Inflammatory Aspirations

It was an exceptional Sunday. The chill in the air was wrapped in gentle sunlight and there was only one colour when you looked up, Blue. It must have been around 7 AM and after a hot cuppa, I was wondering what to do. The morning was just so gorgeous that I could not help going out into the veranda to just soak it in. It was time to get vintage I thought. I tuned into the satellite radio. Searched until I found a station that was playing old jazz and reggae. No questions please! I just about know the spellings of these great art forms!! :-)

There are times when your spirits are lifted by something most ordinary. The music was nothing I could understand. But hey! that does not mean you cannot enjoy it. That is when i decided to do something I have mostly refrained from doing. It is a matter of safety and environmental hazards. It demanded dexterity of the fingers and the mind. It is like a potter at work. As he moulds the clay with finesse, you can almost see the shape getting life. It is like an artist with a brush in hand, as the white changes colors, you see the larger picture. An amalgamation of your creativity as you set out to create something that is entirely yours. The sequence and the consequence. This a ballet where you are the orchestra and the grand master. A wrong lyric could send out waves of disharmonious notes that can jar your ear. A melodious one can delight the heavens....

In case you have just yawned, I was thinking of cooking..

Hmm.. So where do we start, I wondered. The web yielded many recipes, but none that I could feel were simple enough.
"8 ounces cream cheese, 3/4 cup apricot preserves or strawberry jam, 1/4 cup finely ground pecans" - There are at least 7 words in the above line that I did not know the meaning of and even if I had the above ingredients at home, I would not know without them being marked so.

As you would have begun to realize, my culinary skills never developed like the 100 million other skills that also did not. As a human being, I think I have about 4 or 5 skills and most are developed well below average. The funny thing is that I cannot list beyond 2 or 3 of the 4 or 5 I have mentioned above :) So, life can be very hard for a person like me. But that Sunday deserved better and I set out to make Dosa's. You get these instant dosa mixes at the local groceries, I have friends who can vouch that there is always a stock of "Instant this", "Instant that" in my kitchen.

Armed with that paste, I added some more water and decided to go for creativity. Cut tomatoes and spread the paste on the pan.

Sunday means WWE time :) and it was King of the Ring! Undertaker v Triple H!!! Lord was it captivating! After sometime the smell from the kitchen was also captivating.

First dosa was harder than a diamond, so I named that fellow - Black Diamond and said - "Yeah , Yeah "- with a pathetic Afrikaans accent. The next time I was more careful, Thank god for commercials :) allows you to take your eyes of TV. The second one was spread well and I was standing right there to ensure that our Black Diamond did not have a twin. My ENIAC age memory meant that something was again forgotten and it meant that though this one was Black Diamond's German cousin, it still was stuck at many places and the over all figure could accurately describe the hole in the ozone layer. I named this fellow - "An Inconvenient Truth" - "How true," I sighed.

The next one was "Casino Royale" and then the last one was "The Departed". The music that Sunday morning was exceptional, the weather still glorious. The match on mute was rousing and I thought it was a perfect ending. My last attempt at adding some spices to the dosa mix resulted in a small fire on my frying pan. As it raged, I stood shocked. Like "Courage the cowardly Dog", I picked up the vessel and threw it in the sink and opened water..... Well... life is always about learning. I learnt that afternoon that "Burnol" helps, but slowly..

So my dear reader. It was a great Sunday. I quickly recovered from my inflammatory aspirations of cooking. My ambitions are more modest now and are restricted to coffee making and maggie. The rice is cooked too, but I stand at a safe distance until the "My- mother-mandated" four whistles of the cooker are not over. Then I run and switch off the gas and run away again. I ate my "Black Diamond, An Inconvenient Truth and The departed" with a lot of water. Most of the morsels were swallowed like tablets, but "Casino Royale" was eaten with a lot of satisfaction.

I do wish another Sunday like this came and I was able to cook up another breakfast like this. Only this time I will douse any inflammatory Aspirations that I may have before I literally "Burn my fingers" :))