How random things can change your outlook to life!

I'm one of those lucky lot who hates having to do much in the kitchen :)Its a candid confession, so imagine my surprise how i got hooked on to baking one fine jobless week end?

It all began, with me craving for an apple pie- yes as simple as that! The last time i had an amazing scrumptious apple chocolate tart was at Brioche Dorée, Paris in 2008 !It was bloody expensive at 5 Euros but well worth it! After that I kept having apple tarts and pies occassionally but all of them tasted something like concentrated apple & sugar syrup with some processed apples wrapped in flour!

(The pic shows my travel partner 'k' infront of the Brioche Dorée Outlet, Paris before we gulped down the tart :P)

Dean & Deluca opened doors to Doha last month and since i have neither been to the US or any of its international stores, i was quite apprehensive about their pâtisserie!I walked into the store accidently with a friend after movies and ended up buying an assortment of pastry goods and among them included an apple pie at QR 18 ( i could find only that pie/tart which had apple in it). Tasted it and it was a slight dash of heaven found on earth for a milli second! Fresh apples baked to perfection that the juices are bubbly with a faint lemon tinge and a layer of fresh cardamoms processed with syrup above the sliced apples with flaky crust!

The taste invoked my senses and fostered in me a courage and excitement to bake something on my own. Well, the reality is I have neither baked any pastries/cakes before or even seen any one bake and my education gives me an upper hand in food engineering, processing & food safety parameters, not how to make them. In simple words, I have always been a mediocre cook- a label i use to explain, "What ever i cook sticks to being edible and ensures your nourishment but taste is compromisable" :)

The experiment at kitchen began on a saturday evening, stuck by baking a carrot cake, advocating it to family at the pretense of nutrition value of the dish than edibility :P

Three hours later, when my significant other tasted the cake, his face expression brought an inherent delight and smile to my face!Later folks & friends who tasted the cake loved it and some of them could'nt believ that it was my first attempt! Eureka ! I did it !For me, baking a cake required great guts and the probability that it came out well was more like a fairy mother smiling my way but i baked another carrot cake two days later and reviews were positive!

The new found appreciation and interest propogated me to bake a strawberry chocolate cheesecake two weeks later and it looks like i have finally found something in the cooking world which seems to make me happy as well as others!

Reflecting back, there are so many things in our life which we fail to tread on,fear of failure, lack of interest, laziness all sums up some of the reasons! But, when there is a definite life span laid down for you in this world, don't you think 'venturing in' is definitely worth a try? Maybe you'll end up baking a great cake or at least you'll know that you tried baking a cake and it turned out to be a shortbread :)



"Do not know yourself. I want to continue to surprise me".
Arielle Dombasle