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July 12 - Life's a Boots Meal-Deal Carrot Cake

A few friends of mine got together for dinner today. One of them is a huge carrot cake fan and turns out one of the other guys also loves the dessert. In that conversation someone mentioned that Boots, the UK pharmacy has carrot cake in their meal deal which is to die for.

As a baker and someone who has reviewed bakeries around the world, especially in London, that piece of information stunned me. I immediately went 'no come on, can't be better than Hummingbirds Carrot cake now!'. My friend insisted that it really was unexpectedly quite amazing. I was about to protest again, and then thought better of it. There is no reason for me to believe that a spectacular carrot cake wouldn't exist in Boots meal deal. It's not usual, but it's not impossible either.

I also think that's true for life. In the last year, since I've begun to live this "lets flow where the river goes" life, I have found gems in the most unexpected of places. Most times I've walked into situations exactly with the 'but Boots can't have good carrot cake' attitude - therefore tainting an event, a person or an experience, even before I've had the chance to test taste it. That dims the splendour a little bit. However I have also had situations where I have walked into something with no expectations & been blown away - and that is beautiful too.

But the carrot cake example was geared towards keeping an open mind instead of a have 'have no expectations' stance in life - which also is an interesting topic to speak about. Hopefully I'll remember to write about it in this series.

When I left Singapore to go to Bali, to start a new life (and also a restaurant), looking back I think I did not have the openess to learn and to be that I have now. I'm sure a year down the line when I'm looking back at July 2019, I'll have things to say about it as well - that's the beauty of restrospecting. From where I stand today, I know I could have taken a more easeful approach to life & especially a new life. I did, thankfully retain that sense of insight & detachment eventually to judge where I was & how I was feeling, but if I had had the discernment I have today about my life then, I would have avoided a lot of heartache & pain.

When my job got stressful I would get home and bake until 1 or 2 am the next morning. It almost acted like a reset for my system - mental, emotional & physical. One of my favorite things to make was the carrot cake. I did not quite like it the first time I baked it. I had never had carrot cake in my life before that & genuinely thought I had ruined the recipe & hence the cake tasted terrible. Turns out that's exactly how carrot cake tastes - after I had tasted more carrot cake I learnt to love it and then baked it again, and have since then never hesitated whenever someone has asked me to bake one.

Carrot cake hence has earlier taught me a lesson earlier about non-judgement. Giving things you aren't familiar with a little bit of time and patience, is a good practice in life. Something that I also learnt with sculling over the last two months at Bergerac.

I want to at this point really quote from Rumi's guest house but I don't want to include it simply ad a side-note. I want to write about The Guest House because there's a bunch of instances and people who've taught me lessons and then have left my side when there job is done. That deserves a post of its own.

With that segue, I have emptied my post dinner organic raspberry tea & that's a good place to say goodnight.

Here's one of my favorite carrot cake recipes :

https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/food-processor-carrot-cake

May all of us have an open heart & an open attitude towards what life brings us & may life always surprise us with Boots style Carrot Cake.

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