She came; She saw and She conquered...

"काय करताय?(What are u guys doing?)", Kiran could not control the curiosity looking at the near liquidous Modak flour and our floured hands. Question did nothing but to rub the salt on our deep wounds as we ourselves were trying to come to terms with the fact that Modaks have turned out to be a complete disaster. So much so that, we were finding it difficult even to put them in the simplest form, forget about much revered and dreamed Modak's shape.

The plan was indeed to make modaks during the Ganesh Chaturthi and having done them last year under Harshada's tutelage, I was hopeful to pull them off this year too. Moreover, Madhura# and Nandan, the most enthusiastic foodies in Leuven were set to don the lead role and all I was supposed to do was to arrange things, offer a bit of moral support and of course eat my heart out on the day. This would have proved to be a nice surprize for Harshada and Prabhat (and new born Nitya) too. All things were set. We zeroed on the recipe to follow and the aroma of the modak feeling filled the entire room. The taste of partial success made us more enthusiastic. Madhura cracked a joke. You know what my grandma used to say, "It's very difficult to screw up modaks. Why in the world would a recipe with lots of coconut and Jaggery get screwed up?" But we managed to do the improbable in the 2nd Innings and screwed up the flour a big big way. From last year's experience, the crux of preparing nice modaks is to shape them when the dove is warm. This is a very crucial step. But, the flour became so soggy that the it could have been declared as dead drowning in the water. We added a part of extra flour and tried to fix it to some extent but nothing really worked and all we ended up was these pieces, if one dares to call them modaks :(

The disaster that we need to call our modaks :(

Now, all our hopes rested on one individual and it was Harshada - The Annapurna. If there was one who could fix the flour it was her. She came and in no time realized the grand plan we had. She saw the messy flour and started giving steadfast instructions and in a while She conquered all the obstacles in the way to shape the first modak of the day to make us all jump with joy. The rest of the modaks were a mere formality. Thanks to her expertize*, we could have our taste of Modaks this year. Not to mention that we ended up stuff ourselves heart out.

Harshada's Fix to our Modaks. I am not terming them as Harshada's modaks as the usual ones look far more beautiful than these fixed ones. should blog them the next time we/she makes them

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# Madhura's enthu to try out new and newer recipes (and feed us) is endless. One can never forget the Tikhatmithachya Purya (Do not request translation) and Bhaji, she had prepared during the Madonna Event Hike. Being enterprizing, she has a courageous plan to start a small eat out place in Leuven. If any of you are interested to participate in such an endeavor, please contact me.

* An expert is the one who has done all possible mistakes achieving the goal. We are now a step closer as far as the modaks are concerned :)