Tough Cookie

Lately I've discovered the joy of baking.

I started out with a disastrous attempt at chocolate chip cake, which tasted more like burnt chocolate pieces in baked floury brown coloured something a few months back, and have now turned into a more confident baker, having successfully made choco lava cake with awesome molten chocolate oozing out and cookies.

There are thousands of recipes available online for the eggless cookies and cakes, and it would not make much sense if i were to write one more recipe. But one annoying thing i found in such recipe was no one told me where i could go wrong. or what do i do if the dough is not firm enough? and if they said, they've tweaked the recipe a bit, they never mentioned how they tweaked it? or if they're giving tweaked recipe, which was the original? what nonsense, i say. not everyone here knows how to bake. if we knew, we wouldn't be looking at your damned recipe, no?

So i'll talk about my three attempts at cookies, and how differently they turned up. First the ingredients. This was mostly passed on to me by DesiKhichdi

1 measure butter (i used regular amul butter, you could use white butter)
2 measure all purpose flour (today i substituted this with whole wheat flour)
1/2 measure cocoa powder (add more if you like more chocolatey)
1 measure sugar (i used brown sugar for chocolate ones and regular white granulated for other cookies)
1/2 spoon baking powder

now, what i did was, i reduced butter quantity. i used about 70 percent of required quantity. instead of 2 measure flour, i used little over 1.5 measure. and sugar too, i used about 70 percent of said quantity.

Method

Mix butter and sugar together. Sift the flour and baking powder 2-3 times and cocoa powder (if you are making chocolate cookies) Mix all ingredients to make a firm dough. if you are making plain cookies, don't add cocoa powder, and add 2-3 drops of vanilla essence instead) If you have used less butter like me, you may need to use some 3-4 spoon of milk to make the dough firm.

Now put the dough in cling wrap or ziplock bag and refrigerate it for 30 mins. Roll the dough.. about 1/2 cm thick. cut with cookie cutter and bake them. Now since i used microwave with convection option, i'll tell you the temperature there - 200 degrees for 15 mins.

The first time i made, the dough was too soft, and the cookies spread :| and i kept it for 40 minutes because, i read everywhere 40 minutes. Well, the OTG takes 40 minutes, but microwave takes lesser time. The cookies were charred and there was no way to eat them. I was disheartened. Also, since the dough was so soft, i could not even cut it properly. But then i looked up some youtube videos, and i realised, if you couldn't roll the cookies, you could just make small rolls of the dough and put it at some distance in the tray and eventually, it will spread itself because of the heat and well, it will take a proper round shape of a cookie. this happens when the butter is more in the dough.

in my second attempt, i used less butter, and some 3-4 spoon milk to knead the dough. Hence, the dough was firmer, and i was able to roll it properly. and was also able to cut the cookie properly. Yeah, my Dabangg cookies :-) I kept them in for 10 mins, but later realised they could do with 3-4 mins more, and about 15 minutes was the time required in my oven. You may want to have a trial and error with this.




In my third attempt, my mom said she wanted to taste plain cookies, without any chocolate flavour (i know, how can anyone choose anything else over chocolate) so this time, i used whole wheat flour, white granulated sugar and vanilla essence (i may have put in more than 2-3 drops because i almost dropped the bottle, so they smell very vanilla-ey, but 2-3 drops should be good) 15 minutes of baking later, i felt the cookies didn't look as brown as i'd like them to be. so i put them in for 5 more minutes, and came out just perfect :)

I'm not a cooking expert, and so I am not very sure of substitutes of ingredients, and i do look up the internet quite often for all my queries. You may want to look up other places before you try them out!


At the end of it, I was very happy with the outcome. My mother was never into baking and is a bit possessive about anyone cooking in her kitchen. But over past few months, she has come to let go of her inhibitions and is being supportive in my cooking adventures. The plain cookies were her 'farmaish' :-) I was really happy when she asked me to bake them, almost served as a seal that she not only trusts me with cooking, but likes it also. When your mother appreciates food cooked by you, it gives you a tremendous high. :-)

Oh, and next on her wishlist is an apple pie. :-)

Wrong Number

It is kind of sad when the only calls you receive are wrong numbers. I mean, as if I didn't know I have few friends, this is kind of rubbing it in.

Over the years, I have been receiving calls for a Bharat. It's been over five years now that I've been telling people that My Name is Not Bharat and I am not a Man. Well, not really, but you get it, right? This Bharat's number is very similar to mine, apparently, the only difference being my number starts with 982xx and his number is 992xx (rest all numbers are same, from what I've gathered over my research with wrong number for Bharat). What is annoying about this wrong number for Bharat is an uncle who calls invariably at 11 pm, and keeps asking, who am I. "Pan tame kaun bolo?" (but who are you?) he'd ask. And later on, when I would pick up the call (I had stored the uncle's number as "wrong number uncle") and say, "na, Bharat nathi" (no, this is not Bharat), he would go, abbe yaar, fari thi wrong number, sorry. We kind of developed mutual respect for one another, and I stopped yelling at him. And he is now being very careful with dialling Bharat's number.

Coincidentally, the CA firm where I interned, my boss's name was also Bharat. Such is life.

And then there were calls for a Ritu. Ritu is an aspiring air hostess, who had registered her name at the air hostess training institute. Unfortunately, she gave my phone number instead of her own. Ah, well, to cut the long story short, because, really, I'd rather be a space shuttle than an airhostess, I politely refused. I don't get calls for Ritu anymore.

And then, the other day, there was Setia ki aurat who had called to talk to Setia. She sounded drunk and angry, and I was afraid she might come out of the phone and beat me up. "Main Setia ki aurat bolti hai". Now all I am hoping is Setia has returned home, because the wife sounded really angry. Or maybe staying away from house was a good choice. That day, Setia ki aurat was the only one to call me.

But then, sometimes, when they call asking me for my dead grandfather, and selling life insurance to him, I feel like punching them. I mean, the man has been dead since 40 years. How can your records be sooo outdated? All the records are also in my dad's name! I mean, c'mon, 40 years! So I lose my mind and I yell at them sometimes. Sometimes, I evade their questions and I even threaten that I'll go to the consumer forum and also sue them for mental harassment. Ah, well. Next time, I'll just say, no, this is the Satellite Police Station. (stop laughing, Satellite is the name of an area in Ahmedabad, like Juhu, Andheri, Koramangala)

But then, do you know what is worse than screaming to the person who called you? Well, being yelled at by the wrong number aunty.

So today my phone battery was at it's lowest, and I just felt like we both needed our space. So I left it charging in the bedroom while I went down for lunch and all other jazz. I came back to my room an hour back, and I saw 7 missed calls from the same number. It was an unknown number, and unless the call is from a known number, I don't usually call back. (abbeyaar, they keep trying to sell me some correspondence course) 15 minutes later, the phone rings again and I pick it up. The conversation was in Hindi and if I am not mistaken, it was Setia ki aurat only.

me: hello?

male voice: kisi ladies ki awaaz hai

female voice: PHONE KYUN NAHIN UTHATI? TEEN BAJE SE LAGA RAHI HOON? EK GHANTE SE? KAHAN THI?

me: kiska kaam hai?

female voice: KISKA KAAM HAI KYA? KAHAN THI?

me: (raised voice, still not yelling) kiska kaam hai?

female voice: SADIA KA

me: WRONG NUMBER!

Now, I'm not sure if she said Sadia or Setia or if she was really Setia ki aurat again, and she was Setia ki aurat and she was scolding me mistaking me for Setia, dude, does she think i'm a dude? Does my voice sound like a dude's voice?

Sigh!

#ThatAwkwardMoment when you get more wrong numbers on your phone than the right numbers. #ForeverAlone

The Bully

There is a thin line between sibling rivalry and bullying. Most of the times, parents ignore the bullying part, as any other sibling fight. But they don't quite realise how they are harming both of them.

The bully gets a sense of accomplishment of having bullied a weaker one. She's the one who knows about the latest fashion magazines and can drop brand names in regular conversations as matter of factly. Oh, and she's all but thirteen. You call her on her birthday to wish her happy 13th, and she gushes, 'oh, i am so excited to be a teenager now'. She has recently discovered her sexuality, which is normal, she is an adolescent, the age at which you become aware of yourself. And this is when she starts wearing skimpy skirts and clothes straight out of movies and loud make up. I am 25, and bloody, I don't even own a lipstick.

And then, the worst of all, she lies. Cousins, same age, born 15 days apart, she wants to be more loved, more pampered. She knows how to manipulate her mum, who holds a grudge against the other girl and get her to scream at her. How can an aunt hold a grudge against her own niece? Oh, hello? You think your life is one big fat sooraj barjatiya movie? shitty things happen, and this is one of them. Perhaps manipulate is too strong a word to be used, but hey, kids these days are way more aware of things than we were when we were their age. I mean when I was 13, these girls were born, and I just knew I was allowed to hold them once in my lap under an adult supervision. Try giving an instruction to kids these days. Perhaps it's just the kind of upbringing. But I'd probably judge it and call it bad parenting.

Her mother posts her photographs on facebook and comments herself, 'how beautiful', 'gorgeous', 'perfect'. I know the only person in the world who thinks i'm pretty is my mother. also, maybe sister, but they also point out i have flaws. She is the smartest girl in the entire class because well, she knows so much about fashion. She only wears clothes from united colours of benetton. Oh, and she only spent 6,000 rupees for the skirt she wore on her 13th birthday party. that too when there was a sale. she is never wrong. and her mother panics when she gets less than 85 percent marks. she is so bright, how can she score less marks?

What will happen when she grows up and realises she's not the most awesome thing she is made to believe she is? One fine day, she'll grow up and see that people her age are smarter than she is? More popular than she is? Will she ever realise that there is more to a person than the brand she wears?

If you think that was bad, what about the one she is bullying? same age girl, born 15 days apart? She has lost an elder sister 2 years back to a mysterious illness. the cause of the illness was never known. she suffered for 8 years before she breathed her last breath. When she was alive, she used to bully her younger sister. I'd let it go, because she was bedridden, and she was a child. she would have wanted to go about playing, but she had broken bones, enlarged liver and she knew she was dying.

But other than her, the other girl was also bullied by the first one. no one believed her when she said the first one cheated, because, well, she never would cheat. and the mother-daughter duo would together bully this little girl. it pained me every single time i was around.

the little girl's grandmother, her father's mother, once accused her of stealing. all she had done was hide her grandmother's 20 rupees because she was rude to her mother. there have been times when i have wanted to slap her grandmother. i have avoided any kind of social gathering which would involve me coming on same platform as her. even though the older girl's death was inevitable because of the medical condition, they made her death even more painful. i had once made an elaborate plan on calling anonymously to police station and get them booked under child abuse.

coming back, the little girl lacks self confidence. you ask her simplest arithmetic question, she would not answer. when she is having a milk chocolate bar, she would always, always share. if she is eating a bowl full of pomegranate, she will insist you take a handful of them, even if you don't like them. She is in constant need of validation. she has zero fashion sense. she tries to ape the 'fashionista' of the house, and no points for guessing, gets ridiculed, publicly by the cousin and her mother.

her grades in school are slipping. not slipping because well, she was never at the top. she barely manages to pass. her mother, is a different species altogether. i don't even want to get on to that. one day, at a gathering at naani's place, i just couldn't take their shit any more. i took her with me for a drive, and got her a McDonald's burger and fries and all that she wanted to eat, and she cried. she cried and cried and i felt so helpless. it is so much easier to tell strangers to be nice to their kids, but way more difficult to tell that to family. they are in constant denial.

i am worried what will happen when she grows up? how will she survive the bigger bullies? bad bosses? other failures and setbacks life throws at you? And how will she survive successes? will she feel guilty of successes she gets? trust me when i say, when you have been a victim of being bullied, you feel guilty for every pleasure in your life.

more than me, her parents need to understand she is being bullied, they need to take a firm stand on this.

bullying is serious and it needs to be dealt with seriously when it is so unhealthy.

till then, i am trying to invent new ways to avoid family gatherings.

am i an escapist? maybe I am. maybe i am just being little selfish here. it breaks my heart every time i am around the group. might as well just avoid them.

One Thing I Need When I Die

I know that I am going to hell. Not because I am a bad person. I'm awesome. Just that i think heaven does not really exist. It's a myth.

It's like unicorn. I think the one who first imagined he saw a unicorn must have actually seen a rhinoceros. When he must be stoned. There is no other explanation for that.

Anyway. I'll make this post short.

I really don't mind going to hell, because i know all the fun people will be there, but hey, god, can you ensure i have unlimited high speed internet and free wifi there?

#kthxbai