Lillies for Mom

Of all the relationships that exist, the only one that is full of unconditional and uncompromising love is that of a mother.  Period.  No questions asked.  There is no one on this planet who can take her place.  Regardless of what we call her and how we call for her, it is the best balm that brings relief to all our problems.  We are symbolically attached to her at birth and although the cord is cut right after, the bond is eternal.  Our entire physical, mental, spiritual and social well being circles around her existence from birth till death. 

The thought of her soft kisses, loving hugs, caring concern, melodious songs and the aroma of her cooking can send most of us to a happy place anytime.  It is funny how the noise of her bangles from a distance that was once a sign of warning for my sister and me to scoot out of the kitchen before we got caught, has now transformed into the most comforting notion when she is around.  Despite the gripes we hold or the constant generation gap we try to bridge, the safest and best place on earth is none other than a mother's abode.  

Mothers are simply incredible.  They guide us, bless us and forgive us over and over again even as we get it all wrong.  They are selfless in their acts and have a heart larger than the universe.  They would stop at nothing to protect us and keep us from harm.  Being a mother now, I realize the significance of the sacrifices she has made for me, the importance of carrying smiles even when times are tough and the unbelievable strength that must be shown to succeed in this job.  The best way to honor a mother's debt is to carry it forward and strive to be a mom to our children and occasionally to even those who don't have one. 

Here's to mothers everywhere and wishing the two moms in my life a very happy birthday this year.  May I continue to learn from you and be worthy of the most important designation of my life.  Sugar paste lillies with granulated-sugar pollen adorn the dark chocolate brownie cake.

Papaya

The title here suggests a very wholesome fruit. Soft/sweet when ripe and crisp/tart when raw.  Full of healthy nutrients this fruit is popular in the tropics and carries a lot of medicinal properties.  This is also what a precious two year old lovingly calls her Papa.  "Papaya"!  It's a pretty common practice that we sometimes refer to our children as fruits we love...and why not.  Our children are sweet and soft.  Their laughter is the best cure for all our sorrows and they are indeed the 'apple of our eye'.  Therefore it is perhaps not surprising that children call us back in the same terms.  Every time I refered to my daughter as a pumpkin, she would grin and give me a hug with 'Momma pun-kin'!  Between my daughter and son I have in the past been a strawberry, a blueberry, a tomato and ofcourse a pun-kin.  And we can't complain much about such nomenclature when we find that an innovater like Steve Jobs named his 'baby' after his favorite fruit too!

A simple vanilla cake layered with cream cheese/butter cream frosting was the choice for this birthday cake from a daughter to her father.  A set of tennis lessons as a birthday gift from Mommy completed the cake theme.

Saffron and Gold

It has been a primitive practice to associate colors  with a significant emotion or trait. 

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. 

Brown suggests stability (earth).

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.

Orange or dark saffron combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.  In the Hinduism culture it symbolizes auspiciousness.

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility.

My favorite color, blue is pretty versatile: It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence and intelligence. Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect (hence the medical suits in a hospital operating room). Dark blue is associated with depth of knowledge, expertise, power, integrity and stability; it is a preferred color for many advanced nations in the world today.  However one must avoid using blue when promoting food, because blue suppresses appetite! Light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding and softness.

White stands for peace, purity and cleanliness. 

Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief. 

And the list continues... Just remember that life is full of colors and the picture each one of us paints depends on the hues and colors we choose to use.

Coming back to this brownie creation, I chose a symbol of Lord Ganesha (the God of all encompassing virtues in Hinduism) in dark saffron and gold atop a medallion coin made of white chocolate.  Gold evokes the feeling of pride and prestige. It means illumination, wisdom, and wealth and often symbolizes quality par excellence.   Our heartfelt colorful good wishes go to a wonderful couple with a new home. 

Play Ball

There are times of deep thoughts and inspirational moments and then there are times when you just have to take flight in free spirit and play ball!  This is one of those moments...Enjoy the games!

Lemon flavored cupcakes with edible balls atop butter-cream/cream cheese frosting.

Spring Sunshine

"You are my sunshine, one of my sunshines,
You make me happy when skies are gray.
I never tell you how much I love you,
Please don't take my sunshine away."

This was my twisted version of the sunshine song.  I sang it to my daughter every single night from the day I learnt she was on the way to when she was about three years old.  The lullabies changed over the years but not the hugs and smiles and the warmth in my heart.   A little too soon, the years crept up on me and today we celebrated her sixth birthday (albeit a few days late for convenience).  Half a dozen years later my munchkin is quite a lady now.  I see her shunning princess toys and taking to the jumprope and scooter more.  I see her preference for a swimming pool vs. the bathtub filled with water.  I also see her cry softly with her hands on her face and I know why they call these 'growing pains'.  So much change in so little time...And she is already asking about her first driving lesson!  While there is pride and joy in my heart there is a touch of sadness: if only I could have held her in my arms longer, hugged her more often and worried a little less in the years gone by.  To all my friends with young children:  don't let the small hassles get you down; enjoy the child before they fly their nest.  To my friends with not-so-little kids:  don't fret, they will always be your baby and you did raise them well. 

Live in the moment and dwell not on the past,
Look to the future but obsess not you must...
For que sera sera, whatever will be will be...
Enjoy the moments now for fleetingly gone they will be.

A few weeks before her birthday she came to me with a painting she had made.  It had a blue sky, yellow sun, few clouds, butterflies and a meadow with flowers below and asked if I could bake her a cake that captured her wish for a sunny day in spring.  I have tried in my humble capacity to mimic her bright imagination and capture the colors of joy that she brings to our hearts.  May she thrive and prosper and light up the whole galaxy in the years to come.

The Candy Express

There's definitely something to be said about the word 'candy'.  It comes in many forms and the basic notion is that it's a sweet treat.  It's both the solution and the root cause for much of our troubles in life.  We take solace in some form of candy when the day is going bad.  We celebrate with it for our life events and even offer it to the Gods as a bribe.  Then we pay the dentist, the doctor and the gym a visit to undo the damage brought on by excess amounts of it.  We admonish our children from eating it while secretly popping a few from our hidden stack.  We have festivals that are centered around candy (Valentines Day, Halloween, Diwali, etc).  We have stories that stem from houses made of candy (Hansel and Gretel) all the way to the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!  The versatility of candy is endless.  And, if you didn't know that it could also be an abstract adjective used to describe attractiveness, then look up the term 'eye-candy'.  Cheers to all of you for spreading a little sweetness around...

The request for the birthday party was a train cake.  Judging by the expression I had seen on my daughter's face the first time she learnt about Trick or Treat, I assumed that it would be hard to go wrong with candy where children are concerned.  So the request was met with the candy express above.  A mellow lemon cake frosted with soft whipped butter/cream cheese combination was the theme for little Advait's second birthday.  I hope Advait has a "terribly sweet TWOoth"!

Squiggles

I have to say that I was not looking forward to this cake initially.  I was asked to create a chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and covered in soft whipped cream for an engineer.  I was also notified that Jasha is a gentleman and would definitely not care much about one of my pink roses on his cake!  For those of you who are familiar with soft whipped cream will know how challenging this seemingly simple request was.  I had not one but two problems: first, decorating with soft whipped cream and second, no pink roses...or any flowers for that matter.  So I focused on the only aspect left in this 'equation': engineer.  The one thing I know from my days in engineering school is that we love squiggles, the greek alphabets and anything with lines and curves.

Thus was born my version of a geeky but manly (enough) cake which should not be judged by its soft cover. I know that a combination of gooey chocolate with airy-soft creamy cloud can put someone in a 'top of the world' mood and I hope that that's how Jasha felt.

A Pot of Spring

Unbelievably, March is here again! That means we prepare to celebrate the onset of spring. It’s a time for new leaves to sprout back on those bare trees and a burst of color to fill our yards. To me spring symbolizes more than flowers and leaves. It reminds me that the time of hibernation is over. The cold winter months are soon going to come to an end and all of us need to get a jump start on the rest of the year ahead. New ideas, new projects and new explorations await us.  Celebrations with green beer and sun bathing on warm beaches are all part of March.  But before you pick up the mug or take off to warmer weather during spring break, make a promise to yourself this year: to spring forward, do your best and complain less. You cannot predict the outcome of the task at hand but you can control the process and technique required to do it. So focus on that for a change...Take up a new hobby, a new pleasure and indulge in it.  Whatever you do, do it from your heart and you will see the rainbow with a pot of gold at the end.

And talking of spring's bounty, it's also a time to look forward to warm weather.  There is one other thing that brings us warmth besides the summer sun: a good friend.  There is a certain sense of comfort that is forthcoming with them and just like spring they make us look forward to their company.   Here's wishing one such friend (who has a heart larger than life) a very happy birthday.  I wish her next year blossoms like the fresh new leaves and flowers in this pot of spring foliage (chocolate cake with shades of purple royal icing flowers).