Black Forest Cupcakes, Beet Dip, Progressive Overload

Last weekend was a busy one- I both attended a party and threw a party. It stretched my social stamina and by Sunday evening, I was all caked up and partied out. The party I attended was a first birthday (more on the food from that party below.) The party I hosted was a farewell party for my former boss and his wife, a couple in their 80s, who are now moving several states away to be closer to family. 

Over the last dozen years, the whole time we've lived in GA, they have been close family friends and bonus grandparents for our kids, attending all the holiday concerts and dance recitals and preschool graduations and grandparents' days at the kids' schools. For the last couple of years, my daughter has visited Mrs. C almost every weekend and learned to quilt from her, a very special activity that they enjoyed together. They are a big part of our life. All of this to say that this farewell was bittersweet, and I hosted a Happy/Unhappy Hour for them and a bunch of our former colleagues. 

Happy hours or tea parties are much easier to host than full dinners and just as much fun. We kept it quite simple with a menu of drinks/ snacks/ cake. For the celebratory dessert, I went with cupcakes instead of cake for easy serving. I considered many different flavors and then landed on a oldie but goodie that I haven't made in a while- Black Forest Cake. It was prompted by the jar of Trader Joe's syrupy Amarena cherries that I was hoarding in my pantry and jonesing to use. 

Those of us who grew up in urban India likely have a nostalgic fondness for Black Forest cakes- likely the first "fancy" pastry that any of us encountered, with chocolate cake soaked in syrup, a whipped cream topping with chocolate shavings and a cherry on top. This delightful NYTimes article covers how this German confection has improbably found popularity in different cultures in all corners of the world. (I posted a black forest cake recipe in 2005 and another one in 2015, so perhaps this is a once-every-decade thing for me?)

Black Forest cupcakes

1. Make chocolate cupcakes. I used this recipe mostly because it makes 16 cupcakes which was the number I needed. (I knew Stef back when I lived in STL and she is truly creative with her flavors as well as being a rigorous recipe tester.) Cool cupcakes completely.

2. Make cherry filling (I used frozen cherries and made the cherry filling from this recipe). Cool the filling completely.

3. Fill the cupcakes- I used a paring knife to cut a cone out of the top of each cupcake, and lopped off the tip of the cone to leave just a disc. Then I filled the cupcake with a heaping tsp. of the filling, and covered it back up with the disc. It doesn't look terribly tidy but will get completely covered by the frosting.

4. Top with whipped cream (I used this recipe) and a preserved cherry.

To really tick the black forest boxes, what would have good in addition to the above is (a) soaking the cupcakes with a kirsch- cherry syrup mixture, and (b) topping the whipped frosting with chocolate curls or shavings. But the cupcakes were delicious! It was my first time making filled cupcakes and they are so easy and good. 

With the leftover lopped-off cupcake tips and filling, I made two sundaes for my daughter and her friend.

* * *

The other thing I made for this happy hour that ended up being a huge hit was a beet dip. I first tasted it a few weeks ago when another friend brought it to a potluck. I love beets ("dirt candy") but they're not a favorite in my household and not a vegetable I buy regularly. 

This dip is a revelation, though, with raw beets blitzed with nuts and some terrific Middle Eastern flavors like pomegranate molasses. (I found a bottle of pomegranate molasses in the local international market quite easily.) It is so easy to make, looks beautiful, and is a total crowd-pleaser. 

The recipe for this beet dip comes from the NYTimes Cooking section but is subscription-only; however, it is available on some blogs, like here and here and here. 

• You can see from the links that any kind of nuts can be used here- almonds, pistachios, walnuts. I used walnuts and thought they were perfect. 
• I reduced the amount of olive oil drastically but otherwise followed the recipe closely. 
• For the yogurt, I used homemade plain yogurt that I hung up to thicken slightly. 

* * * 

Our Brazilian friends threw a birthday party for their baby boy, and there was some GOOD food to be had, all of it made from scratch by one of their mothers. This lady is aspiring to do some small-time catering and she would certainly make a success of it. 

For lunch, there were trays of Brazilian Style Shepherd's Pie called Escondidinho, or "little hidden one". The vegetarian version had veggies and tofu sauteed in a mushroom sauce. There were also several flavors of brigadeiros, beautiful little treats made with condensed milk, and a lime cake. It is truly a treat to eat lovingly prepared homemade food. Also a treat to go to a birthday party and eat something other than pizza! 

* * * 

In today's moment of fitness, I will talk about a concept called progressive overload, a key principle of strength training. It is a proven method to improve strength and gain muscle mass by gradually increasing load on the muscles over time. Doing just a little bit more than you did before. 

Let's take an example of one muscle group- biceps, the major muscle of the upper arm. Say we want to gain muscle mass in the biceps and get stronger. A typically exercise for the biceps is the bicep curl, a very recognizable exercise. 

There are different ways to use progressive overload to strengthen the biceps:

• Increased intensity (probably the most common): gradually lifting heavier dumbbells. You may start with doing 8 repetitions of bicep curls with 8 lbs dumbbells in each hand, then a couple of weeks later, you may progress to doing the same with 10 lbs dumbbells, then 12 lbs and so on. 
• Increased volume: gradually increasing the number of reps or sets of an exercise. You may keep the weight the same but go from 8 repetitions to 12, or 1 set of 8 reps to 3 sets of 8 reps.
• Increased frequency: gradually increasing the number of training sessions per week. Over a period of months, you may go from doing bicep curls once a week to twice to three times.

This works on the principle of adaptation. Your body keeps adapting slowly to the controlled overload/stress you introduce by building muscle tissue (as well as the connected ligaments and tendons), by improving the neuromuscular connections, etc. Doing it slowly and steadily minimizes risk of injury and results in sustainable progress. 

Can progressive overload continue forever? Beginners tend to progress quite fast but of course it isn't feasible for gains to continue in a linear fashion forever. A time will come when progress is very slow and incremental and you plateau with your bicep curls- you can't do any more reps and/or can't increase the weight you are curling. 

What then? There are many options:

• Maintain: If you are satisfied with how strong your biceps are, just keep lifting at the same level to maintain muscle mass.
• Change up the exercise: Instead of conventional bicep curls, try a variation like hammer curls, reverse curls, or curling an EZ bar. Challenge your muscles in a slightly different way.
  
• Change the focus: Instead of focusing on strength, shift the focus to another aspect of fitness, like doing power curls, which train explosive strength. 
• Focus on recovery: If a plateau occurs at a time when you should be reasonably progressing, consider taking a week off (deloading), or increasing recovery time, and then getting back to the routine. 

* * *

What's a great new recipe you've tried recently?

Instant Pot Pulao and Supplementation

It has been a hectic work week around here. I could have used a lazy Saturday but it was not to be. We had to be out of the door bright and early for a 5K race that V and I both signed up for, with our son doing the one mile fun run. It was chilly but sunny, nice running weather, but the race course was exhaustingly hilly. The day did end with a very special treat- friends treated us to a double fondue night at their home, thanks to fondue pots acquired at estate sales! We started with a cheese fondue with homemade bread for dipping, plus roasted veg and potatoes, and ended with a chocolate fondue with strawberries and freshly baked madeleines. This friend is an incredible baker and I'd love to learn how to make that bread and the delectable little madeleines.  

Here's one of our weeknight dinners that was quite satisfying:

• A stir-fry (subzi) made with a few odd potatoes that needed to be used up, and frozen Italian green beans which I always stock in the freezer as the back-up green veg
• A pulao/ pilaf with soy curls, made in the Instant Pot

This kind of a pulao is made in minutes, makes for a cozy meal, and is crowd-pleasing. I made it recently for our family friend in her 80s who was recovering from an illness, and she called to say how much she enjoyed it. It is a flexible recipe. With rice as a base, you can bulk it up with any combination of vegetables, beans, lentils. Amp up the flavor if serving as a main dish, or leave it quite plain if there's a spicy side dish available. Here, I made it as a "mock chicken pulao" with soy curls. This made about 4 servings. 

The things to remember are the ratio (1 cup rice to 1.25 cups water) and the cooking time (pressure on high for 4 min, leave it alone for 10 min, and then release pressure). The rest- the other ingredients, and the flavoring- is quite flexible.

Pulao (pilaf)

• Soak 2 cups soy curls in warm water for 10 minutes. Squeeze out excess water gently.
• So many things could be subbed for the soy curls- kidney beans, chickpeas, tofu, paneer, edamame, nutrela type soy chunks, and so on.
• Soak 1 cup rice in water for 10 min, then drain in a sieve. 
• I used white Basmati rice but jasmine rice or any other variety should do. If using brown rice, know that cooking times will increase.
• Heat a bit of oil in the Instant pot
• Add some cumin seeds, chopped onion, ginger, garlic
• Season with turmeric, salt, red chili powder, a spice mix of your choice, some kasoori methi.
• Kitchen King is a spice mix I frequently use here. I ran out, so I used some tandoori masala. Garam masala will work too. 
• Add some chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned) and the soy curls and mix well. 
• Add soaked, drained rice and 1 and 1/4 cup water, deglaze the bottom of the pot.
• Pressure cook on HIGH for 4 minutes, followed by 10 minutes natural pressure release, followed by quick pressure release. 
• Add a handful of minced cilantro and a squeeze of lemon juice for a fresh note.
• Fluff with a fork and serve.

* * *

I read an incredible book this week, Radium Girls (2017) by Kate Moore, for the PS Reading Challenge 2025 Prompt #32: A book about an overlooked woman in history. It had been on my to-read list for a long time and I'm so glad I finally got to it. The genre is narrative nonfiction, a genre I love and have written about before. Moore highlights a group of overlooked women in history, and tells their story in such an engrossing way that I whipped through a thick book in 3-4 days. 

We think of trends and influencers as a new thing, but of course these have existed for ages. Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the element Radium in 1898. Madame Curie toured the US in 1921 to raise funds for research and set off a worldwide craze. People were entranced by the mysterious glow of this new metal. Radium laced products were sold as a cure for everything and as a miraculous, healthful supplement. 

Factories sprung up to make watches with radium-painted dials that could glow in the dark. Young women were hired to do the intricate work of painting small watch dials, and to get a fine point on the paint brushes, they used their lips, thereby ingesting the radium-laced paint. In fact, far from being a miracle supplement, radium is poisonous. This book tells the story of these young girls from poor families who quit school and started working in factories as teens to earn money for their families, and the health consequences they endured, and their legal fight to get justice from the companies who employed them. I highly recommend this book. It covers a lot of issues in an interesting and compassionate way- workers' rights, corporate greed, the dark side of science, how women's health issues are minimized. 

* * *

In today's moment of fitness: dietary supplements. These are products- pills, capsules, liquids, gummies, powders, and so on- that are intended to supplement or enhance the diet by providing something extra. Some of the most common ones are multivitamins, minerals like calcium and magnesium, protein powders or shakes, probiotics for gut health, melatonin as a sleep aid, and the list is nearly endless. There are entire stores devoted to supplements, and multiple aisles in supermarkets and drugstores. 

People turn to supplements sometimes as a quick fix, sometimes out of desperation, wanting relief, and sometimes because the claims are too tempting. There are trends in supplements just like with anything else and no shortage of influencers peddling supplements for magical, easy results. It is a gigantic industry, and not a particularly well-regulated one. 

Critics of supplements rightly say that the quality and effectiveness of supplements is not always well-tested (an extreme example being the radium supplements I mentioned above which are horrific poisons), and that if you eat an overall nutritious diet, you should be getting all the nutrients you need. Experts will quip that if you're a well-fed person, multivitamins only give you expensive urine.  

Under certain circumstances which vary from person to person, certain supplements can help. I take a few supplements and I'm mentioning them here by way of sharing my personal experience. This is in no way an endorsement of what others should or should not do. I am simply not qualified to give that kind of advice. 

My primary exercise goal right now is to build muscle. Body composition (the percentage of fat, muscle, and bone in the body) is a more accurate representation of fitness than body weight. I am under-muscled, with a much lower amount of muscle than is optimal. This is very common, especially among women and especially among petite women. Adding to that, as we age, we tend to lose muscle mass. So my goal is to build muscle, which primarily needs three things, (a) strength training with relatively heavy weights and with progressive overload, (b) increasing protein intake to repair and build muscle tissue, along with extra calories in general to provide all the energy needed for this, (c) adequate sleep which is essential for muscle recovery and growth. 

Even as I try to eat enough protein- beans, lentils, tofu, soy curls, some eggs and dairy and fake meat- as part of meals, I find that an extra serving of protein powder per day really helps to boost my protein intake, especially as a vegetarian. I prefer a vegan protein powder. Here's an article about protein supplementation (NYT gift link)- be sure to read the comments for a range of views. 

The other supplement that helps with muscle-building is a small molecule called creatine. It is already present is our muscles and used to produce energy in the form of ATP. By supplementing it (again, more important for vegetarians as dietary intake of creatine is low in the absence of animal flesh consumption), you have enough creatine in muscles to be take to do those extra reps or lift just a bit more weight, which in time is what leads to muscle gain. Creatine monohydrate is the best tested supplement out there. Here's a good article that gives an overview of creatine.

My routine is, with breakfast (almost always steel-cut oatmeal), I drink a shake- putting ice and water in a blender bottle (one of those bottles with a small metal ball), adding 2 scoops protein powder (about 20g protein), 5 g creatine, and shaking it up and chugging it down. 

Anecdotes are decidedly not evidence, but for what it's worth, these things that I have been doing quite consistently for the last 9 months or so (regular strength training with a well-designed plan, prioritizing sleep, taking my protein-creatine regularly, eating more calories) are working for me in the sense that I am gaining visible muscle and getting noticeably stronger. None of this is magic or quick; it is slow progress that takes months and years. It is not magic, but it is biochemistry, which is even more magical than magic and 100% real. 

My other two supplements: After dinner, I take a one-a-day multivitamin. B12 is recommended for people like me who have the beta thalassemia trait, and I just take it as part of a multivitamin to cover other gaps like iron. And I take some psyllium husk in water for added fiber. 

Where do you stand on supplements? Are there any that you have found to be personally useful?

Next weekend is busy and I'll be back with a blog post in two weeks! 

Lessons in Cupcake Frosting, and MetCon Workouts

Our full display of V day
floral cupcakes

Sometimes, a culinary skill needs patience and practice to learn- there are just no shortcuts. Sometimes, all it needs is acquiring the right tool, and then, even a beginner can pull it off. This is a happy story about the latter situation. 

The culinary skill in question is cupcake decoration. I'm a pretty experienced home baker and can reliably turn out cakes and cupcakes, but have always struggled with frosting and decorating them neatly. It doesn't help that these are special-occasion bakes made only a few times a year; there's no scope to practice regularly and get better. I get by with a variety of strategies- enlisting kids to arrange fresh fruit (tres leches cake and pavlova), using cute ideas that involve no skill (aquarium cake, Christmas tree cupcakes), deploying frosting and sprinkles (onesie cake), assembling a cake that isn't a cake at all (donut cake). 

A few years ago, an older friend who was downsizing gave me this giant box of frosting tips. This should have been the impetus to buckle down and learn some piping work, but it was all too overwhelming. I had no idea where to start. Last year for my daughter's birthday I did select one of these tips and try to frost some cupcakes (you can see one here) but wasn't pleased with how it went. The box of tips just sat there taking space. 

At some point, my new Aussie friend showed me pictures of cupcakes she'd decorated for her family and friends, and my eyes popped- they were beautiful in that Pinterest-worthy way. I asked her if she would be willing to teach me and she gladly agreed. This Friday evening, it was Valentine's Day and we weren't doing anything special, so it thought it would be a good occasion for the cupcake frosting lesson. 

My friend shared that the "magic" tool for piping beautiful roses on cupcakes is the Wilton 2D frosting tip and so I bought one, for under two bucks at the local Michael's craft store. (Funny enough, it wasn't in the box of frosting tips I owned and also bigger in size than the tips in the box.)

To get ready for our cupcake evening, I made 24 chocolate cupcakes using an easy one-bowl recipe and a batch of vanilla-flavored ermine frosting. And brought out my stash of gel food colors and sprinkles. We divided up the frosting into smaller bowls and dyed it red (it came out more like coral), pink, green, and left some white. 

We fitted the 2D tip into a piping bag, added some red/coral frosting and got to work. It turns out that the tip is VERY beginner-friendly and does all of the work for you. Right after my friend demonstrated a rose, I was able to make one that was pretty nice looking. We frosted several cupcakes quickly with: 

• Rosettes- a single big one all over the cupcake
• Smaller off-center rosettes- one or two or three per cupcake
• Small star-shaped drop flowers

Two-tone rose (bottom right)

We wanted to contrast the flowers with some greenery. In the big box of frosting tips, I spotted one that looked like it could produce a leaf- the Ateco 70 tip, and sure enough, it makes pretty little leaves and longer ruffled leaves that looked like ferns. By adding different shades of frosting to the piping bag, we made some two-tone roses. With organic shapes like flowers and leaves, you really can't go wrong. Precision is not required. Whatever you end up doing looks quite sweet and charming. (For my humble standards, anyway.)

Drop flowers- looks a bit like a potted plant

With these two frosting tips alone, we were able to make all the cupcakes pictured above. 

Ateco 70 leaf tip, and Wilton 2D tip

To summarize my cupcake decoration knowledge gained in the last 24-36 hours:

• More is not better. Just one or two of the right frosting tips can be plenty to turn out pretty and presentable cupcakes. 
• The basic types of frosting tips are
• Closed star, like the Wilton 2D tip above
• Open star- for instance, the Wilton 1M which also seems to be a versatile tip for roses, rosettes and small hydrangea-type star-shaped flowers 
• Plain round- good for adding dots, for instance, to the centers of the star flowers- I'll have to try that in future
• Petal or ruffle (teardrop-shaped tips)- to pipe petals for large flowers
• Leaf piping tips- these have notches, like the Ateco 70 tip I used
• Russian piping tips are fascinating for making whole flowers (look them up to see examples)
• Ermine buttercream, which is my favorite taste-wise, handles being dyed and piped pretty well.

* * *

Other sweet things from this weekend- I made a batch of best cocoa brownies with red and pink sprinkles- sent half to my son's teacher and took the other half for my coworkers. Sprinkles in seasonal colors are always the easiest way to dress up baked goods!

My daughter used red candy melts and sprinkles to decorate these adorable cupcakes of her own. I particularly adore the 3D flower design she made up- she dabbed candy melt on a parchment paper to make petals, let them dry, and then peeled them off and arranged them on the cupcake. 

My son went to a day camp and they taught the kids to make these darling fruit bouquets- with chocolate dipped strawberries, grapes, and heart shaped pineapple cuts. I love our county's leisure services staff who go out of their way to create engaging programming for the kids when they have days off school! 

* * *

Reading 

• I finished a novel this week, Sandwich by Catherine Newman, that I chose for the PS Reading Challenge Prompt #9: A book that features a character going through menopause. It is a short, witty, slice of life novel about a woman in her early 50s on her annual week-long beach vacation with her husband and young adult kids, with her parents joining the vacation for two days. 
• The name of the novel likely comes from the term "sandwich generation", referring to middle-aged adults who are pulled in both directions as they care for young children and aging parents. In this case, the aging parents live independently and the young adult kids have moved out and are living on their own, so the main character isn't particularly sandwiched in a stressful way. I'm thinking of a friend of mine who cares for her child and pets and also for aged, ailing in-laws who live in the household, and travels regularly to care for her parents in a different city, all while working a demanding job. Now that truly sounds like being pulled in all different directions on a daily basis. 
• In the novel, the main character also makes delicious overstuffed sandwiches to eat on the beach, and it is relatable to see how every single family member wants a different kind of sandwich which the mother is willing to accommodate.
• It was an enjoyable and escapist read for me and I do recommend it to anyone who wants to read about domestic life from the lens of motherhood and female bodies. Although I couldn't relate very much to the main character- she is over the top sentimental about her kids, and wrapped up in everyone's lives in a way that I just am not. 
• I enjoy reading the weekly Philosophy Break newsletter, and the most recent one was a very interesting read, on propaganda and totalitarianism- writings from the 1950s that still hold true today. 

* * *

In today's moment of fitness- metabolic conditioning or MetCon workouts. These are moderate and high intensity exercises that combine cardio and strength in a clever and timesaving way to improve the efficiency of all three energy pathways (discussed in last week's post)- the immediate, intermediate and long term pathways. If you're familiar with Cross-Fit which has been a big fitness trend in recent years, it involves a lot of MetCon exercises. The workouts are fast and interesting and almost feel like a game.

One popular exercise format is EMOM or "every minute on the minute" where you have a list of exercises (say, 10 jump squats, 10 push ups, 10 mountain climbers). A timer is set that rings every minute, you do the 10 jump squats and then rest for the remainder of the minute, the timer rings and you do 10 push ups and rest for the remainder of the minute, then the timer rings and you do the next exercise and rest until the timer rings again, and so on. 

Another workout format is AMRAP or "as many reps as possible". This time you may have the same exercises (jump squats, push-ups and mountain climbers) and a timer is set for, say, 40 seconds on and 20 seconds rest. You do as many jump squats as you can in 40 seconds, then rest for 20 seconds, then do as many push-ups as you can for 40 seconds, then rest again and so on. 

I love MetCon exercises but rarely do a full workout of this type on its own. Instead I add 2-3 MetCon type exercises to the end of my usual strength workouts. Some of my favorites are wood chops, speed skaters, kettlebell swings, jumping jacks. One that I hate but do anyway is burpees! 

Tell me what you have been reading and eating in this last week!

Enfrijoladas casserole, dog-less life, energy systems

Whenever we go to Mexican restaurants (which is often, as they tend to have more meatless options than most places), I'm likely to ignore the 17-page menu and order an enchilada platter- corn tortillas filled with vegetables and enrobed in a flavorful red chile sauce, with beans and Mexican rice on the side. There's a variation on enchiladas called enfrijoladas, with a bean sauce instead of the typical red or green enchilada sauce. I've had it on my to-try list for a while.

Yesterday, I had a pot of cooked black beans in the fridge, and corn tortillas in the freezer, so the time had come. I put it together casserole style, which is the quicker, lazier way to fix a large batch of enchiladas. I assure you this recipe is not authentic in any shape or form, but it made for a hearty dinner with a whole lot of leftovers- meal prepping, baby. 

First, the bean sauce is literally just thinned pureed beans. My cooked beans had some of the usual seasonings already- onion, garlic, tomato, chipotle peppers. I added some water and some salsa that needed using up, and pureed them to a thick inky sauce. You can see it in the blender in the pic.

Second, the filling: I sautéed onions, pepper, garlic and usual spices (usual spices for my Mexican inspired food= chile powder, smoked paprika, cumin, oregano). Then added some tomato and soaked, drained soy curls. Added green onions and cilantro and a spoon or two of sour cream at the end. 

Assembly: 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Sauce, 6 corn tortillas, half the filling, light sprinkle of cheese, repeat. Use up everything, sauce and all, bake at 350F, uncovered, for 30-35 mins until bubbling. It was a good, hearty dinner. More earthy than enchiladas because of the beans.

* * *

• Reading 
• Patina by Jason Reynolds, for the POPSugar 2025 reading challenge prompt #17: A book about a run club. A bit of a stretch, because the book isn't so much about a run club but a track team. This is the second book in Reynolds' Track series about the young members of a track team, and I picked it up because I loved the first, Ghost. Patina is a 12 year old newcomer on the track team. She hates to lose a race, but the truth is she has racked up too many losses in her young life. She runs for her mother, who can no longer run because she lost her legs to "the sugar" (amputation due to diabetes complications.) 
• These are middle grade books but very much recommended for adults too. In fact, if you're a grown up with little time for reading, good middle grade books are shorter and easier to read but still touching and meaningful. Another series I would recommend for this kind of reading is the Front Desk series by Kelly Yang. 
• Kamini's wonderful blog post  - a theater review of a play based on a difficult time in South Asian history. Every post by Kamini is a treat!
• Watching
• I got a chance to see the studio company (their young performers, ages 18-21) of the famed American Ballet Theatre. It was not a very traditional ballet performance but it blew me away to see these young people with such talent, grace and athleticism. I am grateful to live 10 minutes away from venues that have such incredible live performances, not something I take for granted. 
• While I was at the ballet, the rest of the family went to watch an ice hockey game. They came home at 11 PM, completely hoarse from all the shouting and cheering. I may love exercise now but I will never like spectator sports. OK, maybe gymnastics and figure skating. But ball sports and team sports- hard pass. 
• Listening
• The almighty YouTube algorithm served me this song I haven't heard for 20+ years- Faasle by Shaan, the Hindi pop star of my teeny bopper days. It made my day. The song is as sentimental as it gets, with the saxophone of that era and everything.

* * *

It has now been over 13 months since our beloved dog Dunkie passed away. Our beautiful dog is now a pile of ashes in a wooden box. We miss him every day and reminders of Duncan are all around us- photos and videos that pop up on my phone, his water bowl now filled for backyard wildlife, his fur on the headliner of my car, which confused the car detailer as to why dog hair would end up there. Before Dunkie's loss, V and I were dog owners (or more accurately, were owned by a dog) for 22+ years straight, with only a 6 month gap between losing our first dog and adopting our second.  

We often get asked if we will adopt another dog, and our son especially is begging us to welcome a new dog into our home. We're not quite ready for it, for a few different reasons. The fact is that V and I stretched quite thin as two working parents with no help. Our kids are not old enough to be independent and the days are filled with packing lunches, doling out snacks, reminding the kids 3 times to put their plate in the sink. Our kids are 5 years apart in age, with completely different schedules and friends and places to be. 

For the last year, it has been somewhat of a relief to be able to go straight from work to sports events without juggling the schedule to be home for the dog. It is a luxury to go away for the day or the weekend at the last minute without scrambling to organize dog sitters. When Fourth of July or New Years' Eve rolls around, we don't lose nights of sleep because of noisy fireworks. (Dunkie, all 100+ lbs of him, would clamber on top of us, quaking with fear, bless him.)

The adjustment period of a new dog can be a handful. Even with Duncan, who eventually settled down to become absolutely the Best Dog Ever, we had a wild adjustment period when we first adopted him. Think holes in the drywall, bent wire crates, chewed doorknobs; I have no idea how we managed this with a toddler at the time! It is not always easy to find a dog who fits your life and I don't want to push my luck.

At the same time we feel the absence of a dog, we know our kids adore having a dog in the family, and there are too many precious pups out there waiting for a home. We will have to let a few more months go by and revisit this.

* * *

In today's moment of fitness, I have an introduction to the energy systems of the body. There would be no physical activity without the movement of muscles. And there would be no movement of muscles without energy to do so. When we train our bodies, we're training more than our muscles themselves- we are also training the energy/metabolic systems that drive the muscle contractions. 

The energy needed for muscle movement at the cellular level is in the form of a molecule called ATP.  There are three main energy systems that work in tandem to provide this--

• Phosphagen system (ATP-PC): Our muscles are stocked with a small molecule called creatine phosphate. For the first 10 seconds or so of an activity, ATP is generated quickly from creatine to drive muscles. So short, intense movements (explosive movements, jumping) are supported by this energy system.
• Related to this- I'm not a supplementation enthusiast in general, but creatine is the one daily supplement I take- it has well-studied, evidence-based benefits. I'm happy to share more details if anyone asks.
• Glycolytic system (Anaerobic): The primary fuel source for muscles is glycogen, which is the storage form of glucose/carbs. Once the activity proceeds beyond 10 seconds to a few minutes, this system kicks in to break down the glycogen and produce ATP, creating lactate as a byproduct. It is called anaerobic because it does not require oxygen. Activities like weightlifting are generally anaerobic and improve insulin sensitivity and blood glucose control.
• The word Anaerobic means "without oxygen", coming from the Greek words an- meaning "without", aero- meaning "air", and bios meaning "life". 
• Oxidative system (Aerobic): This system takes longer to kick in and provides fuel for longer, low to moderate intensity activities like jogging or swimming. Here, the body's energy stores, carbohydrates and fats, are broken down to produce ATP with chemical reactions that require oxygen, that is, aerobic reactions. 
• We've all heard of aerobic exercise, another term for cardio. I first heard the term as a child in the 80s when my mother attended some Jane Fonda aerobics classes! Anyway, this is why cardio is called aerobic exercise, because the fuel for cardio largely comes from this oxygen-needing energy system. You are doing a rhythmic activity and breathing harder as you are taking in all that oxygen to burn fuel.
• Doing cardio regularly is a great way to improve your body's ability to use oxygen efficiently for sustained energy production. 

In a future post, I'll talk about metabolic conditioning, which involves exercises that train both the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. 

20 Years of One Hot Stove

20 rambling thoughts on 20 years of blogging--

1. Time: In the winter of 2005, I was a graduate student in NYC, and had newly discovered some of the early food blogs. It was fun to read them. On a dreary Thursday evening, Feb 3, 2005, I made a free account on Blogger and wrote a tentative post on a blog that I named One Hot Stove on a complete whim. I had no plan to blog for 20 months, let alone 20 years! I can't wrap my head around the fact that two decades have passed since that day, and the blog is still active. It gives me a strange feeling. It is the same feeling that I had when my toddler son once asked me if dinosaurs were around when I was a child. 


2. Creating: I've taken long and short breaks from this blog, but so far, I keep coming back. A big reason is that it makes me a content creator and not just a content consumer. Even as I consume books, blogs, TV, podcasts and media of all types, I get to process it and produce some content of my own, and that is deeply satisfying. Creating content also makes me a more thoughtful consumer as I realize how easy it is to be a consumer and a critic than to be a creator of any sort. 


3. Tally: Looking back, I'm proud and amazed to see that I've churned out hundreds of original posts. This is my post number 808 on this blog. It has added up to quite a substantial body of work. 
   


4. Vulnerability: It takes some vulnerability (or maybe courage or imprudence- call it what you will) to put your innermost thoughts out here on the Internet. Some of it will resonate with readers while some will turn them off or leave them indifferent. You have to be somewhat thick-skinned about the whole thing. I never delete posts and rarely get around to even updating them with better pictures/ correcting grammar/ deleting old links. Everything- good, bad, boring, ridiculous- is here for all to see. For better or worse, it is what it is. 
   


5. Winners: I never look at blog stats, how many views I'm getting, or how many comments I'm logging. I never use SEO keywords or any of that. This is truly a hobby blog. But, for the purposes of this post, I did look up the all-time top 3 posts and they are all from the first few years (apparently, I peaked early.) The bronze medal goes to On Freezing Indian Food (2011), the silver medal goes to A to Z of Marathi food (2006), and...drumroll...the gold medal goes to Pav bhaji recipe (2005). 
   


6. Hype: Cooking is a big and necessary part of my life. Preparing family meals and everything that goes with it- grocery shopping, meal planning, kitchen management- is an endless, relentless, time-consuming job. The blog hypes me up to try new things and record what I'm making. It turns a daily chore into a fun project of sorts. 


7. Features: What started as a food blog has increasingly morphed into something much broader in scope as my life and interests changed. Books, crafting, parenting, fitness- many things in my life are represented here. The blog fits my unofficial life motto: "Get excited and do stuff." Just as important is what's not on here. For instance, I realized early on that I don't really care about food photography or recording recipes step by step. Photos are added here and there for illustration. 


8. Stamina. Writing posts for decades has helped me to be comfortable with the dreaded writer's block and to work around it. The discipline that it takes to put something down, no matter how terrible the first draft, has helped me in other areas of life, including the technical/scientific writing that I do quite often in my professional life. I am not afraid of a blank page or a blank screen. Blogging builds writing muscles.


9. Flow: On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes I sit down to write a post and the words just tumble out effortlessly. It is that "flow state" of being completely absorbed in a task- rare and special. Occasionally, I'll read one of my old posts and think- did I really write this? LOL
   


10. Diary: Yes, I do read old blog posts now and then. Usually, it is when I search the blog for some recipe that I've made before. But this blog is more than my online recipe diary. It is very much a diary of my life and is full of memories and slice-of-life glimpses of some of my most precious years- what I think will be the "good old days". 
    


11. Projects: I would love to turn some of my blog projects into book projects, whether that's proper published books, self-published e-books, or just a manuscript that I write using R markdown. Three of my favorite projects have been the A-Z of Marathi Food, the A-Z of Indian Vegetables, and my ongoing Moments of Fitness. Right now, time is my biggest challenge in bringing this dream to life as I work full-time and have school-aged kids. I was also working through the United Tastes project- cooking dishes from all 50 states- on Instagram, abandoned it halfway, and would love to finish it sometime. 


12. Escape: In my posts, I try not to comment much on news and world events, other than what's happening in my little life. There is so much suffering, tragedy, injustice, chaos in this world. In real life, the news usually has me somewhere between bewildered and devastated. But I save my hand-wringing and editorializing for my long-suffering spouse and friends. This blog is my escape- a mundane, cozy, dream world full of domestic simplicity and the excitement of stacks of books to read and new recipes to try. “Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated.” - Fred Rogers


13. Comfort: Recently, a few readers have shared that this is their comfort blog and it moves me deeply to know this. I am glad to host a space of comfort in a world of hard edges. As it is, I don't fit into this world of wanting more and more, of ruthlessness and winning and disruption and being a boss lady, whatever that is. None of it resonates with me at all. I'm happy to carve out this quiet corner of the Internet to just be. 
    


14. Words: Long form blogging is the only think I've stuck with. Over the years, I've tried some other forms of content sharing like the photo-centric Instagram but it did not endure. I never did get into micro-blogging or podcasting or video blogging. Trends have changed completely, several times over in 20 years but I like words more than images and audio and I'm happy to stay right here. 


15. History: The early years of blogging were magical as I was part of a big and vibrant global community. I got to see food blogging from almost the start and through its heyday. Food blogging democratized the voices of home cooks everywhere. I learned so much about regional cooking, food from all over the world, family recipes, the many talents beyond just cooking and baking- like writing, photography, food styling- that lurk in ordinary homes. We would do these challenges and it stretched my skills beyond anything I could have done on my own. Occasionally, I run across a sentiment online about food blogs that is along the lines of- "I don't need your life story. Shut up and give me the recipe". It is a sad and ungracious response to the generosity of food bloggers, and let me tell you that food bloggers (I know so many of them) are some of the most generous people you will meet anywhere, online or in real life. 


16. Journey: Many bloggers from those early days took their blogs to the next level, monetizing them and leveraging them into successful careers. They are now food personalities, cookbook authors, professional bloggers. I did...nothing. Part of it was a lack of interest for doing so, and part of it was the fact that I was on visas at the time that precluded any other sources of income. There are pros and cons to everything. On rare occasions, it feels like a missed opportunity. But mostly, it feels really good to keep writing whatever I like without any external pressures, to keep cooking and baking as "real hobbies" and to keep this space simple and unfussy and low-maintenance. 


17. Gain: I've never made a penny off my blog. I've gotten free cookbooks to review, and once, a few spice extracts, but it has always been, by design, an ad-free zone. In terms of non-tangible things I've gotten from the blog, including inside knowledge and friends from all over the world and a working knowledge of html, I am very rich indeed. The blog adds meaning and purpose to my life. 


18. Values: The blog fits my core values well. The biggest one is lifelong learning- the blog gives me a venue to share and record tidbits of what I've learned.  A second one is service- I love being useful and providing something, whether it is a good recipe or pointing out some good media. A third is well-being- I get to promote wholesome food and an active, purposeful life that I strive towards.


19. Connection: One Hot Stove has been an enduring way for me to connect with people around the globe. The comments were and are a big part of the blog. On many posts, you'll find the best nuggets of wisdom in the comment section. For my part, I read and respond to every comment and email. When people tell me that they make one of my recipes or that they read and loved a book I recommended, I am amazed and grateful to have touched their lives in a small way. "I am a part of all that I have met"- Tennyson.


20. Reciprocity: I've always maintained that I write the blog for myself, but there's no doubt that it is kept alive by the wonderful people who stop by and read it. To YOU, gentle reader- whoever you are, wherever you are- I send you my love and gratitude. ❤️ These lines of poetry that I read recently capture this feeling perfectly, that being creative is a social process--
    
    You make the thing because you love the thing
    and you love the thing because someone else loved it
    enough to make you love it.
    ~ from An Horatian Notion by Thomas Lux (read the whole poem here)
    

If you feel like it, drop me a comment below. Tell me something, anything- your favorite recipe on this blog, your favorite feature, how long you've read OHS, what you'd like to read more of, share something about yourself, or a favorite book/poem/song that you think I would like. 

Cookies and a Veggie Bowl, Community, Scheduling

Last week, I was looking for a small birthday gift for a family friend, and thought of making a batch of cookies- they are consumable (this person is downsizing and doesn't need a single thing), and a good gift for someone with a hefty sweet tooth. I wanted cookies with a snail theme (snails because of an inside joke) and thought of making pinwheel cookies which resemble a snail shell. 

My son and I made them together on the MLK holiday using this recipe. Our chocolate dough was very light (I need a darker cocoa, perhaps) but the recipe was a success. The cookies looked cute and tasted great, soft and rich with two distinct flavors. I've wanted to try making pinwheel cookies for a while; they will be great in my next holiday cookie line-up. 

Another birthday gift I made a few weeks ago to mail out to a family member- cashew shortbread cookies, again cashews were a pun/ inside joke. I used this recipe, and it is lovely. The dough comes together quickly in a food processor. I did need a few additional spoonfuls of milk to pull the dough together. The resulting cookie is barely sweet, but rich and tasty with a hot beverage. It is a good cookie to mail out as long as it packed well; it stays fresh for days. 

A final bake from last week- pumpkin swirl bread from a King Arthur Flour recipe. I found this cute pan for two bucks at a consignment sale last year and am determined to use it a few times before spring arrives! The recipe is great and makes a tasty, plush loaf. It was demolished at a lunch with friends. I used AP flour instead of cake flour. 

* * *

On Friday, come dinner time, I was feeling absolutely uninspired to cook. But we had a lot of veggies in the fridge. This was my fairly-low-effort dinner:

1. Two sheet pans, one with cubed potato and sweet potato, and the other with diced cauliflower, carrot, yellow pepper. Add some salt and pepper and olive oil and roast all the veggies. 
2. Meanwhile, bake some frozen nuggets (I used Quorn nuggets) in the toaster oven. 
3. Make some massaged kale salad. 
4. Mix tahini and lemon juice and hot sauce to make a dressing. 
5. Assemble a bowl and serve- veggies, kale, drizzle of dressing, nuggets.

It was a great meal in the end!

* * *

I'm not a particularly social person but I am community-minded, and one thing that has always made me happy is volunteering for various things. I like to feel useful. Doing big social projects, sitting on nonprofit boards and such is totally beyond me, but I'm a great little worker bee when entrusted with short and specific tasks. With our kids getting older, I have a little more time to volunteer occasionally and this past week brought me three fun opportunities. 

Monday was the MLK holiday and here, we are encouraged to celebrate it as "a day on, not a day off" and participate in some volunteer activity. So I spent a couple of hours in a warehouse of a local literacy advocacy organization packing books that will be distributed to kids to fight against summer slide (learning loss when kids are out of school.) 

All week, while drinking my morning tea, I read and evaluated ten papers for a statewide high school science competition. There are many bright kids out there, y'all. 

Over the weekend, there was a marathon in town and my running buddy K and I decided to volunteer at a water station. We run many races and appreciate the water fairies who keep us hydrated and cheer us on, and here was a chance to be on the other side. NE Georgia has had unusually cold weather and marathon morning was absolutely freezing (teens and 20s F.) The water we were pouring into cups started freezing into lumps of ice! Yikes! I almost lost my toes to frostbite; meanwhile, there were a few people running in shorts. The runners were great, very inspiring as always. 

I also benefited from someone else's volunteer generosity. A local dance instructor announced a free 90-minute contemporary dance class, open to anyone in the community at all experience levels. I signed up and enjoyed it thoroughly. Contemporary dance is a style of dance that combines elements from other genres like jazz, ballet, and modern dance. There is a lot of freedom of movement, fluidity, and improvisation as dancers use their bodies to tell a story or express emotions. I love watching dance performances but have always felt like I don't "get" contemporary dance the way I appreciate ballet or hip-hop or other dance forms. Well, I understand it a whole lot more now, and it was a rich experience that I'm grateful for. 

* * *

Today's moment of fitness is all about the power of scheduling workouts. It is a simple but powerful way to prioritize fitness in a busy life (and not just make it an afterthought) by adding it to your calendar, just like you would add the other important commitments and obligations such as work meetings, teacher conferences, birthday parties and dentist appointments. 

Doing this reduces decision fatigue- you don't have to make the daily decision to exercise and then struggle to fit it in. It is already planned and present on your calendar. As you keep scheduling workouts, you create a routine and help build a habit. Fitness becomes an expected part of the day and you can mentally gear up for it, and prepare for it beforehand, by setting out clothes, etc. 

For me, personally, I live and die by my calendar and scheduling workouts is a must to keep me on track. Through trial and error, I've found that I realistically can only exercise in the mornings before work. Scheduling workouts during lunchtime or after work has absolutely failed for me- so scheduling and adjusting the schedule can help you find what works for real in your life. 

Here's a mini challenge for you- if you don't already have workouts scheduled in your calendar, take a few minutes to do it now. This may be your digital calendar in your email app, or a paper calendar or a whiteboard in your kitchen- whatever you use to run your life. Your workout could be at home or outside, 10 minutes or 60 minutes, every day or once or twice a week- it doesn't matter. Even a 10 minute walk can be penciled into the calendar. 

If you're looking for short workouts that can fit into a busy schedule, here are two good ones from NYT (full access gift articles): a 10 minute full body routine and a 10 minute workout to improve mobility. 

One week from now- One Hot Stove will be 20 years old! 

Breakfast Burritos, Snakes & Ladders

I'm a big breakfast person and can eat breakfast foods at just about any meal. Over the winter break we were out running errands one morning and stopped at a local burrito place. We got warm, foil-wrapped burritos with beans, eggs, cheese, potato, salsa, some onions and jalapeños for good measure. The combination of ingredients was hearty and kept me full for hours.

Since then, I've been making breakfast burritos on the regular, and always for dinner, somehow. Trader Joe's sells something called soyrizo, a spiced vegan chorizo substitute. It is flavorful enough to be the main flavor in the burrito. No other spices are needed and it is just about assembly, making this a good busy-night meal. If you have a few boiled potatoes and some beans (cooked ahead, or canned) on hand, it comes together very quickly. 

Breakfast burritos

• Burrito filling (any combination or all of these)
• Soyrizo, sautéed with chopped boiled potatoes
• Scrambled eggs
• Pinto or black beans, cooked 
• Assembly
• Burrito-sized tortillas, microwaved for a few seconds to make them pliable
• Top with fillings (see above)
• Optional- avocado, cheese, green onions, cabbage slaw, salsa
• Roll tightly and warm up the assembled tortilla by microwaving or heating on a pan

It is such a substantial meal. When we pick up our daughter after a long day of school immediately followed by dance class, I love bringing her this burrito wrapped in some foil. She can eat it in the car and it is much more filling and nutritious than typical snacks we would pack for the car ride. 

On the subject of breakfast, here are some pics (taken over Nov-Dec) of what my daughter has been eating for breakfast before school. Avocado toast is a favorite. 

* * *

This week, I read a novel called Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis. Set aboard a luxury spaceship that moves across the galaxy (a la cruise ships on this planet), it meets two prompts for the POPsugar reading challenge 2025 #3: A book about space tourism and #27: A book set at a luxury resort. It was a pretty enjoyable and quick read even if the plot lost me in a couple of places. 

The author weaves in stories of each of the characters that make up the crew of this once grand, now fraying hotel spaceship. There is a spy story and a mystery. At its core, this book is a tribute to the service industry and all the people who work on their feet. Do I recommend this book? Not as much as I recommend another space romp, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books. But it is always fun to pick up something different from my usual tastes. 

* * *

Today's moment of fitness is all about ups and downs, a reminder that as we embark on a fitness program or start exercising in some form, it is never a linear journey. I imagine it to be a game of snakes and ladders (or chutes and ladders as it is often called in the US.) where we walk on the game board as we go through our days and weeks and months. And every so often, we'll land on a square that is a snake and it sends our fitness on a downward trajectory- common ones that most people will encounter are injury, illness, a family emergency, travel, caregiving. Some are short snakes, a temporary disruption, while others are long and can set us back significantly. 

Also, happily, sometimes we encounter ladders that boost our fitness in some way- maybe we find an exercise buddy, or move to a place with better access to a fitness facility, or we rediscover a childhood passion for dance. Just gaining knowledge and competency can lead to a big progression. 

The thing to remember is that we keep playing the game, keep on keeping on. Expect the ups and downs and don't be rattled by them. Just get back to it when you can. There's no destination, only a journey that can turn out to be quite interesting if you roll the dice and keep playing. 

This is what I told myself recently. I had a cold in the first week of January, and while I felt sick only for two or three days, the congestion lasted for a couple of weeks.When I went on my first 4 mile run in a couple of weeks, I was dismayingly slow and had to take many more walking breaks than usual. But that's just life. I remind myself to focus on process (getting out and putting one foot in front of the other) and not product (how fast, how far) and take each day as it comes.