CATapulted

After blogging very early this morning, I was about ready to take a power nap before Yums woke up for the day.  Unfortunately, I couldn't even get a minute's worth.  A constant meowing kept me wide awake.  The sound was coming from somewhere close, and after investigating a little, I found the source to be the window air conditioner in my room.  My first thought was that the cat's trapped inside it.  Yums woke up ten seconds later and after the morning routine we went downstairs to see what the cat was hollering about.  Downstairs, it was like everyone had spotted a flying cat or something; my khala, the two maids, and the baba (gatekeeper) were all huddled outside the kitchen door staring at something in the sky.  As I approached the door cautiously, Yums nestled on my left hip, curious as ever, the morning's bone-chilling breeze carried with it some of the conversation that was taking place outside. 

"Good.  It's being punished."(Khala)

"Baaji ab kya hoga?" (Baba asking what's going to happen now)

"Magar yeh upar kaisay pohnchi?" (Maid asking how it got there in the first place)

That's when I saw it.  It really was a flying cat, or it had been.  The cat was sitting on the concrete ledge above the air conditioner of my room.  It looked as if it had either flown up (totally impossible) or it had somehow climbed the drain pipe beside the air conditioner or the one hanging from the air conditioner's vent.  Khala was completely apathetic towards the monster that ate her birds.  When I mused out loud that if it were to jump down, or more likely fall, it would probably die, this is how she responded:

"Let it fall and die." (in not so many words, but yeah.)

Mukkafaat-e-Amal, as we call it in Urdu.  Poetic justice.  Nobody can escape it's wrath.  The pigeons that the cat had climbed up to eat in the first place had flown to another ledge and were now twisting their necks from left to right in amusement. 

I kind of felt bad for the feline bird killer.  Had I stayed a bit longer at my Nani's today, I would've definitely tried to help it.  Come to think of it, the poor cat has had quite a history at Nani's house.  It's been hanging around for over six months now, trying to emotionally blackmail some food out of us.  I've snuck some milk to it on Nani's orders but Khala has a strict "don't feed the cat" policy, so we try to ignore it mostly.  She's right too.. this cat isn't just hungry, it's downright GREEDY!  I remember throwing it some french toast in an attempt to get Yums to eat it too.  The cat pounced at it and gobbled it up, hungrily muttering something under its breath.  After that it longingly watched every bite that went into my daughter's mouth.  Eight hours later Yums threw up and thus began the stomach virus saga.  Not that I'm blaming the cat for it.  We've thrown chappals, water, oven mits, and even black pepper at the cat to try to scare it away from whining outside the door, but so far nothing has worked.  The cat's new target is the baba.  We've heard him yelling in pashto at the cat, and asked him what it was about only to find out the cat had licked and slobbered all over his dinner.  Once it even drank up his chai as he took a quick bathroom break.  We've tried numerous times to bag the cat and release it somewhere far, far away, but it somehow always finds its way back home, if home is what it would call our humble abode. 

Since I've been writing this post in breaks, I have just received word that the cat is no longer on the ledge.  It must've finally figured out how to get down.  Maybe it jumped onto the roof, which was a shorter leap than to any other structure, and also a smarter one.  Perhaps it attempted to leap ledges like Aladdin and then go for the big tree in the back and succeeded...or failed.  I have no way of knowing until tomorrow morning, but until then, here's to our very own short-sighted, persistent stray and its poverty of intellect!

The Best Squeeze in Town

My khala has a thing for fresh juices.  For as long as I can remember, she's been squeezing the life out of all citrus fruits, and any others she can get her hands on.  Where most people would remember their childhood and young adult years filled with comfort foods and the aroma of freshly baked goods, I associate mine with juices.  I think my khala has juiced everything under the sun - including cabbages!  One kind of juice she has stocked in her deep freezer all year round is lemonade.  Oh. My. God.  Her lemonade is to die for!  She's figured out the ratio of acid to sugar that makes you want to set your glass down after the first sip, throw both your fists into the air and scream!  It's heaven in a glass.

Lately, I'd been worried about the effort she put into her lemonade.  I cannot count the number of times I've seen her sitting (or sometimes standing) with a huge bowl full of half lemons, squeezing away with a handheld citrus juicer.  She said her regular citrus juicer was too big for the tiny lemons we get here in Pakistan.  It looks tedious, and I'm sure it is.  That's why I suggested she buy a steel citrus juicer, the kind professionals use.  I was passing by the Abdullah Shah Gazi Mazar the other day and saw a juicer on a cart that caught my fancy.  I rushed home and explained the contraption to my khala, who was immediately interested.  We talked about logistics - where would one buy something like that?  Would it last if it wasn't made with stainless steel?  Where would you put something that big?  These and many more questions no doubt made both of us lay awake at night.  Finally, my khala went out yesterday and got herself one.  Unfortunately, it was far from what we had fantasized about.

Khala explained that there had been two types of juicers in the market (I think she said she got it from Saddar) - one with a lever, and the other with a wheel.  She had gotten the one with the lever because it looked like less work.  She quickly sliced every citrus fruit under the roof in two and set up a juicing station. After the first squeeze, the excitement in her face turned into disappointment.  It juiced the orange, sure, but not to my khala's preferred extent.  I gave it a go, but same luck.  We set it on the floor and applied even more force, but yet again, it left some pulp unjuiced.  We're not ones to waste in our house, so this posed as a big problem.  If indeed that was the extent of squeezing this juicer would do, it was a failed investment.

Khala then took out her trusty Kenwood citrus juicer and did a comparative squeeze.  I couldn't take a picture to compare the two empty covers of the orange but the difference was significant.  Kenwood had juiced the orange, pith and all.  That's what we were hoping the big juicer would do too, but alas, such big dreams for something locally made.  Tomorrow is another day, though.  Khala has a new theory about how to juice lemons in the steel citrus squeezer - something about filling up the bottom steel cup up to the rim with halves of lemons and then pressing the lever down.  I hope she's right, but we're keeping realistic expectations this time around.  

So, I think this was an unsuccessful experiment.  We're now faced with the problem of storing this useless piece of equipment - hiding our failure somewhere it wouldn't constantly salt our wounds.  The thing is bigger than normal cabinets are, though, so I have no idea where we'll put it.  I suggested selling it to a juice shop, but what juice shop doesn't already have a juicer, right?

Oh well.  I'm just glad this experience hasn't weighed down my khala's juicing spirits.  She made an awesome (and by awesome, I refer not only to the taste, but the quantity too!) batch of fresh orange juice last night, albeit having to use her Kenwood.  What was the moral of the story, you wonder?  Well, it could be to adhere to tradition.  Or it could be to try new things, but be pragmatic about outcomes.  Or it could be my favorite - don't trust anything with the label "Made in Pakistan" on it!

Somnolence

I missed Fajr prayer again.  With that  being the first thought that popped into my groggy mind upon coming to this morning, I was dread-stricken and disappointed in myself.  My eyes hadn't adjusted to the caramel light filtering through the curtains, and everything was still blurry, but I could tell I had overshot prayer time by quite a bit.  As I lay still, trying to focus my eyes on the ceiling, I realized I couldn't move, and that the feeling of dread was perhaps not due to a farz missed but due to a presence that was posing an immediate threat.  I saw the outline of a woman with a towel or a scarf wrapped around her head, standing at the foot of my bed.  I tried to squint in an attempt to see who it was, but obviously that didn't work.  Another wave of dread washed over me as I realized that my door was locked and nobody could have gotten in.  Within nanoseconds the woman "flew" closer, and stopped inches away from my face.  I heard the deafening sound of wind charging at me with hurricane speed, and felt like everything around me was vibrating.  I still couldn't see who was floating above me, but I could feel a million wisps of cotton squeezing me from all sides.  Like a reflex action, I started reciting whatever verses from the Quran I could think of at that moment, and almost immediately everything became quiet.  Only the ceiling, tinted with mellow light, lay above my face.  Was that a dream?  I thought to myself, stopping the verse recitation for a second.  Almost like an answer to my question, the woman reappeared and the hurricane resumed.  I closed my eyes and recited the verses one more time, this time completing them without taking a breath.  When I opened my eyes this time, I really opened them.  I blinked the room into focus and realized I had only just opened my eyes. Everything I had experienced before this had been a dream.... or had it?  I still couldn't move, but it was due to fear.  Dare I look around the room to see if anyone really had been there?  I decided not to, because it was easier to ignore something I had not actually seen yet with wakeful eyes.  I turned towards Yums, pulled the blanket over my head, and recited more verses until I fell asleep again. 

This wasn't the first instance of sleep paralysis I've had.  I've experienced this disturbing phenomenon once before, 6 years ago.  I remember the first one involved me hearing a banging on the door and someone trying to violently open it, and a presence pressing down on my lungs.  I remember being just as scared, and just as paralyzed.  I also remember I had been exhausted the night before, just like this time around.  Had I been a tad bit more superstitious I would've credited this to a supernatural experience.  However, I've always been rational enough to consider physiological reasons behind these occurences.  Sleep paralysis is fairly common, and happens to anyone who's on a cocktail of stress and lack of sleep!  This is a sign for me to get more snooze time, but I hate sleeping during the day, and once Yums is asleep at night I can think of a million things I need to do.  That said, I really don't want to experience sleep paralysis again anytime soon... physiological or not, its one hell of a freaky thing!  I'd rather dream about rainbows and waterfalls.  Okay, not really. If you're wondering what I do dream about at night, it's what my next cake/cupcakes will look like................... teehee!!!  One minute detail about last night, or er, this morning's dream keeps tugging at my brain though.  Every time I've dreamt of ghosts or evil presences in the past, and recited Holy verses, it's never worked.  Usually the ghouls just smile and come closer, and I make a concious effort to wake up before they cross that last stretch of distance.  So how come today it worked almost like magic?  Hmmmmm...... I really do need more sleep, don't I?

Have a good night, and don't let that old hag get to you! :p

The Carjacking Virus Bakes Again

So it's been a while since my last post, but a lot has happened since then.  I'm too tired at the moment to chronologically arrange all events but here's a gist of what went on this past week or so. 

Yums and I both caught a nasty stomach virus.  It was more bearable than a flu or a cold but it just plain sucks to get sick at all, especially with a sick child! I really don't know how to keep the tiny ugly germs at bay.  I guess when your kid starts going to school there isn't much you can control in that department.  I used to be quite the germophobe, avoiding any sketchy eateries (which is like 80% of the places here), not sharing common straws, and washing my hands like possibly over ten times a day.  That's all in the past though.  Well, okay I still don't like other people's saliva on my food or drink, but I'm quite chilled out now.  My friends had predicted I would be spazzing out with my kids, walking around with them in plastic wrap.  That really isn't the case. I do make Yums wash her hands before eating anything or sticking them in her mouth or nose, but I let her explore almost anything she wants to.  Also, I can't be a spazzed out germophobic mother when she's off to school, so I kind of have to be okay with the possiblity of her coming home with cooties and such.  And so she caught something from school and very conveniently gave it to me over the last weekend.  We survived it though, clearly! :) And I finally lost a few of those pounds that were being stubborn and not shedding while I was on my diet!

Last week I also discovered a hard truth: I can't make a living out of stealing cars.  Worst comes to worst, I know I won't have to turn to that ever.  I can't.  My cousin was visiting us last week, and he locked his keys in his car.  I happened to come home just in time to save the day... or so it seemed.  I'd seen a friend open my car door with a wire coat hanger once when I had locked my keys a few years ago.  I reassured my driver and the baba (Nani's gatekeeper) and told them they don't need to go get a mechanic, that I know how to take care of this.  I ran upstairs and got a wire hanger and quickly untwisted it into a smaller hook and ran back down to try what I had seen that man do.  My khala patted me on the back, my nani seemed impressed.  Even the baba and my driver raised their eyebrows.  My cousin pulled off the rubber edging on the window and we drew our breaths and stuck the hanger in.  After fumbling around for nearly fifteen minutes without luck, the baba and my driver went to get a professional, and I felt like I had let everyone down.  The mechanic, once he'd arrived, applied the same technique, but I didn't stick around to see what I was doing wrong.  The only consolation I had with that failure was that I am such a good soul, I couldn't even pop a lock on a car! Yeah, right.

Besides all the drama, I got my first two official orders for Little Miss Muffin.  The first was my grandmother, who ordered a Red Velvet birthday cake for my khala, and the second was my friend G who ordered a dozen mini Red Velvet cupcakes and a dozen mini Caramel Mocha cupcakes.  After completing the orders and finally having them picked up, I felt such relief.  It always feels good to create something yummy... it's cathartic.  I couldn't take pictures of G's finished order, except for the Red Velvet Cupcakes, but they were pretty much the mini versions of what I've posted on this blog before. 

So the business has been jump started, the stomach virus has come and gone, and I've established career boundaries - all in the last ten days or so.  Oh and did I mention Yum's playgroup is having three weeks off for the winter? I really don't get why... it's not like the brains of toddlers need a break from all the hardcore studying, right?  I mean, it's just playgroup, man! Oh well.  Thank goodness for the impending arrival of la grand-mère et le grand-père! :p 

Falsafa-e-Falsa

I haven't been spending the last few summers in Karachi, much to my dismay.  It's not that I miss the scorching heat, the swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, or the sticky, sweaty feeling one gets just minutes after taking a shower.  I miss the falsas.  You read that right. Falsas, or my tiny spheres of joy, come into season just as summer starts, and for, quite annoyingly, a very short while.  They're intoxicating!  I remember having them for breakfast before I left for college, then buying some during break from a fruit vendor outside our campus, and then coming back from college and digging into my stash at home before and after lunch.  I don't think I've been that obsessive about anything else (apart from green tea, recently).  So you can imagine how heartbroken I always am when I get to Karachi and the falsa season is way past over.

 This year I had my fair share, even though I had, once again, missed them by a mark.  God bless my awesome Khala for freezing some for me!  Even after they were gone she had gallons of frozen falsa juice that lasted half as long as it would have if I hadn't been in the picture.  My falsa consumption hasn't stopped there, no, no! I don't know whose idea it was to plant a falsa tree some time back, but that darn thing is STILL giving fruit!  Yums and I occasionally stop by it and look for dark purple ones among the tons of green ones that pop up every week.  Obviously, my daughter shares the same appetite for falsas as me.  In fact, all the falsas we pick from our falsa tree end up in the party in her tummy.  *Sigh*  The things a mother has to sacrifice...

When I told my khala that I was still having one or two falsas (yeah, that's all Yums lets me have, can you believe it!?) these days, she was surprised.  She didn't believe that falsas would be growing in this weather, but they're very much there!  I took some to her a few weeks ago for proof.  After all, seeing is believing, but eating is a whole different level of palpable belief!  So why is my falsa tree still bearing fruit? I don't know.  I've looked for answers everywhere, and besides some Christian story about a cursed fig tree, Google has nothing to offer me!  Perhaps I haven't had the patience to look through all the search results, or maybe I'm typing in the wrong query, but for now, I'll just call it my falsa miracle.  The falsas are there because I want them to be, and the tree will continue to bear fruit as long as my (and Yum's) insatiable appetite for it exists.  Isn't that a doctrine of philosophy as well?  Everything that exists does so because it's perceived by someone's mind.  Don't be alarmed, I'm not converting to a mentalist or anything, just playing around with some possibilities.

Anywho... all this talk about falsa makes me wonder what they would taste like in cupcakes.  I'll surely post about them when that does happen.  That is, of course, when Yums lets me hoard away enough to bake a batch!  For now, I'll leave those of you hoping to satiate the hunger in their eyes with a photograph of the mini strawberry scones I made many months ago.  Strawberries don't come close to my love for falsas, but a berry is a berry no matter what angle you look at it from!

In case you want more information about falsas (to be further convinced about how awesome they are), you can find it here.

Symbiosis

This is my friend, Baba Aziz Miyan.  He sits in the same spot everyday.  This is as much his kitchen table as it is his bed.  This is where he sits hour after hour, pondering about the world's most difficult questions - questions like why do we have enough money to throw the prime minister of Pakistan a lavish banquet during a convention, but not enough to get Baba Aziz a warmer headpiece for the winter.  I pass by him often, sometimes stopping by to share some scraps of food in exchange for his philosophical rant about how exactly the system needs to be changed.  He's a generous fella, this Baba Aziz.  Sometimes he lets me have a swig of that strange, inebriating liquid he keeps in that green thermos of his.  When I sway a little, he laughs.  I brought him a discarded pomegranate once, and he didn't mind when I sat down with him and ate from my own gift.  People in their cars watched us as they drove past.  I spat pomegranate seeds at them.  They just rolled up their windows and looked away, judging looks plastered on their faces.  I really don't care what they think.  I've watched these people too, walking about with an air of arrogance.  They think they've got everything they can possibly want.  They don't have what me and Baba Aziz have, though - true companionship.  Baba Aziz doesn't judge me for who I am or for the way I look, like all these haughty people do.  In return, I give him what he craves the most - someone to talk to.  I listen to his stories about the days when Karachi's streets used to be washed early in the mornings.  Stories about trams that took passengers from one end of the city to the other.  All this area we now know as Defence and Clifton used to be an unpopulated barren ground, famous only for its clean beaches and expensive restuarant, or two.  Look at all these houses and buildings now.  Baba Aziz always shakes his head at this part.  He's also told me about his family, and how each member met his or her end.  His wife went first.  Her liver failed, the doctors had said.  She left a son and a daughter behind to take care of Baba Aziz, but the son ran away with his thug friends and last he heard about him was that he'd gotten shot by the police after a drug bust raid.  His daughter's story was the most heart-wrenching.  She was the younger of the two children, and cared well for Baba Aziz.  They lived in a small room under the stairs of a building.  It was just big enough for the two of them, but even then Baba Aziz would try to spend as much time outside of the home as possible, to give his daughter her own space.  One day he'd come back from his walk and seen a crowd gathered around his quarter.  Dread had its claws tightly clenched around his heart as he tore through to the center.  Baba Aziz always pauses at this point, takes off his glasses, and pinches his eyes dry with his right hand.  After resettling the glasses on the bridge of his nose he continues to tell me what he saw that day.  The building above their room was new, but not built right.  It had collapsed that morning, while Baba Aziz had been on his daily cigarrette walk.  His only child had been buried alive under a rubble of concrete and iron.  Baba Aziz had lost his home and his family that day, but it's never stopped him from being optimistic.  He's made the streets his home, and everything that inhabits them his family, including me.  I'm glad to listen to his stories and theologies.  I don't care who sees us and what they think.  I like Baba Aziz, and he likes me.  Well, he likes me most of the time.  Sometimes I try to cheer him up but it backfires.  My latest failed plan was when I took his glasses and hid them in a tree.  I thought the silliness of it all would make the old man laugh, but he's blind as a bat without them, and didn't like it one bit.  He took a long stick and poked around in the tree until his glasses fell out.  You see that bandage around his glasses?  That was my fault.  He'd taken that stick and whacked me on the head that day.... "Stupid crow! You're as foolish as you are black!"  He'd yelled at me, as I flew up onto the tree for safety.

 !!ہم کالے ہیں تو کیا ہوا  دل والے ہیں  

Redder than red

You know how Civil Twilight talk about a day when the sky's going to break and everything will escape?  Today was that day.  The season I wait for all year has officially arrived, as heralded by the thousand mile stretch of clouds and crisp wind.  As I stepped into the car and rolled down my windows (which I haven't done almost all year), I let the atmosphere inspire me.  The air carried a faint scent of Islamabad - of calm, of cold, and of winter trees.  Leaves never turn vibrant colors in Karachi, which is a shame.  Imagine the depth the city can achieve with that kind of palette.  Nevertheless, leaves fluttered down from every other tree in swirls of light brown splendor.  The clouds interlocked their wispy extremities to form a white blanket in the sky, like troops threatening iminent rainfall.  It never rained, of course, but just the faint possibility of it made me want to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way.  Of course, you don't do things like that in Karachi, so I just tried to grab my bit of fun from my car window. 
All this nature and its glory...... and then I saw something that sucked the life out of my moment.   I saw two things, actually.  First, this guy on a motorbike ate something out of a gold plastic sheet and threw the wrapper up into the air like he owned the wind.  I wasn't sure, but had an inkling of what it was he had consumed.  Two minutes later, as we very unfortunately traveled together on the same route, he turned his head to the right and spat out a familiar, red projectile.  The wind carried red droplets everywhere, including onto the windshield of the car.  The spit had literally hit nature's fan, and I ducked, not wanting to become a part of the nasty, red mess, but not before seeing one large, red, drop stretching past the window in a background of white clouds.  Being a dentist, I've always advocated a ban on "paan", but besides the damage it does to your physical health and appearance, I absolutely HATE the fact that "paan" has tie-dyed the roads and buildings of our nation from head to toe. I mean seriously, people!  What did they invent spittoons for?! 

               

Another thing I just don't get is why it's so easy for people (and I speak for the majority here, trust me) to throw their trash in the street.  Garbage cans, another awesome invention, are obsolete in this city, it seems.  Even if there's one two feet ahead, people prefer to drop their wrappers, tissues, half-eaten bananas, red spit, and such right where they're standing.  I've cursed anonymous litterbugs countless times after stepping into a wad of greyed chewing gum.  Needless to say, I've never littered myself.  I carry my trash with me until I see the proper disposal space or I take it home and put it where it belongs, but save one time, I've never, EVER littered.  That one time I talk about was when I aimed for the trash from a moving vehicle and miscalculated the physics of it.  My gum landed on the ground somewhere instead, and I was blanketed in shame for the rest of the day.  Some people are pathological litterbugs.  They habitually litter, not just the streets, but homes of other people.  When I was little, I always found a ball of tissue paper stuffed between the sofa cushions, usually after a get together with our family friends.  I always thought it was another kid, but only a few years ago did I learn it was an adult.  Shameless, really.  I may be lazy about making my bed or putting the laundry back in the closet, but a polluter I've never been, and I won't let my legacy be one either.  Yums holds on to her wrappers too, until she can find a trash can that's within her height limit.  Thank goodness for that, right?  So, somewhere at the beginning of this post I mentioned being inspired.  That's right, even though I saw some nasty things at work today, I was still inspired.  It was my khala's anniversary today, and I'm sure she was missing her husband who's in the land of deserts doing what he does best, so I decided to try and cheer her up - with red velvet cake.  My first attempt, and not a bad one either I guess because she seemed to enjoy it.  I think I might've finally convinced my other Khala to place an order with me *wink wink*.  I apologize if my red spit imagery has been mortally embossed on your brain and will be associated with Red Velvet Cake for the rest of your life.  Maybe someone will finally start working on that "paan" ban seriously now! 

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

*Sigh* That was nostalgic... nothing beats Kermit doing punk rock, hehe.

I felt really ambitious this week, and I wanted to do something extra special for my little princess, so I decided to make a six layer rainbow cake I saw on Martha Stewart once.  It turned out good, but not exactly as I had hoped - it resembled the leaning tower of pisa.  I had actually forgotten to trim up one of the layers (the darn yellow one!) and realized a little too late what the consequence would be.  I tried to hide the slight discrepency and ended up deviating from my plan for keeping the deco on the outside plain.... oh well.  It was a birthday cake for a very spirited and colorful two year old so it all worked out in the end.

 Also this was a recipe I followed from the internet, and I was quickly reminded why I don't like doing that - the frosting was a new experience, it wouldn't set (should've stuck to my trusty buttercream), and also the sponge would've all gone down the bin had I not tweaked the recipe according to my experience!  Growing up, I always complained to my mother that she never followed any recipe to the T, she always took a written recipe and did her own thing with it.... now I understand that that's what EXPERIENCE is.  My mother's cakes ALWAYS turn out perfect, and that's because she doesn't trust any one else's judgement except her own when it comes to recipes.  So yeah, never going to the internet for another recipe again.  Not my best work, but Yums didn't care, she was happy anyway!

The goodie packs were awesome though... I got pre-made boxes and filled them up with chocolates and lollipops and added two crazy mini cupcakes.  In keeping with the "rainbow" theme, I adorned the cupcakes with multicolor buttercream. The whole time I was working I kept humming the tunes from Yo Gabba Gabba's "Birthday" episode.  That show is so addictive... Yums and I both have most of the songs memorized.  Hmmm... maybe I should've done a Broby cake!  There's always next year though!

So three cakes, three dozen cupcakes, a kilo of butter, and God knows how much sugar later I can finally relax.  I had two birthday celebrations for my gorgeous two year old, and she totally deserved it.  What I really want to do now is just get a good few hours of shut-eye.  *yawn*  I totally deserve it too, don't I? :)

Happy Birthday Little Miss Muffin

Another birthday's come and gone, another year's passed by way too fast.  Some people have entered stage right, and some have exited stage left.  I feel different about a lot of issues today than I did this exact hour last year.  Time heals, they say.  Last year, I would've agreed and continued to aimlessly hope.  Today, I say you heal yourself, time just keeps ticking by :P  Worrying about the nitty gritty of things - the how, the who, the when, and the but - is totally tedious. It kind of adds up, like sleep debt. Last year, I would've asked myself a million questions and driven myself into a hysterical stupor.  Today, however, starting from the first day of my new year, I'm going to be all about not sweating the small stuff.  Hell, I won't even sweat the big stuff.  I don't know how long that'll last but at least I'm not scared of failure anymore.  Que sera, sera, n'est-ce pas?  Okay I officially pulled the foreign language version of a turducken right there, but I think you get my point.  In keeping with this new year's resolution, I'm going to launch the logo of my cupcakery today.  This is it.  This makes it real.  There's no turning back now!  Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you...

Coming soon.... very, very soon :)

Yum's Favorite Bedtime Story

Once upon a time there was a Baby Red Panda that lived in the forests of the Himalayas.  Baby Red was an extremely naughty girl and she was always off doing one mischief or another.  Baby Red had two really good friends, a pink Tee Cat and a baby Fawl Bear.  When the three of them got together it was mayhem all over the forest.  Baby Red would distract Mr. and Mrs. Snow the leopards while Tee Cat and Fawl Bear tied their tails together.  The three naughty kids would sneak up on Monk Ape while he was enjoying a banana and send him screaming into the trees, banana peel and pulp flying everywhere.  One day Baby Red decided to stay in their favorite abandoned temple while the other two rushed home before dark.  She was so busy collecting crane flies, she never noticed when the sun reached the edge of the horizon.  It was a cold night and Baby Red certainly didn't know her way home.  She snuggled up under a small tree and stifled her sobs in her big bushy tail.  Just then she heard a low hoot..."Whoooooooooooo".  Baby Red hid her face in her tail and shuddered with fear, or maybe it was the chilly breeze, but it didn't matter.  The hooting continued and seemed to be getting closer.  "Whoooooooooooooooooo".  The next hoot was so close Baby Red almost jumped.  She looked up and there was a big furry owl sitting right in front of her.  "Hello, Baby Red.  Lost, are ya?"  Said Mama Owl.  Baby Red remembered how the trio had hidden Mama Owl's nest and made her weep and worry before handing back her nest with her precious eggs in it.  Perhaps Mama Owl had vengeance on her mind.  Baby Red hid in her tail again.  Mama Owl rolled her eyes and whistled to her babies.  Down flew four little baby owls, and the fluttering of their tiny wings made Baby Red look up.  "Hello, Baby Red.  Lost, are ya?" The four of them said in unison.  They didn't seem so intimidating so Baby Red replied with a quick nod.  Mama Owl said, "Well, we know where you live, we'll take you home."  The four owlets followed suit and repeated their mom's sentence in unison, once again.  It made Baby Red giggle and she wasn't scared anymore.  Baby Red nudged Mama Owl with her ear and then lowered her head - her way of showing remorse over past deeds.  Mama Owl laughed and patted Baby Red on her little fuzzy head.  "You should see what these four come up with when they're at their best!" She laughed.  Again, the baby owls repeated the sentence together.  Baby Red giggled again.  Mama Owl flew up into the air, her owlets tailing behind her in a line, and Baby Red followed them.  All the trees looked the same, all the winding paths led everywhere but home.  "Be patient, Red!"  Mama Owl (and of course the owlets after her) called from up above.  Finally Baby Red saw the big hollow tree that was her home.  Her mother was passed out in front of the tree, tired and drained from all the crying.  Baby Red ran to her Mama and jumped on her tummy.  Mama immediately woke and wiped dry tear stains from the fur under her eyes.  She encircled Baby Red in a tight panda-hug and kissed her between the ears.  Mama and Baby Red both thanked the kind owls and offered  them a gift of novelty bamboo.  "No thanks, we're strictly non-vegetarian!" they said.  The five of them winked at Baby Red and flew away into the darkness, back to their own cozy homes probably.  Baby Red stayed in Mama's embrace all night, and swore not to be naughty ever again.  Obviously she forgot all about that the next morning!  :P :P :P

I did say this blog was about anything and everything. What did you expect to find here anyway, recipes?  :P

Chocolate, Coffee, SATs, and Life...

Nothing wakes one up better than the scent of freshly brewed coffee, right?  I beg to differ.  I had to conjure up every ounce of strength not to break my diet after taking the picture seen above - my version of Starbucks Caramel Mocha, in cupcake form of course.  I used decaf in these so my daughter could nibble on them if she wanted to, but I imagine these would jump start you into action on a cold Monday morning if made with 100% caffeinated coffee.  I love coffee.  A little over 8 years ago I used to be an addict, the "Hi, my name's Sahar, and I'm a coffeeholic" kind. Not only did I have six cups of coffee a day, I put coffee into everything I consumed.  I sprinked granules into my cereal, stirred them into my ice cream, and even had a secret stash of Kopiko for those AP Bio all-nighters.  The stash never lasted all night, obviously.  One night at the dinner table one of the girls pointed out how jittery my hands were, and called for an intervention.  Many years later here I am, no more jitters, and completely cured of my caffeine fix.  In fact it doesn't affect me anymore.  I have to think of other measures when I want to feel awake, because coffee just doesn't cut it.  Here's why, though.  It isn't because I haven't had a good, honest cup of coffee in a while.  It's because I've been dosing myself with caffeine in small amounts, unknowingly.  Caffeine isn't in just tea and coffee, man, it's EVERYWHERE! Who doesn't like chocolate, huh? Well do you know how much caffeine you're consuming in a single bar?  I'm a dark chocolate fan - nothing less than 60% cocoa.  Hey, it's supposed to be good for you! That and green tea, which I'm again a very heavy consumer of.  There's the other source of caffeine in my life!  Anyway I'm railing off the subject here... the point of this rant was to tell you how the cupcakes came into being.  So the other day I was missing a bunch of things I had to let go on this diet of mine, the most important being chocolate.  It's excruciatingly hard to open the freezer (yes, I like my chocolate frozen rock solid), see all that left over Ghirardelli, and walk away.  My fingers were itching to bake and all I needed was an excuse.  I found one, in the form of my cousin.  She had to travel all by herself, for the very first time, to a different city in order to take a standardized test.  I hate those so much, by the way.  I was never a bad student, but standardized tests just aren't my forte - I kind of get creeped out sitting like a robot in such a controlled environment,  reminds me of a creepy Bryan Adams video. ANYWHO so my cousin's back and what better to treat her with than chocolate and coffee?  Coffee for all the nights she probably put in studying for a standardized test (Come on, cuz, really?) and chocolate because thats what I like to celebrate with!  That's how I came up with these... coffee infused dark chocolate cupcakes, filled with homemade caramel, and topped with coffee buttercream, oh and more caramel.  In fact I think these are good enough to celebrate life... it's a bittersweet symphony anyway, isn't it?  

Write it cut it paste it save it... technologic!

The reason I haven't written in a day (or is it two?) is because I didn't encounter anything inspiring enough.  My parents went back home leaving me and Yums clutching onto a short but wonderful thread of memories from the last ten days.  Why must holidays be so short!?? I shouldn't be complaining.  I think Pakistan is right on top of the list of countries that have the most number of national (and unannounced) holidays in the world.  So what inspired me tonight?  Well, I'd been looking for my daughter's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD last week, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  As a result she'd been watching all her shows on my laptop, since I had all of them uploaded as back up.  I put up with it obviously - I try my best to minimize the number of tantrums. With my parents finally gone, I was desperate to find that DVD.  I searched in all the drawers, in all the empty cd cases, and even inside the pillow case (yeeaaaahhhh trust me, sometimes I find the strangest things there), but no luck.  Yums strolled into the room, rubbing a red wad of playdoh between her fingers, and stopped short when she saw all the drawers and closet doors open.  I threw my hands up in the air in submission and said "Yums I can't find your Mickey Mouse DVD! I just can't!" I turned back to rummaging through the closet after my child replied to my declaration with a puzzled stare.  Five seconds later two tiny fingers tapped my leg and I turned around to see Yums shoving a cd in my face.  There it was... never had I been so happy to see the rainbow glare of a cd before.  She'd found it!  I hugged my daughter, threw her into the air, twirled around with her, and laughed like a nut job.  When I asked her where she found it she wouldn't tell me.  After much persistence she finally said, "Mama lapot!" Oh. My. God.  The DVD had been in my laptop all this time, but that wasn't why I was in awe.  My almost two year old had taken out her cd from my laptop with the ease of a chipmunk cracking a nut.  I don't know if that seems like a big deal to anyone else, but when I was two I was probably either stuck under the bed with my big head or breaking my older sister's barbie into five pieces.  Kids these days are so technologically aware, I wouldn't be surprised if the next Steve Jobs is a 10 year old!  I think it's a good thing... and if there's any remote chance that that ten year old could possibly be my daughter, I'm going to let her get technologic! Full throttle! Oh and while we're on the subject... Daft Punk - awesome.  Tron Legacy - more awesome.  I wish I could see it in 3D some day, with that awesome awesome soundtrack blaring at its loudest.  I wonder what Yums and I would look like with DP helmets on.....Oh well.  Maybe next Halloween.

An apple a day...

Winter reminds me of exams.  This was usually the time when we would make short notes of our class notes and  read our text books over and over again in an attempt to brand the information onto our brains.  Our mothers took turns sustaining our brain activity with appropriate provisions. Another thing about winter that shoves me into the rabbit hole of nostalgic college memories is apple cinnamon green tea.  I made thermos-fulls and sipped on it all day while memorizing the mode of action of drugs and classification of microorganisms.  The fragrance also reminds me of Christmas time from when I was in New York, and that's a whole other level of nostalgia.  This winter I haven't had a chance to make apple cinnamon green tea... not yet at least.  I've been experimenting with other forms in which one can enjoy the same flavors.  I made apple pie a few weeks back, which (not to contradict what I said about Pakistani fruits in the previous post) didn't turn out tart enough for my taste since I couldn't find any authentic granny smith or bramley apples.  Today I tried to translate those flavors into what I do best - cupcakes.  This was a much better experiment...

The only ammendment I'd make in these is that I would upsize the apple filling next time.  If I only had a huge mug of that green tea to go with these maybe I'd start recovering from this encore flu act. Yes, the tiny ugly germs have made me sick for a second time this season. Ugh, I can't afford to be sick, not again, because  like Dexter (not the scary one) puts it, "You fool! Mothers do not get sick; they take care of the sickly!"  :P

Who wrote fairy tales anyway?

Another night another staccato of a sleep cycle.  This time when I woke up I stayed up.  It was 4:30 in the morning anyway, so instead of handing Yums her bottle and then disappearing under the covers I watched a movie - Beastly.  I had a thing for fairy-tale endings, so I thought I'd like this modern take on one of the classics.  I was so very disappointed.  Not because the movie sucked, which it didn't all that much, but because I wasn't all batty eyed and "awwwww" at the end of it, like I was expecting to be.  I just read all the wrong messages, which I'm sure the directors weren't aiming for.  Maybe I saw it that way because I'm on the more cynical end of the spectrum now.  Anywho the point of the movie (the way my brain interpreted it this early in the morning) was good-looking people are mean, and if you love someone ugly you live happily ever after.  At a more sane hour I'd say it makes sense, although in the former statement, I'd put the words "not all"  before it, and in the latter one the words "don't necessarily" before "live happily ever after".  Seems to me Vanessa Hudgens had a change of heart before jumping into that Matchu Pitchu bus not because she loved the beastly guy that built her a greenhouse, but because she figured Oh hell, why settle for Matchu Pitchu when you can go around the world with ugly's money?  See, I told you I was cynical.  There is, however, a fine line between being cyincal and pessimistic, and a pessimist I am not.  After wasting precious sleep time watching a pointless movie that Disney did a better job with anyway, I got up to see what that pesky light shining through my blinds was.  Lo and behold, the sun had risen and suddenly I understood what the saying about a silver lining around every cloud really meant. Except mine was golden.

 Excuse the amateur photography, the pictures do no justice to what the eyes saw.  Need I remind you what time it was?  In my defense I did try to go to the roof and get better shots but my mother locks down her fortress better than I expected. Maybe next time.  Right now I should probably get some shut eye while I still can.

A bell's not a bell till you ring it...

I'm all about the meat.  When Eid-ulAdha rolls around, that's all I care about.  We don't normally eat a lot of red meat in my family, but this is one week during the year where we go all out.  Fried liver for breakfast, stewed meat for lunch, and kababs for dinner.... I could go on to tell you what the rest of our week looks like,  but I don't think my keyboard can take any more drool after the last slobber session my daughter had on it. This Eid was no different... I didn't even dress up today.  There wasn't any point... the only guest I greet on the first day of Eid-ulAdha is the goat that arrives in a straw basket.  So imagine my surprise when in walked my maid wearing golden clothes, a ton of make-up, and tinkling jewellery on every visible part of her body.  My mother and I were walking around in regular home clothes... and for those of you who know me at that level know my knack for wearing randomly paired shalwar kameez when I'm home.  The maid went about doing her work all the while tintinnabulating.  I wanted to tell her to take some of those bells off.  I mean what if someone thinks we still have a cow we haven't slaughtered yet, right? Okay fine that wasn't why I wanted the ringing to stop... it was just annoying.  We didn't make the maid do a lot, she mostly just sat around waiting for instructions on what to do next.  My mother said she didn't have the heart to make the girl work in those clothes... but me? I just didn't want to hear that tinkle of her anklets again! So she sat around and watched our every move, which was again very annoying.  I had to put off making my carrot cupcakes till after she was gone.  I finally got around to making them once Yums was secured in bed with her favorite blanket and drifting off to Gabba Land.  They turned out nice...  Something to balance off the salt in the meat.  I couldn't even get around to icing them! Mom, dad, and I finished off a third of them minutes after they got out of the oven.  I'll frost them tomorrow and post a picture.  For now, I'm going to tuck myself into bed with my daughter and watch her favorite episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. :)

UPDATE 11/9/2011

So I never got around to frosting those carrot cupcakes.  We had visitors late night after I'd gone to bed and another few of the cupcakes were polished off.  Personally I think they tasted yum on their own, so I dropped the idea of making creamcheese frosting for them.  As they sat overnight something marvelous happened.... the flavors amalgamated, the sugars from the carrots bled out into the crumbs and the next morning when I popped one in my mouth it was gooey goodness! A picture's worth a thousand words so see for yourself...

 Check it ouuuuuut!  I LOVE the color of carrots in Pakistan during winter.  Which reminds me of something.  A couple of years ago, I had a difference of opinion with a friend about produce in Pakistan.  She insisted that fruits from our own country are scrumptious, and I insisted that I've had better quality abroad.  I still think some things grown in other countries (berries, kiwi, etc.) are so much better, but other than those few things we don't grow here, Loopy Loo you were right... fruits (and veggies) in Pakistan really are awesome. Our peaches, apricots, green grapes, mangoes, and plums are unparalleled!   What sucks is the handling of the produce.  If only people's hearts were pure, imagine where just this one industry would take our economy!

Losing sleep over yummy cow juice...

For the past two years I've been craving a whole night's sleep. I was warned time and time again that this would happen, but let me tell you, nothing prepares you for the sleepless nights spent comforting a wailing baby. Yums is entering the third year of her life, but there is no sign of her sleeping through the night.  She wakes me up a couple of times during the night (sometimes with sleepy slaps and kicks) and demands for "yummy cow juice".  I've tried everything I could possibly think of to make her sleep like a log but nothing works! I've tried feeding her turkey before bed, giving her looooooooooooong warm baths (I've even spent bucks on baby products that promise a good night's rest), I've tried making her run around and physically exert herself to the point of oblivion... but no. Nothing works. It's come to the point that I've gotten really good at preparing bottles with my eyes closed.  In fact, this is EXACTLY what I look like in the middle of the night when little miss muffin decides she wants her milk bottle.

All in the name of motherhood. *sigh*

Even with barely 3 hours of sleep the night before her birthday party I somehow put together her birthday cakes - two chocolate fudge cakes and a dozen pink velvet cupcakes.  Here's what they turned out like, which was pretty okay. Had I the time (and energy) to put in a little more thought, these would have been three dimensional :P

Kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi!

I was sitting with my dad the other day watching dad-ish channels like the news and the national sports channel when something made me snap out of my cupcake daydreams and sit up attentively.  The Kabaddi World Cup.  My first reaction was "Whaaaaaaaat???" and the next one after that was "Whyyyyyy?".  For those of you who don't know what Kabaddi is, it's a sport played primarily (or so I thought until that day) in Pakistan, India, and maybe a few other countries that share borders with these two.  World Cup, however, implies more than just a few countries from a subcontinent, and sure enough I saw Australia, USA, Canada, Italy, Germany, and Spain among others on the list of teams participating this year.  More shocking was the news that USA had beaten the Pakistani team.  Actually it's not that shocking when you think about it, given the number of embarassing situations Pakistani sports teams have been getting into lately *cough*stupidcricketcheats*cough*.  If you want more information on Kabaddi and why exactly I'm so surprised that Italians are playing it right now, then get educated about the sport here.

Okay I have to go and bake some pink velvet cupcakes and finish decorating the other two birthday cakes I've made for my daughter's early birthday celebration tonight.  I'll post pictures for sure, so check back soon!

First post ever...

So this is my first post on my very first blog.  What's all the hype about anyway? Blogs are just diaries that everyone can read, right? So? Don't start hating, I am a little skeptical but I adapt fast, so I'll probably be posting away several times a day pretty soon.

So to kick things off, I decided to ask myself a question.  If I were a cupcake, what kind would I be?  That's a pretty easy question.  I'd be a neopolitan.  Three different flavors of personality... you never know which one you'll get!