whine & dine

It all started when I was last in London, and I had a scoop of the most perfect Pistachio ice cream at the Fortnum & Mason cafe. Wanting desperately to replicate it, I trawled through the internet looking for pistachio ice cream/gelato recipes, but each and every single one of them called for this elusive ingredient – pistachio cream/paste. (All the online stores selling it only either shipped it in industrial-sized tubs, or wouldn’t ship to Asia due to customs regulations.) After a couple of weeks, I started looking to try and make this darned paste on my own, only to be shot down again – you need some specialized heated rollers to extract the oils out of pistachios and mash them into such a smooth paste. And as much as I love pistachios, I wasn’t about to go that far, so I all but gave up the hope of ever getting my hands on any, especially when I couldn’t even find it last December in New York. Keep reading →

Over the Easter holiday, I met up with a couple of friends down under for a gloriously indulgent weekend in Western Australia. Kick starting the weekend off with plenty of mojitos (both the night before and the night after a 4-hour long drive into the Margaret River wine area), we then spent the next three days in a wine, cheese and chocolate-induced food coma.

Although Australia rarely is my first choice for holiday destination, one thing that always makes me kick myself for not returning sooner is the weather. The whole time we were there, the temperature hovered in the mid twenties, with oodles of blue skies (as you can see in the pictures), and a comfortable level of humidity. And with the general casual attitude of the friendly locals, I was blissfully happy wandering around vineyards, soaking up the sun in a teeshirt and sunnies. Keep reading →

So most of my friends know what a huge fan I am of Michael Ruhlman – it was, in a way, his - of a Chef series that kind of encouraged me to give working in a restaurant kitchen a go. (Far from hyping up/glamourising the job, he told it pretty much like how it was which made me feel a little more prepared for what was in store.) And it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, as I think I learnt a lot about myself and – hey! it was great fun :) Keep reading →

Happy 2010, everyone! Things have been a little busy in the ‘Kong, what with our NYC trip (which I will try to write about soon!), and back-to-back visitors over December. New Year’s Eve was a fairly tame affair in this household, with just four of us (the last houseguest of the decade, J, and S joined us in this year’s feasting), a delicious spread, and a healthy dose of booze. Keep reading →

The first time I’d heard of snickerdoodles was sometime early this year. It was on some food blog or other (sadly I can’t remember where I originally saw this whimsically named cinnamon-sugar encrusted cookie), and I was hooked. I mean, c’mon. They’re called snickerdoodles – how can that be a bad thing? Keep reading →