Little Family's Little Holiday

There's a lot of firsts in our parenting experience with our first kid. I guess that is only natural. Thankfully, we survived our first holiday all on our own and enjoyed ourselves at the same time too.

What we learnt was that Faith loves to travel. We think she's got the travel bug in her. Either that or she thinks the entire holiday is one big long outing with her 2 favourite people. Faith was a great and well-behaved baby on the trip -- doling out smiles rather generously at all the staff at the resort, tourists and strangers alike.
Going on a 3D2N trip is akin to planning for a similar length event for a "VIP" -- there's a lot of coordination that we needed to do to ensure that this little "VIP's" routine would be able to fit into all the travel logistics. And becos she's now on 2 meals of solids a day, we had to chug along the slow cooker, a thermos, chopping board, knife, vegetable peeler, blender, dishwashing liquids, yaddah yaddah yaddah, along for the trip.

Being the anal mom that I am, I absolutely refuted all suggestions of bringing jars of baby food. No siree! If I can cook all my food from scratch for family and friends, I most definitely am not going to subject my baby to commercial baby food. Even if that means I'm lugging part of my kitchen along for a short trip.

Of course, this being Faith's very first trip, we wanted to capture all memories of it as future evidence to our little one that we did bring her out somewhere. This also meant that my fingers were pretty much trigger-happy and we were not the least abashed at clicking our camera away throughout the trip. The good thing was that Faith seemed to be in baby heaven. As a result, many of her pictures had her smiling her toothy grin gamely.

Our aim for this trip was to relax as much as possible and enjoy food from the 3 restaurants within the resort. On our last trip to Bintan , we discovered that all 3 restaurants served very good food. Now that we have a baby in tow, we decided against travelling out to any of the neighbouring resorts or the Kelong but just dine in.

However, we later realised that our choice of restaurants whittled down from 3 to 2 as Saffron, their signature Thai fusion restaurant do not allow babies. Oh well... :)

After settling into our villa, we headed to the all-day dining restaurant, Tree Top, for our tea. The bread they served while we waited for our appetiser was great, especially when you slather French butter liberally on it -- or at least I did. And they served us both a little "amuse bouche" of grilled beef skewer too even though we only ordered an Indonesian appetiser sampler to share between the two of us. I think its true that we eat with our eyes too cos all the stunning display of dishes with adornments certainly make the food that we ate tastier.

Thereafter, we headed back to our villa where we changed Faith into her swimming costume and let her have a dip in the jacuzzi. I'm not sure if she knows the difference between the jacuzzi and her bathtub at home cos she was just too engrossed in chewing her little rubber ducky the entire time ;) We didn't really have that much time left after the jacuzzi dip. It was nap time for Faith, fed her her dinner, had ours and then back to the villa to rest for the night.

And so ended our first day. We wanted to keep the pace of the entire break relax and restful. On account that we are now parents of a baby, there has to be some responsibilities involved. Thus, R&R time for the entire trip pretty much revolved around Faith's routine of sleeping, eating, napping, playing and pooping ;) We kept her on Singapore time even though Indonesia is one hour behind Singapore and it worked out advantageously for all of us.

Day 2 of the trip was what I most looked forward to. A MASSAGE! After nearly 1 1/2 years where I couldn't have any while pregnant and had to wait another 4-6 months post-delivery becos of the C-section, I finally got a full body massage! It was heavenly! After Louis and I took turns having our massage, we brought Faith out to the beach for a walk and a dip in the pool. All too soon, it was her nap time, dinner time and then off to bed for all of us.

Day 3 of the trip was a short and uneventful one on account that it was the last day of our stay and our ferry back home was in the early afternoon. Thankfully, my MIL was there to pick us up from the ferry terminal. So, we didn’t have to lug baggage, strollers and barang-barang, along with Faith into the cab.

My mom, anxious about her grand-daughter’s first overseas trip called on Sunday to ask how her little one was doing. And I think she missed Faith too cos she repeated ask if we needed her to come over when we return. So, we told her to come on over and it was a good thing too. Cos even though it was meant to be a relaxing trip, all of us were tired out after the trip. Its really great and fortunate that we have both our families on hand and nearby to help out.

That night, it was early to bed for all of us :)

Happy Birthday, Nicole!

Its my niece, Nicole's 7th birthday today.

My mom, who had been looking after her since she was around 1 1/2 yrs old until late last year, asked if I could bake her some blueberry muffins. Of course!

So, here they are, all packed up in a box, which my mom would be bringing to her this evening. Especially for the birthday girl, there's more than the recommended portion of blueberries called for in the recipe.

Happy Birthday, little Rabbit Princess :)

Korean Noodle Salad (Salad-Guksu)

Louis and I are still hooked onto our Korean dramas via cable Channel 55. Right now, we are catching Jumong, Prince of the Legend and The Song of Prince every weekday nights. Unfortunately for Louis, his Korean drama addiction is causing him to sleep much later cos The Song of Prince is airing at 11.40 pm to 12.40 pm, Mondays to Fridays.

Seeing that I have bid farewell to my cupcakes baking, I thought I should dedicate something to Korean food to match our addition. Korean cuisine is one which I only discovered when I was in France. A Korean friend of ours once organised a class get-together at a Korean restaurant, Woo Jung, in Paris. Woo Jung is located in the 16th arrondissement (Metro: Passy), very near to the Eiffel Tower. In fact, you can see the tower while standing on the sidewalk of the restaurant. We tried to return to the restaurant again last year when we were in Paris. Alas... it was closed and the staff were on vacation. Sigh...

Prior to that, my knowledge of Korean food was limited to what was sold in our local food courts. Quite frankly speaking, most weren't authentic and the repertoire were limited to different types of stir-fry hot plates such as Bulgogi. In Woo-Jung, I was exposed to the many different side dishes, many of which were deliciously prepared and were quickly gobbled up. And it was where I tasted my first tureen of Soondubu Chigae, a kind of spicy soft bean curd stew, that started me on my obsession on my return to Singapore to find chigae with exactly the same taste as those served in Woo Jung.

And I slowly learnt that there are many other Korean dishes that I was totally ignorant of, but once my eyes were opened to this "new" cuisine, I quickly lapped them all up. I especially love the bean sprout salad (kong-na-mul-mu-chim), seasoned spinach (si-geum-chi-mu-chim), stuff cucumber kimchi (o-e-so-bae-gi), sweet potato noodles (jab-chae), braised short ribs (gal-bi-jjim), spring onion and seafood pancake (pa-jeon) and a whole lot more. Most often than not, I just love the little side dishes that are served at the table and can never get enough of them.

So, I started perusing my Korean cookbook by Lee MinJung, as I watched my Korean dramas every night, pondering and deciding which of the dishes shall I attempt next. Since I had lots of soba on hand in the fridge and the list of other ingredients and condiments were easily found in the compartments of my fridge and kitchen, I decided to make Salad Guksu, a cold noodle dish mixed with vegetables in a spicy sweet sauce.

The recipe called for soba noodles but I had some spare cha soba, so I used that instead. For the vinegar, I used Japanese Mizkan grain flavoured distilled vinegar, but you can use any white vinegar The recipe for the salad noodles is as follows:

Salad Guksu
Adapted from Feast of Flavours from the Korean Kitchen by Lee MinJung

Ingredients
2 bundles Cha soba or soba noodles
5 leaves lettuce, julienned
1 medium cucumber, julienned
1/2 carrot, julienned
4 sticks crab stick, shredded

Sauce
3 tbsp light soya sauce
3 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 tsp wasabi
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp sesame oil

Method
1. Combine the ingredients for sauce and blend well. Refrigerate.

2. Blanch noodles in boiling water until al dente, then wash under cold running water. Drain well.

3. Remove the smashed garlic from the sauce. Mix noodles with chilled sauce and some vegetables and crab stick.

4. Garnish with remaining vegetables and crab stick and serve.

I find that if you put the noodles back in the fridge and let it sit for a while, the noodles will absorb the flavour of the sauce better. I like that the sauce is a little sweet and spicy, interspersed with the flavour of sesame oil, giving it an uplifting fragrance. Perhaps the next time when I make it, I would add some sesame seeds into the mixture to give a slightly crunch.

The uglist cupcakes ever

Cupcakes and I just don't cut it. And I think I've baked my second and very last batch of cupcakes. Ever.

Last week, I baked the first batch of cupcakes based on a recipe from a renowned local culinary school that a friend gave me. It was absolutely disastrous! The instructions warned to be careful when mixing the liquid butter into the batter to ensure it emulsifies properly or you would see the butter melting out of the cupcakes while in the oven, creating a dodgy cake texture. Guess what? I didn't beat the butter in properly and it wasn't emulsified. True enough, I could see the butter leaking out from the cupcake cups while in the oven.

I wanted to throw the entire batch into the rubbish chute but my mom insisted on bringing half of them back home for my dad. According to her, he devoured them all and loved it. I was flabbergasted. The remaining half of course ended up in the dustbin cos Louis wasn't too keen on it and I felt it tasted like rancid oil. Urrgghhh!!!

After the failed session, I "researched" on the Internet, ploughing through a number of cupcake recipes from cooks/chefs that I admire and finally settled on a mascarpone cupcakes with strawberry glaze recipe by Giada de Laurentiis, a Le Cordon Bleu trained Italian-American chef who has a smashing figure and great face to go along with the smarts.

This time around, the sponge itself turned out great. It was light and fluffy, helped by the use of mascarpone cheese. My only grouse was that the recipe used an instant cake mix -- making it fail-proof -- which coming from Giada, I was a teeny-weeny bit disappointed cos it feels like I'm cheating. The glaze or icing was a totally separate issue.

I decided to use lesser icing sugar so that it wouldn't be too sweet. Of course, I didn't realise until later that the portion of icing sugar used makes a different to the thickness of the glaze and how quickly it would dry up. Hence, when I coated the first few cupcakes, it was all runny and the glaze was dripping down the sides of the cupcakes onto the kitchen counter top. So, I added more icing to make it up to the original amount stated in the recipe but still, it was a bit runny.

Which leads me to my conclusion and the first two sentences of this post. I've baked my last cupcakes and I doubt I will ever bake another again. Why, you may ask. The third time might be the magic. But I highly doubt it. The problem lies not with the recipes or even how practice makes perfect. The problem lies with me.

You see, I always feel that when you cook or bake something, you have to have passion and a healthy dose of respect or even awe for what you're doing. Unfortunately, I've neither that much passion, liking nor respect for cupcakes. Perhaps, that's why my 2 batches of cupcakes went south :)

Don't get me wrong. I totally respect the skills and creativity of the many people who have baked and decorated beautiful and dainty cupcakes. I think its an art. Just one that's not for me.

I don't really like to eat cupcakes. To be fair, I haven't eaten that many cupcakes but from accounts by a few friends, cupcakes are more aesthetically pleasing then pleasure to the 5 senses. Plus, there's no audience for my cupcakes. Louis isn't too keen on them. And I think the "demand" from the rest of the extended family for cupcakes is lacklustre at best. Furthermore, I only want to bake cupcakes, not eat them myself.

Maybe its the green-eye monster in me that's oozing everything sour at my two failed attempts while seeing others happily baking their nth batches of cupcakes. Damaged pride aside, I think I should focus any remnant energy from being a mother to something that yields a much higher ROI. If cupcakes ain't it, there's a whole universe of other desserts, pastries and different cuisine for me to experiment.

So, au revoir cupcakes and hello to everything else ;)

"Marblelous" Gift

After more than a year of staying in our home, Louis and I still love it very much. Coming home after a few hours away or after work is always pleasurable and restful. Its definitely more than a house. Its our home. Filled with creature comforts, knick-knacks and memories that we like and love. And I think Faith feels the same way too. Whenever we are out after a day and when we bring her home, we'll put her in her cot and turn on the mobile at her bed. And she would have a delighted smile, at times, kicking her hands and feet in excitement and pure pleasure.

Louis and I took nearly half a year of intense house hunting before we finally found this unit that we loved at first sight. Everything felt right about our house. Naturally, the kitchen takes pride of place in the entire house and its where I love to potter, cook and bake. The wall between our kitchen and living/dinning room is separately by glass halfway from the waist up to the ceiling. While I'm in the kitchen doing my baking or preparing Faith's food, I could always see what she's up to in the living room.

Really, there's nothing that I don't like in the house, although I sometimes daydream that if we have another house and/or a bigger renovation budget, I would like to have a marble kitchen counter top. We currently have a gray with white speckles solid surface that looks pleasing and serves its purpose. Except that when I want to roll out rich doughs (doughs enriched with more butter), its a little of a challenge given our humid and hot weather.

I used to bake and make a lot of apple galettes, a type of open, crispy and crusty apple tart, when I was in France. When I returned and tried making them in my kitchen, the toughest challenge is always rolling out the dough. Just out from the fridge, it would be too cold and hard to roll. After a few minutes of rolling, the dough goes from softer and pliable to become wet and sticky, that no amount of flouring would help. And I would end up having a holey dough at the end as I try to transfer the dough from the counter top to the tart tray.

A marble counter top would be useful as it is cool and would hopefully make it easier to roll the dough without it getting wet and sticky too quickly. I've read that in some professional kitchens when they do a lot of rich doughs (e.g. those for croissants), their steel counter tops would be fitted to have cold water running underneath it so that counter top remains cool. That makes it easier to handle the doughs. I'm not a Michelin-starred chef nor am I'm running a professional home-kitchen myself. Which is why I am perfectly happy with just a marble kitchen counter top ;)

My friend, Ching has been renovating her new house and has generously given me a rectangle slab of marble cut out from her bathroom sink. Actually, she was so generous that she gave me the bigger of the 2 marble slabs she had. Plus, she had her contractor chamfered the marble slabs so that there wouldn't be any rough edges.

So, while I do not have a marble counter top, I have the next best thing now... a nice slab of marble (very heavy though). I think I shall make me (and her, of course) a nice apple galette with it very soon ;)

Thanks much, Ching :)

1 + 1 = 2

No... I'm not out to prove any mathematical equation or show my mathematical prowess (as if such simple addition would make me a Math Olympiad!). Just that Faith has "sprouted" her 2nd tooth, right next to the first one that came up a few days ago.

For a while, I had been feeling her gum with my finger to check if the other would break out when I realised she had one coming out. But I couldn't feel anything until this morning, as I was admiring and checking on her first tooth that I saw another whitish spot to the right of it.

Ahhh... now she has two and I'm secretly glad (not so secret anymore with this post) cos I think she would look cuter with 2 teeth rather than 1. Altogether now, let's chant: "1 tooth good, 2 teeth better! 1 tooth good, 2 teeth better" (to the rhythm of Animal Farm's "2 legs good, 4 legs better") ;)

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.