Caramel custard and a haircut!
What’s with the topic – no relation, a common point though- overworked.
Off late
have been working late, weekends, cancelling leave and all. Not that I should
be happy about it; as my boss had put it a few years back – even donkeys work!!
Caramel
custard:
Being
overworked, either you sit and do nothing or you do something different than
usual. Nihar came with the idea of cooking and the thought of custard. Custard
to me was always the dessert that adjusted to those little empty spaces of
stomach yet to be filled after you already had a good feast on the main course.
The not so sweet, soft and browny matter has been a favourite.
I always
had this limited understanding of food – I prefer to just eat. As I learn
though - you appreciate food not when you eat but when you understand what pain
it takes to cook a good dish.
Both of
us started with our limited understanding, logging on google for help. ‘How to
(…and google comes up with some weird suggestions) prepare caramel custard’. We
clicked on to Sanjeev Kapoor school of food – a young lady came up on you tube
with the recipe. Women are detailed in approach (am not getting into the Mars
vs Venus thing) and thanks to some professional work experience, Women, I
notice are bit too much detailed. This lady started with the precision of
cutting the milk pouch at the right corner, pouring and heating the milk at the
right temperature with the right quantity, etc etc… and then came the Oven!! A
bachelor pad has some limitations – an Oven was our case.
Chuck it,
step 1 again - ‘How to prepare caramel custard without Oven’. As we clicked on
you tube link, a guy appeared. Simple technique – take milk, pour it in the
vessel, break the eggs in the milk, mix them, mix sugar in few drops of water,
heat the sugar till it turns brown and allow it to settle down, then pour the
mix on settled sugar, take a large vessel to create steam and put the other
vessel so that it can be steamed. Oh yeah – this has guy has to be bachelor –
great understanding of the limitations and enough encouragement for other
bachelor friends to experiment. So much so, we felt he must have plucked the
milk pouch with his teeth rather than using the precision of the scissor to cut
at the corner.
Perfect –
we start then.
Everything
went well – as shown by our Bro on you tube – till the time we reached the Oven
stage. We put our pan (a vessel sort, without the abnormal base, which we
realized only at the end) in another large vessel so that we create some sort
of a steamer. Put on the fire and wait. Wait, wait and wait – Women being
precise, I feel, provide that right estimate – Men, I feel, work in range. This
Bro of ours, made us believe that the Custard takes no more than 20 mins of
steaming –in actual the steaming lasted for over 3 hours!! I would have just
given up on the very thought that something meaningful would have come out, but
to our delight, the Custard came out perfect. That layer of caramel at the top
and the softness was like that at a hotel. Out of shape though, efforts paid
off when we tasted dessert next day – delicious. Kudos to the cooks!
Haircut:
What’s so
different – I have a haircut every 3 weeks or the 4th week max. This
was different though.
I had a
meeting next day and did not want to appear shabby at a client meet. But then,
could not leave office on time and was thinking of heading right to the saloon
when I reach my place. As I was walking past my usual route to Dadar station,
there is this fancy new saloon that has come up. I felt it was unisex – I could
see a few guys sitting outside hoping for the customer to come in for a
haircut. A thing with Men – as I generalize, is that they don’t like spending
too much on a haircut. Max 100 bucks – that too is considered pricey. I sensed
this place could cost tad more but then I had this exigency. I entered, sat and
waited for guy to come in. Nope – a female came in (again guys, this is not a
Mars vs Venus thing). I asked her to cut medium– she responded – half inch?
C’mon – don’t be so precise, we like range – small, medium or just trim them.
I always
wondered what it takes to be patient – my married friends would be more aware-
it’s not that a woman who goes to a parlour that takes time – it’s also, as I
could infer, about the other woman who is tasked to serve her. This lady was
being so precise- she took almost an hour to cut my hair. I can’t sit in that chair
usually beyond half hour. She washed my hair, then partitioned them and then
cut them half inch every time (she kept measuring each cut with her fingers).
She wouldn’t have stopped- I requested her – I was hungry by that time. I
usually prefer a head massage as well, not this time – I would have hoped too
much from those gentle hands.
Time to
pay – a simple haircut – 450 bucks! I know guys what you are thinking-
sympathize with me.