So Sweet!
Just to be clear -although I’m not obliged to justify or explain anything... something came to my notice (long BEFORE I started posting my shopping lists/cookie cravings) and it propelled me to spill a few beans, rather raw, bitter beans...
If you think these photos are gonna make you fat, then please ignore ‘em...
Someone was adamantly asserting that I’m a “sweet tooth”... (even though they’ve known me since ages) He called me a sweet tooth quite blatantly (Back then I had not even posted my “warm & cosy” shopping lists/snacks, you’ll find them on twitter) I told him that I’m not a big fan of sweet... and he responded to my other texts properly which means he did read that, it’s not like he didn’t but he gave a deaf ear to it & insisted, “I know how much you love sweet!" Anyway... I have no reason to lie, I'm not even fat. Why would I fake about it? Initially, in 2016 someone (with the same initials) was surreptitiously leaving messages on my website calling me “fake.”
Everyone who knows me personally is aware of the fact that I only eat dark chocolates, even the cookies I get are always dark or bitter, I got white chocolate cookies for gifting but I prefer dark ones for myself... because I’m not a big sweet tooth! I don’t like Blueberry Cheesecakes or Frosted Brownies, its not like I hate ‘em but I only eat these things if they are “mildly sweet.” I prefer caramel custard, panna cottas (minus the berry compote) Fruit based, Vanilla Frosted Cakes over Chocolate ones, I like soufflés not mousse, pancakes without maple syrup, Dark Chocolate truffles instead of Milk or White Chocolate bars, Puddings yes, liquid cheesecake or meringues but they contain egg... Bengali Sweets are my favourite but I only like Sandesh/Sondesh because it’s barely sweet. I can’t eat homemade Gajjar or Dudhi halwa ‘cause my mom again prepares it in sugar syrup and I find the smell itself very intoxicating... I never touch Roohafza due to the strong Rose essence in it, Faloodas are a better if they are less sweeter, I rather have chia seeds on ice cold malai kulfis (being chilled makes them less sugary) than a tall glass of sticky, syrupy falooda. Sweet stuff makes me sick, I always squeeze soggily drenched rasgullas & gulab jamuns before eating them and everyone at home knows I don’t like having sugar syrup in my bowl so they give me these rasgullas or jamuns separately lol after squeezing them with a spoon, then I squeeze them more. I literally squeeze the life out of them!
Salted sticky, gooey Caramel is my biggest enemy, candy canes & Mapro milkshakes are his best friends, Red Velvet with that cream cheese frosting is nothing but a Devil rated PG-13... & Tiramisu too would’ve been better with more whisky, less sugar, so my gluttonous guilty pleasures only include bitter ganache which always has my heart!
Thanks to the baby pink gingham blanket & that small cuppa of warm milk with frosted message candies, the above pic screams nostalgia & my favourite decade of all times, the 90s...
Let’s go down the memory lane for a while,
as a kid, I had child asthma which lasted for 4 additional years till the age of 12 when in most cases it usually subsides at 8 but it wasn’t difficult for my mother to keep me away from chocolates. I first had pneumonia when I was 2 or so and the doctor said I almost had another birth when I miraculously recovered from it, the chances of survival were slim, my father didn’t show up in the hospital even back then. My mother usually boasts about this:
She says when I was a toddler I wouldn’t accept chocolates from anyone because I knew I wasn’t allowed to have them and also cause I wasn’t interested in them... I do remember this part... I would ask her why others kids loved chocolate so much ‘cuz I hardly found it relatable.
Whenever me & my bro would get chocolates after exams, I’d keep mine aside and within the next 5-10 seconds I would hear him asking me “You are not going to eat that?” I would then ask him “Where did your chocolate go, did it fall or something?” because I wouldn’t see it anywhere and he would be like, “I ate it”... my next question would be, “Did you eat the wrapper too? Where’s the wrapper? How can you eat it so fast? Did you swallow it?” But that’s the case with most kids, they all are like magicians who can disappear chocolates & toffees within seconds and my cousin is no different. She is in fact a bigger sweet tooth than him.
My GP once told me I could have a Cadbury 5 star on his account everyday ‘cuz he knew I hated chocolates but I needed more sugar as my weight was pretty low. He asked my mom to make some or the other dessert daily to help me gain calories. I recently started forcing myself to have sweet snacks because my blood pressure is constantly low now. There was no misunderstanding, like I said I had NOT even started posting any of this... but I don’t know what made that person (I mentioned previously) assume I love sweetmeats, he was very, very inclined on that. I’m not a fake person, I never hide things, I say it like it is... I don’t add any sugar to my pancakes, I love the natural vanilla, banana flavour they already have, I only add sugar to my masala chai cuz I hate the smell of chai-patti... masala overpowers it while sugar makes it less bland but I prefer English Breakfast tea or lemongrass- (black) tea more, my weight is again low so sugar is my only saviour for now... even as a 10 year old kid, when I started gaining resistance... I would only have Cadbury Bournville, out of personal choice, back then they would call it “diabetes” waalon ka Chocolate in India. The cookies or biscuits that I’m having right now are again dark, they do have a hint of sweetness which gets intolerable if I have more than ONE.
They say “Save it for a rainy day...” I’ve been saving money since 2017 (keeping some aside every month in a secret purse shhh...) so I could easily splurge on an assortment of 44 Fox cookies which costed me around ₹ 675/- or 8 € None of them are that sweet and we are eventually going to share.
I think frozen yogurts are better than ice creams but that’s again a personal preference... even my cereals contain less sugar, by now I’ve tried each & every brand out there so I know which ones to avoid. Whenever we would go for dinners, pub grub, I would keep reminding all the bartenders, waiters, everyone to make my order “less sweet” then even if we are talking about mocktails. Hahaha some would adhere to it, while others would completely misunderstand. Finding not so sweet, sweet lassi isn’t easy either... Most of them turn it into a thandai and serve it with additional sweet malai, khoya & dry fruits on top (that is precisely what the spoon is for) and I’m like, I never ordered a kheer!
A single ₹10/- dairy milk gets me high and loopy... I feel knocked out & incredibly drowssyyy!
I’m actually very sensitive to sweet smelling products/fragrances & intoxicating, sugary desserts, drinks, snacks, etc. it sometimes gives me a migraine so I avoid sugar at all costs but that’s not the only reason, I hope we all know that now... I prefer less sugar in my Diet because I don’t like sweet stuff.
I only prefer having sweetness in my behaviour, that too I never sugarcoat my words. I love being upfront & frank, it’s not like I get brutally honest but I do get my message across (if necessary then) in the politest manner possible... It’s better than giving people false hopes or worshipping, putting them on a pedestal, I hate getting diplomatic even if that means being alone, let’s be honest, truth hurts & people only like those who drool or fawn over them.
I’m exhausted, my BP is again falling with my energy levels, it’s time to get some sugar.
Xoxo
Zara Céleste