Celebrating with a Cake

It is taking me longer than I expected to get back to blogging, especially this blog. After almost three months, I updated my first blog. The break at The Singing Chef seems longer even though I have been away for just a month. I think it has to do with the regularity with which I have been posting here. So many of you have left messages and sent me mails asking if I’m fine. I am, thank you very much. And I was truly overwhelmed by your messages. It is not like me to abandon my blog and I really haven’t. I was away on a much needed two week vacation. At one point, I thought I could use my time to schedule posts, but we had no time for anything really.

We rested (that was one of the essentials) and we met friends and family (which was the main reason we traveled). We did, though, eat an awful lot. I didn’t take pictures of food on this trip, and God alone knows how much restraint I exercised. In Hyderabad, we had some home cooked meals. I did a little bit of cooking and shall remember not to attempt any such thing in the future. More heartburn, not worth it. I did meet Arundati who gave me free chocolate making lessons. I will attempt making chocolates very soon. We ate at Persis, Little Italy, and Minerva. Persis is just the same. The same biryani that the world somehow thinks is the best. Little Italy is just down the road from where I lived. Nice food, great ambience. Thank heavens it wasn’t there during my time. I’d probably have eaten there everyday. In Bangalore, we ate at home a lot. We ate stuff from the should-be-world-famous-soon Ganesh Upahar in Anand Nagar, and at TGI Fridays and Little Italy (again). I so wanted to have Chhole Bhature at Shiv Sagar. ( I believe in next times.) We were 10 minutes late at Shanthi Sagar and were denied idlis at dinner time. Madras rocks when it comes to food. More so on this trip of ours. We had some home made food again (I cooked a little bit again) and ate out a little. Ratna café, Minar at Savera, etc. But I had proper amchi banana leaf meals at the SGS Sabha as I was there for the Gowri-Ganpati festival. I celebrated my second Gowri Puja with Amma in Madras.

It’s been about 10 days since we got back. I’ve become more organized since then. All the vegetables for the week are now neatly processed during the weekend so dishing out breakfast and lunch together only takes me 30 minutes. Dinner is also a 20 minute affair, in terms of cooking that is. All this leaves us with more time to do all the things that we’d like to. Hit the gym, take a walk, watch more eposides of Three’s Company, cook more wholesome meals… even cut fruit and eat it as an after dinner snack. Something we’d never thought of doing before. I haven’t gotten around to doing any baking yet. We’re planning a small dinner party on Saturday and I hope to do some baking then. But until then, let me leave you with this small cake that I’d baked for a friend when she asked for an encore. The chocolate orange marble cake with a chocolate glaze icing and sprinkles. Simple and sweet. Perfect for that little celebration. Coming back to my beloved blog after a break does call for a celebration.

Doing that on my second wedding anniversary calls for a bigger celebration. S and I complete two years in wedlock today. I am not cooking anything special. We’re planning a small dinner at a local restaurant that’s supposed to be a perfect candle-light romantic dinner place. See you all very soon.