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The other day I finally threw out a massive chunk of carrot cake from the fridge. I felt bad about it. I didn't want to toss it. My mother had baked it last time I was in Delhi. She had wrapped it in cellophane and secured it between two cardboard discs that shop-bought cakes come on. The white cake box, for all you know, is lying around somewhere back home. My mother saves everything. Golden paper wrapped cardboard discs from hotel bakeries, too. 'Keep quiet, they'll come in handy' is not an unusual refrain when you point out this behaviour, which is a bit like how insane people run their homes.
It was a good cake. Wedges were eaten with evening teas and coffees. Chunks of it were picked at and gobbled that first week of the cake's life when hunger struck and a proper meal was some effort away. I even tried to get rid of it in less awful ways. Calories, you know!
My plan some weeks ago was to take it along for a pot luck on a Friday evening to a friend's place. My plan was also, two weeks later, to serve it when some friends were over. I kept forgetting, kept missing the window of opportunity, kept theorising that the problem is that the cake was too huge. My mother intended me to not be hungry for the next half decade. At which point, she might bake me another cake.
When I tossed my mother's carrot cake into the bin - but not my guilt at that act (mother's handmade cake!) - it had some unusual company. Giant dried-up palm fronds from the balcony. I was doing a bit of gardening on my balcony. The leaves had to go. It was just an odd combination to see in the trash.
I have to keep reminding myself to throw rubbish - not my mother's cake! - out of my fridge. Since the big one was dealt with (the cake) I started inspecting the bottles at the back. I think the olives have to go. I can't remember when I bought that bottle of pickled black olives. It's on my hit list. I chucked the squishy bottle of mustard out only yesterday. Expiry date, I am ashamed to admit, was some time in 2015! I'm slowly going to poison everyone who lives in the house.
I think for all the times I've made fun of my mother and her fridge habits. Time is coming full circle. Watch yourself, woman, I tell myself. One year, mother dear started freezing bread. I used to laugh but also get irritated because you had to thaw the damn thing before you could pop it in the toaster. How is that optimal utilisation of breakfast time? I learnt from my mother to keep lipsticks and perfumes in the fridge. My mother also keeps coffee beans in the fridge, which I guess is normal (no, I just stick to the cool, dry place instruction). There are two fridges. She calls one the luxury fridge. Let's just say the 'luxury fridge' isn't the one with the steel receptacles of yesterday's yogurt. I don't plan to need more than one fridge ever. Which is why, I tell myself, I can't start getting sentimental about tossing uneaten cake, homemade by mommy or not.
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com
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