Conehead

Custard, my one year old dog, got neutered on Valentine's Day and has since had to wear a cone to prevent him from licking and potentially infecting his wound. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about being left at the vet and I had to trick him to go into the consultation room, but he recovered quickly from this operation, much to my relief, and by the following morning, had returned to all his mischevious ways.

After a puzzled evening when he was still dopey and bumping everything because of his new dress, he has discovered how to do virtually all his usual tricks, upsetting the dustbin in the kitchen, sticking his nose out the gate at the hole just when one is about to stick in one's hand to open the gate, and generally figuring out how to eat and drink with his Elizabethean collar on.

My very macho little nephew, all of 7 years old, laughed and called him a girl dog for wearing a girl collar so they got a little education in Elizabethean male and female fashion.

I'll remove the collar on Friday morning assuming there's no further problem and no sign of infection. I figure a week is enough for things to have stabilised.

To Friendship

I have a very dear friend, who sends me flowers each valentine's day and I, her...it's a girls' tradition for us and while we have been physically separated much of our lives by entire continents and oceans, she of all my friends, is the one who understands me best, with whom I have carried on an unending correspondance and with whom I can always pick up as if there's been no gap whenever we see each other again. So to my beloved friend, thank you very much once again for a bunch of flowers that so aptly celebrates our friendship.

Here's to friendship.

Coconut & Lemongrass Ice Cream

Our domestic helper is a whizz in the kitchen. This weekend she decided to turn her hand to ice cream and after she figured out (from me) that the recipe's mention of an ice cream maker was unnecessary (as I told her the word "alternatively" meant she could still use the manual method), she turned out an intensely flavoured ice cream redolent of my childhood. The lemongrass gave it both a nice tanginess as well as a lemony aroma which was not too sharp and citrusy. I could taste the coconut but what surprised me was that the end taste was actually reminiscent of condensed milk: another childhood comfort flavour. It must be all that sugar and cream and maybe she used brown sugar or gula melaka?

The texture, for those who like their ice cream to be creamy and smooth, is not that great because it does need stirring every hour for the first 2-3 hours. Otherwise ice crystals form within. However my mother who grew up with homemade ice cream actually much prefers this nostalgic, icy, flaky texture so I guess in our home, that's the way it will continue to be made. However for those who didn't grow up in that era, but instead on the rich creaminess of American superfatted ice creams, you'll need a ice cream maker or be particularly diligent about repeatedly whipping it into shape.