Ana & Anka’s Biscochitos

You never think you can make new friends in your adult life. Actually, let me rephrase that, I never thought that I could make friends in my adult life. At least, that was the attitude with which I entered grad school. Everyone around me was at least half a decade younger and mostly engineers who wanted to study management. (Growing up surrounded by peers who believed studying engineering is God’s solution for a career, engineers who go on to study business management are the worst lot, in my opinion. I mean, just think about the ego trip!) I will, at this point, admit that my husband and some of my close friends are engineering managers, in fact, from the exact batch of people that I am whining about. I do, however, maintain that an evening of shop talk with them will, indeed, put you to sleep. But the point I was trying to make before I distracted myself, was that making friends who were from a similar background was hard as hell. I also learnt that my course was one of those where you don’t really graduate as a class. Since the locals have longer time to finish the course, they tend to intersperse college with work, taking their time to finish school, enrolling only for a couple of classes in a year. Unfortunately, as an international student, I did not have the option and had to be enrolled as a full student each semester. This meant that most of the time, I never had repeating classmates. Naturally, I was jealous of the kind of camaraderie that Ni’s class had. They were 60 something students who entered and graduated together and shared a lot of experiences as a class, a lot that the college offered them. (Honestly, it sometimes felt like we studied in two different colleges with the difference between how science and liberal arts students are treated!) 

It also did not help that I was personally struggling to connect with the people in my course. The tiny class of 10 scared the crap out of me and I was incredibly intimidated by everyone around me and their ability to write. For the first few semesters, I wanted to be a fly on the wall, just listening to everyone read their pieces and get used to the eloquent writing, because there was no way I could even dream of writing so well and there was a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to read my piece out loud to such a talented class.

I think it was the fall of 2016, when I had to go for a Teaching Assistant 2- day training before the semester started. There were about eight of us in a small room in the ancient university library. I was so nervous to be there, I was nervous of taking up the job, I was so nervous of teaching wrong English to kids. God, I was so tightly strung and was nervous of a butterfly at that point. I barely noticed anyone except the girl next to me who had curls that I wish I had the courage to wear. Watching them bounce as she spoke was actually calming. Every time I got anxious, I found myself looking at them and wondering what her hair care routine was, eventually distracting myself from my anxiety. On the last break of the training, I was in the bathroom next to her washing my hands when I’m pretty sure she caught me staring at her hair. 

I smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m Priyanka.”

“I’m Analisa,” she said. 

As I followed her out of the bathroom, back to the training room, I had to give myself a itty bitty pep talk before telling her that I liked her curls. One would think I was proposing for all this drama. 

Over the next couple of days, the schedules for the rooms in which we would conduct the TA meetings came up. I was assigned to this small, quaint building at the back of the college where a few of the staff members from the Lit department had their offices. It sat right in front of a cemetery leading into the woods, giving it an eerie feel on most winter evenings, I’m talking heavy fog that wraps itself around the headstones. On most days, I was also assigned to share the room with Analisa while she conducted her open office sessions as well, with just a bookshelf acting as our partition. 

Since it is not always possible to be block booked, we ended up having a lot of time in between appointments where we were free. It happened so naturally that I have no memory of how we were with each other initially, but I do know that we spent the whole time talking. Every five minutes that we had between the next set of students came in, we were talking.

“I have so much reading to go over!” I’d say. 

“Me too!” She’d say. 

And we’d still be talking until the students walked in. 

Nihal used to joke around that Analisa didn’t exist and that I had in fact manifested myself a friend, who “shares the room” and “has similar interests”. 

“I worry for you,” he used to say. 

It wasn’t until I started meeting her socially, that he finally believed that she did, in fact, exist. 

I remember the first time that I had agreed to go over to her place for some afternoon tea. I was, but of course, nervous. All through the short drive there, I kept asking Ni, “What if I run out of things to talk about and there is this gaping hole in the room? It’s going to be so awkward!” 

Like any true introvert, there is nothing I hate more than being in awkward social situations that I can’t escape from. Trapping myself, without a car, seemed like a dangerous choice. 

“Would you calm down? You won’t stop talking about her at home, but are nervous to spend time with her?”

I, of course, could have refuted his question with one of my million logical explanations, but was just concentrating on keeping the butterflies down.

“If it is really bad, I’ll text you, okay?” I said as he dropped me off. He just laughed, knowing very well how the evening was going to play out. 

For the first five minutes, Analisa and I were a little skittish. It was a little awkward until we sat down on the couch with our teas. The next thing I knew, it was late evening.  We had been so engrossed in the conversation that we didn’t notice the sun go down. The fact that the exchange went everywhere and nowhere was exciting. I left her house a little sad that the day had ended and with Ni trying not that hard to hide his ‘I-told-you’ smirk.  

Over the next year, we did everything that you’d do with any of your girlfriends. Tea dates on the warm summer grass, late night double features at the local drive-in theatre, simple dinners, fancy dinners where we had to dress up a bit, college events, and local festival celebrations. My favourites were when she’d come over for tea which would inevitably turn into dinner. She’d sit on the counter or a high stool in the kitchen, giving me company with scintillating stories as I cooked us dinner. Since we were in the same program, we attended the department events together, talked in hushed tones in the library for hours, studied together, and of course worked together. And even though we weren’t able to graduate together, we were fortunate enough to be there to support each other’s thesis presentation, and celebrate graduating. 

Soon after she graduated, I had to move back to India. (God, there is so much I hate about moving so many times in my life!!) Not only was I away from Ni, I was away from Analisa as well. We kept up our talking through messages, though the conversation was considerably slow because of the difference in time zones. Interestingly however, it made us talk on a more regular basis than we had when we had been in the same town. I’ll even admit that there might have been days when I probably would’ve talked to Analisa more than I would have with Ni.

The following Summer, I was getting married and I invited her down to India to join the festivities. Even though we don’t really have the concept of bridesmaids or maids of honour, I wanted my sisters with me for my special day. When she booked her tickets, I told Ni that that was a good possibility that he was going to be ignored for the time period that she was going to be in India.

“What else is new?” he asked, laughing out loud.

 It was just so surreal that she was finally there, down in sunny Madras, at my dining table, enjoying every bit of spicy food that my mom was making. Being from New Mexico, she loved that Indian food carried the same undertones, using similar spices. The fact that most Indian meals are gluten-free was a great plus. At the wedding, I sat next to her during the 15 course meals, explaining the history behind the dishes or how to eat them. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have any time to travel around the country. I would’ve loved to explore more of the country’s cuisines with her, but that is a plan for another day. At the end of her trip, as I hugged her goodbye, I felt like I was  missing a part of me, even though I was following her to the US the next day. 

When Ni and I moved to Canada, we were so sure that we’d have the opportunity to go down to the US as much as possible. We were, but 45 minutes from the border and only 8 hours from New Hampshire. Then the pandemic hit. The world turned upside down and the embassies shut down for the foreseeable future. (I still haven’t even been able to get an interview for a travel visa. Today is April 2022 and currently my appointment is set for Aug 2023. Let me say that again, 2023!) 

When the borders opened between the US and Canada back in 2021, Analisa and I made a plan to meet again. She told me about taking off for a week to stay with us during American Thanksgiving, I honestly couldn’t wait. No longer was I nervous thinking what if we get bored of each other, but emailing her about the million things I wanted to drag her to. On the day she was landing, I couldn’t keep myself calm. I had a birthday cake to deliver right before we had to pick her up from the airport and I kid you not, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking from excitement. As I was frosting the cake, I had to keep telling myself to take a step back and breathe and calm myself down and try again with a steady hand. I texted her all the way to the airport and even as my eyes scanned the airport corridor for my best friend. I don’t even think that Ni stopped the car all the way before I jumped out to greet her with the biggest hug, one I’d been wanting to give her during our weekly zoom conversations.

The week she was here was a blur, and yet is so clear in its moments. The first couple of days we barely moved from the couch, wrapped in cozy blankets and warm cups of tea in our hands. The conversations went from work, cooking, real estate, books, music, fascism, story boarding, crocheting, murder, and honestly anything else you could think of.  The range of conversations was honestly like a breath of fresh air from the stale, repetitive conversations about real estate around us. Ni, Analisa (Analyst, as he likes to call her) and I explored a bit of Toronto together, much more that Ni and I have done in the last couple of years. We were lucky to have the Toronto District Christmas festival happening at the same time, which just added to the festive mood that we were already in. We explored the second hand book scene in the city until the stores shut for the day. We took a drive into the beautiful wine county of Niagara and froze together while showing off the “prettier view” of the falls.

The best part of the week were the many many opportunities that I had to cook for her. Considering her gluten restriction, there were a lot of dishes that she could not eat and I was on a mission to make those for her, although lemme tell y’all that I do not have much experience working with gluten flour, but was eager to try. 

“What are the usual desserts that you won’t get the gluten free version of?” I asked her and we made a list. 

Unfortunately, not all of them were a great success. My attempt at sopapillas, for example, was a disaster. They were not a fluffy fried piece of dough, but rather a hard piece of cardboard. That was when I learnt that you need to knead the dough a lot differently than you would regular flour. It needs a bit more patience and a lot more resting. The pie crust that I’d made for the cherry pie turned out to be a lot better than the sopapillas. But, the best results of working with gluten free flour came while making biscochitos. 

Biscochitos are a New Mexican favourite, brought in by the Spanish back in the day. They are a lot like shortbreads or butter biscuits, but rolled in a sugar spice mix. The main appeal of biscochitos is the unique anise flavouring that lends a licorishy taste. Analisa had this recipe that was handed down in her family through generations, but she’d never ended up trying it because of her gluten restriction. At this point, I’d like to apologise to Grandma Chavez for bastardising her recipe. Not only did I change up the flour, I also ended up substituting anise seeds with fennel. Although they share the same flavour profile, fennel is actually a little less pungent and more savoury as opposed to the sweetness that anise brings. 

The process of making biscochitos is simple enough. You combine the fat and sugar until it almost doubles in size. Traditionally lard is used, but I used a mix of butter and shortening. Add the crushed up fennel and let the flavour rub itself into the sugar. Add the eggs one by one, mixing until they are homogenous with the butter mix. Add a splash of brandy/whisky (I can’t remember if we added any or avoided because of Analisa’s allergies. But I did add some in the next batch I made.) Add in the dry ingredients which are flour (in my case gluten-free flour,) salt, and baking powder. Mix until they come together before wrapping it up with cling film and refrigerating it for 20-30 minutes. This is to make sure that the fat doesn’t melt the second you put the cookies in the oven, making them oily. 

I rolled the cookie batter into a ¼ inch thickness and Analisa went crazy with the cookie cutter. She gently rolled the cookies in the sugar cinnamon mix before placing them on the cookie tray. They baked at 375F for 10-15 minutes, but once they were out, we had no patience to wait for them to cool down. So buttery and crumbly, these biscuits were perfect to begin the season. 

Analisa left the next day and it broke my heart. Just like it did when I left for India, and just like it did when she left after my wedding. Both she and I were in  complete denial about her leaving even as we were hugging each other at the airport. For a second there, my mind flashed back to crying hysterically whenever my grandmom used to leave after visiting us. I’m just glad that I sent her packing with a big box of biscochitos instead of ugly crying at the airport. 

AuthorPriyanka Sivaramakrishnan

RatingDifficultyBeginner