whine & dine

Hello all. I’m alive. Just finished my first week of work and in fact I even found the inspiration to make donuts today. But that’s not the point of this post. (And I’ll write more on that later.) Unless you live under a rock, or in a tree trunk or maybe in the middle of a deserted island with no internet (but then how are you reading this post?), no phone, no newspapers and no anything, you’d know by now that section 377A of the penal code exists. And that it shouldn’t. Or maybe you think it should exist because you think that homosexuals are sick people who should be shot or jailed or shot in jail. But in that case you wouldn’t be reading this blog because you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me, seeing that I’m a bisexual woman in a homosexual relationship.

Sign it. You know it’s the right thing to do. As much as I am not any kind of activist, this isn’t about activism, it’s about a human being’s right to privacy at his or her most basic level – and homosexuals are human beings. Humans deserve the right to love, and by NOT DOING ANYTHING, you are, by default, condoning our government’s preference for imprisoning two people for loving each other and being physically intimate with each other. That doesn’t sound right, does it? And even if you don’t think that homosexuality is alright, I’m sure you also know by now that for most people in homosexual relationships, sexual orientation is not a choice. And it’s not fair to imprison someone on the basis of something that they haven’t chosen. It’s like being imprisoned just because I’m female. Or because you’re male. Or because my hair is black, or my eye colour brown. Hell, it’s like imprisoning me because I’m above 150cm tall.

Do it. And tell everyone you know to do it too. You know it’s the right thing to do.

Some suppose that New South Wales is so named because it’s the new, southern hemispheric version of Wales. These are probably the same people who describe much of Australia as “England with better food, weather and quality of life” – and of the three, I can personally vouch for the first two. British food has often gotten quite some flack for being generally overcooked, dry, stodgy, and only existing to be washed down by that pint of beer, and while I am actually a fan of quite a few British dishes, the food in Australia is certainly something else.

Bunny and I spent a week in Sydney scoffing down as much food as we could find. Generally ignoring the touristy sights (though we didn’t really have much else to see, considering how our room at the Shangri-La had quite the view), we made a beeline for as many restaurants as we could fit into our trip.

Many would say that a culinary tour around Sydney is not complete without a visit to legendary restaurant Tetsuya’s, by the time we’d decided to make the trip to NSW, there wasn’t an available lunch or dinner reservation in sight. Lucky for us, we managed to get seats at a dozen other establishments, one of which being Yoshii, which is rumoured to be better than Tet’s, on the first night we arrived. Of course, I’m in no position to cast any opinion on that, but I can say that our dinner at Yoshii was nothing short of phenomenal. The next day, we headed off to the Sydney Fish Market and had the best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted, along with our first whiff of oysters for the holiday at Doyles. We were so impressed with the food here that we also decided to head back on the last night of our trip to their original location on Watsons Bay.

For dinner on my birthday (Tuesday), we got ourselves a cosy little table at Rockpool – a two hat establishment right on The Rocks helmed by prominent Australian chef, Neil Perry. Having already snacked on macarons at Lindt in Darling Harbour, we decided not to overwork our stomachs and stick to the five course fixed price menu, instead of the chef’s tasting menu which had twice as many courses.

On the next night, we ventured out by ferry from Circular Quay to Rose Bay, where we had my favourite dinner of the entire trip at Pier. A tiny little 55 seater that juts out over the marina, this restaurant had been awarded three chefs hats, and rightfully so. Every single dish of our (restrained) three course meal that night was thoughtfully put together, with bunny and I – for a change – without words to describe the gastronomical heaven. My favourite of the night was my dessert, which was a green apple ‘cloud’ served with pistachio ‘soil’.

On our last full day in the city, we finally managed (after 3 days of wrangling) to procure a table at The Tea Room at Gunners Barracks. With beautiful china and an even more delectable view, it really was a pleasant end to our stay in Sydney.

The one thing about Sydney – besides the food – that really stuck with me was the level of service we received wherever we dined. I once read a post about a top restaurant in Singapore where an Indian waiter calmly accepted rude behaviour when a white man insisted on addressing him as “Brownie”. Instead of being praised for his professionalism, the writer went on to indicate that such tolerance of racism is what allows it to permeate society. An incident at Pier reminded me of this, when a local couple – clearly drunk from too many bottles of wine – started making a ruckus by screeching at waitstaff who’d pass by their table. One of them even ended up being called all manner of inappropriate names, and while I, as a paying customer, would have preferred that the management evict the twosome, said waiter calmly attended to them as if the insults and shrieks of laughter were merely a figment of my imagination.

Being someone who loves food as much as I do photography, I often carry my camera around in hopes of documenting the more memorable food I consume digitally. Unfortunately, in Singapore, I’m often not allowed to take photographs of the food – or sometimes even the interior decor – in nice restaurants. As a result, whenever I’ve got my camera with me, I now make a habit of checking with a waiter to make sure that it’s fine. Another thing that took me by (pleasant) surprise was how the waiters A) were all surprised that there was a need to ask at all, and B) effusively urged me to do so. So far, Singapore is the only city in which I’ve ever encountered an issue with taking photographs in restaurants, and I hope that our local restauranteurs will take a page from cities far more established in the world-wide culinary scene, especially if we want to advance to the same level.

All in all, the past week was probably the best holiday I’ve had this year. I may be a good 5 kilos heavier from all the crustaceans I’ve imbibed, but all the better to tide me through the work-day. For those of you who have a death wish, feel free to take a look at my (finally) complete Sydney Photoset on an empty stomach, but consider yourselves warned. My personal recommendation would be to browse through it after lunch while you’re combating the food-coma and about to get cracking on an afternoon of work ahead.

I love scones. I mean, who doesn’t right? (Okay, I can think of one person who doesn’t. But nevermind.) I stumbled upon some (Australian style) clotted cream in the supermarket a couple of days ago, and while I’ve since been told that it’s easily available at Cold Storage Jelita, I got super excited, bought a tub and set off for home to make scones. Now, while I also understand that “Australian style” clotted cream isn’t the same as the authentic stuff from Devon, I will take what I can get. And, believe me, it’s miiiiles better than say, Starbucks where I once was stupid enough to order a cranberry scone, onto have it served with a pile of synthetic whipped cream on the side of the plate. That’s right – the stuff they aerosol out of a can with a star-shaped nozzle. Ugh.

I like my scones buttery, with flaky insides and a crisp, firm crust that encases layers of its tender crumb. I actually like them best plain – as in, no raisins, no currants, no chocolate, nothing. Just a plain scone, with a dollop of clotted cream smothering a dab of strawberry preserve. And this recipe, based on one I found in Baking Illustrated, gave me just that.

By the way, I’m off to Sydney for a week with the bunny. There was a bit of stress with the hotel situation since the APEC Summit is happening around this time, so we didn’t get our room in the Park Hyatt :( but all’s well with the Shangri-La, and I’m also really excited ‘cos I get to see Pei, and we’ll be gorging on all the seafood we can get our grubby paws on. I would let you guys in on the line-up, restaurant wise, but I think it’s more fun to keep you waaaiting and anticipaaaating. Look out for food photos from the road, and I’ll be back next weekend.

Till then, do try this recipe – it’s dead simple, and ridiculously tasty. And hopefully it’ll stave off the hunger pangs when you next check back and browse through all the food photos on my flickr.

Cream Scones
(based on Cream Scones with Currants from Baking Illustrated)

10 oz unbleached unbleached all-purpose flour (I use Gold Medal)
1 tbsp baking powder
3 heaped tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
90g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 cup heavy cream, plus extra 2 tbsp
2 tbsp caster sugar to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 220C. Place the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, or in a large shallow pan. If using the food processor, process with six 1-second pulses, otherwise whisk lightly with a fork.

If making by hand, use two pastry cutters, two knives, or a pastry blender and quickly cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps. (This is my favourite part of making scones.) If using a food processor, distribute the butter evenly over the dry ingredients and process with 10-15 1-second pulses. Transfer the dough to a large bowl; it should look quite dry at this point.

Stir 1 cup heavy cream with a fork until the dough begins to form, about 30 seconds. Transfer the dough and all the dry flour to a countertop and knead by hand just until it comes together into a rough, slightly sticky ball; 5-10 seconds.

For wedges, pat the dough into an 8 or 9 inch cake pan, invert onto a lightly floured surface, and cut into 8 wedges. Otherwise, pat the dough out on a lightly floured surface so that it is roughly 1 inch thick, and use a 2-3 inch pastry cutter to cut out rounds. Pat the remaining dough together and flatten into a 1 inch thick disc again, then cut out rounds again. Repeat one last time, then discard the scraps. (I couldn’t bring myself to throw away one last potential scone so I just made it into an ugly, misshapen one.)

Place the scones on an ungreased baking sheet. (The baking sheet can be wrapped in clingfilm and refrigerated for up to 2 hours at this point.) When ready to bake, brush the tops of the scones with the extra cream and sprinkle lightly with caster sugar. Bake the scones until golden brown, 12-15 minutes, rotating the pan once during the baking. When ready, cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then serve warm or at room temperature with plenty of strawberry preserve and clotted cream.

Yield 8 wedges, or 10-15 round scones (as pictured), depending on the size of your cutter.

It’s like I’m rabidly cooking and writing posts with the burning fever of someone whose life may end at any moment. Already, I’ve been told that I’m behaving like I’m going to prison (or going to die) instead of starting work. Well, “seize the day” has always been a governing principle in how I live my life, whether my seizing lies in frenetically cooking and filling my days with activity or laying back and watching episode after episode of Boston Legal.

Bunny and I moving to our current apartment at the beginning of the year coincided with the suddenly boom in cookbooks that I own. In a valiant attempt to placate her protests of “not another cookbook?!!!!”, I started a little routine whenever I got one. After I flipped through it quickly the first time, I’d go over each new addition to my stash with her slowly, letting her pick out whichever recipes she wanted me to make for her. I saw it as a way of paying tax on the space in the shelf it was taking, and she saw it as a considerably cheaper way to get whatever dishes she desired, as compared to hunting down restaurants that served those particular dishes – if any at all in Singapore.

As the number of cookbooks in the now-sagging shelf grew, the list of on-demand dishes increased in length exponentially. Having spent over a decade living in London, my bunny – although inclined to belittle British fare as overcooked, grey, stodgy and tasteless (at least when referring to the canteen/pub versions) – has grown fond of England’s food, and – dare I say – misses it. While each book would typically have at least 10 recipes flagged for bunny-consumption, and some of the bigger ones (or those that contained many recipes for British fare) have lists of more than 50 dishes. It’s really not surprising, then, that the few recipes she campaigns for tend towards that cuisine. Roast Beef with Yorkshire Puds, Jam Rolly-Polly, Bakewell Tart, Crumpets, Roast Chicken or Roast Pork (with Crackling) served with Roast Potatoes and gravy, and so on. While I’ve tried my best to accommodate her requests, the unfortunate fact remains that many of the dishes she’s craving are difficult to make for just two. Keep reading →

Yes, my birthday’s coming (again, I know – it seems like I was just shamelessly begging for presents yesterday!) soon, in 9 days to be exact. Oh shit that reminds me, it’s my ex’s birthday today. Okay getting sidetracked. Anyhoo, I’m not allowed to ask for anymore cookbooks (because I already just got one from smiao – though that was fairly self-serving, but hey I’M NOT COMPLAINING thankyouverymuchsmiao, lovement!) so I really don’t know what to ask for! I also have too many teeshirts (booooo) and my kitchen has no more space for gadgets. Actually, even if it did have space left, I don’t know what else I would get since I’m pretty much kitted out to open a boutique restaurant already. Maybe an ice cream cone maker. Hrm. Okay no one’s allowed to tell bunny I said that.

Anyway. The one thing that’s available is my flickr pro account. I generally like reserving this for my friends who are overseas since….. it makes sense, but since I (for once) don’t have a ridiculously long list of things I’m coveting roundabout mid/end September, that’s up for grabs. I was actually contemplating not renewing it since I don’t think I’ll be shooting as much, but I want to keep all my photos archived properly.

OH I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING! My favourite boy who was so freaking sweet as to think of getting me Guitar Hero 3 has since discovered the joys of Rock Band and its kickass soundtrack. However, that’s going to be priced at about US$200 which is a ridiculous amount of money for A) a video game (although it does come with all the controllers!!!) and B) for one person to spend on me, so I’m going to share it with him. Yes, as a (belated) birthday present for myself. If anyone wants to pitch in and share it with us, let me know, or give him a ring, or ask me for his email address. Oh I should mention I’m talking about Jon. Not that I have any other favourite boys. :)

Ummmmm. Okay that’s it. Stick around, maybe I’ll think of something else.