I Used Chocolate For My Hatred

It’s said that nine out of ten people like chocolate and the tenth lies! If there’s a synonym for my name, it’s ‘Chocoholic’. Everyone has got that one craze in their life, they’re nuts about. Chocolate – in my case. I crave the sweet taste of it, feel as if being in heaven, devouring the sinful snack. Even it’s smell sends my senses into a frenzy. My strict diet plan always have a room for exceptionally one calorie rich item, chocolate. Neither I can go shopping without bringing home some chocolate. My birthday gifts are always chocolates too.

I personally hate cooking, neither in a favor to learn it as I have got cooks who does everything for us. Thus I never intended to go for cooking classes. Likewise all mothers, mine also wishes her daughter to be a cooking expert. Unfortunately my instincts never encouraged me to step forward. At times she stood me to watch a cooking show, to awaken that interest in me. As the proverb says: “when there’s a will, there is a way. When there is an ill will, you find an excuse.”  In a nutshell, I found that route towards my kitchen door which seemed beautiful. I planned to use my love against my hatred. I tried to learn the making of chocolate desserts at home. Thus I grabbed couple of recipes through internet. My first attempt was for ‘Chocolate Truffles Cups’, which resulted in a mess. I didn’t lose hope. Next trial was ‘Chocolate mousse’, which wasn’t incredibly good either. Eventually my morale was getting low. Thus this time I extracted a recipe containing least number of ingredients so lesser effort was required. Chocolate Lava Cake ! I somehow managed trying this too. Consequently as always, it wasn’t as it was supposed to be but unlike the previous trials, this tasted actually good. After several trials on it, finally I initiated making it perfectly.  Now all tend to love dining table more since it became part of it. And my proud brothers made me popular within our family. I commenced making it in huge quantities for parties now. Even brought it on Bake Sale Event at LSE, the Best Dessert of the event. Now that I have found a route to kitchen, I hope I’ll be a cooking expert one day InshaAllah.

Once on my way back to home I craved for a chocolate cake lying in refrigerator. When I arrived home in a rush, discovered that, my ‘Billy Bunter’ brother, had already gulped it. The best way I thought of fulfilling this craving was, to bake a leftover chocolate sauce in a microwave oven, which wasn’t supposed to be in this manner. “Something is better than nothing.” It turned into an awkward shaped weird kind of brownie. Seeing my insanity, mom laughed till her stomach hurts.
Whenever I go out on weddings/parties, I tend to grab dessert before meal. Though it’s enormously embarrassing for my family but I can’t help it, when lavish desserts with chocolate slathered over everything from root to tip is right there on the table with no one around yet to attack on it. There comes a feeling “its all mine!”

By

Sana Mateen

10uo599

Kitchen gardening

Kitchen gardening

      A piece of land where you grow vegetables, herbs, fruit etc is called kitchen gardening. Gardening was a hobby which was being adopted by the people in past times but now the time has changed and it has changed everything with it. Now the globalization, technology has changed the view of life. New generation have many others things to do now and there is no such hobby called gardening.

Recent research of the researchers shows poverty, population, inflation and food shortage is increasing in the whole world. Prices of food have gone up three times in just past few years and one third population of Pakistan is living below the poverty line. Poor people are not able to feed their families and they are taking part in street crimes and begging.
Agriculture is one the most precious element of Pakistan. Contribution to GDP by agriculture is 24%. Since last 2 years Pakistan has been importing grains due to shortage which is enough to contribute in inflation. These results are making us not to adopt kitchen gardening as hobby but compulsory.
Kitchen gardening is the key to crush hunger. The government started a program of kitchen gardening in which great subsidy was being given but people could not be encouraged.

       This is the time to reprogram it and all the NGO’s and other non-profit organizations must start program in schools, colleges, universities to encourage new generation to adopt home kitchen gardening play their important role in the economy growth. This could be the step to support our economy and government in one way.

 

 

 

 

Kitchen gardening is not only beneficial for economy; it has some health benefits as well because the growth of agricultural items is being increased by using more pesticides. Even to grow them more beautiful some chemicals are also being used which can be harmful for health. In kitchen gardening we can use pesticide according to need and grow organic items which will be having more nutrition in them. The main benefit is financial benefit. Prices are going up day by day; the fresh vegetables at backyard can save us a lot of money because there is always an initial cost and it than almost cost free.

References:
http://kgi.org/blog/salma/world-kitchen-garden-day-islamabad-pakistan
http://kgi.org/blogs/salma/pakistan-%25E2%2580%259Chome-kitchen-gardening-crush-hunger%25E2%2580%259D
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kitchen-gardeningFree-Lessons-And-SeedsPakistan/324019317611092?ref=hl
http://www.lahoregardening.com/2012/04/kitchen-gardening-punjab-government.html
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=80209&Cat=5

By Hafiz M.Imran Saeed

Lahore School of Economics