You've Got Mail

Every day, atleast half a pound of trash comes in the mail. This includes mailers advertising shinier teeth, a quick and easy solution to mold in your bathroom, car washes and efficient carpet cleaning services. It also includes discount coupons (Get $2 off a Loreal Excellence Creme Hair Color, $3 off on Covergirl Make up and so on) and lots of other signs of a booming consumer market. My immediate reaction was to draw comparions with 'back home'(this has become an oft-used, abused, misued phrase for me).This did not happen on a weekly basis and in such quantities as this in India(if it did, we all sure would have made some money happily selling it to the cycle-riding kabadi).In addition to mailers, a lot of bills come in too , and these i disdainfully keep aside for the husband's attention. But this week i caught a glimpse of something that did interest me. Finally.
My add-on credit card had arrived. YAY!!(little jig around the living room ,followed by a quick phone call to the husband sharing the good news) Finally, i need not worry about carrying enough quarters, 5-dollar bills and the rest of the dollar currency community everytime i step out to get a coffee, groceries or a Victoria's Secret ridiculously expensive bra.

The problem with being new to this country and not having a job is that as an individual, you are not earning, not borrowing, and therefore do not have the all-important credit score (without which, pls forget about getting a loan at decent rates of interest, and unfortunately for me, a credit card). So till the time my job turns up and the green guys start to come in, i will have to be appeased with an add-on card. This for an ex-Area Sales Manager for the largest city of the third-largest credit card in India. Ironic, but there it is.

Coming back to the mailbox. Normally, i send all the mailers straight to the dumpster in the Recyclable Newspaper and Other Paper Inserts section. But on some days, when the book i would at that time be reading pulls a "come back at a later time" on me (and that happens often, especially with the larger volumes that might be award-winning stuff alrite, but are sure muscle-building and mind-numbing too!), i flip through them nonchalantly, not expecting to find a deal of my interest. Most gorcery stores offer great discounts on pet food, sirloin steak and other beefy meats, lately large buttery turkeys, Halloween candles and Trick-or Treat knick-knacks. All of them fail to make my cut.
If i am lucky, i manage to spy a good deal on Diet Coke cans, seedless raisins, Maybelline lipsticks and maybe cereal. But the joy stops there.
Despite their uselessness (mostly) for me, i appreciate the basic concept of these large, colorful , recycled paper mailers. They do indeed make their customer think about dropping in, offering great discounts as they do on what are critical ingredients of a happy American household.And they have contributed to my growing knowledge of the zillion kinds of luncheon meat, muffin mixes and the rest of the aisles.So even though i continue to carry them out in heaps every week to the corner dumpster, i have started respecting them by giving them a once-over. Its all about 'getting the right deals' here.And i shall continue to search...

When it rains..

Its not even November yet,but my thick sweaters r out of their dark corners in the closet, the fahreinheits threaten to breach the sub-50 mark, the heater is happily buzzing itself on the path to high electricity bills, and getting out of bed (at any hour of the day) is a struggle..sigh.
this happens when it rains. Did i mention that my coffee intake doubled ever since those miserable drops started their dreary business? From one tall Latte a day (Starbucks cutely came out with two seasonal favorites:Pumpkin Spice and Maple Latte-dont try de-fattening them by choosing low-fat or skipping the divine whipped cream,its just not worth it) i have graduated to two, sometimes three if the opportunity permits. And that is saying a lot for someone who is not a crazy coffee person. For so long, coffee had been just 'a thing to do' while hanging out with friends,boyfriend, a book..now,its a necessity to chase away my rainy-day blues. and the microwave version at home just does not measure up.
This being my first ever exposure to Seattle's famous overcast weather, and given my penchant for cribbing rather easily-i am surprised to find that i am not miserable. Not yet anyway. Is that the Starbucks magic brewing?Or the fall colors of gold, yellow and burnt orange that simply take your breath away everytime? Or the newness of the experience? Or all of the above?
I enjoy rhetorical questions. They leave enough food for thought, pardon the cliche.
And this brings me to my current favorite recipe for cookies. I call them Drops of Heaven (inspired by Monica's candy in FRIENDS? Maybe.)
Here it is, in an unconventional format.

To indulge yourself in about 18 cookies at a time ( i never make more than 20, there is only so much can consume in two days, unless u enjoy freezing. I don't.)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Tear up some foil and cover the cookie sheet, spray on the cooking spray (to make sure ur cookies slide off like kids on the park slide) and ignore sheet for the next 15 minutes.
Take a tablespoon and a half of unsalted butter in a large mixing bowl, throw in the following:
a) a tablespoon and a teaspoon each of peanut butter and non fat sour cream (or the regular, depending on ur current position on fat intake)
b) a quarter of a cup of brown sugar (white would do too, i guess. But stick with brown.)
Give it some wrist action till its smooth and dances about on the rounded bit of your mixing spoon. Add half of a medium egg (beat it lightly before u do, isnt it funny that we beat eggs all the time, are they that naughty?Bad joke. Ignore.). Stir up some more.
In another bowl (i dont particularly enjoy cookies that require more than one bowl, clean ups get so bugging then, but this cookie deserves spesh treatment) mix a third of a cup each of all-purpose flour and regular atta (whole wheat flour, for the uninitiated), a pinch of salt and 1/3 tsp of baking soda. (at this point, i will mention that ever since baking mania overtook me, i happily purchased those cute teaspoon-tablespoon clusters that do all the halving, thirding, blah blah for u). Add these dry guys to our creamy mess, throw in a handful of raisins and semi-sweet chocolate chips (do we find these in India? i hope we do, i dont want my baking to stop once i return to home turf). Your cookie dough will be somewhere between dry and liquidy. Use a spoon to drop 'bits of heaven' onto the cookie sheet. Space them out, though these guys dont expand like my waistline, they pretty much behave themselves in the oven.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, check after 10 mins if they are golden brown and firm. If yes, pull the sheet right out with your cute oven mitt (they have these cute Fall print ones all over lately), else bake a couple minutes more.
Watch out for the temptation to flick ur finger over the melting chocolate chips, they will be generously spilling all over the place. If you dont mind burning your finger, go ahead.
Let the cookies cool and then...indulge!

Now for the best news of all: these little things are super-duper low in calories, my recipe source suggested about 56 calories per cookie, but i tweaked the ingredients a bit, so my guess would be close to 50. This is why i dont feel guilty having three of these (thats what it will take to reach the level of a normal store-bought cookie, though i love those too!).
For those who dont care for the C word (like my husband), ignore the above gyaan and give your coffee a partner.

Enough said. Am back to my Latte. And it continues to rain...