You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2009.
In our never ending quest to make Saboor read, Jun bought him a Secret Seven book sometime back. Saboor actually liked it quite a bit and read it entirely! I did notice that the print was new and it didn’t seem like the Secret Seven type of book I had when I was small.
I suppose everyone realises that they are getting on in years when they talk of ‘in my days’…and Saboor has actually begun to snap at me when I get into that mode!
But this isn’t what I started writing about in this post.
I remember that I started out with reading Enid Blyton books when I was around nine and got hooked to them pretty badly. Back then, Abbu would get one for me in the holidays and it was like a special treat because it would take me that long to finish reading them!
The good old covers!
I also remember saving my pocket money (which was all of Rs 2 per day) to buy a Famous Five and it was such a thrill to get hold of a new book back then. As good as if you got hold of a lovely chocolate and you were unwrapping it and savouring every moment of it!
By the time I was around 14 or so, I had a sizable collection although it seems paltry now. I used to stash them in my desk drawer and hide the keys so that Jun wouldn’t be able to get them and I used to think myself so ingenious whenever he couldn’t find the keys! Gosh…I feel so childish just thinking about it and well, it was childish back then.
Recently, Saboor dragged me to this book fair near our home. There was a huge hall, filled with books and he discovered the Enid Blyton section. He made me buy a couple of Secret Sevens and then I pounced on the St. Clares series with glee.
I only had Second Form at St Clares with me and all these years it never occurred to me to get hold of the others and read them. I probably thought that they were not available.
Anyhow, Egmont has reprinted the books, and somewhere along the way, the covers have lost their charm. But anyway, I went ahead and bought the whole series. Now that’s what I like about being a grown up. No pleading with mummy to buy one more book and no saving money for just one book!
Aah..these days, I am living in the world of St Clares! 
And reading them as an adult, there are plenty of things that occur to me,such as the fact that how come these girls are so old and they’re still in school! No boyfriend? No boys at all actually! And not even a whisper of regular stuff like getting your periods and all that which would be a part of living in a girl’s school. I think Ms Blyton would have rather not write than write something so scandalous!
I’ve never compared JK Rowling with Enid Blyton before and don’t intend to also, but one thing that I like about the JK is that she doesn’t mollycoddle you like Blyton. Yes, people have raved against her for being a sexist and everything, but I don’t know why she preferred to live in a cotton wool wrapped existence where her characters never grow in normal ways where they begin to like boys and want to try and be pretty! What’s wrong in that anyway?
This isn’t a discourse on her books, but just something that occurred to me as I read Third Form at St. Clares today. One of the new girls, Libby has a brother Will. And Carlotta the wild child from the circus becomes fast friends with Libby and impresses Will like anything. At this juncture, you would expect a romance budding between the two. But no. Trust Enid Blyton to nip that in the bud. Libby’s cousin Fern who has a huge crush on Will (read that as terribly fond of Will) is jealous that he is now considering Carlotta to be his sister!!!! I almost fell down from the auto seat when I read that bit! (i was reading it on my way to work.) By the way, this book was written by Pamela Cox in 2000 and I wish I’d known before reading it which is why there is mention of a boy at all. I doubt EB would have introduced him if she had written it.
Phew! I’ve got just one more left, and apparently I’ve missed out on buying one of the set, Claudine at St. Clares.
Anyway, to each their own. I truly relished reading every single one of these books when I was a child and I still love reading them. And I’m glad she was such a prolific writer too although I do wish she’d ended the St Clares series properly.
Yes! This is as easy as it gets. All you chocoholics out there, listen up! Here’s a simple way to knock the socks off anyone you want to impress. These homemade chocolate truffles look delicious and are very very very very smooth and chocolatey. And the best part is that they’re so simple to make!
Boil a packet of fresh cream. Pour over a bowl of chopped cooking chocolate (which you can easily get in Nilgiris). Let it sit for half a minute and then start stirring. It should look something like this…
From June 09
Yes, this is the same recipe as you would normally make for chocolate ganache which can be used to fill and cover cakes. But once it reaches this smooth consistency, let it cool a while and then pop it in the freezer for sometime.
Try and keep it in the freezer for at least half an hour. Here at home, Saboor wouldn’t let me keep it inside for even twenty minutes! The first time I made this, it was a big mess. I scooped spoonfuls of the ganache and rolled it around an almond but it started melting in my hand itself. No problem, I licked it off, but then I had to give up on creating something which looked as good as it tasted. Of course, the whole plate got over in less than a minute. Maybe thirty seconds!
This time, I decided not to use almonds. I suddenly remembered my trusty old piping bag. I fitted it with a star nozzle, pushed some of the slightly hardened ganache inside it and piped out swirls of chocolate.
From June 09
As you can see, these have already started melting.
From June 09
So pipe them out quickly. I didn’t feel like greasing the plate but if you want these truffles to slide out easily, then its a good idea. These truffles had to be scraped off with a spoon and once again, the plate was empty in mere seconds. Luckily, I remembered to take pictures before showing the plate to the kids!
This chocolate ganache has many uses. The initial runny version can be used to cover cakes. When it hardens, you can use it to pipe rosettes as I have done. I think my truffles need more chocolate because they don’t seem to be getting hard enough. Or we’re not leaving them alone that long! 
If you can get them hard enough and if you don’t really mind messy hands, do try making the original chocolate truffles which are made by rolling around small portions of the ganache into perfect rounds which are then dipped in cocoa powder. The bitterness of the cocoa gives way into the sweetness of the truffle inside and that is surely like a bite of heaven!
The bitter cocoa covering will not be appreciated at home so I didn’t bother to do it. But anyway, I got to lick the bowl clean and that happened only because the kids were watching TV and didn’t know that I wasn’t washing up in the kitchen!
A wee bit of history about truffles, only if you’re interested!
A chocolate truffle is a type of chocolate confectionery, traditionally made with a chocolate ganache center coated in chocolate or cocoa powder, usually in a spherical, conical, or curved shape. Other fillings may replace the ganache: cream, melted chocolate, caramel, nuts, almonds, berries, or other assorted sweet fruits, nougat, fudge, or toffee, mint, chocolate chips, marshmallow, and, popularly, liquor.
They are named for their resemblance to the truffle fungus.
The chocolate truffle was first created by M. Dufour in Chambery, France in December 1895. [1] . They reached a wider public with the establishment of the Prestat chocolate shop in London by Antoine Dufour in 1902, which still sells ‘Napoleon III’ truffles to the original recipe [2] . There are now three main types of chocolate truffles: American, European, and Swiss:
* The “American truffle” is a half-egg shaped chocolate-coated truffle, a mixture of dark or milk chocolates with butterfat and, in some cases, hardened coconut oil. Joseph Schmidt, a San Francisco chocolatier, and founder of Joseph Schmidt Confections, is credited with its creation in the mid-1980s.[3]
o A Canadian variation of the American truffle, known as the Harvey truffle, includes the addition of graham cracker crumbs and peanut butter. Other American companies may shape their truffles similar to that of peanut butter cups.
* The “European truffle” is made with syrup and a base made up of cocoa powder, milk powder, fats, and other such ingredients to create an oil-in-water type emulsion.
* The “Swiss truffle” is made by combining melted chocolate into a boiling mixture of dairy cream and butter, which is poured into molds to set before sprinkling with cocoa powder. Unlike the previous two kinds of truffles, these have a very short shelf-life and must be consumed within a few days of making.[4]
Nowadays, all over the globe, chocolate is eaten in various, solid forms such as truffles, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate and as a topping on biscuits and cakes. Possibly the most luxurious form of all – the chocolate truffle – has a rather recent history. A French invention, the original chocolate truffle was merely a ball of ganache, chocolate and cream, often flavoured and rolled in cocoa. It was named after the black truffle fungus because of its physical resemblance. From this it has been developed with many ganache fillings and liqueurs and has been coated with different nuts, paprika, peppercorns or simply solid chocolate. Modern chocolatiers are constantly inventing new truffle recipes for the ever-growing truffle-adoring public.
Source: Wikipedia
Sometimes I’m too lazy to open links that people send me through email or messenger. Maybe its because I fear I will be drawn into it and I will ignore what I am doing currently. Well, today, Biji sent me a link and for some reason I went ahead and opened it. And yes, I’m not able to concentrate on anything else since then. But I don’t really care now. This affected me personally and I hope that you too will take the time to open the link and read it.
http://themadmomma.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/the-vbac-gone-wrong/
I wrote this on Sunday from my mobile, but for some reason it wasn’t getting published! So much for moblogging.
I’m on my way back from this small town in tamil nadu and its really quite hot here.ofcourse i’m sitting in a car which has ac so we’re not feeling the heat so bad.the wedding hall was tiny and cramped and there were monkeys staring at us from the roof!az got really scared and started crying.now he’s munching chips and looking at the mountains,saying hi to them and wondering why they’re not replying to him!
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I'm no photographer but I just felt like capturing a few moments of the trip. Here are a few pics of Azhaan when he saw those monkeys. Just look at the expression on his face!:-)
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Tomorrow (ok, technically, it’s today as 4th June has begun) is Saboor’s first day at Cathedral High School. I’m nervous as well as excited for him. I feel he’s lived a different kind of sheltered life all along as far as schooling is concerned. And now all that is going to change.
I sincerely pray to Allah that he makes good friends there, the kind who will stick by him and not lead him astray. He’s a child who has so much joie de vivre in him, and I really hope that this school helps him find his potential, and doesn’t strangle any creativity that is there in him. And I also hope that I made the right decision by choosing this school.
Gosh…I’m sitting here blogging about this and Mansoor is sitting and watching the T20 match on TV with hardly any concern. I think we women worry on their behalf also!
And as for Azhaan. It was his first day of school and he went very happily until the gate. There he looked a little bit uncertain and then the ayah asked him to go with her and he refused. She carried him and went away and he bawled and cried and screamed and I got to hear that he did throw up, just as I had feared. It will take a little time for him to settle down. But it seems strange to admit it, I hardly felt any separation pangs when he went away inside. For Saboor, I now remember that I felt like crying myself. But I guess i’m a bit hardened now.
Ok, it’s time I went to sleep. At last the summer vacations are over!!!!!
Does anyone remember what their first day at school was like?
I remember my first day quite well although it sounds unbelievable. There I was in the nursery section of Baldwins and I was happy because my cousin Sadaf was with me. Both of us were totally engrossed in playing in the sand and after a while I realised that I had no idea where my parents were. I looked up and saw my Abbu and Sadaf’s father smiling at us from outside the nursery gate. That’s all I remember. If I add anything more to it, it would probably be a fabrication of something my memory has added over the years.
Tomorrow is going to be Azhaan’s first day at school. It’s hard to believe somehow because I remember the day he was born as if it were yesterday! (Ayesha, I even remember you sending me the SMS when I told you about the planned operation, you said, congrats on becoming Mummy V2.0 or something!) Ok, that ought to prove that I have quite an elephantine memory. But its selective, like it is for most of us. Ok, I’m digressing.
Yes, so its Azhaan’s first day tomorrow at Podar Jumbo Kids. I’m excited and a little nervous because of late, he has started this new thing of throwing up when he’s crying. And since he’s really very attached to me, he’s not going to like it when I leave him there.
Of late, he has started using ‘Please’ a lot, not to actually be polite, but more in a pleading kind of way which I just cannot resist. I really hope he will not say something like, ‘Please no school’!
So, I had promised him chocolate cake for the first day of school and I finished baking it. Although I really don’t think he’s going to be very keen on opening that cute Pooh box I got for him to see what he has got.
Saboor’s first day is a little hazy because he just cried and cried and screamed and he refused to be taken upstairs.
I just hope Azhaan settles into school quickly!
So, all you guys out there….what was your first memory of school? I’m sure it will make for interesting reading!
