Madeleines were made for dunking

It’s probably one of the most abused refrences in gastroliterary-dom, but Proust has undoubtedly raised the profile of this humble little cake. Having said that, I am firmly of the opinion that he used it merely as a a literary device as no madeleine could crumble as he says it does.For those of you who have no clue of what I’m talking about, Marcel Proust was a French modernist writer who’s most famous for his work In Search of Lost Time aka Remembrance of Things Past.

The cake essential reminds him of his childhood in Combray when he tastes it floating in tea.

That’s right – floating in tea, and eaten with a spoon. He didn’t dip it in his tea and take a bite out of it. Which makes Proust’s madeleine more of a biscuit rather than a cake.

Only biscuits can provide that crumb factor he talks about. But it wouldn’t have worked. There’s a sort of romanticism that comes from eating a madeleine that one does not get with an ordinary biscuit.

Something about the scalloped edges on one side, the smooth plumpness on the other, combined with a light zesty interior that’s perfect for sopping up tea.

Which is what this blog is all about – examining things that shouldn’t be there, but are, and yet make perfect sense.

 

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Call this an experiment. Of sorts.

So I’ve been really frustrated at myself of late. With the demise of my last blog, mostly due to the fact that I made it issues based, and kept running out of issues I cared enough about to blog about, I’ve decided that this one’s going to be a bit more organic. Why blog you ask? And clutter up the internet, along with the 3 million other blogs that only last a month? Because I can. And because it’s an easy way to figure out what I’m going to be doing with the rest of my life.

You see, I’ve been suffering from an identity crisis for an extremely long time. I was a student for the longest of times and after graduating last year, and joining the real world I realize that it’s not what I thought it would be. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s just that I find myself working in a job that is completely thankless, and it’s only my colleagues that make me want to go into work in the mornings. And I’m definitely not getting paid enough to justify the work that I do. I know I want to go to graduate school, but I don’t know what for and I’m not sure I’m going to be comfortable being broke all the time. I hate that I’m back living with my parents – I never realized how claustrophobic it would be. And I’m not thrilled about moving back to my home country – I’ve never felt at ease here. It’s also not easy being separated from my friends, who are my family, when each and everyone of us is in a different country. Oh, and did I mention that my parents are setting me up with people I have never met?

So here’s my pledge to you. I’m going to update this blog as often as I can – whether it’s posting something I find interesting, or having a general epiphany – as often as I can. And its up to you to decide on whether this is actually worth reading.