So what do you do? Do you work?

These are the question Stay at home moms find themselves in a pickle answering. Answer by the obvious: "I am a SAHM" and people will find themselves at loss for words, and probably a bit sorry for you too. Some might, after  processing your answer, continue by asking something as inspired as : "Do you plan to go back to work one day?"
That one is the one that frankly irk me more than a sorry look. Because going BACK to work is a very ridiculous notion to have when facing a SAHM. It implies we do nothing, nothing but sitting in a comfy chair, sipping cocktails and relaxing. That our lives are easy, laid back, carefree...
Let me tell you that it sure feels peachy when you spent every single nights in an week waking up in the dead of the night because a monster lurked into your child's life, or you've been puked on, or peed on if they sleep in your bed. It sure feels smooth and relaxing when your toddler throws a temper tantrum because you rolled their French pancake instead of folding it (or the other way round). It is the absolute dream job when you realised Junior took an interest in their own poop and is smearing it all over the bathroom in glee.

A whole lot of nothing if you ask me. Yes, we indeed do nothing if the above doesnt count as work.

You see, the problem, is that society only see work as something you do in exchange of money. Hugs and kisses arent a currency. The long term gratification of having raised a child into a decent gown human being doesn't qualify as even remotely productive either. You can try to beat it, correct people, fight against the system, explain how cleaning play dough off the windows is indeed truly work, people are conditioned to think less of it.
And so, there is usually one more question that pops after you tried to explain that you work 24/7 as a SAHM and that no you have no intention of ever going "back" to work, because you  in fact never ever stopped working in the first place. That question usually go along the line of "But then, what do you do when she is in school?"

Aha! That is a fine question! A very pertinent one indeed, thanks for asking!
In my case, the answer is usually: I paint, craft, and write, indulge in a hobby. This usually spark people's curiosity, they are showing an interest about these. Hobbies rank higher than unclogging the toilet, or removing namkeens from every possible nook and cranies, it is more socially acceptable to have a hobby if you dont have a paid work.
And I generally put emphasis on my artistic talent more than the fact that I write a blog. Because, you see, my blog is that thing I always felt special about, but too shy, too private to mention. Mentionning it would indeed admit to others, and to myself that my main hobby, the ultimate one, is writing. And, I never really felt or actually feel qualified to call myself a blogger or a writer.
The irony, is that this is who I am, and I have kept this very blog for 10 years now. It evolved, it changed name, it went from being an outlet for my thought, to being something I ended up spending more and more time working on. Heck, I even get paid writing it from time to time, and I love writing it.
In the past few weeks, I have been deliberating with myself about it. On how serious I was about introducing myself as someone other than the SAHM who has many crafty hobbies. I figured out that if I was going to start telling people I write a blog in my free time and be proud of it, I might as well be prepared to give the URL in a way people would remember it. Jotting that kind of thing on a scrap of paper or a napkin being the surest way to forget about it. So, after a lot of thinking, and researching, and designing, I came up with this :


My first grown up business card. I say grown up, because as a teen I had a card, they were suddenly all the rage among my peers, thanks to automated machines that could design them in minutes at the supermarket.  Teenagers loved them, because we could even have little cartoon logos and feel very sophisticated handing them out to friends so they would remember to send us a postcard from their holiday destinations. Interesting to note that we were practicing the art of networking at a young age, without mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter and whatnot.
But. this business card is different, it is the first one that introduces who I am, and what I do (when I am not cleaning markers off the walls, or zapping monsters away).
It just took 10 years of blogging, a few guest articles for the Times of India, a few interviews for online communities, a few paid gigs and thousands and thousands of page hits to come up with the idea to promote myself as...well...a blogger.

Recently, I shared my pumpkin spice mix with you, and how I stock up on pumpkin purée to make pies and cakes with it later on. You can go back and read it here.

I already made one big batch of Pumpkin cupcake, and these are the type that freeze really well, so don't be afraid to make a lot. I put them in ziploc bags and toss them in the freezer, then take as many as I need out, at room temperature, they will take about an hour to thaw completely. They are adapted from a recipe I found at "mybakingaddiction.com" last year. The original recipe calls for a lot lot more sugar than I use in my take on it, and I dont do the cinnamon cream cheese frosting on top. I am sure the frosting would be great for a special occasion, or an afternoon tea with friends, but otherwise it is really heading for a sugar overkill.

Here is how I made them instead

2 cups flour (maida)
1tsp baking soda
1tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp dry ginger powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1tsp pumpkin spice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup salted butter (if using unsalted, add 1tsp of salt to the batter)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup pumpkin purée


1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices) in a bowl and set aside.

2) In a large mixing bowl whisk the butter and sugar together until you obtain a creamy texture (much faster if you use an electric beater). Add the eggs and continue beating to get a smooth batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix in with a big spoon or a baking spatula until everything is mixed together. Add the pumpkin purée and mix again to combine.

3) Line a muffin tray with cupcake paper liners and fill them with the batter until they are filled a little over the half way mark (do not fill to the brim, they will rise while cooking). Bake them for about 20-25 minutes, you can test them to see if they are baked to the centre by inserting a toothpick in the middle, if the toothpick comes out clean, your cupcakes are cooked. Transfer to a wire rack to cook completely.

That recipe makes about 22-24 cupcakes depending on how large your muffin trays and paper liners are. As I said they freeze really well too, so just put 4-5 of them in a small ziploc bag once they have cooled down and put them in the freezer. Don't microwave them to bring them back to room temperature, it will like all cakes make them feel rubbery in texture, simply leave the cupcakes to thaw at room temperature for an hour and they will be tasting as fresh and moist as when freshly baked.

If your Facebook feeds look anything like mine, you probably see a lot of family pictures from your loved ones, selfies, restaurant meal food, Huffington Post shares, silly videos, random stupid news you wished you never read (wait no actually they are fun), and countless memes. Memes of all kind: quirky, outrageous, silly, cryptic, plain old dumb and a few inspirational ones, like this one:


This one got me thinking. I am a firm believer in the power of positive thinking, and I am sure I did mention that fact a couple of time on this blog in the past decade (yes the blog is THAT old). But, despite this belief, I do complain, and crib and scream, and get angry, and annoyed, probably like just about any human being on the planet (some are more negative than others, but we all have our bad moments).
I saw this meme as a challenge, could I go 24 hours WITHOUT a single complain? I have been trying for a while now, and let me tell you, it's harder than you think it is.

No complaining is something I equal to not loose my nerves when something go wrong, not just the obvious voicing of disagreement. And it also applies to every single one of my thoughts in a day. At least that is how I interpret it.
That is why I failed the challenge very early on some days. Being woken up at an ungodly hour in the morning after a night that always remain too short and not even having a negative thought about it is hard. It doesn't matter that I kept myself from voicing it, I thought it, and that is therefore a complaint. On other days I did better, but then just tripping and stubbing my toe had me thinking "freaking effing stupid table" and BAM the possibility of 24 hours without a complaint was gone again.
Whether it is possible or not to really truly go 24 hours without complaining is left to debate. I think it is possible, if one is super self disciplined. That said, it doesn't mean that just because it seems so hard to attain, one should not aspire to reach that goal.
It is a great goal, and the less you give in to negativity, the better off your life will be anyway. And one bad moment doesn't negate a hundred good thoughts. I see it more like an empty scale, with one side tallying the positive, and the other the negative. At the end of the day, the amount of positive you have will be what prevent the amount the negative from tipping the scale. I have been practicing the art of counting my blessings for a long time, and whenever I suddenly find myself cribbing about something, I introspect as soon as I am back to my senses.
Yes, I hit my head on an open cupboard, I have a right to be irritated, and calling the door stupid felt warranted in the heat of the moment. But, will that ruin my entire day? No. Is the cabinet door really at fault? Of course not! Will my head hurt? Sure it will, but I am not going to die from it. The world will not end, and I might as well counteract this moment of crap with several awesome little things : a cup of tea, a cookie, a funny joke read somewhere, a moment to list my blessings and loose count of them, a hug and a kiss, a deep breath, a moment of quiet...

Has any of you tried this challenge? How well did you do?

What does meal time looks like at your place? In all honesty, there has been way too many rushed meals in our home. Meals dumped on a plate straight from the stove and hastily taken to one corner of a cluttered dinning table surrounded by phones, papers and computers.
Fess up! It has been like that in your home too, we all do it in our fast paced city life. Often feeling too exhausted to give meal time any respect or time.

I myself shudder at it, because truth be told, my parents and grand parents taught me better. You see in Europe meal time is pretty much sacred and we take the time to sit down at a neatly set table, eat together as a family and food has to be served nicely on the plate. The French call it "L'art de la table", which translates roughly as "The art of the table" but is more of a way of life and philosophy about food, and the meal time experience. A belief that one doesn't just eat and taste with their mouth, but that every single senses have to be involved in the process for one to feel satiated.



I grew up with these rules, rules of a probably less hectic, less chaotic time. Rules and guidelines I found myself disregarding due to just laziness. But science is on the side of the art of the table concept. We eat better, in lesser (or actually just right) quantity when we take the time to eat and take care about presentation and focus on the meal time. Here are these golden rules I grew up with :

1) Presentation counts, always. No matter how simple the meal or snack is. My grand ma always said that eating straight from a pack of cookies was bad manners, and that if you are eating a small pot of fruit yogurt, the least you could do was to put it on a quarter plate and take it to the dinning table. Taking a small serving plate and arranging a few cookies on it doesn't take much time, but make them look more satisfying according to her. Guess what? She is right.

2) If you don't have time to sit down at a table or pretty picnic spot don't bother eating. Both my parents and grand parents went by that belief. Meal time is important, this is the time you get to absorb nutrients and replenish yourself. It deserve to be taken seriously enough to sit down and make it count. The few times I are a sandwich in no hurry while riding the public transports were the few times I never felt satiated and compensated with loads of crap in an effort to feel full, eating twice as much as I should ever had calories wise.

3) Eat away from the TV. Growing up, our everyday dinning table was in the kitchen, Swiss homes are still built with kitchens big enough to have a dinning corner. My parents believed food is better enjoyed in the company of family and friends and is the place to have lively discussion instead of absorbing nonsense from the TV (at a time we had only 4 channels on the TV...)

4) Serve cooked food in serving dishes, not straight from the pan. This might seem silly but the science behind that idea is that food will continue cooking in a hot pan, even when taken off the stove, and could end up overcooked and it's taste spoilt. Then of course it also looks prettier on the table.

5) Set the table nicely. I grew up being taught how to do it, this was the kids job in many houses, still is. The fork goes on the left, the knife on the right, the water glass above the knife. But that set asside, it meant that the dinning table had to be free of homeworks, papers, and non meal time related clutter. The serving dish coasters went in the middle and everything was put on the table at the same time. No standing up 4-5 times to fetch a napkin, a dish, the salt the pepper or the water while eating, it spoils the experience. Meals were to have without petty interruptions.

6) Once a week, cook something fancier, just because...The idea being that life is too short as it is and one should not wait for a super special occasion to have something else than just the good old steamed veggie, protein, starch trilogy on their plate (convert to dal sabzi roti in an Indian context). Growing up, we dedicated Sunday's dinner time to that, first because we had time, and then because it is a nice way to end up the weekend.

7) Special occasions aren't about showing off your culinary skills. Guest are coming to celebrate an event in your company, and not see you trapped sweating away in the kitchen putting up a Michelin star quality feast together. Everybody in my family went by it, they were fancier than usual dishes, but not to the extent of being exhausting and time consuming to prepare.

8) Go the extra mile with the decorations when throwing a party. While the food was to not keep my mom enslaved to the kitchen, the table had to look extra nice. There was always a freshly pressed elegant table cloth and napkin set involved, along with candles for Christmas as a center piece, or fresh flowers on other occasions. The table was set with our better looking china plates and the silverware went out. Little girls are gifted silver spoons and forks and knives their whole childhood long in Switzerland, one piece a time for their birthday and Christmas. That set becomes part of their bridal trousseau, or at the least a kit for their passage from childhood to adulthood at age 18. It is meant for that use.

9) At least one meal a day should be a family meal. The Swiss lunch break was long enough that people took the time to go back home, so in my family it was a two meals a day thing, but the idea is that eating is a social activity best enjoyed in the company of others.


These were the rules, at least the ones I can remember. And I am not ashamed to say I have broken every single ones in the course of adulthood. Only to realise that a lot of them made too much sense to follow. I have gone back to it, and believe it or not, it makes a huge difference, in how one eat and how much they eat.

This whole public holiday vortex that sucked me in these past 10 days is not only over, I survived it as well. As a bonus, I even got productive, despite the heavy rains that gave my daughter a serious case of pent up energy (aka cabin fever).
One of the thing I have planned to tackle for the longest time (pretty much since we moved in back in 2012) was this:


Isn't it the most pinterest worthy wardrobe organization you have ever seen? (Kidding of course). With each move we made in the past decade we never had to buy a wardrobe. In Bangalore they are very often just built in, and in Mumbai we always aimed at semi-furnished flats which is code for wardrobe and kitchen cabinets. The problem is that when you relocate constantly, you end up dealing with a new wardrobe configurations every single time. And of course you probably know how pissed I was to move to a new place 4 days before Christmas back in 2012.
The move was so taxing, that we pretty much just dumped a lot of stuff in the first place that seemed somewhat remotely logical for them to be in and did not even think further...we had no brain cells left to think, and between me, DH, Ishita and the dog, I think we had a total of combined working neurones that would equal half an amoeba brain (it was that bad!)

The mess above is the result of that temporary brain damage. The wardrobes in our room are big, and had enough shelf space to just dump all those things that were no longer fitting in the bathrooms, or in a drawer or anywhere it did fit in a previous arrangement. And, because mess usually attract more mess over time, what was a somewhat messy storage, became a super duper messy one with each passing months...years...
For the past few months, it came to a point that I could not find anything easily enough, and it often resulted in me to have to empty half the shelf just to find the pot of Vics vaporup, a band aid or the nail polish remover. My idea from the start was to organize everything into small inexpensive plastic drawer units. The problem is that the ones that were big enough for or costly, or coming in funky child like prints that would never keep Ishita away from my things. Whenever I found one, it was the last piece, or it was too huge to fit in the shelves.
I tackled the problem once and for all and this is what I found:


The moment the rain gave us enough of a break last Friday, I took Ishi for an outting to the craft supply store. Store which happens to stock up cheap Chinese plastic storage and kitchen gizmos as well. I was determined to not come back empty handed, no matter what, I would tame the chaos in my wardrobe. I bought three small drawer units that would fit the shelves ( the only ones that did fit) and fortunately they were grown up design enough not to have Ishita claim them as her own. In a perfect world I would have loved them to be all blue, but we don't live in a perfect world, and two pink ones and one blue seemed a fair compromise enough. I threw in a set of three blue little bins to put on top of each unit and we headed back home.

I immediately took a picture of the mess, grabbed a garbage bag, and started dumping the entire content of two shelves on my bed. It took me hours to clean everything, sort everything, plan everything, rearrange everything to finally come up with this:


It started with all the rarely worn jewellery and bangles to migrate to an out of reach upper cabinet I. The same wardrobe in order to make more room for all the things we use daily in the main section. Then, I used the tree drawer units to organise, medicines, bandages, cosmetics, and hair dodahs. I repurposed the big green basket to store the big bottles of lotions, shampoo, brushes and other sunscreens, hid the hair dryer in the travel vanity bag and put the two jewellery box I use in the front of the drawers.
I then found an old box with just one light bulb left in it in another part of the flat. I repurposed said box to hold all our pool and beach gear, which we use on occasion : swim suits, caps, floaties and sunglasses. I threw ina small pack of absorbia to keep the moisture and mold in check before snapping it shut.


The two plastic trays on top of the beach gear box are repurposed as well. Our local namkeen shop sells Ragi roast chips in these and they are just the right size to store all kind of clutter around the home. So I wash them and reuse them, these two were made pretty with some decorative tape (I plan to make pretty labels in the future). One of these hold Ishita's head bands the other an assortment of odd ends that I want to keep for further projects.

And, because the top shelf was no longer cluttered with swimwear and travel essentials, I managed to keep the woollens and craft paper stuff back in a neat little pile as well. It might change again soon, as I need to go through half the content of that shelf before Diwali. It holds all my seldom worn salwaar suits, half of them probably not fitting well anymore or looking too worn out (I keep the kurti and churidars I do wear more regularly in another part of that huge wardrobe).

Ishita watched me clean the wardrobe most of the afternoon, but it didn't give her any good ideas about cleaning her own room just yet. the joy of having a 5 years old home!

Many regions of the Northern emisphere are seeing a change of season, and are falling into my favourite of all : Fall. The season I actually feel robbed off here in India and miss a lot. It is that time of the year that sees less long days but not yet too short, cooler yet not cold temperatures, and an amazing display of colours as the trees start changing.
Fall is something I always associated with hiking, cycling through the countryside and sunny afternoons sipping tea and eating Fall fruits. It was also that time of the year we would gradually fall back into a diet of steamed and oven roasted goodies having had our share of barbecue and salads over the Summer. And while Switzerland doesn't have Halloween and Thanksgiving, pumpkins are no less part of fall for us. With many sweet and savoury dishes made with vegetables from the squash family.

This is the thing that fortunately hasn't changed much over here, pumpkins are at their ripest, and tastiest around that time of the year in India too. And while I can't soak my eyes with golden and crimson hued nature sights, I can still please my taste buds with the familiar taste of pumpkin, apples and warm spices.

You won't find whole pumpkin easily in the market in India. Not that it matters to me, since as I said, I don't celebrate Halloween and have little need for one. You find a nice orange fleshed coloured one year round, it is sweet in taste and goes really well for soups, pies and cakes, and as I said, they are at their best right now. They are sold in slices in most supermarket and by most sabzi wallahs.
What you won't find ready made in India however, is pumpkin spice. Which, is a mix of different spices that are all easily found and sold across India. So much so, you are good to make your own and use at will in all these warm Fall and Winter dishes.


The recipe isn't of my own invention, I found it a few years ago here. I buy all the spices already ground in the market, since I often use them in their separate forms in other dishes. All you need to do, is mix all the ingredients above, and store them in an airtight container (I have a tiny Tupperware one that is conveniently the right size to store the quantity in question).
This spice mix can be used in every recipe that calls for pumpkin spice as well as "All spice". It can flavour your chai or coffee as well.

During pumpkin season, I also tend to make batches of pumpkin purée for the freezer, this is a quick and easy way to ensure you'll always have some to bake a pie or a batch of cupcakes at hand. Simply dice your raw pumpkin, boil it in a little water and mash with a potato masher once the cubes are soft enough and boil a few minutes more to have a thick yet not all dry purée. Let it cool and store it in the freezer in ziplock bags or freezer proof containers.
Do not drain the water, it will flush the flavour away, if the purée is too liquid, boil it a bit longer so the liquid can reduce on its own.

Needless to say I already made my first batch of pumpkin cupcake for the season. But that is the topic of an other blog post to come...

One to the dishes you won't be able to recreate at a decent price at home, is what is considered a nice comfort food dish in the west: Spaghetti Alla carbonara.
The reason being that a true carbonara calls for pork bacon. Pork is mostly eaten by Christian in India and you won't find it easily in store, and when you do find bacon, it is generally frozen, and at a premium price, imported or not. I not only don't feel like buying something that pricey for a comfort fuss free dish, but I also can't bring myself to trust that the pork has been kept at an adequate temperature along the supply chain for it to still be fit for consumption.

For years, that was the pasta dish I would only really order in quality restaurants as an indulgence...no more. I found a way to make a sauce that comes close to the real deal, without the pork bacon, or even the Parmesan cheese (another pricey ingredients).
A year ago or so, I found a chicken rasher bacon made by the brand Prabhat (found commonly in Mumbai, can't vouch for the rest of the country). This chicken bacon has a rich smokey flavour that makes it come as close as you can get to the taste of pork bacon without it being pork. The only downside is that it lacks the little fat bits that lend flavour to a dish, but this is as good as it's gonna get.

With that little discovery, I came up with that carbonara like sauce very quickly. It is ridiculously easy to pull, and the whole dish, pasta cooking including will not keep you busy more than 20 minutes in the kitchen.

You'll need:

- Half a pack of Prabhat rasher bacon (or more if you like it meaty)
- 2 small packs of Amul fresh cream (total 500ml cream)
- 1 or 2 egg yolks
- a little mild cheddar, grated
- salt and pepper to taste
- Your choice of pasta

What to do :

1) Bring water to a boil with salt and olive oil added to it. Add the pasta to the water once it is boiling, and cook according to packet instructions, or until al dente if you are familiar with pasta cooking.

2) While the water boils and pasta cook, quickly cut your bacon into little strips, heat oil in another pan and sauté for about 2-3 minutes, add salt and stir. Add the cream and bring to a boil, as soon as it does boil, switch off the flame, the sauce is cooked, add the grated cheddar to taste. Wait for the pasta to finish cooking at this point.

3) Once the pasta is cooked and drained, take your egg yolks and add them to the creamy sauce and stir, one egg will make it a bit more liquid than if you use two. Plate your pasta and pour the sauce on top, garnish with crushed pepper and serve.

This recipe serves 4, and you can serve rocket leaves salad on the side, it pairs great with the rich creamy sauce.