Baking Brownies, Um, I mean Chocolate Cake

I make brownies every now and again. It's the recipe from the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. It is my favourite recipe because it is simple and produces excellent results with very little effort. The only problem I have with it is that I lack nerve and therefore I fail every once in a while to pull the tray out of the oven in time (in my oven that usually means 20 minutes) when I use the usual (6" by 9") heavy pan I have.

If everything goes as planned in the preparation, and I do remember to keep an eye on the clock then I usually manage to steel myself and turn the oven off on time so that I get the brownies I prefer: slightly fudgy and extremely chocolate-ly (thanks in no small measure to substituting Van Houten's cocoa powder for cooking chocolate mixed into the flour. Van Houten's cocoa also happens to be remarkably cost-effective and I have yet to taste better results from any other chocolate or cocoa).

For anyone who has never baked brownies, but has tried baking cakes, the reason why this is unnerving is that brownies are best taken out when still not quite cooked which means the skewer test does not work unlike with cakes. It seems as if one is not fully cooking the batter and one will end up with partially cooked batter instead of squidgy brownies. Usually I manage to resist the pressure to leave it in longer and get my preferred result.

However, this time, I lost my nerve again because instead of consulting the recipe and going by the book, I decided to wing it and see I could remember the recipe. I did. I managed to remember all the ingredients and weighed them all out accurately. I managed to remember that half a cup of butter meant 4 ounces of butter duly melted in the microwave. And so on. The only thing I did different was the sequence in which I usually put in the ingredients. I reversed the usual sequence of mixing in the cocoa-flour mixture and the melted butter. The result: the batter ended up looking and tasting remarkably like chocolate butter cream. It usually looks a lot darker and has a stiffer consistency.

So instead of baking it for the usual 20 minutes at 180 C, I ended up leaving it in for 25 minutes and turned off the over and left it in for another 10 minutes. To those of you who are wondering how on earth I managed to make the logical leap to conclude that baking it longer will cure the batter of this error, I can only say, I thought that since it was more creamy than it was supposed to be, I should bake it longer as it would be impossibly smudgy otherwise.

The result: chocolate cake. It doesn't taste bad at all. It's a decent chocolate cake. But it is not a pan of brownies. I shall now have to rescue it by mashing raspberries and serving that along side the cake to make up for that. That of course is simply an excuse for eating up the glorious tangy raspberries with chocolate, one of my favourite ways of eating chocolate.

An Ode to the Christmas Crib

My attempt at reviving my poetry writing exercises for practice. A Pindaric Ode anyone?

A mother young, a mother poor

Rushing round with husband dear.

For contractions came too soon for home

The star - kissed night draws clear.

Poor husband's fraught and strained

And then at last, a crack of hope

A manger, straw, ox. Now we can cope.

Cash registers ring. The date draws near.

Shoppers pile up gifts for kith and kin dear.

The turkey roasted fat. The drinks foam.

All it seems is cheer. Trees glitter, children roam.

Excess rules the day. The side show becomes the main

Event. We all join in the refrain

Of winter wonderland while places we "chope"

In the Christmas show down Orchard Road.

Has the child been forgotten in the fear

Of being alone? And Silent Night turned rowdy cheer?

And why are there, in tropical heat, foam

flecked reindeer frozen outside a mall on a dome?

Even for those who choose to drain

Belief from their lives, still acclaim

Christmas. The hope that fights the nope

Of modernist thought. And for that magic they grope.

Note: "chope" means to reserve. Translated from the Singlish to English. Orchard Road is the glittering main shopping street in Singapore.

Pack Leader

I have been fascinatedly reading a book by Cesar Millan on dog training. Being the proud and happy owner of two dogs, I have belatedly recognised I have been baby-ing my dogs when what they need is a pack leader. I was transferring my emotional needs to them and it was not bringing out the best in either myself or them. It is not that I did not realise that I should be alpha dog, but that I never realised how far I had to go and what exactly I needed to do to maintain my status as alpha dog. And most of all, that I had to let them be dogs. And that I had to be me, but clearly in charge.

I have tried training a previous dog formally before in an obedience course, but I suspect some trainers do not actually know much more than I do. At one point, the trainer took it upon himself to demonstrate how I *should* be doing it. I saw my dog yanked so hard on a choke chain he literally spun around in mid air, and the trainer who did that, did not even realise this had happened as he had made a U turn and the dog had continued to walk in the other direction. Fortunately the dog wasn't hurt but I dropped out of the course immediately simply to save my dog from further mishaps. I decided that although I may not be a so-called expert, I had probably do better trying to discipline my dogs myself at home.

But as I devoured this book by Cesar, I realised that through the marketing hype, he was actually a keen observer of not just the dogs but the human owners and the bond that exists between dogs and human beings. And it was this that really persuaded me to try it out.

So this morning, I took his advice, ensured my dogs were calm with their leashes on before I opened the gate to take them walking. And that I exited first and that they ran behind me. And I have to say, it worked like a charm. They simply accepted it, much to my astonishment.

So I'm going to keep trying new ways of working with my dogs, to test this method and see if it continues to work or if I just got lucky this morning.

A Sketch for a Smile

I was looking around for an empty table laden with my tray of lei cha fan (Thunder Tea Rice, a Hakka dish of rice with vegetables, anchovies, tofu, peanuts and a green tea mix of spices and herbs), and the middle aged Chinese man (whom I think was in his early 50s) seated at the table nearest to the stall, said cheerily to me, you can sit if you want. It was in Suntec City so the people were all largely office workers or people attending the conventions nearby.

His accent was not local. It didn't sound mainland Chinese either although I could be wrong, so he was either more cosmopolitan than I thought or someone from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China who had spent some time in the US and learned his English from US teachers as the accent had just that hint of the American.

Now, if you've lived in Singapore for any length of time, you'll realise that Singaporeans are not given to showing much cheery politeness to passing strangers. They're a kind hearted lot, but rather gruff. So I was surprised and of course accepted. It would have been terribly rude not to under the circumstances.

I sat there, wolfing down my lei cha fan, but politely trying not to meet his eye which meant I had to keep my eyes lowered since he was directly across me. I'm not the sort who's much into small talk and while he seemed nice enough, I didn't feel I should oblige him to making conversation when he'd already been so kind as to offer me a seat at his table in a semi-crowded food court.

As I was halfway through, I finally looked up and he and I made some conversation about the food we were eating since we had both chosen the same dish from the same stall. Then he reached into his black bag on the table next to his empty bowl, and he took out a piece of rough paper, (obviously recycled from a printer with one side printed and two holes punched in the side) and a black felt tipped pen. He proceeded to start sketching.

I could not at first tell whom he was sketching and asked if he was an artist. It turned out he was an engineer, apparently a mechanical and structural one (presumably he meant just mechanical). He said he was sketching the girl behind as she looked sad and he wanted to make her smile.

I glanced behind me, while trying to make it look casual, and yes, there was a young woman seated behind, Chinese Singaporean no doubt with long hair and dark rimmed glasses and pale skin. She looked serious and intent on her food.

He said he would give her the sketch when he was done and it would make her happy. She was so sad, according to him. As she was finishing, he hurried his sketch and in the meantime, while his pen was flying across the paper, he said that I should give it to her since then not just he and the girl would be happy but I would too. I was intrigued and amused. The thought did cross my mind that he might be trying to pick her up but as it was a fairly imaginative way of getting a girl's attention, and he did not seem pushy, I agreed. I became his wingman, in a sense.

I took his sketch, got up and sat in the chair across from her and put the sketch on the table in front of her, saying, this is for you. It's a portrait of you. I waited a short while for that to sink in and as she took up the piece of paper, said with a wave in the direction of the artist, and here is the man who drew it for you. He said he wanted to make you happy as you looked sad so he drew this for you.

She was surprised at first and took the paper up and took a closer look. At first she said, it doesn't look like me, which was somewhat discouraging for the hapless artist, but after staring at it for a few more minutes, a shy smile spread across her face and she looked up to the artist and asked if she could keep it. Naturally he said she could. And to those who were wondering, at no point did he try and give or ask for either of our contact numbers or elicit any personal information, so I think he really was doing it out of a desire to make us smile and nothing more.

I have to say he was right, he made three people happy. It kinda lit up my day and I'm sure it did hers too. It set me at ease and maybe that's why he did it. A gesture of grace and artistry stretched across an ordinary day and suddenly it was filled with light and laughter again. From the kindness of a stranger with whom I had the luck to share a table.

The Gift of Thanksgiving

I'm immensely grateful for the gift of life both for my own life and the lives of my loved ones. They bring so much joy into my life so willingly it takes my breath away when I bother to think about it, which I have to confess, is not all that often.

Yet somehow, this Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent this year, I was moved to reflect about the gift of thanksgiving. I have so much, when I bother to think about it, I realise how ungrateful I am most of the time. Instead I focus on the things I do not yet have and this has an effect on me of being more grasping, more task oriented. When I try a little harder to be grateful though, all that melts away, and my soul somehow softens, and it is easier to see all the good things I have already been given and also to look beyond my own immediate desires and wants to the wider world beyond. It is the start of contentment.

And it is also the start of a period of reflection for me, as a preparation for the celebration of Christ-mas, the celebration of the Christ-child, made man: Emmanuel.

Who could have imagined such a gift.

We get, not what we ask for, but our God, in his generosity, gives all of mankind, far more than we ever dreamed of. And this is for ALL mankind, not just Christians. And this little child, soaring beyond the stars, beyond anything we dared hoped for, this is what we celebrate at Christmas.

Nidan to Yondan Aikido Grading

Aikido gradings are tense affairs for those who are grading but happy affairs for those who are watching. It is a spectacle of technique and nerve, more the former than the latter since most are more than ready to meet the grade. The last grading at my dojo was no exception but this one brought its own surprise. Two very senior women, both of whom have been practising for 15 years and showed up to watch and take ukemi, were called up to the testers' table and asked to grade on the spot.

Needless to say they did extremely well and were duly double-promoted from nidan to yondan, an extremely rare event and certainly the only one I've ever seen or heard of. Being double promoted is rare enough at junior grades but at this level, skipping sandan is virtually unheard of. However as these two women number among the best aikidoka in our dojo, I'm not surprised. After all, one's skill at an art is always obvious rather like how a good cook is recognised simply through the eating of his/her food. It's hardly necessary to grade to achieve recognition.

It amused me to watch one of the women deal with one of the men who volunteered to ukemi for her. He got a light backslap in the face for his efforts as he failed to anticipate her atemi (strike) as she was turning back and has a tendency to resist which in this case, is simply asking for trouble. But that of course simply displayed her mastery all the more since she being a petite under 5 foot woman could easily take down this guy who towers more than a foot above her.

Skill in this case trumps being thick.

Caving in Halong Bay

Photos courtesy of Taking5. All rights reserved.
Ever been in a karst cave before? This is what it's like in one of the larger caves in Halong Bay, Vietnam. As it's part of the Unesco Heritage Site area, the cave has been lit with a few bright lights within all the better to see with. However if you're unsteady on your feet or claustrophobic, don't. It's a steep climb up stairs often without a handrail and the cave can be a little moist on the ground. So wear decent shoes and go slow.

I've seen karst landscapes before in Kedah, Malaysia so none of this was a surprise to me although it has to be said this was the largest limestone cave I've been in yet. I also saw temperate climate limestone scenery in England but there, they have a whole activity called caving in which one has to don special suits etc and it is a much more adventurous sport than the casual tourist walk in Halong Bay.

The best bit was coming out of the cave and seeing the large stone legs overhanging as if someone up there was enjoying the vista across Halong Bay too.

Sailing Away down Halong Bay

Photos courtesy of Taking5. All Rights Reserved.

Halong Bay turned out to be every bit as scenic as I imagined. The junk was Chinese style complete with sails which stayed furled throughout. What was a surprise was the food turned out to taste almost exactly like home cooked healthy Chinese food with the exception of having simple salads and the odd habit of serving white rice only towards the end of the meal.

And the second surprise was the party-ing that went on at night. In the quiet of Halong bay surrounded by mystical karstic landscape, the night was punctuated with loud karaoke singing of hits from 70s all the way to 90s. Each junk had its own particular brand of music blasting through the dark wooden walls and airconditioning so that it was possible to hear each boat's merry making from quite a distance.


There was even an intrepid few who were swimming from junk to junk, asking to be allowed on board just for the thrill of jumping off the second level and diving into the cool waters in the evening. It was certainly a memorable trip from the peaceful cruise amid limestone scenery to the amusements on board of a very mixed bunch of guests from Europe, America and Asia.

More anon.

Julia and Julie : labours of love

I'd read Julia Child's "My Life in France" and loved it enough to read it again. So when the movie came out, I promptly went out with a couple of friends and we sat, laughing our way through it. It's a great story of how Julia Child found her vocation late in life. She married late (especially for those days) and her marriage was evidently a very happy one which lasted the rest of her husband's natural life (and he died at 92). And in the course of following her cultural attache husband around Europe, she discovered she loved both food and cooking in France. It was the beginning of what would be a long labour of love, her master cookbook on French cooking with her good friends and co-writers, Simca and Louise. It was also one which fit well into her married life and the one supported the other and eventually her hobby grew to the extent her fame as a celebrity teaching chef became their joint means of earning a living after he retired from service with the US government.

Julie turns out to be a modern day blogger who cooks her way through Julia Child's masterpiece of a cookbook, all 500+ recipes of it in the space of a year and blogs about it under a blog called the Julie/Julia Project. Young, married and living in Queen's borough, New York, she finds Julia Child to be her saving grace from a tedius job and a cramped apartment. The movie, one rather suspects, is kinder about her than her blog is but as I've yet to spend much time reading her blog or her book, I'll reserve judgement on that.

As a movie, it was thoroughly enjoyable and bits of it are certainly memorable. Meryl Streep steals the show as usual and she gets Julia Child's voice pat down. I find that it's not that well sewn together in terms of how the two stories are intertwined. It's done simply enough with long takes of each story leaving you wondering sometimes what's happening on the other end. The cakes Julie bakes don't quite look French, and resemble the hasty American slap-together ones far more but other than that anomaly, the scenes of Julie battling with the lobster and duck are quite amusing.

I tend to think that the Julia Child story deserves a movie by itself but then I am generally fascinated by stories of how people learn to cook seriously and how they study the art of cooking and make their own discoveries in it. I also noticed in the nearby Harris bookstore near the movie theatre I went to, while they stocked the Julia Child, "My life in Paris" and the Julie Powell, "Julie and Julia: My year of cooking dangerously", Larousse Gastronomique, they only stocked a highly shortened version of Julia Child's masterpiece, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." So, is it that Julia Child's masterpiece has not stood the test of time and the editors were right, that there would be no demand for her demanding cookbook? I hope they're wrong.

So here's to good cooking and good eating!

Bon Appetit!

Swimming Beauty

Swimming Beauty
All Rights Reserved

Sadly it wasn't quite the right time to go swimming in Hanoi in spite of the very inviting pool in the Somerset Westlake Serviced Apartment we stayed at. But any excuse to buy this bag will do and I was delighted not just with the gorgeous girl embroidered so delicately but that they had put in a waterproof lining and the zip was a hidden one. This little shop of embroidered treasures where I discovered this, is called Tan My Embroidery

Naturally after being enchanted with that bag, I rifled greedily through their carefully laid out selection of bags and selected a few others as gifts for people I knew back home. I have to say what I liked was the marriage of a 700 year old traditional craft in Vietnam to comtemporary designs and objects which can be used. Useful art or design is a whole lot easier to buy than something which simply hangs on one's wall, although that certainly has its place too and the embroidered art pieces were certainly stunning.

I'd say this shop isn't cheap. I guess the picture of Laura Bush shaking the hand of the proprietor should have given me a clue as to why all the items were priced in USD so don't expect a bargin. However, they do deliver high quality contemporary embroidery that can be put to good use whether it's duvets, bedsheets, pillow cases, a blouse or two, or a shoebag.

Blue Trees

After the initial din in the streets of Hanoi, slipping into an art gallery or two, was soothing to the senses. I entered a world with long empty spaces and up narrow staircases, I discovered wall after wall covered with contemporary Vietnamese art that attracted and entranced.

It's easy as a visitor to find the galleries as there are a few streets in the Old Quarter of Hanoi which have a gallery every few steps. I wandered into the Green Palm Gallery, and a few others along the same street and finally came across the Mai Gallery which had paintings by my favourite Vietnamese artist, a woman called Phan Thu Trang, who paints lyrical, impressionistic scenes of trees, houses and people with the colour of the trees showing the season: green, pink, orange/yellow and blue for spring, summer, autumn and winter. I especially liked the winter and summer landscapes. I also came to the conclusion that the Vietnamese must love their trees as quite a number of artists had clearly taken some pains with their trees lavishing them with a nuance, gradation of colour and suggestion of movement that caught my eye. And Hanoi had a great number of old trees in it with the roots spilling across the pavements.

Other pieces which stayed in my memory were the oil and acrylic mixes of bucolic farmhouse amid field scenes where it was more the impressionistic mix of colours that was so striking. The haunting, subtle monk or monks disappearing into a canvas of dark black or orange also stood out.  

But the surprise was saved for the last as one of the last galleries we entered turned out to be a gallery where one could order a masterpiece so to speak eg if you wanted a Van Gogh Sunflowers, you could tell them this was what you wanted and in three days, they would have one ready for you at USD $30-40 depending on the size.  Some of the work was original but the gallery clearly did their best business simply in providing a poor art enthusiast with an inexpensive rough copy of his favourite artist's work.  These paintings were sometimes simply in the style of, sometimes outright copies, albeit not fakes as they were clearly copies.  These would have no investment value obviously unlike the expensive S$700-1400 pieces of emerging Vietnamese artists, but they had their own market niche.   

So, a blue tree by an unknown artist anyone? 

Picture courtesy of Taking5.  All Rights Reserved.

In Celebration of the Vietnamese Salad

In the five days I spent in Hanoi and Halong Bay, I did not see a single fat Vietnamese.  Our tour guide in Halong Bay was a little plump but by and large, the Vietnamese were slim bordering on the skinny.  A lot of this has to do with their diet which is made up of salads, fish for the most part with meat such as pork and beef taking a smaller proportion and rice as the basic staple in either noodle or its natural form.  

(Photo is courtesy of Taking5 and all rights are reserved.)

I delighted in the salads which were clean in their taste often with liberal amounts of basil and coriander leaves.  I noticed also a free hand with spring onions often and garlic.  Sometimes tropical fruit was used as in the green papaya salad and peanuts delicately sprinkled on top but never enough to come anywhere near overwhelming the dish.  Vinegar seemed to be the main sauce used with a touch sometimes of fiery little chilli padis and fish or shrimp sauce.   One of my favourite dipping sauces turned up in Cha Ca La Vong, that mother of all grilled fish restaurants as a pungent shrimp sauce, slighly pink in colour.  However sadly this sauce never quite made its appearance at any of the other restaurants I was at.  It reminded me of a non-salty version of chin cha lok (that odiferous shrimp condiment famous in Malacca in Malaysia).

Perhaps, as a largely agricultural nation, their food is fresher, with the farmers having walked miles into town each morning with their produce neatly arranged in two baskets hanging off a bamboo pole and Hanoi filled with little side streets of markets.  Whatever it is, the clear, spare frame of the Vietnamese ladies riding with ramrod straight backs in their ao dais on their scooters are a testament to a diet of freshly prepared salads.  

The Sidewalk Sidle

Photos courtesy of Taking5. All rights reserved.

Being in Hanoi was a dusty, noisy experience on the sidewalk as it's often filled with motorbicycles, cyclos and scooters taking up half or more of the space and the remaining space being taken up with little hawker stalls selling all manner of vietnamese meals and snacks.

The hawker stalls are a picturesque sight with little communities forming around them and often regular customers chatting to each other and to the hawker. The food is often cooked in a largish metal pot and the customers sit on kid-sized wooden stools. They usually sit on the side of the sidewalk nearest the road, leaving the pedestrians a little space to squeeze past whilst still on the sidewalk. The country folk come along with their baskets at a tidy little jog, their fruits neatly piled in a conical fashion and always on the lookout for a customer. These hawkers have walked for miles from their farms since 3am or so to sell their wares in the cities before returning in the afternoon or evening back home.

It struck me altogether than the Vietnamese were extremely efficient in their use of space in the Old Quarter but of course that often meant the pedestrian was often forced to walk onto the narrow road, which is filled with hooting motocyclists and scooters and the occasional car, truck or minibus. The din has to be experienced to be believed but by the end of the first day, I had a splitting headache from walking around amidst this lively scene no doubt accentuated by the difficulties of figuring out how to cross a Hanoi street. (The answer for those who might be visiting, is to wait for a little gap preferably with no cars or trucks and walk out slowly into the river of motocyclists who will part like water around you. )

The little narrow shopfronts which I slipped into to escape the din were a welcome relief of coolness and quiet. They often ran deep inside and I often found myself mounting a flight of very narrow wooden stairs into a further floor deep within. No wonder the Vietcong were so very efficient at living in tunnels!

Now that I'm back in safe, clean Singapore, I miss the din of the Hanoi streets and the sense of life lived literally out on the sidewalks.   There is a sense of warmth in seeing these little communities out on the sidewalks, of little side street markets where people often know each other and settle down to drink a cup of Vietnamese coffee together as they get an early start to the day.  It's a city which grows on me and doubtless if I lived there long enough, I'd start looking past the dilapidated or gentrified shop fronts, to see more the heart and soul of the people of Hanoi, and the communities they've created in so very little space. 

The Gift of Anticipation

I have recently been planning a holiday. It will be my first visit to Vietnam so I'm quite excited. It's been a long while since I've travelled to a city or country that I've not previously been to, to a country where I don't speak the language and is not all that developed. My previous trips over the last few years have generally been to places I've been to before and where I know people so the excuse for travelling has been to renew kith and kin ties. My shorter trips have been to nearby seaside resorts and the familiarity was comforting since those trips are really just to chill out rather than be adventurous.

So for the first time in years, I'm actively anticipating a trip fraught with discovery of new sights and tastes and people. A planner by nature, I enjoy having something to look forward to, a precise date and time I leave and a good sense of what I want to do there. I'm past the age where I research things to death before I go, but it's still nice to have a rough idea of what the Temple of Literature is like and why it's worth visiting or that Halong Bay is worth the side trip as it's a UNESCO heritage sight . I've even "planned" to have days where my travelling companion and I can just hang loose and wander around the older parts of the city, replete with history and culture.

I truly enjoy this sense, of preparation, of working towards a clear goal, and of feeling it draw a little bit closer each day. Not of course that it was particularly difficult to organise since the only real questions that confronted us were whether to travel on a budget airline or a better airline. Or whether to spend one night on a junk or two. But as I approach my holiday in a similar way to how I approach most of my life, my work, my relationships, I find for me, this advent period to be just as important as the event itself.

So here's to the gift of anticipation: may it help us to remember that it is the journey that matters just as much as the end itself.

Listening to Grasshoppers

I've been thinking a lot about democracy lately since I'm reading the book "Listening to Grasshoppers" which is a litany of how democracy has allowed the tyranny of minorities and the dispossessed in India. It's a searing, gruesome account in essays by the celebrated writer, Arundhati Roy. It's the world's largest democracy but it's a sad day indeed when all the institutions have been corrupted so that it fails to function to protect minority interests. I think the tyranny of the majority definitely happens in places that are the bastion of democracy in the Western world as well with slavery, women etc all being prime examples but the sheer bloodletting is hard to get over in Arundhati Roy's book.

So I guess I'm cheerful then about living in a country where by and large it's a safe place for minority races and groups still. And I hope it remains that way although I do wonder what the best way of safeguarding that is. Pray for all our leaders then, because the temptation to use power for one's own ends can be strong indeed.

Does Winston Churchill's comment on democracy still hold, "...democracy is the absolute worst form of government except for all other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Departures

Departures is one of those entrancing, beautifully made and filmed Japanese movies. With great attention to detail and a quiet humour, it's the story of how a man deals with transitions in his life from his transition to his new job as a mortician, to the transitions that each family undergoes as they experience the death of a beloved family member. And the underlying transition of how he comes to terms with the father who deserted him when he was six years old.

It stars a cast so perfectly cast with the highly expressive Masahiro Motoki as the lead character, my heart ached for each character as their stories played out. It showed how each of the members was able to make their own transition in a way that led to reconciliation and new life even though death seems like the end. It's gentle inspiration for me and a very cathartic movie. One of those movies that help me value my own life and relationships more.

Mushrooms, Cheese Tofu and Fishballs

Mushrooms, Cheese Tofu and Fishballs
All rights reserved

It's Reunion Dinner time or "Tuan nian jie" was last Sunday evening and this year we had it at my younger brother's home. These were some of the dishes for the steamboat. The kids loved the cheese tofu while the adults prefered the mushrooms and fishballs. My mother's family from Malaysia came down and we all had a good time catching up.

A Slice of Pannettone

A Slice of Pannettone
All Rights Reserved

I got into baking mode late in 2008 due to my little thumb injury. However once I got going, I did get a bit adventurous and decided it was worth trying to bake bread again.

As you can see from the picture above, I baked the Italian festive bread: a pannettone. I baked it old fashioned style ie without the commercial high fluted pannettone moulds that give it its characteristic shape and incredible lightness. Since I lacked that mould, I simply used whatever came to hand in my kitchen which is pretty much how your average Italian housewife would have done it before the advent of that famous mould and the commercially baked ones.

The result: a flatter, slightly more dense bread but still a great texture and taste with the little orange peel bits and zest. I also ran out of lemons so no lemon zest but being it still worked very well with orange substitute. It does take a while as most breads do with 2 risings but is otherwise reasonably easy to make and very rewarding to eat. The rapidity with which the two pannetones disappeared was clear testament to its tastiness.

A New Year Begins

I managed to get up and out of the house for 7.30am new year's day mass and then went to the gym for a Body Pump class. It felt good. It was also the first day this week I wasn't feeling quite as flu-ish since I came down with a cold at the start of the week.

My resolution has been to pay more attention to my faith life particularly by nurturing my prayer life both through personal prayer time and community prayer ie the mass mainly or some bible sharing sessions but let's see what else comes along. There's always the Rempang project which i've volunteered to go on with my two friends.

And my other resolution was to start going to the gym again to attend Body Pump and Pilates and yoga classes. It's been a good four to five years since I went to a Body Pump class so it took a while for my muscle memory to kick in and I remembered all the old moves, the clean and press etc. It felt very good to have completed the class and I've had lots more energy the rest of today. Now to keep it up for the rest of the year!