Indira The Sweet

Cupcake Cookoff May 18, 2008

Unfortunately, early Saturday while getting my ingredients ready for all the cupcake baking ahead of me, I started to feel ill. All week I had been battling the worst bout of allergies I have ever had. So at first I thought it was just more allergy trouble, but as the day wore on, I just began to feel worse. But I had no choice but to bake on. I just washed my hands even more than I would anyway working in the kitchen.

So after Bahareh and Jelsen left on Sunday, I crashed on my couch and napped the rest of the day. Monday came around and I felt even sicker, but I had committed myself to judging the 2nd annual Cupcake Cook off sponsored by The Brooklyn Kitchen.

Here are just is a VERY small sampling of the 29!!! entries for this competition. The “cook off” was being held at a bar in Williamsburg called Union Pool. The entrants came one by one and set aside 6 off their best for judging and then put out the rest for general consumption for the “popular” vote. I could not believe how many people entered. I had never seen so many varieties of cupcakes. I thought I was over the whole cupcake craze, but after this week, I fell a bit back in love with them. I was on one four judges and thankfully we decided to just taste 7 cupcakes each then re-taste each of our faves. It worked out much better than all four of us trying to taste 29! To be completely honest, there were several ones I REALLY did not want to taste. The other judges were, Nichelle, from the infamous cupcake blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake, comedienne Anne Carr, and Pastor Ann Kansfeld from the Greenpoint Church Food Bank. It was nice to be involved in such a fun event. You can see an expanded view of all the entries on the cupcakes take the cake blog.

Too busy to keep up with this… May 16, 2008

When my friend Jackie created this for me and I wrote my first few postings, I promised myself I would post at leat once a week. Well, I missed a week, and almost 2. Oh no! Well the world hasn’t ended and here I am trying to catch up.

The question is where to start??

Last week I was printing every day. Another big magazine job, love that! And then I ended the week doing some fine art printing. Then the fun began…

Last Saturday I began baking up cupcakes for a tasting on Sunday for a wedding in June. My chef at school would have been proud of my mis en place. That is the practice of measuring all the ingredients BEFORE you start mixing. This helps in assuring that you won’t forget anything, and that everything is ready for you, when you are ready for IT. It is really an important method to keeping yourself organized in the kitchen, especially when you are baking 4 different kinds of cupcakes. When the baking was the done, the real fun started…

Bahareh and Jelsen are getting married in June and have hired me to make their wedding cake, provide a viennese table and a surprise item. So they came over on Sunday and tasted some tasty cakes! When they came thru my door the first thing they did was hand me a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the farmer’s market at Tompkins Square Park. Then they got down to some SERIOUS eating. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and raspberry frosting, lemon with vanilla frosting, chocolate with coconut-rum frosting, white with chocolate frosting, the list went on and on…

It seemed to have gone very well, they tasted every taste combination I created plus some they came up with them selves. It was a lot of fun, but I really thought, “wow, I don’t think I will be able to face another cupcake for a while!” Ha, little did I realize what the next week had in store for me. Well, actually I did know, I just didn’t remember at the time of that thought. so we move on to Monday….

May 2, 2008

I was asked to make a big batch of chocolate chip cookies for another office birthday. The unusual request was to incorporate some sugar decorations in the order. When you are using cake, those decorations are easy to apply, but in a cookie, I had to think about that for a minute! While falling asleep the night before delivery I came up with a solution that I thought might work. It required a little assembly on site, not knowing how they were going to present the birthday cookies, I thought my solution would work. Well, they sent me this picture, and it only slightly resembles my idea. THANK GOD! because this looks much more cohesive. They took the pieces I provided and made a nice presentation. I love collaborations! I am glad they enjoyed it all.

Dueling tubes… April 28, 2008

A portrait of two personalities drawn by toothpaste tubes!

I chuckled this morning when I saw these two toothpaste tubes sitting side by side in my bathroom. My friend Jen is staying with me for (god help us both!) about 3 weeks and the differences in how we live was hysterically demonstrated by the differences in these two tubes. Those of you who know me will probably be able to guess which tube is mine. I love my friend, but that tube of toothpaste bothers the shit out of me every time I look at it. It looks so distressed. I don’t mean literally… well yes I do.

I don’t want to dwell on it, it just struck me as funny this morning.

Today I find myself at a “trial run” at a photo lab. I cannot lie, it is REALLY strange to be working in some one else’s lab. I never thought I would be doing this, In my mind of course, EPI (Exhibition Prints Inc.) would always be open. Reality bites and that ain’t the case!

So here I am at Pix Point printing various commercial jobs, 11×14, 8×10, and 5×7, etc. They want to see what I am made of I guess. I just cannot shake this strange feeling of being in this foreign space. Stranger still, I am surrounded by men. Foreign men at that! I really mean foreign. 3 are from India and the other is Japanese (maybe). I just couldn’t understand most of what they said to me and I am usually pretty good with deciphering accents

[My Utopian lab (EPI) was basically all women. It was a rarity to have a lab with mostly women printers, but it was a nice oasis in the world of male dominated photo labs.]

So not only am I a stranger in this strange land, but the “natives” are curious as to WHY I am here amongst them today. I guess it can be threatening if you are not privy to the bigger picture. As far as I know I am not here to take anyone’s job. I am only interested in printing on a freelance basis. And God knows I never want to load another rack of film, EVER! Labs need to have an a few good freelancers for those times when they need an extra pair of hands that don’t need “babysitting”.

I certainly do not want to take anyone’s job. But the reality is, jobs in traditional photo labs are scarce, as are the labs themselves. I am just here to pick up some printing work here and there to supplement the slow times in my pastry orders.

Tomorrow I do one more day of this trial. I am not 100% on this job, but I am willing to give it a few tries. It is a bit weird to come into an established lab as an established printer and work under someone else’s methods. I really never thought that shoe would be on this foot!! I am trying to stay open to the idea that I could learn something new, but again, I cannot lie, it is a bit difficult. If you know how to print, you know how, but as in all aspects of life there is always something more to learn.

Wish me luck and the ability to learn new tricks.

Leaving sweets… April 26, 2008

When I go to visit friends or just if i am working in a place for a little while, I like to bring something sweet. When I worked at Exhibition Prints Inc. (now defunct), almost every day around 3pm our blood sugar would dip and no matter how busy we were, we would send someone out for a sugar run. Chocolate was always a popular choice.

Recently since I don’t have ONE place that I work, I have been bringing cookies or cupcakes, etc to friends at their places of work. If I am having a lull in my pastry orders or if I have left over cake batter (which happens often) or cookie dough, I love to find an excuse to use those things up. Bringing treats like this either announced or as a surprise always elicits smiles. I took the picture of the cookies on their way to their brief home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the cupcakes I personalized for my friends at My Own Color Lab, where I have been doing freelance printing.

Not only does it make me happy to help my friends get through their work days, it is a good networking tool as well. I suppose it would work better if I could just get a business card printed. I’m working on it!!

This little piggy went to… April 21, 2008

I created this birthday cake for a woman who has a pot bellied pig as a pet. Happy Birthday Diana! I am glad you enjoyed the cake. The last picture is piggy taking a cab ride to his “final destination” !

Tired April 11, 2008

Today was a the second of two 8+ hours of straight printing! Yikes, I am beyond tired. Can you tell. I always feel so lucky that I have such a nice home to go to after days like this. Although being at the bottom of those stairs staring upwards and thinking about the 3 other flights I have to climb before I reach my lovely home can feel insurmountable sometimes. The weather tonight felt right considering my mood. It is cold and foggy. I love when there is low fog in the city. It makes it seem like a smaller and quieter place. It has been a hard spring. We had one beautiful day this week, but the chill in the air quickly returned as has the rain as I can hear it bouncing off my air conditioner.

This was an interesting week. Through Facebook I have gotten reconnected with a slew of high school alum! It’s been fun catching up with everyone and to begin planning out 20th!!!!!! reunion. How did that happen? When did that happen? It is hard not to look back over those years and take a measure of what I have done, by comparing to what others have done. I try not to because we all choose to live our lives differently and choose what is important to us. So since we do make these different choices, we really should not feel like we have missed out on certain things because whatever we are doing right now is OUR LIFE and that is good! Don’t say “what have I done in all this time?” instead say, “WOW look at all that I have seen, tasted, cooked, felt, created, traveled to, written, read, sang, painted, and overall experienced since I left those hallways of Friends Seminary!” It is easy to fall into that trap of comparing our lives to others, and I am actively working on not doing that!

Now it is time for bed. Tomorrow is another day of printing and my Mom’s birthday.

Treats April 7, 2008

I have been having some crappy days since my cousin left last Friday and today I decided to self medicate with a treat of a French macaroon from the bakery/cafe, Madeleine on west 23rd street. I met Jen (pictured savoring her coconut with dark chocolate ganache macaroon) for lunch at Monster Sushi and on my way there I passed this cafe that I keep forgetting about, called Madeleine. I came across it sometime last year and was really impressed with their selection of French macaroons and the look of their croissants and tarts. They were producing real French pastries, which always makes me happy. Jen was with me when I first found the place (I think), and I remember explaining the difference between the French macaroon that is made with almond flour and resembles more of a meringue cookie and the American (?) version made with flaked coconut. I was amazed when I read the recipe while in school that this was considered a macaroon. I was very excited to try it, and then was really disappointed when it came to actually make them. First off, it is a cookie that needs to be piped. Right away for me (at that point of my experience) pipping was HARD and MESSY! Second the baking was really precise and with 6 or 7 teams of 2 students trying to get in and out of the oven, it proved to be difficult. We were taught that “classically” the cookie is sandwiched with a jam. We were making VERY pink ones and therefore we had to sandwich them with raspberry jam. I am not sure, but at the time it was just a gross sweet mess. I did not like them much at ALL!

Then came my brief stint as an assistant to the (very French) Pastry Chef at Bouley Bakery. I was only there for a little over 2 months, but boy did I “mis en place” for A LOT of macaroons!!! “Mis en place” is French and means to measure out all the ingredients for a recipe before you start mixing. The chef had me measure out 1 kilo each of almond flour and confectioner’s sugar that both needed to be sifted. Have you ever tried to sift almond flour? It is not an easy task, it is not as fine as flour and neither is confectioner’s sugar. UGH! I grew to hate this process more and more each time I had to do it. I was happy to learn that jam was not the only thing used to put in between these sweet cookies. We made ganaches! YUM. A basic ganache is an emulsion of melted chocolate and cream, then you can add other flavorings, (like fruit purees, nut pastes,or spices), to fancy it up even more! These crazy French raise the fun factor up another notch by coloring the cookies various colors to indicate flavor. Green is usually pistachio (my fave), pink indicates that you will probably taste raspberry somewhere, brown= chocolate. Etc. You get it. So when you walk into a bakery in Paris you will most likely see a large selection of colorful macaroons. You have to be careful because like the coconut version of a macaroon, they are VERY SWEET! I like the ones at Madeleine’s because they are not too big. The ones we made at Bouley were really big. Too much!

Anyway, I was glad to have rediscovered this place and for my waistline’s sake, I hope to forget them soon and then have the chance to stumble across the place again in the future as opposed to making it a part of my weekly eating habits!

I need to mention briefly and then again in more detail later, I was lucky enough to have shared dinner with Jackie and Tom Sunday night. I need to share a picture of this beautiful plate that Tom created. Not only did this look good, it was delicious!

Thank you Tom, what a treat. And of course Jackie, thanks for ALL the help. You guys are great together as you are separately. Love yous.

Family time.

My cousin was in town briefly last week much to my delight. She moved out to Arizona about 2 years ago after living in northern New Jersey for all of her life. She was on the east coast to be “in the office” for a few days, so I only really got to see her in the evenings, but that was good enough for me . On Thursday night we were able to get our little family together at Clinton Street Baking Company for a yummy dinner and more importantly dessert and a shared hot buttered rum.

As you can see our family resemblances are astounding! Here is the way it fits together. My mom and my cousin (her niece) are related by blood. Eden is the daughter of my Mom’s sister. My brother (Peter) and I are both adopted. I was born and adopted right here in NYC and my brother was born and adopted in India. (Long before adopting children from another country was like shopping for a fashion accessory)

So together we make up my family. I am always so happy when we all can spend time together.

who loves you kitty!

How much do I love my kitty! So much, I cannot express in words, only pictures!