It was a dull and boring Saturday. My husband and kid were catching up with sleep - the precious bliss which is rare with the former although routine with the latter. Although I did my best to do the same, my insomniac instincts made me more restless, so went on with preparation of snack from the kitchen.
I had been for a long time thinking about baking. However, in quite a few houses where we Indians reside in United States, you would find the oven turning itself into a rack for vessels. Sometimes, the extra vessels find a way to dishwasher too. And removing all the vessels from the rack isn't the loveliest job on the earth, so most of the time I would postpone baking. That day was an exception where laziness was put aside in favour of 'naan khata'i the dream biscuit I wanted to bake.
All ingredients ready I worked wholeheartedly with an intention of striving towards perfection. The fluffy buttery sugary besan-suji combo of the dough was neatly shaped into tikki , ready to go into oven and come out as biscuit , the very thought ....well... I was already smiling.
There are days when things go terribly wrong - despite your enthusiasm, the ingredients, the striving-towards-perfection kinda concentration , the sugar or salt measurement etc. For me, it happened to be that very moment. Five minutes into the oven, it looked anything but naan khataai (as the picture says). The ghee perhaps was a bit too much and the dough spread itself into a shapeless mass. Worse still bubbling of the ghee inside made it look more like Pizza on the oven :(
I still did not want to lose hope with this disastrous battle with biscuit so switched off the oven exactly after 10 mts when it seemed to brown although still soft. Once the shapeless thing was spread for cooling, I wondered how would it taste if crumbled? Well, it did not taste too bad (manageable snack for tea). Then I started cutting it before the thing completely cooled down. It sure resembled shortbread wedges (a hot favourite with locals here), except for the fact that they use maida for it. Carefully the crumble made way to a container and left me wondering as to how many months would that be in the forgotten container sine there would be no taker. My better half although is not too fond of sweets but has an amazing sense of taste. He can comment on how good or bad is the sweet. After completing blissful 4 hours of sleep, father and son woke up to a recharged day and his "mmm..., not bad" was a compliment enough.
Sunday was a busy day when the disastrous crumble was forgotten until it formed the surprise dessert to end the day. One after the other was eaten and the supposed-to-be-forgotten container was the most wanted container in the shelf. And today (two days after preparation) there is only one tiny piece. I don't mind if my better half has the last bite, but glad that I am having the last laugh.
A simple experience as this has made me realize two things.One - don't lose hope until the battle is completely over. You never know how tables turn. Two achieving perfection is fine, but more difficult and less real. Focus on what the problem and not the overall fear of not being perfect.
