CELEBRITY COLUMN: 'I like Flaky...', writes Maria Goretti

It’s funny, but we all always go back to what made us happy in our childhood. The food we ate as kids, in my opinion really shapes the way we feel on levels we my never understand. I’m in love with Mille-feuille, okay, I’m actually obsessed with it. I just love the many layers of Pate demi-feuette or flaky pastry or what we know as “khaari”. And I love the entire process of putting it together, which is a bit painstaking, but very very satisfying. I love the layers of butter and lard.

It just adds to the flakiness, crispness and taste. It’s a lot like life actually.

If you really want something you really love, I know it does not come easy. You need to really give it time and have a whole lot of patience. And infuse it with the right amount of TLC. But let me say this, sometimes, even after making the most beautiful dough. Sometimes, I have gone all wrong while baking it. And I have had to start all over again. Sometimes I have been in such a hurry, and have decided to multitask while I’m baking, and eventually, burnt my flaky pastry.

Flaky pastry needs attention and a temperature that does not burn up your hard work.

I think it’s very much like a woman. If you really want the attention of a woman, remember that you need to concentrate on her and only her feeling special with you. If how you behave with her, is like how you behave with everyone in the room, you are definitely not getting any brownie points. I guess this works both ways. And sometimes no amount of anything works at all. When that happens, I feel eventually you need to stop and back off. And let it go.

Like I realised, that no matter how hard I try making a biryani, I have still not mastered it, it always falls short of perfect. But then I’m really good at other stuff, and so life always evens it out for us.

I realised I love flaky pastry, because it reminds me of my grandma Agnes. She and her sister Carola, who was a nun, would spend an entire day making flaky pastry. And it was beautiful, the way they worked with so much synchronisity, there would be sheets of dough as big as our dining table folded and buttered, and there would be flour flying on the table, and they would be at it, till each layer was super fine. Sometimes we kids, would sit under the dining table and listen to them talk. About their childhood, and how Bandra actually was when they were kids. Mango groves and chikoo groves from Golf Links, which is now Union Park to St Stanislaus school. And how my grandmothers’ father would get huge quantities of rice and onions, to store for the rains, and how he loved to come back from the market in a carriage, and they would giggle and call him a “Show-off”. Sometimes I feel my grandparents lived in a simpler age. They ate well, worked hard and had a more satiated life. And that’s what I feel I want. A feeling of satiation.

It’s important in life to know what you want, or then like me know what you don’t want. I think at some point in life, you experience, a new you... Which will be because of some internal or external factor or then it will just be instinctive. And yes, that will be the nicest thing to ever happen to you.

Yes, of course, everyone around you will probably think, that you have lost the plot, or are going through a phase, or it’s hormones, or it’s a crisis. And the nice part is, for the first time, you would really be fine with it because you know who you are, and peoples opinions really do not matter. Opinions are not you, they are them. And that is the best feeling in the world.

For me, today, every time, I make flaky pastry, I think of my Grandma Agnes and my Aunty Carola, and how at the end of the evening, we would have the most layered puff pastry filled with the tastiest kheema fresh from the oven onto our plate. And I realise that I don’t ever make mince –puffs. I make Mille-Feuille, that I totally adore. Also because it reminds me of a very very happy sunny day in Paris. And so maybe I can’t go back to Paris every time I want to. But I can close my eyes and taste Paris right at home. This is something that really takes time to make and assemble.

And if I wanted to tell someone, that I loved them, without really saying the words. This is what I would bake.

So yes, food always takes you back to a time, where people who loved you cooked for you.

And every time I cook, I want the person biting into that morsel, to break into a satiated smile.

Just like I do when I put it together. Life is made up of morsels and memories, so eat well and be happy.