeling to aunty are connected. It so happens that having received her 'blessing'  innumerable times for 3 sons I am firmly convinced that she and she alone is responsible for the existence of the boy- X and Y chromosomes be  dammed !!

The house exactly opposite to ours houses the  principal of a leading D.U college and his wife- a professor in a not so leading college. They came here a few years back and still haven't stopped telling what a mistake they made. When they come to the mistake part they always fix a reproachful look at me. I try to outlook their look with an insouciant look but have come to the conclusion that a reproachful look wins hands down over an insouciant one ! I try to fix this shortcoming by hinting (gently) that maybe they can go back to wherever they came from but this earns me a look of such reproachful intensity that I suddenly remember the veggie I  left cooking on the gas stove and run homewards.

The house adjoining ours , with only a low wall to act as a boundary, houses a retired Air Commodore and his wife ,who is from one of the old families of Panchsheel Park. Both of them play their role of an ideal neighbor to perfection. Uncle is all  army  spit and polish. Come rain ,snow(!)and hail (!!) he is out of the house at 6.30 sharp for his morning constitutional- dressed in crisp white short shorts, white tee, ditto for socks and sneakers. He returns, as  fresh and crisp as he left, after an hour. That unfortunately ( for the boy and me)is the time when we are leaving-all huffing and puffing to  try and be on time for the school bus. Uncle tut tuts disapprovingly and announces crisply, in very British English that the boy should be walking and not going by car. Since he does not know the whole story (refer to my earlier blog about mayhem in the Gupta house in the mornings ) I just smile .Aunty has a lovely personality. In the morning half she is like any  hausfrau-  but come afternoon ( when they leave for the 'club' to play cards) she is all togged up -like a typical P.P resident. I think I  have a karmic connection with them -we have sort of adopted each other. So, whenever I feel I am a potato short I just coo over the wall and hey presto-my potato is there. Ditto for aunty. So the wall has seen saffron ,ginger, sugar, coriander leaves, curd- you name it- being exchanged. Tuesday is their off day from cards and aunty and I try to walk  together in the evenings. She tells me all the colony gossip -and since she has a very droll sense of humor, the major part of the walk is spent in guffawing.

Well, I could go on and on( for example the person in the house one house away to ours gets married every two years- don't ask me what he does with the earlier wives; or the house diagonally right to ours ....)but my watch tells me it is time I called it a day and so it is finito here.

Gateway to Summer Bliss

Understanding the 'Urge'

When used as a noun ,the word 'urge' has been defined as an involuntary, natural, or instinctive impulse. The definition very clearly explains  the raison d'etre for all the urges that we, as a country, experience and brings immense relief ,along with absolution of  guilt and dissolution of any  conscience pangs that I  may have experienced. It is certainly not our fault if we stop anywhere, and i mean anywhere, to answer nature's call- or as my favorite columnist, Jug Suraiya , puts it ( though slightly indelicately and not very 'Cal', the city he oft remembers ) shoo shoo. This is not to be confused with the shooing away of a cat or a pesky salesman or a husband. You and I know what Jug's shoo means. We can't but know it. This is what we see when we look out of our bedroom window, or the car window, or the train window. I am slightly unclear and foggy about the plane window( having looked out of a plane window many years ago) and welcome any inputs on whether we are able to spot one of our  brethren doing 'it' from a plane window. The point is , it is certainly not his ( 'his' is an inadvertent slip of the pen here and not a feministic aberration) fault. How can the poor fellow be expected to control an involuntary, or  natural impulse? If anyone is to be faulted it is the peeping tom-the person peeping out of the bedroom /car/train/plane (?) window. That is not an urge- that is an invasion of space and we better stop doing 'it'. By now  I hope , dear reader, you know which 'it' is being referred to here- coz I am slightly confused ...

Another urge that till now leaves  me turning up my nose and gingerly lifting my trousers ( or whatever) is the urge to spit,  experienced by most of my beloved countrymen-oops - and countrywomen . I had always wondered why they could not take, whatever was in their mouth, in - why did they have to heave it out. But now that I have been enlightened, such banal thoughts have forever been banished from my mind. Infact, now the spitting seems to me poetry in slow motion or should that be slow poetry in motion ? I mean, look at the way the goo is all bunched up in the mouth , and then the mouth opens to just the right degree , and then the doer , ever so slightly, leans forward and then aims it at a wall or a heritage building-or whatever he/she finds a worthy beneficiary. Neat, frolicking neat !

And what about the urge to advise ? so parents advise their prodigy to become doctors or engineers and certainly not  actors or singers- coz children from 'good families' don't do such things ; teachers advise the errant student ( who had just happened to nod off) to mend his/her ways ; the doctor advises the patient to go slow on sugar, salt, saturated fats, potatoes, dairy products and almost everything which is edible; the friend advises on how to tackle a philandering and meandering husband ;and , of course, the poor Supreme Court is forever and anon advising the government to come back to governing the state and to stop governing its ill-gotten wealth. You and I, by now know all about urges, and how they are involuntary, natural and instinctive and so we permit ourselves an indulgent smile and restraining the urge to go on and on about urges, sign off- as a reader and as a writer.
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Eternity

I existed from all eternity and behold,I am here: and I shall exist till the end of time ,for my being has no end.

Khalil Gibran

Remembering the Ides of March

She came to me when my first born was just about an year and a half old. I wanted the lil one to spend some time away from me ( or was it that I wanted some time away from her? It matters not a wee bit now) and so spread the word around that i was looking for a two hour nanny for the baby- someone who could take her out in the pram ,or to the park. Poonam appeared one November morning, almost out of nowhere,and took the baby in her arms. No questions were asked from either side. It seemed  from the first day that she had always been with me. She was young- a young bride from Calcutta; a very Parineeta looking Bengali girl ; the same cotton saree with  red border ; blouse with puffed sleeves , long plait snaking till almost her hips , kohl ed eyes and sin door . The baby was entranced by the blazing red on her forehead and would forever be trying to touch it. Poonam's sindoor came back to haunt me many a times because even  when the baby  grew up she remembered the sindoor and would look at me wistfully, hoping to see the red in my hair parting.   Every morning Poonam would come at the dot of nine and the duo would go off for their jaunt to the park. Exactly an hour later they would come back. The same routine was repeated in the evening.
Two years passed. Poonam by now was a mother too, to Piya. Her charge had joined kindergarden and was busy with school, newly made friends in the colony etc.  and so Poonam had started working in the house . Her work was perfect (till now I am looking for a maid who can do dusting like she did !) and she was meticulous about being on time. I was happy.

Some more years passed. There had been an addition to Poonam's family- she  had a son Rahul, whom she doted on. Time always wrecks changes - she was now fat ; the bengali sarees had been stowed away in the trunk which she had brought from Calcutta and she now wore the dress of Dehi-shalwar-kameez. Her work was good, not perfect , and she had acquired a temper .  I was a silent spectator to the changes , preferring to be quiet and uninvolved ( remember the dusting ! ).

Spring was in the March air . The husband and I were enjoying our morning cuppa on the terrace . I had just spotted a beautiful bird  (  very small ,red tailed ) and was calling out to the children to come running for a dekho. Just then I saw Piya standing at the gate . My blood turned cold.  Something in her face told me that the life of the teenager would never be the same . For many, many days -nay even now-I was/am haunted by the grief and loneliness on the girl's face.

Poonam had run away in the dark of the night with her neighbour . She had taken her son with her. She never came back.