The Stalker

The cat stared at me all day long
Blue eyes moving away as mine met them, whole body collected
my apparent spirit animal became my stalker
no furry balls, no string, no laser point could distract it
I think it was a trick
I think there was a real pair of eyes behind that porcelain facade
reading my every move
keeping a track of where the milk was going.
The milk!
could it, could it really be
that a real pair of cat eyes was monitoring the lactation off of my breasts through that cheap gift on my desk

Mara to Bartoli

“I will love you from the landscape that you see, from the mountains, the oceans and the clouds, from the most subtle of smiles and sometimes from the most profound desperation, from your creative sleep, from your deep or fleeting pleasure, from your own shadow and your own blood. I will look through the window of your eyes to see you.” 

Letters to Bartoli from Frida Kahlo, poetic and heart-breakingly intense.

Forget You - Pinder Buckley

There's a door separating us;
keep it closed.
There's a hole in my heart;
don't try to fill it.
There's plenty of people in my life;
don't be one of them.

It Rose Like A Beast

So i made some bread, and it looked like bread, and it tasted like bread, and it rose like bread. A dear friend and foodie, asked me to write about it, and its on her blog: http://www.twicebaked.me/2015/03/it-rose-like-beast.html

Here's how it goes. Happy Baking! 

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IT ROSE LIKE A BEAST 

“On travels,” a friend had told me, “the motto is to do one new thing a day”. 

It was the long weekend of 26th Jan, when my mind was clearly traveling without the body. I told myself that I would do one new thing for the weekend. Tic tic toc. It’s 10 pm on Monday and I'm just back from a long ass walk to a healthy start and hence super lazy. But it was either now or another weekend where promises were made to be broken.

So shoes still on, determination filling through the veins, with the intention of buying herbs, (cause every day is a great day to buy some herbs) I set off. 

I had seen a supremely easy DIY recipe video for chocolate star bread. And I was feeling all cheffie (like yay!). It's easy peasy - obviously! Unfortunately this was a video cut short which was MADE to look zip zap zoom. I later learned that it involved making the bread dough from scratch and then it was still a little zoom. I decided to just make some bread. Focaccia seemed more exciting than just plain bread to me. It’s me - I’d always rather do something more exotic looking than usual.

The final product

So after crunching my head through a million sites I closed on one from Inspired Taste.

Ingredients - check

Pyjamas - check

No one around to fry me – check

The boon of 1am baking. No tsk tsk instructions from the master chef in the house (I love you ma).

Do note this was the first time I was baking, ever- I'm not going to count the one time I baked brownies at all (erm). 

So I just followed the steps.

Get hands dirty. Rub it all together. Then bring mac back to life and scroll down for more.

First. Make the garlic herbs olive oil yumminess. 

One cup of olive oil. 2 cloves of garlic. 1 tsp rosemary. 1tsp thyme. And whatever else you want.  

On the flame for two minutes. DO NOT LET THE GARLIC COOK. 

Second. Activate yeast in warm water/milk.

Third. Add one cup of flour and 1/4 of the garlic herb oil mix. One tsp of honey. The yeast. Make a mix. Just moist enough. Let it sit for about five minutes.  

Fourth. Add the rest of the flour and salt. Make the dough come together. (This might not be as easy as it sounds. I ended up adding too much water, but the world teaches you - If it’s too wet- add more dry stuff, if it’s too dry- add more wet stuff, hah!)

Fifth. Then get to the fun part, kneading the dough. Get in there as much as you like. Read the instruction 10-15 times. But I guess you will know when it’s about right. It will be one big dough ball, all soft and together. 

Sixth. Oil a large bowl. Make the boy sit. Sit in there. Covered with a warm cloth (I just wet a new kitchen towel, microwaved it for 2 minutes and boom), preferably in the warmest place in your kitchen/house/heart. <3

Ready for the oven

Wait. 

Watch an episode of The Affair. (Start to end – 1hour, boom) 

So pretty!

Heat the oven to 230 ͦC. Use 2 table spoons of the garlic olive oil yumminess to line your baking tray/dish. Drop the ball in and with your fingers make dimples on it as you spread it all over.  Pour the rest of the garlic-olive oil yumminess. Let the dough rise for 20 minutes until it puffs slightly then bake 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. And pray to the devil to not burn the wicked. (I should have believed).

10 minutes in- it’s rising like a beast

11 minutes in- my smile is widening 

12 minutes- Grinch smile

13-17 minutes - washroom break / distracted by TV 

18 minutes - it started smelling kinda burny

So I ran into the kitchen and found the garlic burning at the peaks of my dough. I freaked and pulled it out. Good thing, it was easy to pick out the burnt garlic (see the cup full of little blacks). But I guess the two more shot-down minutes in the oven would have made the bread a lot of proper to eat. 

With tiny burnt bits of garlic

But all in all, I made Bread. And it looked like Bread. And it tasted like Bread. And it felt like Bread. And it rose like a beast. 

Oh I’m so Breadazled! 

See the whole recipe and step by step guide here 

Check Mitalee out on http://clown-syndrome.blogspot.in and on Instagram @lucidmoan

A 1959 Freedom Movement

A woman in 1959 of European descent from a small town in this city fought for women empowerment. 

She fought for simple rights - she fought for the freedom of farts for women; in trains, buses, on the street. 

All she wanted was for her to be able to walk by her kin, holding hands of her children as they happily licked the ice scream she bought them. And be able to enjoy that moment, that moment of their happiness by letting out a short-worded fart, or perhaps, a long silent one, Pftt. 

She fought for her rights, our rights, to be able to smell as she did, of what she did, of whatever she wished to eat, without being frowned upon by the elite society of en-slavers.   

A campaign was created with posters, banners, flags. Hell, she even set forth on a march with slogans, chants, with kids licking ice cream.
It might not have been much, but it was the first time a woman dared to fart freely. In front of the public, in front of her husband, in front of the lower class and the upper class, god-damn, even god.
She dared it. She did it. And she set us free. She set it free - for us all. 
All in for the Freedom of Farts for women - say Aye!