Merry Christmas & A Happy Birthday

Christmas holds a very special meaning in our family, not becos we are Christians. The date of 25th Dec is always reserved for the family. A time to celebrate and get-together.

It is the day that Louis was born some thirty-odd years ago :)

Being the family man that he is, Louis is happiest when we spend his special day surrounded by family, having a home-cooked meal. Frankly, it doesn't matter to him very much if it was a simple meal, or one that we order in.

Last year, he tolled and slaved over a Christmas turkey. It was the first time that he made it for me and the family after years of pestering on my part. We oohed-ahhed over the gorgeous, succulent and moist bird that came out from our oven and promptly attacked it with relish. So much so that we forgot to take a picture of it for the blog.

This year, we decided to do away with the turkey. And so, I stepped forth and set out to prepare the entire Christmas meal, complete with a Birthday/Christmas Buche de Noel (log cake), the very first cake that I ever made for him.

I was very determine to make him his birthday cake this year as I'm now a SAHM without income. It seemed senseless to me to buy him a birthday present with his own money :)

Apart from our immediate family, a couple of his aunties, an uncle and cousins joined us again (they were with us last Christmas too). It was a bit of a challenge trying to cook a 5-course meal to feed a crowd of 14-15 people, while getting to enjoy ourselves too. We could have pot-luck or order some of the food in. However, I'm a little of a perfectionist when it comes to such gatherings and prefer to prepare all the food for the gathering on my own.

The Christmas menu comprised of a starter of Vietnamese fresh spring rolls (Goi Cuon), with beef stew and crab meat pasta as the mains. We topped that off with the log cake and green-tea tiramisu.

My elder BIL is unfortunately still overseas for work. The good news is that he would be home in time to celebrate the turn of the new year. That would be yet another reason for the family to celebrate.

Thanks to the the aunties, who came loaded with chocolates from their European vacation and a casserole of baked rice, and my elder SIL, who bought some sushi and Korean strawberries, there was more than enough food to go around. As usual :)

Our Christmas tree was also spilling with lots of Christmas presents, not only for ourselves, but along with presents for the 2As too.

As for Faith, she was happy to run around, socialise and alternated between following and bossing around her 2 older cousins all over the house.

It has been a simple but blessed Christmas cum Birthday celebration for us. It means a lot to Louis and I that we are able to have the extended family spend the festive season with us. This is the warmth and love of family that we hope that Faith will continue to be surrounded with as she grows to learn to appreciate it as much as we do.

Laduree macarons

That's right. These are the real deal straight from Laduree's Champs-Elysee outlet in Paris.

Supposedly, they were to be our anniversary present, compliments of our best man in anticipation of our upcoming 5th year wedding anniversary. I said supposedly becos Louis and I adamantly refused to acknowledge perishable goods for presents ;)

In all seriousness, it was the sweetest gesture. CP's like my "soul mate" when it comes to our love for food. We generally share near-exact sentiments about our likes and dislikes of food, food preparations and even right down to how we like our food to be served and eaten. Even though I've yet to try the renown Pierre Herme's famous macarons, the ones from Laduree were what I used to crow about to him.

He called on early Tue morning to tell me that he's only in town for a short one and a half day and wanted to find out if I've got time that day to meet him. He refused to say why he gave such short notice of his return to town nor the reason for which brought him back.

All becos he wanted to surprise me in person with these macarons from Laduree. Lucky guy took a 2-week trip to France to meet up with his many friends there, travelling from the Northwest to the Southeast of France. Along the way, he had himself many a gastronomic adventures too.

Sharing yet another common soft spot for the "caramel-sel" flavoured ones, he made sure there were 2 of them in the box (out of a total of 8).

Thanks, CP. They still taste great! Louis and I are slowly savouring them.

Toddler food challenge

I'm not sure when did this happen - probably around the time when we started to be a little more liberal in giving Faith some food off our plates/table and the time when I started transitioning her to rice - our heretofore hearty eater has now become a fussy little eater.

We've pretty much been blessed that Faith enjoys her food since the time I had started her on solids. With very very few exceptions, she eats nearly everything that I've given to her. Even food that I feared she might not take a liking for in the past, she's mostly eating them now as she got older. Smelly yucky cod-liver oil, unsweetened yoghurt that's a little tart, kiwis and all types of berries that might sometimes be sour - no problems. She would eat them all.

Up until recently.

Now, we would have to chase, cajole, threaten, trick or bribe her to finish her food at every meal and sometimes, without much success. Lately, if she's not interested in her food, she would spit it right back the moment you put it into her mouth, splattering that spat-out mouthful of food onto her lap, her baby chair or onto the floor if we're not quick enough to put a hand out to catch it.

I had spent hours using the slow-cooker to make all sorts of what I deemed to be nourishing chinese soups to go with her rice, only to have her take a few spoonful and spit them all out. Pastas with tomato-based sauce, pesto, bolognaise have all been cooked and tested on her with mixed results. Some day, she would finish them all. On other days, she would eat half or less of what I lay out and refuse to eat any more, although tomato-based pasta seemed to be preferred.

Last Sat, I made a western version of pumpkin soup, served up with a pan-fried piece of cod seasoned very lightly with a wee bit of soy sauce and chinese rice wine. I had thought that she might not be keen on cod and would lap up the pumpkin soup, which would be great cos I had made it with pumpkin, potatoes and carrots to ensure she gets her dietary fulfilment of vegetables and carbohydrates. In the end, she loved the cod and would only drink about 1/3 of the pumpkin soup.

On Sun, I had slow-cooked some carrot and corn soup for 5 hours, of which she only took maybe 1/5 of the portion and some spoonful of rice and refused to eat any further. To be fair, that was the day that my elder BIL returned home after 2 months overseas and we had an early dinner at 6 pm after picking him up from the airport.

Faith only had her milk at close to 4 pm cos she had a long afternoon nap prior. It was too much to expect that she would be ready to eat her dinner that soon after her afternoon milk and so early when her normal dinnertime is at 7.30 pm.

All that I've read warned that as babies turn into toddlers, they do not require as much food to fuel their tummies as their growth rate is slowing down. Of course, toddlers are more intrigued by the world around them and are not keen to sit down for long to finish their food either. And don't be surprise if one day, they stop eating whatever food that they seemed to lov from young. Add to the mix that once they have had a taste of food that is seasoned and salted, their bland fare seem even more unappealing.

As much as I've read all the literature on the challenges of feeding a toddler and that parents do not have to worry that they will starve themselves or become malnourished, there's an anal part of me that still worries when Faith's not eating all her food. Especially when her weight range has always been hovering around the 25th percentile i.e. she's underweight.

However, the spitting out of food and not finishing her entire meal has been happening so frequently that these days, I don't panic as much when she doesn't finish her food. I am trying to follow the advice of these books and ensure that I lay out as much nutritionally healthy food for her throughout the day and hope that even if she does not eat much, every mouthful and morsel that she eats adds to her daily dietary requirements.

And so apart from her usual meals, I try to ply her with fruits, yoghurt, nuts and dried fruits in between her meals so that even if she eats little for dinner, her total food intake for the day would still be acceptable.

Faith had had her 18th month inoculation yesterday and I had the chance to talk to her pediatrician about her "fussiness" in food.

He concurred on all the challenges faced in feeding a toddler.

However, his point to me was that baby food is very bland and sooner or later, we would have to transition Faith to food on our table. There is thus a need for balance -- do we continue to not season her food at all and let her eat whatever pitiful amount or adopt a very light touch with salt and seasoning so as to titillate her taste buds and arouse her previous interest in food?

Hence, it might be better for everyone if Faith gets to eat our food as she's more interested in them anyways. On the matter of salt and seasoning in our food, that is something that we can do about it i.e. reduce the amount of salt.

With that bit of advice in mind, this evening, I made mashed potato with unsalted butter and milk and grilled another slab of cod, seasoned lightly like the way I did it on Sat. We also gave her some chinese style pumpkin soup that we ourselves were having for dinner, although we scooped out her bowl of soup before we added a little bit of salt to the rest.

She had the mash potato first as I was still grilling the fish. She loved it and asked for more until we gave her the fish. Thereafter, she only wanted the fish. As for the pumpkin soup, well... let's just say that it didn't rank up on her first nor second choice of food.

So there you have it! Her taste buds craved and lapped up whatever little bit of seasoning I added to her food.

Anyways, I would continue to rise up to the challenge of being creative and inventive with cooking dinners for my little one, experimenting food with and without salt/seasoning to see what she would appeal to her.

It certainly helps to know that Faith isn't the only finicky little eater. There are 2 other mothers at Faith's JG class, who are right up there with me, tearing their hair out on getting their own kids to eat their meals too.

Somehow, it makes me feel a little better when we all lament together about the amount of time we spent labouring over food preparation for our little ones only to have them turn up their little nose at our "labour of love".

London haul

What makes a married man & a father different on business trips is the speed in which each trip is conducted - the "quick in-quick out" type of business travels. If one had to be gone slightly longer than his preferred modus operandi, then, one would essentially be plagued with guilt.

Lots of guilt.

So much so that one would go on a guilt-buy to make up for time away from home :)

Louis was away the last week in London for training. Of course, yours truly here would forever have a list of things for him to bring back, seeing that we had limited luggage space on our last trip. Additionally, some things are perishable, so, there's only so much you can bring back.

Faith had the largest haul of stash that her daddy bought for her becos he disliked the time apart from her, even though it was a short one week trip away.

Since she's still not quite at the stage where she's able to hold a conversation with him over the phone, you can bet that he missed her a lot more than he did his wife ;)

To be fair, while she did not held up her end of the conversation, she enjoyed hogging my cellphone when Louis called. She would plaster it to her ears and scream if we tried to take it away from her. Louis kind of had to maintain a one-sided conversation the entire time. She would just smile into the phone and it takes lots of coaxing before she would even utter shyly "Papa", if at all.

Thankfully, she's capable of giving smacking kisses and she gave that willingly over the phone, bringing the cellphone to her mouth and giving it a smacking and resounding kiss whenever we told her to kiss Louis goodbye.

Aside from the many clothes and a set of Speedo swimming costume that Louis bought for her, he also hauled back a few Green & Blacks chocolate bars, 2 canister of cocoa powder (these were about 1/3 the price of a canister sold at NTUC Finest), chorizo sausages, organic sweet potato chips, organic prunes, nuts and a few other sauces.

The most precious thing that he brought back for me was the third series of Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word" DVD. Yippee!!!

As for the chorizos, some folks are going to be treated to chorizo sandwiches over the Hari Raya Puasa public holiday on Wednesday. That is if I don't screw up the simple process of cooking it!

Brain boosters food

This morning, I received an SMS from my FIL to turn to Page 10 of today's Mind Your Body section under The Straits Times on the list of 8 brain boosters food.

I was curious indeed to see how many of the food items that I regularly give to Faith would make it to the list. So, here we go.

#1 - Fish
Checked! Faith eats fish on a daily basis. Another favourite of hers that we introduced about a couple of months back was cod liver emulsion oil. Remember that icky yucky smelly emulsion that kids were forced to eat in our youth and which I bet most of us hated it? Its something that my daughter llooks forward to after her bath every day and actually asks me for more.

#2 - Eggs
Checked! I try to give her steamed egg custard (chawan mushi) either for her breakfast or to accompany one of her meals between 1-3 times a week. The article said soft boiled is better than frying or hard boiled and I figured steamed egg custard qualifies as soft boil. Don't dare to give her half boiled eggs becos of salmonella.

#3 - Nuts
Nope... they are currently too scary to give it to her whole unless I grind it. However, I'm afraid that grounded seeds would have a tendency to run rancid if I don't consume them quick enough. Just a couple of days ago, I've given her some home-roasted sunflower seeds which she seems to like. Perhaps I should start giving them to her more regularly.

#4 - Colourful vegetables
Checked! Apart from green leafy vegetables like chye sim, xiao bai cai and baby spinach, Faith also consumes lots of carrots, broccoli, zucchini, red bell peppers etc. For the bell peppers, I usually put them in the toaster to roast and char the skin off, before dicing them and adding them to her porridge. Roasted bell peppers are really nice and yummy.

I am tempted to introduce aubergines too, but each time I suggested that to my mom, she gives me a weird look and said that no Singaporean babies ever eat aubergines at this age. She said the same thing when I gave Faith zucchinis and bell peppers too ;)

#5 - Wholegrains
Checked! Porridge are her daily staples still (I'm planning to start her on rice soon) and she eats porridge cooked from brown and red rice at home. In fact, I've been using a combination of white, red and brown rice for the adults at home for quite some time now and have recently switched to brown rice becos Louis and I like the nutty taste.

Once in a while, Faith also gets oats for breakfast too.

#6 - Berries
Doubled checked especially since I just posted a blog about her being a blueberry queen. Along with the weekly pack or two of blueberries, I also try to add raspberries or blackberries into her daily post-breakfast fruit servings.

Since the opening of NTUC Finest at Thomson Plaza, I've been a frequent buyer of organic berries from there becos there's usually a particular organic berry that is having a special price for the week. Sometimes, the prices of these organic berries are about the same price as non-organic ones. Other regular-priced organic berries are also much cheaper than if I had bought them at supermarkets like Cold Storage, Marketplace etc.

#7 - Beans
Errr.... I've tried to add them in her diet months back. Unfortunately, she hasn't developed her molars yet and they cause her to gag. Now that some of her molars are out, I should look into re-introducing them back into her diet.

Hmmm... does tofu count though?

#8 - Yoghurt
Errr.... when she was younger, she didn't like the taste of the unsweetened yoghurt becos they were too tart. She seems to be more amenable to unsweetened yoghurt these days though, so maybe I should give her more regularly.

However, she's been taking probiotics in droplets and capsules forms daily for a long time now. I gave it to her mainly to boost her immune system.

The Tally
5 out of 8. I consider it not bad.

I also took the opportunity to show the man of the house the newspaper article and bragged about my little achievement. After all, these little things add up to justify my existence as a SAHM and reinforce our convictions about the benefits of me being one ;)

The follow blog has a post reproducing the Straits Times Mind Your Body article in its entirely. To read the article, click here.

Chorizo sandwich ala Borough Market

Remember my bountiful purchases from London's Borough Market? Well... I finally put the fresh chorizo sausages that I bought to good use: replicating the chorizo sandwich that we bought from the Spanish store.

Seriously, the only difficult thing about putting this sandwich together is finding the right chorizo. Maybe becos the first chorizo that I ate were the ones from Spain. So, all the other types of chorizo that I find here in Singapore seem to lack in taste and oomph.

I bought some multi-grain ciabatta breads from Delifrance, which I lightly grill on the griddle. I also charred the skin off 2 red bell peppers, which I promptly put in a plastic bag and tied it up, waiting for it to cool before I peel off the skin. Grilled red peppers are really very sweet and juicy.

Just before eating, I heat up the griddle pan, add the cut chorizo onto the pan to sizzle over medium heat on both sides. When done, simply assemble by:

1) Drizzling some olive oil onto the bread

2) Dropping some rocket leaves on top

3) Adding the red bell peppers

4) Adding the grilled chorizo

5) Topping it up with the remaining slice of bread

I accompanied the sandwich with a salad made from the remaining rocket leaves, pear slices, roasted sunflower seeds, and finally, drizzled some balsamic orange syrup (again bought from the Borough) and olive oil.

The hubby said "Yummy!" :)

Phuket Part 1 - Food

Having returned from Phuket, I thought it'd be time to sit down, relax and recount some of our experiences in our 4 day stay there. There are just too many places to start from, so I thought why not kick off with the Food blog.

Eve and I are foodies at heart. In fact, one of our best hobbies in our travel isn't visiting churches or monuments or places of interest. Our favourite pasttime is really discovering nice eating places in our travels. Till today, for example, we still miss the Cous-cous we had in a corner restaurant in Nice, the Korean food in a restaurant near the Eiffel in Paris, the paella from Carrefour near Fonty, the fried seafood in a homely restaurant in Venice and the baguettes we had in along the way to the market in Fonty.

So it was no surprise that we had high expectations for discovering at least a few nice eating places in Phuket. After all, this was a place that I remember well for seafood (I came here with my family eons ago when I was a little boy) and after all, this is Thailand - a place where I've been impressed before (at least in Bangkok) by the creativity and affordability of the cuisine. And (fortunately) before I left for Phuket, I researched on some of the potential food places to go to as suggested by Thailand Tatler. Two of the places - Dibuk and Watermark, were places we came to know of because of the site.

As one would expect, we had disappointments and pleasant surprises along the way. Here's the four food places - the good and the bad, worth mentioning.

The disappointment -Saffron at Banyan Tree (2 out of 10)

We have had mixed experiences at the Saffron - Banyan Tree's signature restaurant. At Bintan, we were simply bowled away by the cuisine - it was not only innovative, the cuisine was really worth every penny and when we first ate there, we really liked the degustation menu it offered. However, when we subsequently went to the Saffron at Bangkok Banyan Tree, we were disappointed because the food was really not that different from any typical Thai fare you would get in Bangkok or even in some Thai restaurants in Singapore.


This time round, we decided to give Saffron at Banyan Phuket a try, and it was a disappointment. We ordered their signature appetisers and when it came, the plating was just average. Also, the satay was a tough and the sauces really just ordinary. When we ordered the recommended curry and vegetables, we also felt the food was just so-so. The bill came up to a hefty S$80 for just myself and Eve, so we really felt this was a meal that was not at all value for money. Definitely a 2/10 place.

Good value for money -Dibuk French Restaurant (6 out of 10)

Having been very disappointed with the Saffron on our first night, we decided to venture outside Banyan Tree for lunch on the next day. The only drawback to this was that we had to take a cab outside and being a little ambitious, we decided to go to Phuket town which was like a 40 minutes ride away.

We had originally wanted to go to a Italian place recommended by the Thailand Tatlet, but because we got there too late, we decided to venture to a French restaurant instead.

To our surprise, the food was actually quite good. For S$40 for the two of us, I ate beef bourguignon, and Eve had buttered sole. We also had 2 appetisers comprising of a dish of creamed scallop and another of grilled king prawns in garlic butter. All the dishes were good and fresh and we had a taste of the homely French cooking that we seldom find outside France. Nothing very wow about the food, but understated and homely. It seems the chef had married a French chef and now she was cooking on her own. Well, our gain. The other authentic thing about the place was that the other customers in the restaurant were a pair of French women.


Overall, I would rate it 8 out of 10 for food, but because it was a little warm and because it cost us a lot to get into town, I'd rate it 6 out of 10.

Good value for money -Lotus Restaurant (7 out of 10)

For dinner on the second night, we called the conceirge and they recommended us to a place called Lotus Restaurant - just five minutes ride from our hotel. The good thing of course was that the restaurant was able to send a complementary shuttle to Banyan to pick us up - we merely told our recep what time we wanted to be there and they arranged everything for us.

The place is an outdoor place - no aircondition seating. But the night we were there, there was a nice breeze blowing, so it was actually quite pleasant. Plus, the service staff was kind enough to help us put a mosquito coil when I requested it - more as a advance precaution rather than in response to any mosquitoes that I actually saw or felt. The other good thing about this restaurant is that the food is cheap and good. We spent in all S$20 between Eve and myself for dinner that night - I ordered Tom Yam soup and some prawn cakes, whilst Eve ordered some Pad Thai. The tables next to us also ordered a lot of seafood - there were live seafood of lobsters and prawns and they looked pretty good.



Overall thus, I would rate Lotus as a 7/10 place - very "everyday" food menu at non-cut throat prices, and it is accessible from Laguna where we were staying. Definitely a place one can go for a casual lunch/dinner while in Phuket.

Our best restaurant pick -Watermark (8 out of 10)

On our last night in Phuket, Eve did the most streetwise thing by calling up our recep to enquire about transport to Watermark. As it turned out, this restaurant has been featured in Thailand Tatler from 2004 to 2008 without fail and I had printed out the menu for Eve before we went for the trip. Eve caught on and found out that the restaurant actually could send a complimentary shuttle to Banyan to drive us to the restaurant that was 20 minutes away.

The Watermark made our day and I think foodies will love the place. The place is located in a yacht marina and you can see yachts just docked next to your table. The ambience thus was splendid and the staff were very kind and professional.


We also loved the food there. You know when you are having quality food just by looking at the sauces that accompany the food and in typical French cuisine style (though the restaurant is fusion/Australian/Thai), the sauces played a large part in the dishes that came in. Eve and I ordered the following:

Starters
1. Goong Sarong 220 Baht (~ S$10)
- fresh prawn tails wrapped in crispy vermicelli noodles + honey-mustard sauce

2. Trio of Vietnamese Rice Noodle Rolls 180 Baht (~ S$8)
- rare tuna & seaweed - hot mustard dip; shrimp & green mango - asian cocktail dressing;
chinese aromatic duck - sweet chili blackbean sauce

Mains

1. Pan-Seared Pink Duck Breast Salad 265 baht (~ S$11)
with pomelo, rocket & avocado + orange dressing

2. Homemade Prime Beef Burger on Open Ciabatta Bun 275 baht (~$11)
with grilled cheddar & beetroot, relish + shoestring fries

The burger was a little salty, so I would recommend if you do try this dish, tell the chef to ease up on the salt. Apart from that the food was really nice and well-plated and innovative. The duck salad was good because the duck came in large chunks - good for a mains.

Overall thus, I would say, go to the Watermark if you're going to Phuket for the first day to at least try it. Then go to the Lotus the next day to get some down to earth food. After that, who knows, explore further the restaurants in Thailand Tatler or repeat the places as necessary :)

Food Blog Search

Its terrible, but I'm supposed to have posted a piece about our trip to Beijing but I've been procrastinating about it for the longest time. Probably becos the trip was a little of a disaster and I didn't take that many pictures.

Still, this post isn't about our Beijing trip. Its about this little gem of a search engine dedicated to searching recipes from food bloggers all over the world. Isn't it cool!

So, if you're now looking at my blog, you will noticed that there's this Food Blog Search icon and a search bar on the left panel, just below the little section about Louis and Eve's blog.

I came across the search bar while reading from Simply Recipes and Food Blog. The originator of Simply Recipes, as I know it, is one of the "founder" of this Food Blog Search and the function is able to search some 1,900 sites of food bloggers.

I've extracted an introduction about the Food Blog Search from their website below:

"Food blogs are a wonderful source of recipes, stories, and opinions about food. These blogs are the labors of love of countless people from around the world who are so passionate about what they cook and eat they spend hours photographing and writing about it. Food bloggers usually give much more information and personal touches to what they write about than commercial cooking or recipe sites. Search for a recipe among food blogs and you'll often be delighted by the hidden jewels you uncover.

Food Blog Search is a custom built search engine specifically for searching food blogs. It uses Google technology, through the Google Custom Search Engine program. Started in October 2006, Food Blog Search now searches over a thousand hand-selected, high quality food blogs. More and more food blogs are added to the list of sites searched every day."

Hope you will find it useful. Recently, I've gotten it in my mind to make baby back ribs and have used Food Blog Search to find me 2 recipes that I've shortlisted, one of which is from local boy, Chubby Hubby. Will make it sometime this week or next and hopefully get to blog about it.

Happy Searching!

Chocolate Macarons

If CP was to read this particular posting, he would have the last laugh. More than a year ago, way before I was expecting Faith, CP asked if I would like to go with him to attend a baking class on macarons. I clearly remembered telling him very confidently and somewhat haughtily that I wouldn't even think of it. I would rather just buy them and eat 'em, thank you very much. Part of the reason stemmed from the fact that I've heard that it was difficult and tedious to make macarons.

If you think about it, cooking itself can be tedious at times, what with the preparation work beforehand, chopping, dicing, seasoning, stewing, braising yaddah yaddah yaddah... and preparing all the mise-en-place just to cook something that is eaten within less than 15 minutes.

I couldn't imagine going through all the steps needed, although at that time I didn't know the exact process of macaron-making beyond what I've heard, just to produce macarons that were so small and delicate that you would finish them in 2 bites. To me, the act of eating macarons is an event and an enjoyment in itself that I wouldn't want to mar with the thought of hours spent making and baking them prior to eating these delectable morsels.

However, many many moons later, I've this urged to try to make macarons myself. Why? Mostly, I was curious to try and ascertain for myself just how tedious macarons making can be. Thanks to CC, who passed me the macaron recipe from a class that she attended together with CP (maybe this is what you call poetic justice? :)), I've got myself a very very detailed recipe to try my hand with.

The outcome of it? Well... as I was sieving the ground almonds and later, while mixing together the whipped egg whites and the ground almond mixture and much later on, the pipping of the macaron cookies, I kept mumbling to myself, cursing all the while, "I'm never gonna make these macarons myself again. I'd rather pay the price to eat macarons!".

Perhaps I didn't have the right tools to help aid me in making them. I was using a really miniscue sieve (the size one normally use to sieve tea leaves) to sieve the ground almonds. I was also using some cheap plastic bag to pipe the cookies out, without any piping tips.

The long and short of it was that through this process, I've come to appreciate why the per unit cost of one macaron can be so exorbitant, depending on where you bought it. Other than the whipping of the egg whites, which I've thankfully got my KitchenAid to deal with, the rest of the stuff, you've got to do it by hand. Piping even and round macaron cookies of similar size was yet another challenge which I wasn't able to successfully master on this first attempt. Hence, I had many varied and uneven ovals instead of round macaron cookies at the end.

By the time I was done with it, I realised belated that the macarons would taste better after sitting overnight in the fridge. Since I did them yesterday, it would be best if I eat them only today. In a somewhat eureka moment, I ingeniously told Louis that I especially made them for him as a gift for Valentine's Day. This is so that he would be guilt into helping me finish most of the batch of macarons, no matter how they tasted. Hee hee... Till now, my hubby still haven't have the faintest idea of his wife's little trickery ;)

Suffice it to say that one batch of my macarons turned out nicely with the frilly edges at the bottom (known as "feet"), that is supposed to be the hallmark of a good macaron. Unfortunately, they didn't quite acquire the nice dome, yet another hallmark of macarons. Nonetheless, they were still very edible and very sinful, on account that I've made chocolate macarons.

At this juncture, I doubt I would make many more batches of macarons, although I am determined to give macarons making another one or two more attempts so that I wouldn't repeat some of the same mistakes that I did this round. The other more important reason, being that I would like to be able to proudly say that I've baked a good and credible batch of macarons myself.

However, I think I would still continue to patronise and buy macarons in future for my own personal enjoyment. The reason for this is simple. When you bake a batch of macarons, you tend to only make one flavour. For me, the real thrill and fun of eating macarons is to select and try as many varied flavours and offerings that is available, without buying seconds (not to mention thirds of fourths) of any flavours. That's something that I simply cannot produce as a home-baker!

And since its Valentine's Day today, here's wishing that all of you had a good one.

Happy Valentine's Day, Darling!

Lo Hei

Its the time of the year for Lo Hei again with the approach of the Chinese New Year CNY). As early as the 2nd week of January, many food outlets have already been laying out pre-packed, ready-to-go Yusheng.

I remembered when I was younger and the adults would get all excited about the tossing of Yusheng or Lo Hei during the CNY period. Certainly, I wasn't as enthusiastic about eating it then as I am now.

These days, Lo Hei would invariably remind me of my deceased grandma. Yusheng was one of her favourite dishes. My side of the family isn't big on CNY traditions and dinners. But when my grandma was alive, I would remember eating dinner on the eve of CNY with her and how she would never fail to have us Lo Hei together, even though it was just her, my aunt and me :)

If given a choice, I would eat Yusheng everyday that its available during the CNY period. I think Louis must fear this period becos I would make him eat it with me for days in a row :) Still, I'm happy to proclaim that he initiated to order the first Yusheng for the year.

Last Fri, he was keen to go out for dinner but I reminded him that it was the last episode of Jumong, the Korean epic drama that we were all hooked on. Hence, we decided to order for home delivery by Sakae Sushi.

As far as Yusheng goes, this certainly wasn't the best. In fact, we thought it was only passable. We opted to drop out the salmon slices in it so that my mom can lo hei with us. And Faith was very excited too. She kept wanting to grab at the food and was creating a din when we restrained her. She was pacified when my mom held a pair of chopstick together with her and pretended to toss it.

We had our 2nd Yusheng on Sunday at the Thai Village Sharksfin Restaurant at Leisure Park. The countdown for now is 2 Yushengs even before CNY :)

Sam Leong's Cooking Class

Many would know that one of my great love in life would be cooking and nearly every and any thing related to it. To that end, I've bought, collected and accumulated so many things from cookbooks to kitchen equipments, cutlery's, nick-knacks, spices, condiments and blah blah blah. Each time, I've justified to myself, and my dear hubby, that many items that I bought or would want to acquire would serve a specific and special need towards the fulfillment of this great love of mine.

My kitchen cupboards are filled nearly to the brim, my bookshelves loaded with cookbooks and magazines and so is my entire fridge even though I've bought the biggest capacity fridge available in the market. I equate going for extravagant meals at times as an eye-opener and education of the taste buds towards the achievement of greater culinary aspirations for myself. And of course, as with any cooks, one of my greatest passion is to attend cooking classes, especially if said classes are taught by luminary or celebrity chefs. More specifically, Sam Leong, Director of Kitchens for the entire Tung Lok Group, was going to be teaching some CNY classes at Shermay's Cooking School. Of course I had to sign up!

These days, signing up for cooking classes require a little more logistics coordination than the mere reservation of a cooking class, even if some of these classes may have limited vacancies on account of the popularity of either the cuisine or chef. Yes, the main coordination would revolve around to help take care of Faith :)

Usually, Faith goes off to my MIL's place on weekend afternoons, while Louis and I would go about our errands. However, this Sat, my MIL had something on, so it was just going to be Faith and her daddy. But, I was worried if Louis would be able to cope on his own with her on account that he had to pay attention to a few things on hand too. He's got to coax her to take her afternoon nap, cook her porridge and pack them into a thermos for dinner, warm and feed her her afternoon milk, as well as change her diapers. Alright, alright. So, I'm an overly worried mom/wife. Still... :)

We discussed and agreed to radio for help the night before from my BIL and SIL for reinforcement. Thankfully, they were all too eager to pitch in, so my SIL came by around 3-ish pm to help out.

That logistical detail settled, I happily trotted off for my class early, in anticipation that the seats would fill up as many tend to turn up early. It was the first cooking class that I'm attending ever since I was pregnant and the smell of all food and cooking turned me off. Couldn't help being a little excited and eager to go for the class.

Lesson was supposed to start at 3.30 pm and by the time I reached the venue at 3.10 pm, the seats were already two-thirds filled. I saw Sam togged out most professionally in his chef outfit, along with not 1 or 2 assistants. No sirree! We're talking about celebrity and renowned chef, who came along with 3 assistants, all geared out in chef togs too. And they were set out with a portable mini kitchen in the school balcony, ready to whip out more than 40 sets of the 4 dishes that Sam Leong was teaching as food tasting for all the attendees. As Shermay herself puts it, its equivalent to a private dinning experience for all of us. Yahoo and double Yum!!

The four dishes that we were supposed to learn that day were:

1. Crispy Shrimp Ball with Cheese Filling and Coated with Bread Crumbs
2. Baked Cod Marinated with Soy Sauce and Sauteed Scrambled Egg White
3. Braised Abalone, Conpoy with Home-Made Spinach Tofu
4. Warm Home-Made Almond Cream with Superior Birds' Nest
   
   Note: Numbered picture of dishes correspond according with the above dish listing.

I absolutely love the crispy shrimp ball. Its the same filling that is used to as the base of most dim sum dishes (e.g. siew mai, haa-gao, fu-pi-juan etc). However, it does require deep-frying and I'm not that keen to deep-fry stuff at home on account of the grease in the kitchen after. So, perhaps I might use the base to make steam dim sums instead.

I'm fairly certain that everybody loves cod and I'm no exception. Needless to say, I love the baked cod too with the scrambled egg whites. Now this is a dish that I'm likely to want to replicate at home.

The third dish of braised abalone, conpoy and spinach tofu requires a fair amount of pre-preparation work, especially the abalone and conpoy. Louis has the knack of turning up at the class at the right timing becos the 3 assistants were in the midst of serving the dish to all the participants. Louis got to eat the spinach tofu and most of the entire piece of braise abalone before he left. Yes, you read it right! Each participant had an entire piece of braised abalone to himself/herself. I would think that if we were eating at a Tung Lok restaurant, that would easily cost about S$30-S$40 per head?

And in case you're wondering, it would be too much to expect that each participant would get an entire piece of bird's nest in our dessert serving. No doubt, the serving portion, generous as it was, was the serving size as what you would get at the restaurant. What we had was a dollop of bird's nest dropped into our almond cream dessert :)

Serving up bird's nest in this dish would certainly make anyone a revered and most popular dinner host. However, even if you skip the bird's nest, this dish would still be a soothing dessert with just the home-made almond cream and glutinous rice ball. Now this is one dessert that I can certainly make and would be appreciated by my vegetarian and fussy mom *wink*

It being the festive CNY period, Sam Leong was very very generous with the portions for the food tasting. It was like having a degustation serving portion of 4 dishes and by the time we were done, everyone was saying that they were too filled up to have dinner. And the class only cost S$139 nett. It probably would have cost us about that much if we ordered the same 4 dishes at a Tung Lok restaurant and we came away with the recipes and much of our burning and inane questions answered by THE man himself. I consider this a great bargain.

My one and only regret about this class was that I didn't take a picture with Sam as a momento. Alright alright! Louis and my SIL were reminding me to bring the camera and in fact urged me to take a picture with him. But I was too embarrassed to do it then and am having some small amount of regrets now. However, all is not lost. I've gotten Ching to help me purchase one of Sam's cookbook and have the great man himself autographed it. As for myself, I rushed off to meet up with my MIL, Louis and Faith to head for our annual pre-CNY dinner treat by my FIL's sister.

Certainly, I was so full at the end of the night becos its a good Teochew restaurant with a 8-course meal. Absolutely no regrets even if it means I've got to run more on the treadmill next week.

Opening of Blk 724 Ang Mo Kio Market & Food Centre

After more than 10 months, the wait is finally over. The much awaited opening of the market and food centre (FC) at Blk 724, Ang Mo Kio Central, has been soft launched since today, or rather, the food centre portion of it has been soft launched by some hardworking stall owners.

Since Tuesday, the barricades guarding the borders of the entire market/FC has been removed and we could see some contractors and stall owners busy renovating or trying to set up their stall operations in anticipating of its opening.

This morning, when my mom reached my place, she was telling me that a few of the hawker stalls have opened for business and there is a small crowd already eating and ordering from these newly opened stalls. Yippee! Thankfully, I had the foresight to tell my mom the night before not to buy me any lunch. Your truly is going to zip downstairs and join the little crowd to welcome back the previous hawkers for their 10 months of absence.

I guess everybody living around AMK Central must have had the same sentiment, cos it was more than just a little crowd that was gathered there. There were office workers, students and residents, all gathering and sitting down to enjoy the hawker fares.

Walking around all the stalls that were opening or in the midst of opening, I could see a number of our favourite stalls were thankfully in operation. There's the wontan noodles that Louis and I both like, congee, fried kway teow with cockles, mince meat and mushroom noodles, teochew fish porridge, Malay stall (great satays!), fried carrot cake (the white ones, not the black), western food, satay bee hoon, duck noodles/rice, yong tau foo, hot/cold dessert stalls, fried hokkien noodles. SLURP!

After much debating, I decided throw caution to the wind and have myself a plate of fried kway teow with cockles. Yummy! The fried kway teow was fried to the right degree of "wetness" with a generous serving of cockles. I was feeling only partially full after that and decided to indulge in yet another plate of sinful fried food. This time around, it was the fried carrot cake. Decide to pack that home to eat instead. But I could only finish half. Nevermind...Louis can finish the remainder tonight when he's back ;)

For dinner, Louis and I decided to head downstairs to eat while my mom fed Faith her porridge. I headed back to the Blk 729 FC for the 2nd time that day, while Louis has his first look around at all the stalls that have been set up. He settled for the satay bee hoon while I had my congee with dough fritters, to make up for my afternoon indulgence, although its hard to say it with a straight face that the congee is healthy on account of the fried fritter.

Am so glad that the FC is now open for business. Unfortunately, there are a few stalls that I haven't seen and am wondering if they had decided to relocate elsewhere on account of the 10-month long wait while the FC was being renovated. There used to be a vegetarian stall, which my mom said their red/brown rice porridge was nice. It would have been great if the vegetarian stall reopened so that there would be more variety for my mom. The other stall that I miss is the Indian stall, selling Indian rojak and mee goreng.

Well, there are still a few stalls that are still empty or whom, stall owners may seem to be taking their time to reopen. Let's hope the above 2 would be in that category of stall owners.

Macaron madness

Flavours from left to right:- hazelnut macaron with truffle cream & roasted hazelnut, green tea macaron with green tea cream, almond macaron with sesame cream, almond macaron with pistachio cream and brandied cherry, almond macaron with green lime cream and chestnut cream and candied chestnut.

I was all of 28 years old when I had my first taste of macarons. In fact, Louis and I have never even heard of them until we were in France and our Japanese neighbours brought a gift of macarons for dessert when we had them over for dinner.

I only knew that they mustn't be cheap, cos the nicely decorated box of macarons came with a little booklet with information about the Patisserie that made them. And that Patisserie, Frederic Cassel, was well-known among the Insead partners to be The Best pastry and sweet shop in the entire ville of Fontainebleau -- I think it could rival some of the better patisseries in Paris too. Its also the one that served champagne to its long queue of waiting customers who were lining all the way out of its store on the eve of Christmas and New Year, waiting to collect their orders of cakes for the festive season (dig that!).

Never underestimate the allure of macarons. You may snub your nose at these little button-like nibblets that seem to anything but innocent and unassuming. Yet, one bite into a well executed confectionery of meringue-like, chewy maracons will start you on your way to a lifelong addiction. You would be reaching your hands into the box and before you know it, all the macarons are gone.

I can't figure out exactly what makes them so enticing. Be it the slightly crisp crust of the macarons as you bite into it, or the chewy interior sandwiched between either a jam or cream centre, that is sometimes accompanied by a little nutty crunch (for the ones with cream centre). Altogether, they certainly make a bewitching combination. Personally, I prefer the cream centres to jams as I find the latter to be a tad too sweet for my taste.

The good macarons can be so delicious have you devouring a load of them before you realised that you've over consume your daily calories. And the mediocre or lousy ones are enough to turn you away with the tasteless and toothache-inducing cookies and bland cream centre that simply lacks the oomph. And I've had my taste of those even in France and in Singapore.

When we first return from Singapore from France, I was extremely excited to see a popular local-chain of cafe, well-known for its French cakes and pastries, offering macarons. However, my first bite into one turned me off and since then, I've never attempt to order them anymore even though I love their cakes and other dessert selections.

My favourite macarons in France is from Laduree. They have an outlet along Champs-Elysee and another on the 2nd floor of Printemps at Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissemont. I've never been to the one at Champs-Elysee but whenever I make a trip into Paris and if I head towards Boulevard Haussman for my favourite pastime -- which is to window shop and admire all the clothes at Galleries Lafayette and Printemps -- without a doubt, I would find my legs carrying me automatically towards the Laduree outlet. I would buy myself a precious box of 7 macarons and resist the urge to eat those delicious cookies even though I'm itching to do so the entire trip back to Fonty just so that I could share them with Louis at home.

A box of 7 macarons would cost around 8 euros (which costs around S$16). Hence, we considered buying and eating macarons from Laduree to be a real treat back then cos we were a poor student and spouse on a shoe-string budget. Oohhh... but the fun of choosing the 7 flavours from the myraid choices of macarons while the waitress looks on impatiently and with a little imperious air about her. You would be simply spoilt for choice becos other than the 11 staple flavours, they would have seasonal and other special/temporary creation available

After the disappointing order of macarons in Singapore, I had thought that the only opportunity that I would ever have of eating these delicious little cookies would be when we return to France. And then we went to Bangkok 3 times within a year in 2005/6. Amazingly, they had a Lenotre outlet (another chain of French pattiserie) located at the basement of Siam Paragon (I've heard there's another outlet at the new BKK airport but the items are a bit more expensive there). Guess what? We chanced upon a strip box of 5 macarons at 80 Baht (approx S$3.50). These were the cheapest macarons that I've found.

You can imagine too that we would stuff our face with it whenever we were in BKK and bring home more. We once bought back almost 20 boxes of these for souvenirs and gifts. Of course, I'm rather proud that I've managed to convert a few friends to become macaron lovers/addicts after they had their taste of it. I'm biased but these macarons weren't as good as the ones in Laduree and they only had 5 flavours (chocolate, coffee, vanilla, pistachio and strawberry). However, they were the best substitutes in Asia.

That was until we discovered something closer to home... Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie, under the Les Amis group. The macarons by Canele are good (although not as good as Laduree's, IMHO) and now, we could satisfy our macaron cravings anytime -- especially when Louis workplace is right smack where Canele is at Robertson Walk. Best of all, they have a caramel sel flavour which is my absolute favourite when it comes to macarons :)

On Monday, I was reading Chubby Hubby* when he wrote about the Macaron Festival at Canele for the month of October where they were featuring 6 "exotic" flavours of the moment. Certainly we had to try these new flavours! So, I told Louis to go buy them the next day.

A word of caution... I feel that they are a little exorbitant though! The usual macarons costs about $1.80/pc and Louis simply told the girl over the counter that he wanted the macarons on promotion for Oct and headed to pay for it at the counter. He (and I upon hearing it) had a rude shock! It cost S$22 for a box, albeit it was a nicely packaged one.

For such a pricey item, you bet the both of us are savouring every single bite of the macarons. In fact, we had a taste of the sesame and the almond with pistachio cream and brandied cherry. We both prefer the sesame. Tomorrow night, we will try another 2 flavours, and Friday, the last 2. We'll give our verdict then.

I'm now wondering if I should go learn to make my own macarons. In fact, Shermay's Cooking School has been offering classes by Jocelyn Shu (of Kuidaore) which are always full the minute they broadcast it online. CP has recently gone for a class. He once asked me before if I would like to go for a class together with him. At that time, I snubbed him and snobbishly told him that it would be too much of a hassle to make my own macarons. I would rather buy them off the shelf and enjoy them. Now, I'm eating humble pie and begging him to come to my house to make a batch and show me how to do it ;) It just goes to show you never say never. Kekeke....

*Note: Chubby Hubby also wrote that the best macarons in Paris were from Pierre Herme. I've never tried them but you bet I'm going to the next time I am in Paris.