Butter Cookies

I am a woman who is passionate about a lot many things that this world offers. I truly enjoy being human for all the good things that exist on this planet. Starting from moving atoms to the beautiful pitch-black emptiness of dark, everything seems excessively enticing to an empath like me. My senses are always at its zenith and they never lose their zeal. That doesn’t mean I am sensuous, I am as boring as possible for my friends who are successfully running in the social race. Yet they love me and reminded of me when they get tired of running and have time to smell the petrichor.

As I am very slow in everything I do, people always leave me behind and wave their hands at me. I am always the kid who misses the school bus by looking at a kite that flies over my head. It hurts to be a left-out soul at times but I have never regretted once the time I spent looking at the beautiful full moon or playing with an animal or a kid or having a moment with nature. Also, I never felt sorry or sad for missing those buses or trains that came on time to pull and push me into the maddening race. By now, you should have concluded how crazy and old-school prude who is leading a fat, flabby, and lonely life with my pets I am. Don’t be so rude! Have some patience, as my oven takes 180 minutes to bake the butter cookies to make you taste the seductive sin.

As I am in my mid-thirty and have the maternal hereditary of diabetes and I have always been fluctuating from overweight to obese in weighing scales from school days. Doctors highly recommend staying away from carbs and gluttons especially from pastries and sweets. Indeed, how much ever I tried my best to keep myself away from carbs and gluttons, I am a stress eater; twice or thrice in a month I go crazy and eat all the food that I am not supposed to eat. Risking morbidity of chronic diseases, I opt to go by pure gut and rummage through random menu cards and order food by ravaging my credit limits.

I love cooking too. But, I don’t watch youtube videos for fancy food and try cooking. I do it in an old-fashioned way: I go to my kitchen, scan through my refrigerator and grocery stores, close my eyes, have a moment with my palate, decide what ingredients would gratify my palate, pick them all and cook dreaming that it will taste this way. Trust me! Most of the times my food dreams have come true. A handful of times, I messed but not even once missed the edibility of the dish I made. So, I am really fascinated when I see or find a place where they sell all good quality, fresh and clean ingredients. I went gaga when I landed in Loyal World Market that is located rightly 2 kilometers away from my home. I have watched the video of making and branding Grana Padano Parmigiano and Reggiano, but not have seen a tangible piece until I reached this market. They have a separate section for original cheeses with more than 25 varieties including blue cheese and it is really hard to find such a beautiful supermarket even in big metro cities of India. Whenever I walk into this place I get the feel of being in a holy or sacred place. They have a separate section for a French-style boulangerie (bakery), they bake behind the glass door and to watch it from the other side it is just bliss. The chef there is a South Indian guy but dressed like a traditional French chef with a white double-breasted jacket and sometimes even a toque Blanche. He is fair, tall and fat, and has a French beard too.

When I enter the supermarket, the first thing that invites me is the aroma of baking butter cookies. Until I visited this shop I never liked butter cookies, in fact, I don’t even remember that I have ever bought a butter cookie before. OMG! When the chef brings the tray full of butter cookies to the counter right out of an oven - the overwhelming aroma just drags everyone towards the counter. Whether you believe it or not, it just takes half the cooking time to sell them off. Once it is sold, it will take 3-4 hrs for them to refill it. You should see people ordering it like crazy. Most of the time, I am surprised that why I should be encountered by this experience because I visit this place averagely twice in a month. I happened to be right there when the chef was refilling the butter cookies on my first visit. The dulcet delectable aroma just dragged me towards that counter. I thought I wouldn’t be lucky enough to grab a single piece of it as there were almost a dozen people in the queue; when I was waiting there, the balsamic aroma of the butter cookies put me into the meditative mode. I successfully got 200 grams of the butter cookies and they melted in my mouth in no time!

Then on, the butter cookies are my seductive sin and so I realized that I am kind of losing myself. My reasons send me a guilty sign whenever a butter cookie melts in my mouth. Indeed, it has become an addiction to the extent that I waited twice for 3 hours to buy those pieces of ambrosia. Almost after 8 months of regular visits, I decided not to invite any chronic disease into my body and so I stopped visiting the shop altogether for almost 4 months. Then, again when I go there, I literally prayed that I shouldn’t smell the cookies. Luckily, there were no cookies as usual and I learned to walk out of the supermarket ignoring the boulangerie in the course of time. I do crave occasionally but I know it is good that I keep them away and just linger on their flavors. Metaphorically, all the things and beings that give me immense happiness and a sense of harmony always fall into the seductive sin list. I am so addicted to them and so I keep myself in distance from them all. The only irrevocable part about being an empath is I cannot convince my senses to be happy with the alternate options. Either my refrigerator has a box of Loyal Market’s boulangerie butter cookies or it has no cookies at all. It’s kind of a character trait that I can’t betray my emotions or senses!