u m a m i

Honey, what's for dessert?

                  

This cake stand was purchased at Williams Sonoma, San Francisco on my first trip there circa 2001. I lugged it all the way back to Singapore, where like so many other implements it languished in the pantry. I am not and probably shall never be a prodigious cake maker. But now we are in Paris, land of magnificient pastries, why bother making when you can readily purchase these indulgent treats.

Thus was borne the idea for this series. Every month I will post the desserts that we have served at home. Most if not all will be shop bought, we intend to eat our way, slowly and with moderation of course, through the pastries in this city.

Not shown unfortunately is three slices of elegant cakes from Sadahoru Aoki, elaborately composed of ganaches, mousses, fondant, sponges and I dunnowhat, the four of us gazed in awe, ate in silence and wandered at the ephemeral delicacy and gorgeousness. No time to even think of taking out the camera.

Here are more 'everyday' offerings. The routine is thus: we'll put any sweets in the stand which sits on the dining room sideboard. Then whoever comes to the dinner table will know that there is dessert that night and it will be something pretty and sweet.

                

We count ourselves very blessed to be within spitting distance of many Lebanese eateries. Noura on one side of my block, and Al Diwan on my left. As we turn right more often than we turn left, especially when we shop for provisions, Noura has been getting all our business in January. We'll hear more of Al Diwan next month, promise.

The first time we popped into the Noura's delicatessen, Ave Marceau, husband went a little crazy, he thought the cakes above were tau-sar-pias. Ignoring my warnings he went ahead and chose a few, then he got a shock at the cash register when he realised that these things are sold by weight! Next, we bit into some of them and found them to be densely packed with date pastes, nut pastes etc, and encased in strongly scented almond pastry. Too heavy for our tastes, but they keep for days and GG who has a sweet tooth finally ate them up. I too made a mistake with the jallebi lookalike, it was sweet enough to give any dentist instant caries.

                

But it is never a mistake buying the baklavas from Noura's. Or the almondy gooey cake. Always impeccably fresh, with multiple layers of melting crisp filo pastries, light flower scented syrups and nutty nuts, we have to ration ourselves to one piece per sitting, otherwise we would just grow sideways.

                

There are at least 20 boulangeries within 5 minutes walking distance of our apartment, but we always go back to Mi Do Re, on Rue de Chaillot. Maybe it is their bright lighting, or their chirpy service, or that little tray of something that customers can sample (brioche today, cereal bread another day), or the appetising range of sandwiches that is irresistable to the locals, especially come lunchtime, whatever the X factor is, Mi Do Re is always busy, and not so cookie like in its offerings, I've passed by many boulangeries to see the similarities. Their goods look just that bit more glistening, more mouthwatering somehow, maybe I'm biased. But it is true we are always stopping by for something or the other. Above is their pear and chocolate tart, we shared it between four people. At first husband was disappointed that there was only 1 piece of cake on the table. But a quarter portion is enough to satisfy our sweet teeth, what with the sweet short pastry, chocolatey base and fresh pear slices. 

               

More from Mi Do Re. Their citron tartelette is nicely tart yet smooth and rich. I love citrus more than chocolate so this was the second time we had it. The double puff assembly is fancifully called Religeux, it was really indulgent with plenty of coffee icing.                

               

Another source for sweets is the President Wilson Market. The Italian stall has these crumbly almond cookies which are great with coffee. The cannolis were bought by sister who was astonished that I've never had them before. To be honest I didn't like them very much, the filling reminded me of buttercream which I'm not too keen on, but I'm keeping an open mind about cannolis. The Italians are mad for them apparently, so there is probably nicer versions out there.

Of course, that's not all the sweet things that we've been indulging in, but that'll be the subject of another series....

               

               

On Vox: Poochie fashion

Latest pictures of Mimi and Rufus. They now wear clothes all the time because of the cold weather. And it is two layers, inside they wear a smaller tank or strappy t-shirt (like Mummy hehe). Mimi's angel outfit has wings that flaps when she walks, very cute.

» Read more on Vox

KL mini road trip Part 1

               

On our last trip home to KL, we at first wanted to make a short makan trip to either Ipoh or Penang with my brother and father. That didn't materialise as we didn't have much time and a four year old boy travelling with us, instead we decided to explore the eats in and around our own city. 

First stop, Bah Kut Teh (BKT) at Old Klang Road. On the way there, my brother recounted the story of his friend who married a girl from this area. On his wedding day, after his male friends and himself had "stormed" the bride's house to claim the bride they then had some spare time waiting for the bride to ready herself for other ceremonies. Instead of staying with his in-laws to chit chat, the groom took his entourage to have a BKT breakfast. Because he loves the BKT here.

We circled the neighbourhood that boasted the highest concentration of BKT operators and finally settled arbitrarily on one of the corner coffeeshops. Upon stepping out of the car we were greeted with the most foul stench of burning rubber. If you have never smelled this smell before you will have to imagine something like sewage, rodent decomposition and fungating vegetables all mingled together and it will be close to it. But we were not going to turn back and look like cowards in front of the townsfolks, reasoning that our minds will habituate to the smell. While that did happen the smell continued to linger and occasionally asserted itself, but not enough to detract from the experience which was largely enjoyable but not really a highlight.

Old Klang Road BKT is of a lighter style than the KL/ Jalan Imbi version we grew up eating- less heavy on the Chinese herbs so that the soup is more of a balance between meaty and herbal. It is also traditionally cooked in a claypot. The ribs were tender and tasty enough and digging through the pot revealed succulently braised shitake mushrooms, dried beancurd sheets and melting sweet cabbage. Our stomachs warm and nearly full, we piled back into the car and planned our route to Port Klang.

               

Port Klang is not worth visiting unless you have a reason to. It is ugly and industrialised, mostly it is the cargo trains and container trucks that populate the town. But there are some ferries that take passengers and goods across to small neighbouring islands so brother can show his son some 'ships and boats'.

               

Another reason for visiting was this very old coffeeshop which I learnt about from robyn's blog EatingAsia. Husband likes mee goreng, or mee mamak as it is called here and robyn had said nice things about the rendition here so we decided on this place for lunch.   

               

But I was distracted by the neighbouring table's lunch of what appeared to be Hainanese style pork chops. They're actually chicken chops because the coffeeshop is a halal establishment. No matter, our order came with delicious crumbed chicken covered in a familiarly old-fashioned and very tasty tomato sauce and accompanied by proper fried potatoes and peas. Pork would make it perfect though....

The mee mamak was good, even Daddy said so. More pictures of the coffeeshop below. In Part 2, we drive back to KL and ate some more. 

               

               

               

               

On Vox: My green quilt

Right, everything is now unpacked. The flat is clean again so there is no excuse. It is time to start quilting on this green quilt I finished for Mummy two months ago. I posted the pictures on flickr after it was done but forgot to blog about it so here it is. Will quilt simple loops by hand, I have no confidence in free motion machine quilting.

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Eating In

               

The first meal we ate here was at the neighbourhood cafe, where I had lentils and boiled ham. For dinner it was steak frites followed by the traditional galette de rois. After that the body could not take anymore, lighter fare such as falafel wraps and phos became more appealing. The takeaway version of pho includes plenty of herbs and a full bottle of piping hot soup.

               

This was the first homecooked meal we made. The chicken was a fresh poulet fermier (farm chicken) which was very tasty whichever way we cook it, here it was simply steamed with some dried mushrooms- contraband from Singapore-and nai bai from a vegetable wholesaler in Tolbiac. The fruits and vegetables from the wholesaler shop was sparkling fresh, and reasonably priced, too bad it is not near where we live.

               

Nearer home there is an outdoor market, at the Avenue President Wilson. slurp! gave me this book Paris in a Basket, which describes the major markets in this city. In the book the President Wilson market is described variously as 'farmers for the haute couture', 'elegant', 'upscale'. True it feels very bourgeois, my fellow shoppers look and smell very expensive  and some of the stalls reminds me more of a food hall in terms of display and prices. But, it'll do until I become more familiar with the other markets. Besides I've made friends with the very friendly Italian delicatessen guy and some products are not as expensive as feared, e.g the vegetables at Joel Thielbaut and they let us pick our own selection too. Last week they had a lot of exotic (to me anyway) root vegetables like the purple-black potatoes and stunted but sugar sweet carrots. All the produce are very fresh too, the spinach leaves even had the wet soil clinging to the roots. I was intrigued enough to buy an good looking bulb of fennel and discovered that fennel is very tasty roasted with a little salt.

Whereas in Singapore I would get almost everything I need on our biweekly blitz at the wet markets, here I seem to be foraging for food all the time. Wednesdays and Saturdays for the markets, the nearby G20 and Monoprix for the other essentials at other times, occasional trips to Tolbiac (we haven't quite made it to the Tang Freres end yet because we invariably stop at the other shops nearer the Tolbiac/ Port de Choissy end) and the most naughty of all, the food halls at Galeries and Bon Marche. The range of products is so tempting that we haven't felt much inclination to eat out much. 

               

Example, this was something quick we whipped up for lunch yesterday. The fresh pasta, parsley and turkey came from the market, nai bai from Tolbiac and country ham from Bon Marche, all combined with some fish sauce and dark soy to make a light and delicious meal for two. The falafels though were a mistake, leaden and dry, I shall not buy any more from the guy in the market but his baklavas were quite alright.

I even organise lunch for husband. Most people at his workplace bring a homepacked lunch as there are not many options around, and though I haven't gone all bento-ish on him, I make sure he has a reasonably tasty meal. Today he had boiled young potatoes with a little scattered cheese (with instructions to microwave 1 minute), some canned tuna with olive oil and an apple. Yesterday it was leftover fried beefballs sandwiched with country ham in a mini ciabatta and a tub of pink rhubarb yoghurt. Tomorrow he is getting rice, boiled greens, roasted chicken leg and an orange. Friday we both get a break because he is accompanying me to register at Sorbonne, we can have lunch around that locale.

So there we are, my life sounds very si-lai (HK-speak for ah-sohs, or boring housewifes) these days but I quite like the change. Tomorrow I shall make bread and butter pudding- it will use up the remaining half carton of cream and cereal bread, I can also scrape out beans from the vanilla bean like I saw Jamie Oliver do on telly. Not as much fun as munching on a crab claw but it'll do...

On Vox: Woof! Mimi here, reporting from our new home

We finally realised what those ugly green crates are for. The awful memory is slowly fading, but one can never quite forget how one evening, just as we were settling into the now blissfully empty apartment, Uncle Peter with his tall body and limp (apparently a huge dog accidentally sat on his leg and broke his bone, oh dear) manouvred Rufus and I into the crates and drove us away in a white van. Daddy also came along, but soon we were separated from him and we found ourselves in a very dark place with lots of luggage. Then there was the loud noise and omg, i think we actually were flying. The luggage compartment was warm, Daddy said later he reminded the attendant to check that the pilot especially turned on the heater for us.

» Read more on Vox

Soldes

That's French for the sales. And the sales are very good here, fourth sister who came last weekend declared that it is better here than London. She got herself new shoes and a new handbag from Galeries. I bought a pair of leather gloves from Tara Jarmon and a belt from Galeries.

Last night it was really cold, so cold I could not sleep. It did not help that I was wearing a cotton nightgown- a thick version that I bought from Greenwich, London years and years ago and which I never wear in Singapore because my usual sleep attire is a tank top or something with straps because I can tolerate cold very well. Anyway, over here it is winter so it is really cold, plus our bedroom is not heated (technically it is the spare room, but we prefer it over the master bedroom because it has a neater layout and a working bathroom), both factors made sleeping in the room not much different from sleeping outside. Which drove me to seek more functional sleepware. So I set off for Samaritaine this morning, and boy was it more freezing in the streets? I don't know how low the temperature was, but right now it is about minus 1 deg C, so it must have been about 5 in the daytime. Everybody in the streets were bundled up and wearing a 'fxxx, it's so cold' look on their face. I didn't mind that much, it was a chance for me to wear the pleated fabric cap I bought in Seoul last year, and I had on warm gloves and scarves. But it was still cold, I walked nearly 4 hours outside today and did not break into any sweat or discard any layers that is how effing cold it was.

But  back to my story- Samaritaine is closed! Has been closed since last summer due to security reasons. Luckily I had a backup plan. Just a short walk away is the Paris equivalent of Picaddily Circus i.e. Les Halles, and the underground shopping centre there houses a Muji outlet which was having sales of up to 70%. I got a bunchload of long sleeved tops, most of them in wool, some with angora and merino too. Good for me, also for husband, I got him a new sweater. Together with the hot water bottle, we should be fine tonight. If it is still intolerable, we'll have no choice but to get an electric heater. Good thing the sales end on February 17th.

                

Still, what has all this got to do with food right? Well, in my last post, I mentioned scoring some nice bargains in Staub cookware. Here it is. The oval cocotte, about 29 cm wide, or just a little wider than an oven toaster, was selling at BHV for EUD102 (normal price EUD 140. The grill pan cost me about EUD 42. BHV prices are generally better than Galeries and Printemps, but I didn't have time to check at Bon Marche. Staub is not really considered that big-deal here, in the stores it is displayed side by side with Le Creuset and the lid drip feature gives it just that extra edge over its competitor. At husband's favourite restaurant, the casual and dependable mussels frites Leon de Bruxelles, most of their mussel dishes come in a Staub cocotte. It keeps the mussels hot till the last mollusc. I used my new pot to make a lip-smacking sausage casserole, rich with fresh chicken stock and sweet winter vegetables.

                

Update: The grill pan works marvelously too. This is a piece of salmon which we grilled last night for dinner. It was nicely crusted (though we mishandled the skin which still turned out crispy) and moist inside. The fennel was roasted in the oven, but next time we will try cooking it on the grill/

My vox blog: http://umami.vox.com/

Non food related posts will be written in my vox blog, please head over for a visit if you are curious. It was updated just a few minutes ago.

Bonjour!

We have internet connection, hooray!!

But only in the kitchen. Because although we have 9 (!)telephone ports in the apartment, only the one in the kitchen is connected to the telephone cable, well, technically it is the cable that comes out of the switchbox which is located in the kitchen. The rest of the cables hangs in a messy tangle- a situation that we only discovered when husband was looking for the circuit breaker when the lights in the kitchen mysteriously went off. The discovery came after numerous phone calls to find out why we do not have TV/Internet/ Phone connection despite submitting the application on 2 Jan and being informed that we will be connected within 2 weeks thereof. The contractors are coming to fix this on Monday, we hope. We are still waiting for the painters who were supposed to come repair the cracked paint in baby's bedroom at 10 am- we are now at 1.30 2.00 pm already. As for the contractors who are supposed to fix the leaky/malfunctioning/ kaput toilet and bathtub in the spare room and 'powder room/dogs' toilet', we're still waiting for an appointment....And wait, there was also the dodgy front door lock which couldn't unlock, and we had to use the back door, the locksmith spent exactly 1.5 hours making it looser, but it is still dodgy.

Welcome to Paris! Fortunately, thanks to our obsessive planning and husband's secretary's help, we have electricity and the building comes with water and heating. Which means we can get on with the massive cleanup and unpacking.

It's been a volatile week. The past weekend was spent in agonising wait for some of our visas, which was finally given to us at 5.30 pm Monday evening, i.e. 6 hours before our flight. Then it was a mad scramble with last-minute packing, bathing and intructions for the agent and a sad, disorientated goodbye at the airport with friends. The flight went well, but we left one of our 18 luggages behind and had to spend three hours getting it back, most of it asleep on the metro as I was very tired.

Then we worried we had no newspapers for the dogs to do their business on, and come evening we were sitting in a taxi and there was a stack of Le Monde in the back pocket of the front passenger seat which the driver let us have for free.

At the bi-weekly market this morning, I was befriended by Susan, a very helpful Swiss/British/American lady who dispensed generous advice on which stalls had good stuff and what activities we could do with our 15 month old child. She even introduced me to her favourite fruiterer whom she has been buying from for the past 12 years! When she was brand new here like me, she said, someone was just as kind to her.

At BHV, we spent three hours getting our curtains priced, paid and delivery arrangements done. It took me only 20 minutes to choose, we basically went for the cheapest fabrics as everything seemed so expensive. Then the lady at the order section estimated the costs, drawing out the dimensions on many pieces of paper and sounding very knowledgeable, even asking very practical questions. All of a sudden, she got up and gave up, and her colleague stepped in, kicking off the next cycle. I wandered off to the day curtain section where we found out that it will cost even more since our windows are very tall and we would need miles of sheer cotton. In the end we plumped for ready made polyester lookalikes but at the cashier's we were turned back because we had not got our delivery orders prepared. Back at the promoter's desk, the three ladies got themselves all tizzied up because they couldn't work out the computer system, and they could not register our telephone number correctly. Three hours of my life I am never getting back, spent in shopping hell, urgh.

The next day we were back at BHV again, because we needed some shelves and a locked cabinet- the apartment does not have a single drawer or storage space that comes with a lock. This time some of the cashiers were on strike come 5.30 pm. The mind boggles, cashiers can also go on strike ah?

Still at BHV, there was a 40% discount on Staub cocottes. I got myself a large oval cocotte and their largest grill pan with foldable handles. Will post picture when they deliver them together with our day curtains next week.

We're lucky, husband's secretary said, we have arrived in the sales week of 10-17 January. Our low-cost Samsung TV that we bought at Mustafa's doesn't work with the digital box-top here, I am now supposed to look up electrical goods store on the internet and later, as soon as husband has knocked up the coathooks on the lobby wall, we'll go buy a TV. And dimmer bulbs- it is all chandeliers and wall sconces here, otherwise the electricity bill will kill us first.

And I haven't figure out why I can get into some websites but not others. Gmail OK, Flickr OK, Typepad OK, but some blogs and Vox, not OK. Hmmmm, but not supposed to be surfing anyway. So, logging off now....

Cheesy Ham Sandwich for Xmas

                     

And we were very grateful for it too, dull as it may have been.

The drive up to KL on 23rd Dec was very long, starting with an hour long queue at the Second Link and continuing along the North South Highway in long draggy moments, especially painful in the middle where the Plus people were actually doing roadworks, turning a 3.5 hour journey into a 5.5. hour nightmare.

Back home we were greeted with much mayhem (cue flashbacks to similar scenes in 2004). It was the height of the party season, and every spare hand and leg was engaged in making mince pies, miniature Xmas puddings, roast turkey/ leg of lamb/ hams plus trimmings as well as loads of finger foods. There is not much competitors in the Klang Valley for finger foods and the reason is simple- it is backbreakingly labour intensive and extremely fiddly. Then there was also the packaging, invoicing and payment collections. All these frenzied activities on top of the usual childminding and daily rituals. Bedtime was 3 am both nights of the weekend. It was exhilarating, frustrating and and left no time for other concerns.

By the time Xmas day came round, we were all in a zombie-like state. Third Sister made some simple toasted sandwiches with her jam-glazed hams and some melty cheese and that was our Christmas lunch. Its simplicity was much welcomed in the face of all that fancy party foods we were knee-deep in just hours before. Then I went to bed and slept most of the afternoon away.

The days after Xmas were quieter, so we could go shopping, play with all the wee nephews and nieces, have leisurely lunches, knit and generally relax. I even managed a visit to the dentist for a routine cleaning. The internet connection was spotty so I limited myself to checking emails and downloading crossword puzzles.

                     

Food was not really a priority. There was way too much of it to make much of an impression, the 5 refridgerators and 1 chest freezer were all stuffed to bursting with food for customers or leftovers that daddy brought to tide us over when there wasn't time to cook for ourselves. The family loved chihuahua's fruit cake which was almost 90% fruit and nuts and only 10% cake. Mummy took two nights and three days to make her special dried abalone soup enriched with cordyceps, scallops, chicken and ginseng. We also discovered that our mom makes a mean Fried Tung Hoon- almost oil-free, and of a suitably dry texture imbued with the fragrance of loads of dried shrimps and chinese parsley.

There was also a day devoted to finding good eats in and around KL, but I will cover that in the next post. Right now I am happy to be back in Singapore with the dogs. The internet has just started to work right too, so I could finally resume blogging.

This comes a little late, but I hope everyone will have a happy year ahead. May all your wishes come true and your meals be memorable and satisfying!