Saturday, May 18, 2013

Don't wish me sweet dreams, please!

Paging Dr. Freud.

It is related to an important organ of mine for which he might have some answers.

No, not that organ.  The brain.

I want Dr. Freud to analyze why I had an awesome dream about a carrot halva.

It was a wonderful dream.  Some fuzzy face brought me a bowl of the reddish carrot halva.  The halva made from the red carrots that are available during the winter months in northern India.  

In the dream, the sweet was at just the right temperature.  I took a spoonful to my mouth and it was just the perfect texture and the right amount of sugar.  It was heavenly.

After I woke up, it was such a letdown to walk into the kitchen and realize again that it was all a dream.  

I made myself a dull and boring toast with peanut butter while the coffee brewed.

And soon after breakfast and a few chores, I set about making my dream come true.

I grated carrots, as Pandora offered me beautiful music.  I couldn't care about my tennis elbow as I repeated that same motion. 


Cooking is magic.  When everything is done, it is that awesome feeling of voilà!  Cooking is instant gratification, unlike hobbies like gardening or sculpting where it is a long time between the idea within to become real.  In the kitchen, the magic happens within a matter of minutes and hours.

I customized the recipe, true to my usual approach.  It is almost like somewhere back in my young age somebody whispered into my ears, "leave no recipe untweaked!"  Perhaps Dr. Freud can sort out why I am so unwilling to faithfully carry out recipes.  Why that rebellious attitude even in such matters?

I couldn't wait for the finished product to cool down to the appropriate temperature.  Anxiety meanwhile built up.  What if the entire thing turns out to be a disaster?  Not only will that be a waste of time and the ingredients, but the fact also remains that I am in an alien land where I can't casually walk to the nearest sweet shop and pick up carrot halva.

I took a teaspoonful to my tongue that was practically drooling all over.

It was awesome!

So, I then moved on to the next step.

A big scoop of vanilla ice cream in a bowl was the bed for a scoop of the halva.  On top of the halva, a small scoop of the same ice cream.


No reading anything.  No radio or music in the background. It was just me and this bowl.

If only making dreams come true were as easy as this carrot halva experience!

6 comments:

Ramesh said...

Ha Ha. That is one sinful experience !!

By the way here are two indisputable facts

- Nowhere in a any blog post is the word "that" begging to be clicked on

- God; what all topics do you blog about :)

Sriram Khé said...

So, did you click on "that"????? ;)

I am simply impressed that this is all it takes to impress you about my abilities .... hehe!!!

Indu said...

Just wake up and start working on it! - That’s all it takes, for dreams to materialize. Most of the time, we don’t feel entitled to our dreams. This is like starting on the wrong foot. Most of us have the capacity to make our dreams come true- ofcourse that includes making the sweet dreams ☺ Am impressed with your enthusiasm – How many would dream of some fuzzy face giving you the carrot halwa! Now you know even the fuzzy face ;-) - Nike style . And of those few, how many would actually know to make the forbidden carrot halwa – and also have the creativity to top it off with vanilla ice cream!! With this attitude, you’ll have more than what you can dream of – Be careful!

Sriram Khé said...

I suppose it is true, Indu, that making dreams come true is up to us ... depends on the "can do" attitude ...

But, hey, not always can a dream + attitude result in achieving it ... but, I am happy this one worked out.

Shachi said...

We would make a good team to try out new recipes :).

Sriram Khé said...

Indeed ... looks like the Thakkar family kitchen will be one awesome learning lab for me.