Growing up in South Asia, the words coconut + oil never evoked ‘healthy eating’ feels. Every alternate day my then-gorgeous, luxuriant, black-as-coal locks were drenched in this butyraceous hair juice and braided as tight as my scalp would sanction.
A huge hindrance to my self-esteem and vanity. The days after oiling were the awaited shampoo days. I would spend hours in front of the mirror flipping and admiring my super soft hair, mime bollywood numbers, and take copious mental selfies (that was the smartphone-free era). Coconut permeated every aspect of food. Breakfast, meals, dessert, drinks, and snacks. Sipping cool coconut water right out a fat, green, fresh coconut and scraping its tender juicy entrails was nothing out of the ordinary for me; and definitely nothing special.
Today, living in San Francisco, I have an acquired reverence for this multi-faceted tropical manna. The humble coconut is now an awesome ‘star’ in healthy meals, and brags a host of other uses too. Everywhere I go, social media influencers are touting this drupe as dope. Every healthy-eating blogger or YouTuber boasts about using coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut sugar, coconut everything! ugh!
So of course, I had to get on the bandwagon. I decided to start off with coconut milk in dessert form. Using something healthy in desserts mentally effaces guilt, and boy was I pleasantly surprised. These beauties were what I ended up with: Sugar-free, vegan, organic chocolate mousse; coconut chocolate truffles; and dairy-free coconut cream pie. Long thrive the coconut!
PS- Recipes on request (I sure ‘coconut’ get enough).
Lessons to Luxuriate 
Leave a comment