You can take a girl out of desserts, but you can’t take desserts out of a girl. Oh yes, I was born with a dessert spoon! According to my nanny my mom was feasting on hot Malpuas dipped in creamy Rabdi a few minutes before she went into labour pains, much to the chagrin of my stressed out doctor father.

Desserts were an important part of our everyday meal during growing  up years in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Our family was certainly not an exception in a state where a day starts and ends with a sweet, what with people queuing up in food shops before the day breaks, fishing out hot Jalebis floating in warm milk for breakfast.

”The 3 C’s of life: choices, chances, and changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.’ Unknown. Choices I did make and chances I did take in the year 2012. Some were good…some were bad. While the good ones are carried forward to 2013, the bad ones are buried then and there.

Life has been a roller coaster ride to me, just when I thought I have had enough of it and its time to sit back and relax, I find myself ride the roller coaster all over again.

Hats off to whoever said that ‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone!’ Am glad that I stepped out of mine for doing things I always wanted to do. Coming out of the comfort zone and jumping into the corporate world again was a big decision of 2012 in my life. Nevertheless I am enjoying every moment of it and I’m game, as long as it does not hamper my family life.

‘Sports do not build characters. They reveal it.’  I would never have known this side of my son but for the sports day celebrations in their school. He along with other friends helped their teachers organize the props, dresses and other essential accessories for the shows on Sports day. Some of the students (including him) who stay near school premises took extra food, water and goodies daily to share with others during long hours of practice sessions in school. Proud moments for any parent.

And I promised him to make a dessert on their sports day which resembled the color of their dress code, Yellow.

Think of yellow and Pumpkin pops up in mind. This extremely light, delicate and scrumptious Pumpkin Pie was what I baked and shared with my son’s friends.

There comes a time when priorities win over passion and you stand confused and run-down staring at the golden opportunities pass by.

When the equation of life changes…

A senior person from a popular holiday resort in India approached me to get involved in a photo shoot project some days back. A few phone calls and mails from them made it clear that it is going to be a large scale project. The project required more than a weeks involvement and a few out door shoots as well. I asked for some time to think over it, and from then started days of ‘should I’ or ‘ shouldn’t  I’ ordeal.

“Desserts are made of sugar and love”  No wonder most of us like to round off their meals with something sweet. In my house most of the times it is a seasonal fruits or even a hot cup of green tea. During weekdays it is either Indian dessert, baked cheesecakes or just a simple and easy fruity dessert like this Pomegranate Mousse’ I made yesterday to end a cozy family dinner.

Mousse is normally made with whipped cream which is slightly heavy for my system. I tend to replace the milk cream with either thick yogurt or cream of coconut in the recipe. Pomegranate Mousse with coconut milk is light, airy and quite easy to make.

All good things in life are simple and I feel that it is our expectations and desire to get more from it makes it complex. The junk food addiction, chopping down trees endlessly to make paper marooning animals of their habitats, plastic menace….we are moving from simple ways of living to the more complex world. And to think of it, the idea of wrapping around leaves and eating apples straight from the tree as done by our ancestors could solve many a problems of modern day living

A fresh fruit in its natural form is my kind of dessert any day and given a choice I would love to serve a plate of fresh fruits to my guests as well to end a meal. “This is not a dessert we will expect from the author of a food blog” is the answer to my query from my guests most of the time.

I knew very little about rice till I got married and Basmati rice was the only rice I ate and cooked with, as rice is not a staple food to the place I was born. Many households of Rajasthan in India enjoy cooking an occasional Pilaf, a Biryani or simple Daal Chawal (lentil-rice) at times to break the monotony of eating wheat based dishes the whole year.

It was much later in life that I came to know about boiled rice, brown rice, Jasmine rice and many other rice varieties. Now these varieties adorn my pantry and we all love dishes cooked with these nutty, chewy and healthy rice in our meal.

The other day during a house warming ceremony of a friend, we were served an unusual dessert which looked not so pleasant but tasted extremely delicious. I couldn’t stop asking my host about the same and was informed that this is a very special dish made during important functions using Black rice.

“Madam these are a special variety of sticky rice, quite popular in Thai cuisine and cost almost 4 times more than normal rice.” Replied the salesman hurriedly, after seeing a perplexed look on my face holding a small bag of Black rice. This rare and aromatic sweet rice is not a very common site in many Indian stores.

Black rice was once called as ‘The forbidden rice‘ in ancient China and it was reserved only for the emperor and the nobles and was forbidden for the common man. As they believed that the rice has special properties and helps in longevity and is aphrodisiac in nature. This tasty and healthy sticky rice is extensively used in many Asian countries due to the myriads of health benefits associated with it.

“Gudia, I would like to eat our simple and traditional food” informed my paternal aunt during her first visit at my home. The very popular rustic treats from rural India Daal Baati and Lapsi (couscous dessert) are on her menu for most of the days. “But both the recipes are way too simple, your small Gudia of yesteryear knows to cook many varieties now, aunty” I tempted her with many food choices. “Some other day, this time lets keep it simple” and she changed the topic of conversation. Huh..of all the exotic desserts I know she opted for Lapsi, a simple 3 ingredient recipe!

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. ~ Russel Baker. Am sure many would be one to love summer for a good reason – Ice Creams! There was a time when the very word ‘Ice-cream‘ was banned in my house. Recurrent cough & cold and instructions from the music teacher to avoid anything cold for the children made sure that ice cream cease to exist in our house. For good long years both of us also avoided ice creams served during any party or functions lest our children will get tempted.

But now that they are grown up and have better immunity power the ban has been partially lifted. They are allowed to eat ice creams but have to gulp warm water immediately to reduce the effect of cold. Does this sound too cruel…Well, I have heard such weird stories from many possessive & protective parents. And I willingly admit that I am one among them