Prose before hos

There's a tweet I remember reading, on the perils of the pandemic, this deadly second wave and the emotional toll it took. Apparently, Gwyneth Paltrow started eating bread and it caused her a great deal of unhappiness and turmoil. I can empathise. I started eating breakfast again after four years, most of it was just to ensure there's some form of food I'm ingesting back when I was seriously ill in the hospital. I love bread and despite cutting that out of my diet to remain a size 8, I found myself eating that at the hospital. Don't make mistake, I would throw the lunch and the dinner away, until the Dietitian at the hospital realized, I'd only appreciate bread and therefore, prescribed sandwiches for lunch. Those call for another, separate post as dedication. Long story short, Gwyneth was upset eating bread and I was upset when I was told to get on with breakfast. 

Bread, then, re-entered my life in this second wave, much like it did with Gwyneth. The only notable difference was that I went to a size 14, in a month, after all that bread for breakfast. It's not something I want to know, but Google Photos insist on sending a poignant reminder with comparison shots, day after day and most of them have me without my arms in scars, my hair in place and my lipstick game strong. 

I do, very much, empathize with Gwyneth on her emotional trauma and the re-emergence of bread in her life. I would also have to blame steroids and other drugs I was injected, along with bread and even the near-death experience I faced this year around. A friend's boyfriend joked on a group video call, "At this point, you should ask the hospital to book you a suite, for your regular appearance." If only hospitals worked that way, I'd be way ahead of him to suggest that thought. Life's a battle, a fragile one at that. You can last as long as a China dish or a synthetic shirt. I'm moulded like a ceramic tea pot. Short, stout and almost too fragile, for anyone's care. 

It's been fourteen long years since I started writing, or rather, documented this journey in some form. Most of it is not public accessible anymore, but someday, it may just be, if I live long enough ie. 

Long enough to not care about scars on my arms, looking obese in photographs and not giving a damn about what someone thinks about me on the internet after reading what I wrote on the internet as a 15 yo, ill-tempered, ill-mannered teenager. 

On that note, I'd very much like to devour a whole vanilla rainbow cake with cream cheese frosting to mark this end of a beginning. The kind that involves size 14 garments again, lots of processed carbs to process complex emotions and perhaps, with a side of shamelessness. If the worst problem I had ever had was looking fat in the photographs then I believe I have a lot of shit show coming my way real soon.

Gwyneth- 1, Snobster- 0. 

About 3-4 days ago, I started seeing "cake" references all over Twitter. 

I can't say it did anything other than serving a reminder, I had to order a cake for my grandfather's birthday. 

If you know me, you'd know, I'm a fucking deviant when it comes to cake and cake picking. I think, the anxiety for picking a cake and placing an order is far more than what it is when I go for a job interview or I don't know, minutes before you start kissing someone. It's fucking real, the palpitation and the pulse that races. 

Could this be recreated in buttercream? No wait, this colour won't work cause baker would use a golden board and that would be a disaster. 

Point being, I love cakes. I dig cakes. I am obsessed with the perfect cake. 

Perfect cake has components, if they come together like improvisation in jazz, it truly does make the world's difference. It is divine. If it doesn't, well, you're fucked. 

Thankfully, India has reached that point where bakers can make their cakes taste just as good as they can make it look. There's no shame in saying I've probably once had a cake abroad and despite all the fancy looks, it was quite mediocre. I will obviously withhold the fact that the cake was store-bought and purchased minutes before my birthday cause the guy who was baking the cake, fell ill and ate the whole cake by himself at home.

Then people ask about my trust issues. 

Imagine my surprise, when I started seeing "cake" tweets for days together. 

Did this happen when I was sedated for a day and a half in between on anti-histamines? No, can't be. I can't miss such a big reference that literally everyone's talking about it. My own friends, I saw memes, tweets.

What on earth is the cake reference? 

I think the anxiety peaked as I spent close to four hours yesterday looking up a cake for my grandfather's birthday. Just keywords of what I think he would like. Man's grown up without his parents and worked hard all his life. He deserves a ridiculously good looking cake to mark all his achievements. 

You see, the cake isn't just any dessert. 

The cake is a marker, of how far you've come and how much you've grown. It is symbolic of the person you are. If the cake is representative of the year you're going to have or the life you will lead, would you or would you not pay attention to it? 

That's the thing about birthdays. Why do we celebrate them? If it is to mark the years gone and celebrate the growth, then the cake has to be in tandem with the sentiment and if it is to mark some superstition of how the year ought to be, then it has to be even better, perhaps. 

I think my family or friends don't quite understand or know the extent of my cake mania. Perhaps, the only people who truly do are the fine folks at the bakery where I order my custom cakes from. I've had the pleasure to work in the organization where the baker's daughter was interning and that's how I learned about their venture. 

In the last one year and half a dozen cakes for family later, they know my mania in entirety. Any cake order will take close to a day cause that's how many times I'll go back and forth on details, image references, colours, frosting, shape, size, toppers, base details and flavour. 

You may think these are words but for me, these are all blocks in putting a combination so wonderful that it makes a cake come together. 

I used to take pride in recommending people food places. Now, my pride and my perfection is down to placing a cake order and believe me, the anxiety is real. 

Last month, for Exhibit B's birthday, it took over 10 days for the cake to be confirmed and then 3 days of complete anxiety and anti-histamines until the cake was picked and dropped by a third party vendor. 

This time, I waited until the last 4 days and did everything last minute to avoid my cake anxiety from peaking. 

If you were to text and ask what did I do today, I'd have to tell you that I spent all my time planning and placing the order for the cake. 

Anyway, while prepping my dinner today, I thought about the cake Twitter and how embarrassing would it be to ask someone. 

Everyone who ever said, "Ask and you shall receive" they clearly meant embarrassment by the gallon. 

I thought of who I could ask. 

May? No. She'd tell me but it possibly will lack details cause of her internet connection. 

T? Perhaps, he knows Twitter like I used to know things when I was young and he'd give me all the background info, but, he'd also judge me cause how do I not know anything. 

That's true, I've hit T up more than a few times on checking on trending topics cause I've been so out of it. He's been helpful but I don't want him to not have a crush on me and if I keep asking dumb questions, the crush can only last as much. 

Until ofcourse, I hit Twitter an hour ago and found a prominent writer/influencer ask "What's Cake Twitter". Lo, and behold. 

I think I wasted my wish on a cake. Could have asked for something else. 

(Reference of the day.)

Which means, not finding myself in the vicinity of any man who can cook and be attracted to him. 

Coming back, what I absolutely dig about cooking or pretty much leading to cooking is the process. The prep and the tools. It's like the stationery to write can really inspire the writer, but translate that to the kitchen and you'll see how cooking is not different. Okay, perhaps it is, cause the tools are expensive and not all accessible. I don't mean ingredients; they're kinda like the writing board or paper. There's only so much you can do and turn it around as many times before you put that down. 

The thing about cooking I find mindlessly therapeutic is definitely the preparation towards the act of cooking. Watching recipes online is as good a stimulation to that act, followed by mentally assessing the tools you'll layout; which knife to use to chop the onion, and whether your fork is long enough to roll gnocchi in the absence of a wooden gnocchi board. It's so much more and yet accounts for so little. 

If you don't foresee the final product and don't quite know what it will taste like when you do end up making it, you're doing it wrong. 

Part of the high, the confidence of cooking is in reading/watching/listening to someone tell you about a recipe and knowing all too well the flavours it will hold and the aftertaste it will leave. You should know the components, the raw ingredients and their weak points as well as a thorough SWOT analysis before deep diving into a recipe. 

A few days ago, I found myself obsessively going over two bakers' Instagram highlights. The only thing common between both of them was the sheer precision with which they approached recipes. Don't get me wrong, seasoned cooks will tell you that precision is bullshit but I'm talking about baking here. 

Baking is all about precision. Of weight, of prep timing, of extra whips and then the secret ingredient. The thing about baking that usually stands out is how regular cooks dismiss it as being too difficult and then novices usually find their way in baking cause the precision is easy to understand. 

I used to be able to bake rather well. I spent the first half of my 20s baking a lot. Baking for friends, for family, for the boys I loved and then for those who loved me back just as much. Baking was a meditative space, a route into whipping raw ingredients and imagining killing people who've wronged you while you worked on that batter with your hand and a fork. It was as good as a manual gym and you go all out at it. 

I don't know when and what happened for that switch to turn off but I parted ways with baking to move to the serious stuff. Ofcourse, serious stuff requires a serious audience. Pleasing a serious audience is not easy. It has to be done thrice a day and in the same intensity, with which the novice approaches on cake/dessert that is baked. 

Coming back, I think I flipped the fuck out the last few times I was presented with an opportunity to bake a dessert. I did it, and I tried being precise but it was nowhere close to my former glory of whipping a batter so good that I couldn't believe it myself. It was okay and strictly at that. I think the last six odd cakes have been so sad that I don't want to go anywhere near the idea of baking a dessert anytime soon. 

The bread, then, was a serious challenge. One to see, if precision as a cook can take you places and second to see if my baking hiatus with dessert can be broken.

Admittedly, baking is bread is one of the most difficult things one can do, second only to earning that bread. 

It takes a tshirt, all the life out of your body and your afternoon to put together everything and measure the exact proportion of ingredients. The tools for baking too take the life out of you. Which is to say, if you're lucky, you'll do everything right and get a bread at the end. No amount of practice as a cook or baker can rescue you here. 

Hokkaido, or the Japanese Milk Bread that I baked was a mediocre end product. It was strictly passable and despite it tasting delightful, I don't think the process of baking bread is something I'd like to undertake again anytime soon. It was a lot of physical labour with determination, only hoping to not throw the kneaded dough out if it failed. 

I digress but the point I'd like to share or raise is the baker/cook equipment and that making all the difference. You see, most recipes will give you a lowdown on how things are done, step A to step B to step final recipe. 

Cooks don't often talk about their equipment or machinery they use to get the desired result. Now, this may seem excessive to those who don't quite approach cooking like the spiritual hobby it ought to be, but as a means to an end to filling their bellies. Bakers on the other hand, do actually specify these in detail, as have been pointed by the two professionals I mentioned earlier. They were so precise to even tell one through a whole short montage of images taking one through the nuances of baking before one starts and mindlessly attempt to copy a recipe. That's literally the crux of baking/cooking, you need to know some basics; those never transfer along with the recipe and don't show themselves until absolutely stated in words, including that lack of equipment and machinery you need may result in a completely different end product.  

If I don't possess the gnocchi board, there's no way in hell I am going to get gnocchi that looks or feels like Nonna's recipe (grandmother of the woman whose recipe I'm intending to use). Similarly, if I don't own a damn loaf tin, there's only so much frugality that can get you a bread lookalike. 

Seasoned cooks will disagree with me, and who knows even I might in a few years. For now, I'll hold the lack of gnocchi board responsible for my dinner plans tonight and perhaps include that in my birthday wishlist with a can of Stevia Coke (seriously, did you know that?)

(Title track; reference of the day)

Snobster is twelve years old today.

There's a long history of the things I have done, celebrated, and learnt after failing. There's a lot of reflection and introspection to do, but not today. We've done that to death in the last two years. It's my fault largely, getting comfortable at a spot with an idea is never a good thing. Heck, even a post graduate degree gets over in two years.

In where I mark my personal growth, May usually amounts to a fresh start for me. Agreed, it has not been as bright as what things seemed twelve years ago but still, quite refreshing. I had goals- to get into a college of my choice, to get to a point in life where I wanted. I have crossed them all. I recall saying that out loud, "everything I ever wanted, material or not, I have it. What next?" Instead, I spent six months wondering, if what I wanted was really that easy and if I was unambitious.

I'm amazed to be one with my goals, insofar as putting things to my mind and achieving it. Ambitious or not, it is incredible to achieve all that you seek and put your heart into. However, the imposter syndrome is a bitch, whatever that is and and if it's real.

Just when I thought I had peaked, I learnt to appreciate what I had and all that I am yet to do. In the last one month, securing four letters of interest for a visiting Fellowship for my PhD is a testament to that. I did not imagine I would receive email(s) from the people who did, even the rejections. It's quite spectacular to live through that.

You should try it, just to know the high. It surpasses all joys of the world. Being validated and wanted is just as dangerous as a line of cocaine. There's a lot at stake and you're innit for the pleasure, the high.





Where do we go from here? 
There's so much to do and so much to look forward to. Things will not be comfortable or cushy, or even handed to me in a platter just the way it has been all this while but I won't let that kill me or stop me from setting goals. I am onto things which will shape the next three months of my life, which essentially means putting myself first and being relentlessly selfish. It's the need of the hour.

I spent three years paying my dues and despite what the universe might say and hold for me, I think we're done. We gotta call it quits. Gotta walk out of commitments that don't value me. This has been the outtake of the past year and I'm happy to say, it's reflecting across all the facets of my life. Or as much as I am trying for it to.

To revel in the present is to be stagnant, to say, this is it for me.

It isn't over until it actually is.

I may just be 12% done but I have the remaining 88% to look forward to - to be upset at the failures and to enjoy what is yet to come, despite all my grudges.

Here's to the last year of us being a baby. And to the last of me being cushy.

I can't wait to fuck things up, royally.