the opera that performed behind the curtains

Eunice and i was out at city hall by 1015am, eating our kaya toast and sipping out teh. the valrhona chocolate are expensive man, one kilogram of pur caraibe 66% dark chcolate cost me SGD28.50

a visit to the marketplace at raffles shopping center was not to be missed since we're at city hall. i found earl grey tea leaves... they were darn dear. the tin of leaves weighing 200grams cost me 17 SGD, even more dear as compared to the chocolates. well at least the twinings tin was beautiful. oh and i also bought twinings earl grey tea bags just a few days ago.


















the process was fun but somewhat tedious... the génoise was simple to make but the steps involve not only folding the flour and cocao into the egg mixture but also warming the egg mixture over a bain marie. during the second layer, miss eunice forgot to pour in the clarified butter... in the end we had to scrape everything back into the mixing bowl and add the melted butter.

the génoise came out too fat the first time and too thin the second time. in the end we had one super tall opéra and one normal one.

the ganache was easy to make and when u see the hot cream and the chopped chocolates slowly turn into rich glossy ganache... the feeling in your heart screams in joy. chocolate! sadly the ganache was too flowy to make a more pretty filling. the coffee butter cream was great man. but the picture of the butter in the mixing bowl looks like some disgusting stuff hence i am not gonna show u all.

The final dessert was delicious, but the opéra cake didn't quite look like those sold in pastry shops. i guess i need to practice more.

spiced italian plum crisp

Lately, my folks have been buying plums home. those purple to reddish plums were so sweet and full that i made me wanna bake them and just enjoy the simply taste of these stone fruits. there's no need for any complicated desserts when you have fresh sweet fruits on hand, simple baking will bring out the true flavours and aroma of these fruits.

i made a short trip to temasek's library which i still love so much, borrowed the last course by claudia fleming as i know that there was a perfect recipes for the plums i have at home. this book which i have been looking for at bookstores around singapore is filled with pages of simply yet beautiful desserts of stone fruits, berries, apples, nuts and even chocolates. her desserts are like flowery mists that clears in the morning when the sun shines her first rays... gorgeous

L'opéra gâteau

Eunice and i have decided to attempt at singing the high Cs higher then mariah carey or whitney houston. the cake that looks so sinfully drop dead simple with its beautiful straight layers of génoise, coffee cream and chocate ganache ~ opéra





green tea opera by Sadaharu Aoki.

on friday the 22nd of september 2006, suntec held an appreciation ceremony for us TP students with the regular staffs who worked along side with us during the imf/world bank annual meetings. and fuck was the word when my camera ran out of life, it never does show that it's about to die, only at the last few minutes.

the suntec story, a never ending book of life and memories are in many ways similar to our story. the imf/world bank annual meetings is just simply a chapter in suntec's book with other chapters on the different departments making the event a success. our life story is the same as we move on and face with what ever challengers and surprises that unfolds. i have said and will say it again that the end of the annual meetings is both depressing and a relief for me.

after all the lmo and gps we finally had our certs and testimonials just like secondary school graduation. the night didn't end there. a group of us, 22 room service personels and wei yuan went for a walk under the stars and enjoy what may seem the last night before another one in the far future, a time to enjoy and mingle with the freshies from lrm and htm. who knows when we will meet again.

the dinner at raku zen then the drinking at crazy elephant where we splurge 400 bucks on a bottle of chivas and vodka, not forgetting the dinner bill. but the money if worth the occassion. how do you measure the worth of memories...

i was drop dead sleepy at 3am.

the room service team. imf / world bank annual meetings 2006

Of apples and sundays

I love all things that are made of apples. apple streudels, apple tarte tatin, apple bread, apple soup, apple crumble, apple juice. when ever i travel, the first beverage that i will ask for is apple juice. Whoever gives me an apple made dessert, i will spread my love to you ;)

I just did some research on earl grey tea, it was named after the second Earl Charles Grey of Britain back in the 1830s. the distinctive unique flavour and aroma derives from the blending of bergamot orange oil extracted from the rind. the refreshing and sweet citrus fragrance have made me fallen head over heels with it.

i hate sundays, so take all my sundays away and give me fridays. although the letters in sunday are pretty and when placed together becomes even more attractive, i still hate it. sundays are days that leave me with almost nothing to do, when everyone is home and when i can't have my peace and quiet and solitude.

The protests in taipei is still on going, this means i have a hgher chance of getting the "dao bian" tees for fook ping and felix. it may sound scarely in terms of safety issues, but that ain't my concern, i still want to shop and eat. taipei ain't gonna shut down just because of some protests.

alright, now i shall take my leave and sleep. good night and *kisses*

The blossoms flew away

The imf/world bank annual meetings have finally come to an end yesterday. Morning delivery was not as rush as before, infact we could even take time and decide which office to delivery first. By 6pm the delegates have all moved out of their offices and the whole place has alreadystarted to be erased. The doors began to disappear, then followed by the wall colour panels and then i dunno what eles followed.

I had a chance to walk into IMF managing director Rodrigo Rato and guess what i saw... a personal bathroom with shower included inside and an air conditioning unit too, in the bathroom! I kinda miss the offices now... working there for ten days has definately left an impression, a memory that i will never forget. the mad rush of morning deliveries, the bitching of secretaries and the answering of their smallest requests.

The way to each office is still fresh in my mind, oh how i miss the nice lady in office 6D202, Mr John Lipsky *does the trademark action* colleague in room 6D210. How the ladies in 6D224 have mood swings and the evil ladies in office 6D262. oh and not to forget the chinese lady in 6D331 how speaks with an indian accent.

When i went to marina square today for some shopping, so many things have already been taken down. The security screening area infront of the bridge, the metal fencings. It was as if the whole event disappeared from history overnight. an article on CNA reports that suntec singapore gave a statement saying that "the event has left an indelible impression". oh so true i must say.

But the best thing is that i have the chance to work with so many of my friends, even those in year one and a few from LRM and CCM. The experience and feeling is different. The times we go mad and sleepy together and talked crap to keep ourselves awake. The LMO and GPS, the drinking tea and taking pastries from the kitchen to snack on. ~indelible~

I love taking a cab at 5am in the morning, when most of the world around me is sleeping, we are already on the move from home to work. The flying own east coast park express way with little vehicles on the road, the view outside the window peacefully dark, with the only source of light given by the lamposts. At times some crazy people can be seen jogging at east coast park.

Of sleepy feelings

I literally shock myself awake at 1.35am when my mobile recieved a message... it was a freak message from beijing with my friend asking me whether i recieved the message. stupid me who thought it was gonna be a phone call to signify that i have overslept. from then on, i couldn't really go back to sleep.

oh i bake banana bread just a while ago. i made an effort to finely chopped up some walnuts to increase the aroma and taste of my bread. the aroma was like all over the house and even outside when it was baking in the oven. the result was soft, moist and deliciously bananaish. and opps, i forgot to put in some chocolate chips~

work started at 6am, gosh. it's a blessing that the IMF / World Bank meetings are coming to an end. i will never take sleep for granted again. room service today was as usual, except that the hate level for certain rooms reached a new high. esp office 6D262, they seem to like complaining and bitching when they can't stupidly express what they want us to do.

today the irritating captain who ask questions non stop broke a few saucers... he was trying to show off by carrying this tray full of plates, saucers, teacups etcetera etcetera etcetera... it was a moment of revenge for us in an unexpected way. he who ask us not to over carry the porcelain thingys tried to be the man, but was defeated by a flight of stairs.

drank three cups of earl grey tea today, it must have been a tea drinking madness as all of us... well maybe some of us were drinking tea nonstop. room 6D250 never fails to make few requests in a short as in short period of time. when they requested for us to do some clearing, the bloody secretary ask me to bring more napkins, saucer and mints.. like WTH can't they check what they want, you think walking here and there is fun?

somehow i feel that even though we are oblige to make several trips to the offices if needed, but when you are feeling tired... you don't give a fuck about the obligations anymore. i manage to catch some ten minutes of sleep when i was resting at the room service headquaters... the sleep was oh so good... hahaha and then the bloody no social etiquette captain had to come wake us up.

earl grey with two sachets of raw sugar and a pack of creamer rocks man. i am so gonna buy earl grey tea from cold storage tomorrow.

*Room Service*

The Annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank Meetings will forever leave a mark in my memory. Room service is is no glam and easy job man, especially when the convention hall is at the other side of the building and the distance from the hall to the room service "headquaters" is at least 120m apart. the convention hall is 601 but the offices inside are all assigned the code of 6D then the office numbers. Oh and each convention hall has got two levels of offices, kinda cool.

There are seven of us serving 6D and only Fook Ping, Ariel and i are capable of carrying a full tray of porcelain 24 teacups, saucers and 24 metal teaspoon. and if there is an order of pastries or sandwiches, there's dessert plates and metal forks adding to the load and plus a sugar bowl and creamer bowl. Due to the weight of the tray, the other four help us in carrying the airport (coffee/hotwater flasks) and the plate of food. But nevertheless we TP ppl work together, bitch together and whine together.

The secretaries working for the IMF delegates... and i mean people who work for the IMF and not the delegates from other countires (their offices are on the 4th level). Now about the secretaries, they are bitchy and thinks they are some high class ladies which in fact they are totally not.

Serving them is a pain man. When we bring the morning delivery into the offices before they arrive, they complain that it's no longer hot or not fresh... fucking arses, how can the coffee and hot water not be hot when its in the airports where it was meant to keep the liquid HOT!!!

Those secretaries somehow have no idea how heavy the oblong tray can get and at times take their own sweet time telling us that there's is no table for us to land the teacups. The most evil deed indeed is to have us heaving all the teacups and saucers and what ever porcelain thingys to the offices and tell us they have no need for them cuz there are still some in their offices. Mindless people.

And oh since the bills are charged to the Joint Secretariat Association, these secretaries are ording things like mad. there was an instance when one of them ask a colleague whether she should order more pastries.. her colleague ask her what for.. she said for anyone who happens to walk in. What the Fuck man. The prices of the coffee, teabags and pastries - crazy.

Just yesterday, the secratary of 6D250 had to give the room service three seperate calls in 10minutes. First to bring up some extra teacups, second to clear the plates and third to ask for more high ball glasses... its like do they have the intelligence to request this three things all at once??? and to make matters worst.. the captain for yesterday night was this fucking indian feller who have no social etiquette/manners, no respect for us and has no brains at all. the three captains who are the overall in charge of us were away due to the opening ceremony cocktail... Sad~

Another bitchy secretary hails from office 6D262. She looks at you from the top of her specs, not through her specs... has an attitude by the way she speaks, no one likes her. Office 6D331 seems to have a secretary who is most likely her long lost sister, no one likes her too. Office 6D210 has a secretary who wanna treat you like a passing breeze.

IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato office is locked when the secretaries go home... and sometimes his secretaries leave food overnight and somehow it leaves a stale smell in the office and yet they complain about it. They are idiots, the office is locked. You don't call us to clear it before you leave, you complain about the smell yet you do not finish your food. What you wanna us to do man, walk through walls?

Working room service from 6am to 8pm will leave you dead and imagien doing that for four days in a row, i really feel for ariel and fook ping.

Suntec hired some girls from HTM year one to check on our grooming.. like What the Hell please. They need a HR personel to bring them around to catch gromming flaws, totally like fools. When they stand alone at certain floors, they are silent as a rat. (i use the word rat becuz mice are nice and cute)

Oh i so darn love bitching about bitchy people and their small bitchy ways.

The room service job is kinda fun when you work with friends but tiring and totally feet torture. I had chamomile tea yesterday when we were taking a short rest due to no deliveries, it tasted like chrysanthemum. Another good thing is that we ate eclairs and chocoloate coated doughnuts. The room service headquaters had a pastry kitchen and they gave us some, or rather we asked for food to eat. Hehe

Of lovely nights

The imf training was... erm how should i say, rather uninteresting. I got my work schedule and it was like what the fucking hell. From the 9th till the 20th of september i am gonna work like nine hours day with only one rest day. I shall take this opportunity and work my arse off and use the moolah for my taipei trip.

Met up with xcp and jospeh for more window shopping. I need get black formal shoes man and fast. Decided to watch the devil wears prada and it was a pretty good show... all the expensive haute couture. I am really amazed at how the fashion industry and we're talking about major designer brands like gucci, prada, armani can actually make people splurge on clothes. The things that goes on behind designing and all the runway shows with models struting their stuff... gosh it's so ohhh glamorous.

However the show is not only about designer brands but about how fashion magazines can impact the fashion industry. different branded products put together to create the perfect gorgeous style. It's a fashion statement.

I love shopping for clothes, but there's the financial part to consider about too. i have to get a job that pays well to include having nice clothes to wear. I'm somewhat on a formal wear frenzy now and when i window shop i normally eye those office wear... argggggg and although i no longer need them for school... i still wanna get them. hahahahaha~

We went to anderson's for ice cream and the both of them ate while i slack. i just didn't have the feeling for eating ice cream at that time and omfg... their foundue is horribly disgusting. The taste of the chocolate is so fake and the taste and feeling on your tongue is aweful.

We push and shove and i accidentally scratch the wound on my hand and it started bleeding... the blood was like a pretty ruby red precious stone when i finally got serviettes to clean it away...

Intriguing happenings

Some old pictures that we took while we were in year one semester two. Oh i remember it so well that it was our groups travel and tour operations project trip and in the end we ended up in marina square discussing about the next step of the project. things so abit bored after a while and we seem to be totally bored and miss tung ling decided to do some funny thingys. fook ping ain;t in any of these because he was apprently pretending to be hardworking and studying some of the brouchres that we took or brought.

Oh wait, the last photo is him in action, caught on camera by us secretly while he was occupied~

Apples and birthdays

The day was a darn tiring one, gotta get up in the morning to bake the apple tarte tatin for hanwen and farzana... gosh i just love apples now. I was rather dreamy when i was making the caramel... and somehow my kitchen was in a mess, apples here and there, baking trays and tins all over the place.

Ate the meatball ate manhattan spaghetti" at nydc along heeren in the late afternoon and the spag tasted normal, nothing special. then kaiyee took my camera and started taking all these random pictures of us, well of course i am not gonna show you all of what he took...

i was feeling darn sleepy as i was saying, the whole day i was in a pretty lifeless mood. just didn't have the energy to laugh or be crazy. it got worst after the lunch and my roots was growing from my butt to the chair. Made my way to work finally and when i saw the reservation book, my heart skipped a beat. There was like 15 reservations for the night as compared to the usual four or five.

I did room service and my knuckles got scratched and bled while i was carrying the tray to the room. I had a mind frenzy feeling when i was delivering this fruit platter to one of the suites... the bell rang thrice and there was no answer but there was some sound comming from the room. I decided to use the card key that i got from the front dest and when i opened the door, a slipper was near the bed and i thought there was someone in the room. after peering further into the room, i realised it was empty~

The day the exam ends

I felt sooooo good at 1130am... the paper ended and the exams are finally over. Although i was feeling sleepy and tired, but how could i go home and sleep, nooooo it's time for some retail therapy to spoil myself.

I was doing some generation gap closing today, met chen pei (one year younger) and joseph (three years younger) and we went around bugis and orchard road. There wasn't much things at bugis as usual, but orchard was somewhat different. after doing some window shopping at far east plaza, i decided to get my hair cut shorter and well... looks funny but nevermind, i will style it to look gorgeous the next time.

I feel guilty yet extremely happy that i bought this shirt from domanchi after trying it on twice... 79 bucks just flew away like the wind. hahahaha and joseph, he really cannot make it in wearing long sleeve shirts... just looks totally weird. Speaking of which, i had the apple crumble pie again today... couldn't resist the temptation, it was calling out to me "eat me eat me". i realised that most of my friends around me have totally either no idea about culinary or limited knowledge and skills. i feel unique... hahahahaha~

miss chen pei had her hair cut too, please don't say that there's no difference in front of her... but somehow it looks more natural instead of flat and straight. there were so many kids today all flooding orchard... well what can i say since i took a kid out today too... and he was like, so obvious that he's younger than me... oh i feel old.

I still wanna buy that jacket from G2000 and i remembered that i have an friend whom i knew long long ago who has a member card, yeah! after dinner we went to paragon and i saw someone i knew... miss wei hua, gave her a shocking welcome that she will remember and maybe curse me for it. well i actually intended to just use the gents there, but we went to jason's supermarket and bought stuff worth like 23 bucks, apples, biscuits, shortbread, chocolate, roasting tray(don't ask why).

Met another friend of mine... andre. gosh i was thinking who eles i am gonna bump into next. i saw some shirts that were on tank theory in this shop at heeren, but the price was also fantastic... i shall get them at InQBox the next time instead. Oh we finally gotten farzana's birthday present, well not us but chen pei. All thanks to me for asking her to look at the shop at far east where i bought my vietnam looking shirt years ago.

The day ended... at coffee club. Oh i just love that place... had a hazelnut opera and drank morning dew. talked crap and chen pei had to gave the two of us this stupid ridicules drawing game thingy, almost strangled the night out of her.

A-Damn good kisser.
B- Good all around person.
C- You're wild & crazy.
D- You have one of the best personalities ever.
E-You have a nice ass
F- People totally adore you.
G- You never let people tell you what to do.
H- You have a very good personality and looks.
I- You get hyper easily.
J- Everyone loves you.
K- You like to try new things.
L- You live to have fun.
M- Success comes easily to you.
N- You are absolutely beautiful.
O- You're an awesome person.
P- You are popular with all types of people.
Q- You are a hypocrite.
R- Sexy!
S- Easy to fall in love with.
T- You're loyal to those you love.
U- You really like to chill.
V- You are not judgemental.
W- You are very broad minded.
X- You never let people tell you what to do.
Y- One of the best bfs/gfs anyone could ask for.
Z- You're a little too hard to find.

~
I- You get hyper easily.
A-Damn good kisser. (oh i dunno...)
N- You are absolutely beautiful. (well that goes without speaking)

P- You are popular with all types of people. (laughs)
A-Damn good kisser. (i guess it might be true)
N- You are absolutely beautiful. (well thank you)
~

the reason why my chinese name isn't on is due to the fact that i am gonna get so cursed at. am i a damn good kisser... well havent tried kissing before yet and neither can i tie a knot with the cherry stalk with my tongue nor have i french.


i look somewhat aweful in this picture

looks familiar? go yahoo! on "the son of man"





someone looks pretty old in this photo...