We're breaking with tradition today. The subject of this post is not a customer. In fact, we've never met her. Or seen her. Ours has been a continuous textlationship. Unbelievable, you think? But t...

We're breaking with tradition today. The subject of this post is not a customer. In fact, we've never met her. Or seen her. Ours has been a continuous textlationship. Unbelievable, you think? But true.

This is what we know of her:

Dr.Chandreyee is a gynaecological surgeon of great repute ; one who's much loved by her patients. Her mother's passing, of cancer, led her to start a foundation through which she helps impecunious cancer sufferers by providing care and comforts they would otherwise be denied. She runs this facility from her more than hundred-year-old heritage home opposite a park in the city and that's also where she, with friends, organises a yearly Bake Sale to help raise funds for her foundation. That's the only time she bakes for anyone other than family. We have the good fortune of being the exception.

Dr,Chandreyee has worked tirelessly through the half year that we've been under attack of the pestilence. The months we spent at home under curfew, she went to hospital and surgery and did everything and beyond that a medical practitioner needed to do in the circumstances to ensure the health and survival of as many as possible. She also baked bread for us when regular supplies ran out.

There have been times when her SMSs ran like this :

"Bread's done. Please collect. Am leaving on an urgent call."

or

"Shall do the Victoria Sponge on Tuesday. I have surgery scheduled on Sunday, and Monday's a lockdown."

and

"Don't worry. Baking helps me manage the stress."

No-one does macarons as delicate as hers, save Laduree. The cakes are delicious and delightful both, with the best cheesecake in the city wrought in her hands. And there's art to the decorations as well. The naksha centrepiece of the necklace is modelled after a flourless almond cake (stunning!) with orange icing that she dusted with a flower pattern. The crescents beneath, both made of hand-cut sheets embellished with fine granulation, are the croissants we hope to have her bake, and the ball-jhur is, well, the ball-jhur