The Five Life Lessons My Baby Taught Me

Babies are extremely fascinating. Everyone knows that. You put a baby in a roomful of people and within ten minutes, every single person in the room will quit what they're doing to look at the baby make spit bubbles.

While spit-bubble-making is one skill babies (read we) never forget, there are some important life lessons that they/we do. Watching my baby girl grow older, I wish she would always remember these.

Wouldn't it be loverly?!

What a brilliant scene, don't you think? This movie happens to be based on one of my most enjoyed plot lines i.e. the ugly duckling turned swan. That has indeed been done to death by the now but this remains one of the most appealing adaptations. And this movie also marks the beginning of my unwavering love for Audrey Hepburn when I first saw it around ten years ago. Tiffany's came later for me. :) In the (unlikely) circumstance that you don't love Hepburn already, this movie is highly recommended as the first for you. And if you're in the same club as me, what's better than to reminisce and enjoy!

("Henry: Mother!

Mrs. Higgins: What is it, Henry? What's happened?

Henry Higgins: She's gone.

Mrs. Higgins: Well, of course, dear, what did you expect?

Henry Higgins: What... what am I to do?

Mrs. Higgins: Do without, I suppose.

Henry Higgins: And so I shall! If the Higgins oxygen burns up her little lungs, let her seek some stuffiness that suits her. She's an owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine. Very well, let her go, I can do without her. I can do without anyone. I have my own soul! My own spark of divine fire!

Mrs. Higgins: Bravo, Eliza."

Scrumptiously Cream Cheesed and Marbled!

My husband and I have the following conversation once every week:

"BTW, I invited them over," he says.

*Drat!* "We'll be serving dinner?," I say.

"Not dinner. Something light. With coffee."

"What does that mean, something 'light'?"

"You know...".

"No! Is that phone call really important right now--"

Grr.. Over the years I have developed an intense love-hate relationship with this conversation. I hate it as it gives me reason to be nervous, but I love it because the get-together eventually always turns out to be successful. I can get what you're wondering: The vague instructions make me nervous, of course. It is absolutely essential that you have your list of Top Three on-the-go sweet and (three) savory items. After doing the lemon flan to death, I recently replaced it with yummy Cream Cheese Marble Brownies on my sweets list. I discovered this recipe in a book called Cake Mix Magic (Favorite Brand Name) 

Date at the Hardware Store

The amount of metal and color-void in there makes makes me claustrophobic; I have no use in my life for so many nuts, bolts, tubes and yabadity with peculiar angles and prosaic functions - or so I had thought. I rethank the unthinkable when I made a visit to the hardware store with my husband today. A hardware shop is to a man what a shoe store is to a woman: The jaw-numbing, finger-curling greed to touch and own everything in sight.

My Love Affair...with Bell Peppers

From my breakfast eggs to my dinner rice, from salads to chicken karahi (soups and pasta!), bell peppers have been creeping their way into my cooking too much. For the past month, a day has not passed that I haven't had them in one form or another. At any given time I have a superbly-well-replenished stock of bell peppers in my refrigerator's vegetable rack. A carefully halved bell pepper adorns the central shelf of the fridge at all times too, waiting to be sliced/julienned/diced and consumed - the other half I have already eaten. My skill with the knife has improved immensely with all the slicing and dicing and julienning of bell peppers I have been doing recently. 

Bell peppers are botanically fruits but are considered to be vegetables by most. They add zest to just about anything but the combination of chicken, cheese and bell peppers can kill with intense savory overload. Boiled, baked, sauted - they make my food look and taste hot. I'm not getting over this love affair any time soon.