wednesdays are

it's the day of the week that i love oh so dearly. it marks the middle of the work week that tells you to hang on and endure for a little while longer cause friday night's just round the corner and then the weekends. wednesday sounds beautiful too in my opinion and i just have a thing for this particular day of the week.

i have cravings for dim sum and yes i wanna order the whole basket of "nai yu huang sha bao". for myself. and gosh the ones in hong kong make me deliriously happy. and when you carefully break the bun into halves, the glorious sunshine coloured custard will great you with all its splendor; sight and smell

the custard that's smooth as silk and the buttery sweet taste that rocks everything dim sum. will make you fall heads over heels with it and i have yet to find something as good as those in hong kong over here on the red dot. well there's one dim sum place i have yet to go and they say it's one of the best in singapore. an old shop located near the red light district.

i have gotten quite used to my waking up in the mornings and what a beautiful morning it was today with the sun shining really brightly down and the skies so blue. as i was in the bus on my way to the train station. i was quite sadden to see that the hdb flats along the way have lost the tradition of flying the flag when national day is just round the corner.

i guessed its the older estates in singapore that still fly the flag proudly and when i say proudly it shows. nearly the entire block will have flags hanging from the window or along the corridor, fluttering gracefully in the wind. new estates with younger families are really losing the tradition and spirit. its damn sad to see only one or two flags flying when there can be hundreds.

banana and walnuts

its 6am in the morning and a flock of wild geese are already rousing from their slumber with their calls. fresh from the oven pipping hot, my tray of banana muffins have perfumed the kitchen with the scent of honeyed bananas on this sunday morning. i am reminded of the times during my secondary school days, waking up at this hour to get ready for school .

baking so early in the morning somehow gives me a feeling hard to describe. i love the thought of walking into a bakery on the way to work in the morning and grabbing my cuppa coffee and freshly baked pastries. i saw the sky of blue with its changing hue and the chirps of the birds, telling those who are awake that the city is about rise and shine too.

the banana recipe i have used for a long time but the early morning air seems to bring out the adventurous side in me. i decided to chopped some walnuts and toss them in a bowl with lotsa diced bananas and then sprinkle them generously over the tops of the batter. the crust will give that extra bite of banana and with the walnuts, some crunch to enjoy with its nutty flavour.

well i was expecting the dome of the muffin to be covered with bits of walnuts and bananas but somehow i forgot that the batter will rise and the mixture was unevenly spread throughout. oh well it does give the plain old muffin an interesting texture though.

coconut saturdays

sinful is the word. these round fellers are unbelievably sweet smelling and oh my gosh i just love the aroma of them coconuts. made using only dessicated coconut, fresh milk and eggs, these feller are all set to take you off course or make you deliriously happy. and you thought that coconuts are meant for nonya kuehs and curries; the french patissier are amazing.

adapted from pierre herme, these fellers are packing more of a punch as i decided to twitch the recipe a little by adding some coconut milk. these coconut balls are perfect tea snacks to nibble on while day dreaming on one of those lazy and warm saturday afternoons as you sit by the window enjoying the breeze and watch the clouds drift by.

tarte for lunch

tomato tart with goat cheese. i love the play of colours, the white squares of cheese against the luscious red tomatoes and a little green from the parsley. since it's quite some time since i did a savory tart, a simple easy one will be ideal. while walking around orchard on friday i made a visit to marketplace at paragon and gosh, i found these gorgeous tomatoes with green stems and leaves attached.

they are really expensive mind you, i got a shock when the lady weighed them and gave me the price. but oh well since they are so gorgeous i simply cant resist getting them. a visit to borders for thomas keller's bouchon and i found the recipe for the pastry. and gosh as i browse through the book the recipes are tempting. but at a price of ninety dollars i need some funding.

something so italian just reminds me of bright sunny sundays with clear blue skies and a gentle breeze playing.

the languor of summer

awfully saddening that singapore misses out on the seasons. but lying so near the equator means an eternity of summer days for us and on a languorous weekend when there's nothing much to occupy my time with, i click away browsing through the endless photos and recipes on blogs and flickr smiling dreamily as i wonder what's next on the baking list.

a drastic change in moods dont you think, when the sun rises. friday nights in the city are hellish with the traffic crawling through the roads. and when you get to the destination, the streets are packed like sardines in a tin can. while saturdays begin as though there's nothing in the world to worry about as you awake to the sound of the wind dancing through the country side.

here in southeast asia the traditonal european influenced architecture always includes a veranda, a place to spend the blazing afternoon reading or relaxing with some tea and cakes. while sadly enough the verandas have disappeared from out flats and high rises the enjoyment of tea and cakes must go on.

blueberry muffins are awesome for that little high tea and they are delicious with a cuppa chilled fresh milk too if you find the weather too warm for tea. lately i realised my white muffin liners are larger then the usual ones i have been using. i decided to use these brioche tins instead for my blueberry muffins and look how pretty they are. however muffins are never truely muffins without the liners; traditonal.

mornings are delicious

found a job and my oh my it's a company in the insurance sector. work is boring but the good thing is that time passes pretty fast. sigh it's been sometime since i baked anything so when the weekend sets in i am gonna bake some simple pretty desserts. muffins and strawberry shortcake sounds wonderful but then again i have not baked cookies for a really long time now.

you know how i love mornings but in the past i always cant seem to get up; with work on everyday i am enjoying the mornings. its nice to see the people all going for work and the kopitiams and bakery getting busy with people grabbing their breakfast and i grab mine too. i love standing by the kitchen window sipping my hot chocolate and munching on cereal while watching the cars move out.

i bought another two novels and gosh there goes fifty dollars and yet there are like a handful more i wanna get. reading is seriously reducing the amount of disposable income i have but it is good for the mind and soul. yeah i finally had my first cup of gloria jeans coffee and it kinda taste pretty good.

visions of earth

for those who didn't know, there's a place in new zealand called paradise, located in the otago region of the south island. and one can get there from queenstown. the petite town is situated along the dart river. well the place is indeed damn beautiful since the landscaped is flanked by green hills and cloud piercing mountains.

however if you were to grab a copy of national geographic's july issue and flip to the article on altiplano. when you see the three page image of the salt flats, gosh. that's what i call paradise and its so fcking beautiful, no wait its more then beautiful and no words can simple describe the scene.

no black or white

its been quite some time since i baked something, therefore i was looking for something simple and easy without complicated or expensive ingredients. knowing that i have some carrots left in the kitchen, i remembered that somewhere in all my bookmarked recipes lies a really exciting carrot cake recipe that comes with a pecan cream cheese frosting.

when i say simple and easy, mark my words. its like baking a traditional butter cake but the only difference is mixing in a whole bunch of shredded carrots into the batter. the shreds of bright orange colour against the cream white batter is beautiful. after baking in the oven for around half and hour the kitchen is filled with a light aroma of baking butter, sugar eggs and flour.

one thing i am not really satisfied about is that the carroty taste and fragrance is damn light. well i know that carrots are light tasting vegetables, just like making apple and cinnamon muffins where you can hardly taste the apple. well i guess one way is to add in some carrot juice and increase the amount of flour needed.

baking aside i found myself buried in a new novel. it story tells about the babylonians seige in 586 bc that crush the judah empire and how a prophet managed to salvage the ark of the covenent and stash it in some tomb near mount sinai. and how in 1998, well although the novel is on the new arrivals shelve the original novel which was written in italian was published back then.

as i was saying the book tells of an excavation in 1998 and how it concerns the people and faith of jerusalem. i knew where that city was and besides that nothing more, curious i did a searh on flickr and gosh, such a beautiful city. seriously i wanna visit this place man, but with the region being kinda in a unstable condition i guess hopefully by the time i end my ns it would be more ideal to visit. japan can step aside for the time being.

gathering of the not so old

with rennie enlisting for national service in a few days time, we students of 4g class of 2004 decided to gather. it's kinda sad that some of us are unavailable, but it was definitely nice to see familiar faces and reminisce those days where we were in class and funny things happen now and then. i absolutely adore gatherings like tonight. absolute vodka should launch an absolutely absolute man.

thinking back on those days where we will talk about everything unrelated to the lesson in class or doze off daringly right under the eye of the teacher. it's pretty hard to describe and say what we did exactly, but for me those were days that are unforgettable and priceless. the fun we had can never be found elsewhere. i guess its due to our age and some things certainly has to do with age.

after dinner a few of us went off while the remaining of us made our way to minds cafe at purvis street and had a rolling good time playing all sort of card and board games. while taking a break from all those laughing, we overheard the other table playing taboo. one of them went "give me another word for shit" and a few of his friends went "crap" all at the same time, talk about being on the same frequency/mind level man.

while i have never seen a group of people so calm and organised when playing taboo. it was as though they were having a group discussion/meeting and even my group meetings/discussion were much more happening. i mean taboo is a game of words and description but where's all the hype and excitement and scratching of heads to think of the way to describe the words.

i miss those days.

look, a distance away

i seek to share all the happiness of today with everyone. and yet unexpressed, i bury all the sadness of yesterday in my heart. i endure and smile for tomorrow.

pistachios and cranberries

a week after i came back and i am kinda lazy to bake anything more difficult then biscottis. well i have not went through any recipes of late and neither did i scramble and dig for something nice to bake. so there we go, the simple pistachio and cranberry biscotti. which i love, and i believe you will love them too.

i adore the colours, those specks of green and red. i love roasting nuts in the oven for a while before throwing them into the batter. brings out the aroma and the oil. and i certainly love cranberries and oh i must make a trip to the supermarket soon. i wonder whether my cranberry almond crunch is back on stock.

on another note, i wanna travel before i commence my further studies. i shall therefore title the plan the lifetime experience travel 2011. argg but then every travel is an experience. oh well, sounds glam and exciting.