Of Silk, figs, and Andre

This past Sunday was our 12th wedding anniversary, which is also known as the silk anniversary. I only found out about this via an internet search when a friend asked which anniversary is the 12th. As it happened, one of the presents that I got for hubby is a silk tie, so it’s totally in sync with the theme!

Two days before our anniversary I received a tip from a chef friend that my local supermarket just got a shipment of super sweet Turkish figs. The next morning I rushed over to said supermarket and bought four packets. I love figs, but only if they’re sweet and actually taste of figs. Often times even when they are ripe they have a watered down non-descript taste that won’t excite anyone. These ones were very sweet, with intense fig flavors.

Hidemi Sugino has a fig tartlet that I have never been able to try, because I somehow always go to Tokyo when figs are most definitely not in season, like in the dead of winter. So naturally the first thing that popped into my head was to make the fig tartlets. As far as Hidemi Sugino recipes go, this is one of the easiest ones, all you have to do is to find good figs. For the first time, I’ll share his recipe on my blog with you guys, because it's not too long to translate. You’ll need to either know or look up some of the basic techniques, since I’m too lazy to type it out, but it should be fairly easy to google and find out. So here it goes.

Tartelette aux figues (makes 12x 7cm tartlets)

Pate sucree:
90g unsalted butter at RT
60g icing sugar
30g whole egg
20g almond powder
150g light flower

crème patissiere:

250g milk

55g caster sugar

¼ vanilla bean

50g egg yolk

12g light flour

12g corn starch


Crème d’amandes
40g unsalted butter at RT
40g icing sugar
40g whole egg
40g almond powder

6 large figs

kirsch

30B syrup (130g sugar +100g water)

crème Chantilly

Apricot jam
Raspberry jam

1. Make pate sucree and chill in fridge

2. Make crème patissiere and chill in fridge (steps 1 & 2 can be done the day before)

3. Roll dough out and fit into tartlet pans, rest in fridge while making crème frangipane

4. Make crème frangipane by whisking together crème d’amandes and crème patissiere

5. Take tartlet shells out of fridge, use another tartlet pan to press dough down, then prick with a fork a few times.

6. Pipe about 25g of crème frangipane into each tartlet pan and let rest in fridge for 30 minutes

7. Meanwhile, slice each fig into 16 slices, removing skin only after you’ve sliced them, one slice at a time. This took me almost an hour, but it results in neater outside edges, so it’s worth it.

8. Arrange slices on a tray and sprinkle granule sugar on it (how much sugar depends on how sweet your figs are), then sprinkle with kirsch. Chill in fridge for 30 min

9. Bake tartlets at 170C for about 15-20 minutes, until crème frangipane is a dark golden brown

10. Remove tartlets from pans and cool.

11. Whip up crème Chantilly to very stiff peak. You’ll need about 20g for each tartlet

12. Mix together 20g of 30B syrup, 10g water and 12g kirsch. Brush onto top of tartlet, let syrup soak in

13. Spread a layer of raspberry jam onto the baked tartlet, then pipe a mound of Chantilly on top.

14. Arrange 8 slices of figs in an overlapping pattern onto each tartlet

15. Heat 50g apricot jam and 10g kirsch in a small saucepan until fluid. Brush onto cut surfaces of figs

16. Top each tartlet with a raspberry and you’re done!


We had some of this for dessert the day before our anniversary and gave some away to friends when hubby went to play tennis with them, but our real celebration was the dinner at chef Andre Chiang’s eponymous restaurant Andre. I liked his cooking when he was helming Jaan at the top of Swissotel, but somehow never got around to trying his own place since he opened it about a year ago.  I made the booking more than a month ago because it is F1 week in Singapore and it never hurts to be prepared.

The front of the restaurant was so inconspicuous that I missed it the first time and had to double back and drive down a short stretch the wrong way to get back. Good thing Sunday night traffic is light in this part of the town. The restaurant has the feel of a house. Off to the side on the first floor is a small sitting area, but we were led to the second floor dining room. The space has the clean modern feel of a French house. One side of the wall has black and white wall papers of a little forest, and sheep clad in suede are used as bag stools.

Hubby chose the wine pairing, as it is too tiring to try to pick out wines that will go with most of the eight-course meal, especially since I don’t drink. I notice most other guests opt for this lazy option as well.

Before we start we were treated to a quartet of palate cleansers: “fish and chips”, “popcorn”, some silvery fish slices on a crisp cracker served with porcini chips and Andre’s signature chicken skin chips.

His eight-course menu is based on his “octophilosophy”, the concept of which is highlighted in the link above, so I shall not repeat it here.










The first course is Pure, which was scallop ravioli, chives& dill flower in purple cauliflower consume. Very little seasoning was used and the fragrance of the dill flowers ties everything together nicely.

Next came Salt: French oyster wrapped in Japanese seaweed, served granny smith foam. The dish was decorated with tiny cubes of cucumbers and apples. No salt was added, only the saltiness from the oyster provided seasoning.

 

The third course was Artisan - Kyoto eggplant topped with caviar, served with a savory crème Anglaise sauce sprinkled with hazelnut shavings and fried burdock roots (gobou). The savory crème Anglaise was a nice twist and the fried gobou brought a nice contrast to an otherwise creamy dish. To top it all off, the dish on which this course was served is designed by chef Andre.

The next course is named South and pays homage to chef Andre’s time spent in the south of France, close to the Mediterranean . It consists of flounder with tomato & white peaches, and tomato sorbet in one dish. Uni risotto and blue crab foam in a second dish. The risotto was probably one of the best I’ve ever tasted, done to perfection with just the right amount of bite to it and is perfectly flavoured with the uni sauce.

Texture came next and is squid "arborio rice" with charcoal rice crackers. The “rice” is actually squid and tasted much better than my chicken substitute. I usually don’t like squid because of the chewy texture, but here the texture is completely changed, and I find myself wishing I had stuck to the original dish.

The sixth course is Unique, and here the unique ingredient is French artichoke. The dish was stuffed baby barracuda, French artichoke and artichoke foam. To be perfectly honest I felt that the artichoke was rather tasteless on its own, however the sauce was so robust and the stuffed baby barracuda so tender that they saved the dish. I just felt that to be THE unique ingredient in the “unique” course, the artichoke should’ve taken a more front row seat.

The next course was “memory” and it was a dish that Andre has always kept on his menu, with different variations. Tonight it’s a baked foie gras jelly with black truffle glaze. The “jelly” contains egg white and has the silky consistency of a well-executed chawanmushi, and the black truffle glaze was so fragrant that even later, when the next table had the dish we could smell it. Although hubby thought it was a great dish and I loved it too at first, ultimately I felt that either the portion was too big, or it needed an accompaniment to cut down on the richness, like a champagne jelly or something similar.

Our final course was “terroir”, although in our case it’s something from the sky: French pigeon with pigeon jus, pea purée & potato gnocchi. I was still recovering from the last dish and found the pigeon a little too gamey for my taste, although to be honest it was a perfectly cooked pigeon, with just a hint of pinkness in the centre, so Hubby was more than happy to finish my portion for me.

Before dessert, we cleansed our palate with mini marshmallow, strawberry granita & yogurt jelly in a cute little pot. Dessert was chocolate sponge, which really looked like a piece of sponge; soft chocolate sphere filled with warm chocolate ganache, and burned butter ice cream. I’ve always found restaurant desserts boring and this was no exception. I think it was my least favourite course of the entire evening, but I guess nobody is perfect.

When my latte came the waitress apologetically said something about “please be careful, the cup is designed by chef Andre and the shape is a little strange” and indeed it was. The cup was more of an irregular rectangle rather than a round, and hubby immediately commented that he could’ve made one just like that. It wasn’t until I picked it up that I realized the bottom was not flat. Good thing I didn’t try to set it down on the table!

We rounded off our meal with some French figs, popcorns that “pop” in your mouth, passion fruit marshmallow and honey hazelnut Madeline. All in all, it was a very memorable meal. I’ve heard mixed reviews about Andre but we felt this was the most exciting meal we’ve had in Singapore in years. I think chef Andre is a creative genius and is really setting new standards for all restaurants in our little dot on the map. So hats off to him!

How to Convert Your Friends into Twilight Fans

Like I said, I’ve turned into a Twilight fan. For three weeks after I came back from New York, I lived and breathed the Twilight saga, reading the books over and over again, watching the DVD, listening to the soundtracks, and searching any Twilight related video clips on YouTube. Yeah, I know, it’s all a little bit obsessive. The worst part though, is that I don’t have many friends who’ve read Twilight, it being a teen novel and all, which made it hard to share my obsession. So, what’s a girl to do, but to try to convert all her friends into fans, just like her? And what better way to do it than to throw a Twilight-themed girls’ night complete with a screening of the movie?

Here’s what you do:

Step 1: send invitation to all your girlfriends regardless of whether they’ve read Twilight or not. After all, the goal is to have as many of your friends as possible with whom you can discuss and obsess over Twilight together, so new blood (no pun intended) is crucial.

Step 2: get your friend who owns a cooking school to send her chef to cook the “bloody” feast for you. Who can resist a gourmet meal cooked by a handsome chef? So he’s no Edward Cullen, but in real life we have to make do.

Step 3: fill your place with as much greeneries as you can so it resembles Forks, the little town the book is set in that’s perpetually green and luscious.








Step 4: conjure up the idea to make a cake that look like Edward’s meadow and reincarnate Edward and Bella in fondant, despite the fact that you’ve never made any human figurines out of fondant before and that fondant literally melts in Singapore’s heat and humidity. To quote Edward, “Mind over matters.”












Step 5: play the soundtrack and Debussy piano music to set the mood.

Step 6: details, details, details. This includes the red apple, which is on the book cover, and represent the forbidden fruit; flowers that smell good and aroma candles to simulate Bella’s floral scent; drinks that look like blood, such as sangria and watermelon juice; and last but not the least, dress up in your vampire chic best! You want to make Alice proud.












Step 7: channel Siobhan’s ability so you can will it to rain after three straight weeks of sunshine and scorching heat. It wouldn’t be Forks if it weren’t wet and gloomy!

Et Voila! You have yourself a bloody good time with friends and virtually all of them are now converts. The next time you throw a New Moon party, nobody will be going, “Aren’t vampires supposed to kill people?”

Inspiration's in the Air

I have been watching the Olympics and getting so darn inspired by the amazing athletes. Without a question, they are all extremely talented but what I admire most is the sheer determination and dedication they have shown. The most obvious example is Michael Phelps, who’s won every one of the eight gold medals that he set his mind on winning. But it is those athletes who were dismissed as non-competition, or were deemed past their prime that inspired me even more.

Did you watch the tennis quarterfinals match between James Blake and Roger Federer? Who would’ve thought Blake could beat the invincible Federer? Or the women’s singles match between Venus Williams (world #7) and China’s Li Na (world #42)? When the game started everyone thought it would be a quickie with Williams crushing her opponent mercilessly, but Li held on, fought back, and won! In the gymnastics stadium, China’s Yang Wei finally won the men’s all-around after missing out on gold in two previous Olympic games. The next day, USA’s Nastia Liukin beat her teammate, the favored Shawn Johnson, and took the women’s all-around gold. To watch her on the balance beam was like watching a ballerina, except her whole dace floor is a piece of wood 10cm wide and 5m long! The Singapore women’s table tennis team also made history by brining home an Olympic medal after a 40-year draught. When they played the Korean team the entire island held its collective breath through the ordeal. In the end, the youngest team member Feng Tianwei played a critical part by winning two singles matches. And let’s not forget the 41-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres who missed the gold in the 50m freestyle by just 0.01 second. She became the oldest athlete to ever win a silver medal in the Olympics swimming events and a winner in my book.

The Olympics has almost another week to go and I am sure I will find inspiration over and over again. I guess you could say I am easily inspired. Since I am the type with no self-discipline and no self-motivation, I am always in awe of people who can drive themselves beyond their capabilities, and whose sheer mental force can push them to achieve the unthinkable. When Jason finished his first marathon in just over four hours with a badly twisted ankle, I briefly contemplated running a half marathon myself, before I remembered how much I hated running. That’s how easily I am inspired by people’s athletic abilities. I have never really been the athletic type and although over the years I’ve grown to tolerate hiking if there are nice sceneries to be seen, learned how to rollerblade because it was once cool, and even picked up tennis and golf so that Jason and I can have something to do together, I was never naturally athletic. I walk my dogs everyday for more than an hour and I play tennis at the American club every week anywhere from one to four hours, and I go to the occasional body pump or pilates class when I am feeling extremely motivated, but that is the extent of my exercise routine. Oh, I also hit a few balls at the driving range before my golf lessons so I don’t suck too much. But all that is going to change now, because if those Olympics athletes can win matches when all odds are against them, surely I can win over my own inertia and laziness.

Last week, after my one and half hour tennis clinic I sprinted to a Body Balance class five minutes later, sweat still dripping down my neck from tennis. After an hour of stretching and pilate/yoga-esque movements, I felt really good. Body Balance is the perfect cool-down to tennis, isn’t it? Riding the wave of inspiration, I also signed up for an 8-week spinning program at the club. It is actually a weight-loss program but heck, everyone can stand to lose a few pounds, right? The only problem is, the program starts after the Olympic ends. Will I still be motivated by then? It remains to be seen.

So how did you spend your Valentine’s Day?

Here’s how I spent Feb 14th, 2008

12amv – 1:45am
Emergency Room of Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Libby and Cherry Garcia got into a fight and Libby’s two upper canines were ripped from her gum. The one on the right is pointing horizontally out instead of down. Her upper lip couldn’t even close properly. After a shot of antibiotics, pain relief meds and some blood sample we were sent home.

2am
Home
Dead tired, but had to make sure the dogs are ok sleeping in the same room after a big fight. Libby ended up sleeping on my side of the bed with her E-collar on and Cherry slept at the foot of the bed between Jason and I.

9am – 10am
Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Dropped Libby off to get her teeth fixed. Since she had to go under general anesthesia anyway I asked the vet to scale her teeth. She looked so timid and helpless and her upper lip was still pushed up by the uprooted canine I almost bursted into tears in the exam room.

10:30am
CK Tang, 4th floor
Bought a set of jungle animal figurines as cupcake toppers for a friend’s daughter’s jungle themed cake order.

11am – 4:30pm
Home
Baking cupcakes, chocolate with chocolate butter cream and lemon with lemon butter cream, plus a small cutting cake for above mentioned jungle themed birthday party. I hate rushing things when I make desserts, but I had no choice. I actually wanted to make the cake toppers with fondant, but it was too last minute. Good thing I scouted out the plastic figurines as a backup. I am very glad I had this cake order to take my mind off Libby, otherwise I probably would’ve resort to retail therapy and bought things that I’d regret later.

5pm
Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Back to pick up Libby. I was hoping her left canine could be saved but she came out with both canines gone. The bill from both visits added up to be about $500, a lot lower than I expected, but I would’ve paid anything if they could’ve fixed her canines instead of pulling them out.

6-7pm
Camp Rd grassy area
Walking/training Cherry Garcia to heel off leash. Jeffrey the dog trainer thinks that if I train Cherry more vigorously with higher expectations, the dogs will stop fighting. At this stage I’m willing to try anything.

9pm
Home
After a quiet dinner, I Finished up my royal icing/pretzel stick coconut trees for the cake. The royal icing didn’t have enough time to dry thoroughly so a lot of them cracked. I tried my best to patch them up, hopefully they won’t crack after I put them on the cake.


When we were waiting at Mt. Pleasant Animal Hospital’s ER, I called The Animal Recovery Centre at Greendale Ave and Balestier Rd, to see if the vet there could see us sooner (the wait at Mt. Pleasant was more than an hour). After describing the situation to the technician I was informed that the vet did not think it was important enough for him/her to come in and see Libby, even though I was willing to pay the $260 night call rate. I told the technician again that Libby’s teeth were completely ripped out and that she was in pain, but the vet still didn’t think it was a big deal. In fact, they didn’t even think it was serious enough to book me the first appointment the next day. They wanted me to go in at 2pm! They also mentioned getting an ultrasound before determining what to do. This is the point where I hung up and decided to never go to the Animal Recovery Center again.

I had one bad experience with them when I took Cherry Garcia in for a very severe case of diarrhea. Libby had something similar in Tokyo. The vet there took a stool sample, determined the bacteria that was causing it and prescribed the right medicine. She was better the next day. At the Animal Recovery Center, they didn’t want to do any test but instead gave her a broad-spectrum antibiotics, which didn’t cover anaerobic bacteria because from experience, even I know the diarrhea was probably caused by something in some garbage that Cherry ate, which is perfect breeding ground for anaerobes (see, I haven’t completely forgotten my training in clinical pharmacy). They also gave her some vitamin shots, which were expensive and completely unnecessary. The bill came up to almost $300 and Cherry continued to have diarrhea for the next week. Needless to say, I was not impressed, and the only reason I called them that night was because I was willing to do anything to relieve Libby’s pain faster. I was prepared to pay through the nose but I never expected the vet to be so cold-hearted and uncaring. If his child had some teeth knocked out I would like to see his reaction if his dentist told him to wait for more than 14 hours for treatment. I know we couldn’t perform the surgery that night, but at least we could give her some pain relief and antibiotics. Hasn’t he ever heard of endocarditis? I just think that someone who has so little compassion has no business being a vet.

On a more positive note, the friend whose daughter is having the jungle themed birthday party runs a medical foster home called Blue Sky Healing Homes in Beijing. She temporarily houses and provides medical care to orphans who go to Beijing for medical treatments. Often times she ends up being the one to raise money or finds doctors to treat the kids. It’s a great cause and she does it with her own money plus generous donations from people like you and me. So instead of giving each other presents this Valentine’s day, we are donating to her organization. Take a look at her website and I hope the stories will inspire you too.

A New Beginning on Flickr

First of all, let me just say that one should never surf the internet while half asleep. Because when you’re almost falling asleep you tend to make decisions without using your brain, which is what happened to me around New Year’s. I was browsing through flickr as a means to put off going to bed, as I tend to do on so many late nights. As always, I checked comments that people left on my photos. At this time of the year there are a lot of Happy Holidays greetings and it’s always nice to get them, even from strangers who just happen to pass by. One message contained a link and when I clicked on it, it took me to another page that required re-entering my password. I thought it was odd that flickr would do that, but being half-asleep I was on autopilot and entered my password as asked. I was then taken to a page with a nice photo of a pretty girl and some flowers. I thought it was rather strange but didn’t think too much of and went to bed.

On Saturday I was still in bed when Jason yelled from the study that he couldn’t find my flickr account. Being half-asleep (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) I dismissed it as a glitch in the system. When I got up I had to take Libby to the vet and proceeded to spend half a day there. It was only after lunch when I tried to log in myself that I found out that my account was gone. Poof! My comments on other people’s photos, my faves, everything was gone. It was as if I never existed on flickr, except the groups that I created were still there, only that the admin is now a faceless icon instead of me. It was at that moment that I realized that I had been phished. I wrote to flickr help but it seems pretty clear that they cannot restore the thousands of photos and tens of thousands of comments that are linked with my account (those that I made on other people’s photos and those that other people made on mine).

On Sunday, I started to get emails asking me what happened to my account. Some are from friends and some are from people I didn’t know or remember. While it’s comforting to know that I am actually missed on flickr, it also made me realize that losing that account means losing touch with friends I’ve made on flickr.

I’ve been with flickr from almost the very beginning. When I first joined I had just started taking photos again after quitting my job, using a dinky little Sony T-1, yes, the first generation super-slim Sony mini cameras. I found inspirations on flickr everyday, and saw myself striving to do better. Gradually, I improved. Three years and three cameras later, my photos are regularly seen on Flickr Explore (the most interesting 500 photos selected everyday) and have even made it to the top ten on more than a few occasions. My photos were published in the Wall Street Journal thanks to flickr; I was commissioned to take photos for Le Gouter Bernadaud (a lot of photos on this website are taken by me) because of photos on my flickr site; and last year, I photographed a cookbook. I still find inspirations from people who I count as contacts: MatthewA, Imapix, speedM, bokchoyboy, La Tartine Gourmand, rosemary*, Ya Ya, Lulu & Phillipe, Tommy Oshima, pfong, just to name a few. I also value the comments and critique that people leave on my photos. To say that I feel that a little part of my life is gone when my flickr account was deleted is to put it mildly. The only saving grace is that I have double, triple backups of every file I’ve ever uploaded on flickr so the photos are not lost.

I don’t know whether I will or even want to attempt to rebuild my account because it was more than just a couple of photo sets, it documented part of my life for the past three years. I thought about not returning, but giving up on flickr also means giving up on all the wonderful people on flickr. Above all, the emails that people sent me saying they’ll miss my photos and a friend’s wise words made me decide to return:

“And remember, never get angry or else the person who did this will be even happier..never punish yourself with others mistakes..

At one point of time in life we have to go through such bad experience, stay cool and move on if nothing can be done..

Stay happy and bake some good cookies and a cuppa of great coffee on your weekend;O)”

So to the person who did this: deleting other peoples’ accounts doesn’t make you a hero or a smart guy. You will not get any satisfaction from me because I will come back and my photos will be even better.

And to the one who made the callous remark that I somehow deserved this: when I said have a nice life, I mean it. Stop stalking me!

Provence, here I come

I never thought I’d be so depressed going to Provence. We’ve been talking going with our friends Albin and Agnes for years and finally made the booking in February. Both Albin and Agnes are food lovers and avid cooks so the idea is to go for two weeks, rent a villa, go to the market in the morning, lay by the pool during the day and cook and eat and be merry. Agnes is bringing all her food recipes and I am in charge of desserts. We have also talked our friends Gaurang and Christine into joining us for the first week. It promises to be a great vacation for all.

Then three days ago something happened at work and Jason had to cancel. My first reaction was to cancel my trip too, but we have two other couples expecting us there and it just wouldn’t be nice to not show up. So now I’m going solo. While poor Jason’s stuck at work, I have to figure out how to get myself from CDG airport to Gare Lyod, use the rail pass to catch the TGV to Avignon, find the rental car office and drive myself to our villa in a little village called Murs, which is 30km away. I feel like I’m in a nightmare where I’m a contestant in the Amazing Race, except I don’t have a partner to read the map while I drive. Albin and Agnes are nice enough to come and meet me at the train station so I can just follow their car back to Murs. I hope I can remember the roads because two days later I am going back to pick up Gaurang and Christine.

We are hoping that Jason can come and join me for the second week, but there’s a chance that he might not make it at all. So there I was, going to the supermarket before I leave to stock up for Jason, and somehow I found myself shopping for clothes. This is what I do when I get depressed, I shop. A shirt, a pair of pants, a skirt, a necklace and a pair of earrings later, I don’t feel any better. That’s the thing about depression shopping, it rarely makes you feel better but you just can’t help yourself. I’m hoping the beautiful scenery in Provence and the company of good friends will do the trick.

Provence, here I come, alone =o(

Spreading the bad words about Gaggenau

Last week, my fickle Gaggenau fridge that refused to be fixed finally died a sudden, yet not completely unexpected death. It’s been months in the works. First too warm, then too cold, and when it finally reached the right temperature, it kept on tripping the circuit.

I am convinced that the repairmen who made at least ten trips in the doomed attempt to repair the fridge had somehow caused this. When they couldn’t find a way to keep the temperature in the fridge compartment above zero they blocked off more than half the airway between the freezer and fridge, stopping the cold air from flowing into the fridge. This had to have caused the refrigerator to overwork itself, adding load to the circuit. But let’s not put all the blames on the repair guys. They did dutifully show up at my house every time I called them in, even though it often takes three days and twice as many phone calls.

The one I blame for this ordeal is Gaggenau. Have you ever heard of a refrigerator (a damned expensive one at that) breaking in less than three years (only two of which in use)? For three months I lived like an obsessed maniac who kept three thermometers in one fridge. I checked them in the morning when I had my breakfast, I checked them at night before I went to bed, and countless times in between whenever I opened the fridge to get something out. Does that sound like a normal life to you? Yet the Gaggenau distributor in Singapore did nothing to help. The problem is that Gaggenau switched local representation some time after our condo was built so the company that originally imported the fridge no longer wants anything to do with me while the new importer claimed that since they did not sell the fridge to the developer, it’s not their problem either. They might be able to get away with it had their product kept on going like the energizer bunny, but what was I supposed to do when I won the Gaggenau piece of crap award and ended up with apparently the only fridge that had malfunctioned in the entire condo? So you see why when the fridge finally broke it was as if a heavy load had been taken off my shoulders. No more constant monitoring of the temperature, no more opening and closing the fridge door at the speed of lightening to avoid overheating, and no more worrying about eggs getting frozen or ice melting into a lump in the ice dispenser. Sure, we’re a couple of thousand dollars poorer, but you can’t put a price tag on your mental health, can you?

Of course, this is not the end of the losing battle with Gaggenau. The entire kitchen is outfitted with their products, from oven to microwave to stove. Recently I tried to change the filter in the exhaust fan but was told that Gaggenau no longer imports it. I guess I’ll have to live with a smelly filter and pray that no other appliances will break while we live here. The lack of follow-up service really amazes me. Does Gaggenau not realize that people are actually going to live here and use their appliances for at least the next thirty years? Did they think their appliances wouldn’t need any kind of maintenance during that time? Or maybe the real explanation is that Gaggenau only cares about getting the big fat paycheck that comes with big contracts with developers and couldn’t care less about little people like us who are the actual end consumers. One thing I do know is that I am never buying any Gaggenau products, ever, by choice or otherwise. So there!

Honey I can’t park the car!

We finally got our act together and bought a car. No more standing in the sun waving down taxis or calling four cab companies on a rainy day and not getting through to even one. All our troubles are over!

But not so fast. Here’s the thing. We didn’t stay long enough in Hong Kong to get a car and when we lived in Tokyo our car had a great navigation system that included a back camera with parking guidance. It allows you to program up to four parking spots so that you can park into those spots following voice guidance. Although I never had the patience to read through the thick operational manual (in Japanese) to figure out how to program it that way, I made full use of the back camera. The navigator screen turned into a viewfinder for the camera whenever the car was in reverse. The best thing about the camera was that it not only showed you what was behind the car, it had two sets of lines on the screen. The green lines showed where the car was at the moment, and the red lines showed where the car was going based on the position of your steering wheel. At first it took a little getting used to, but once you learned how to decipher those lines, parking was a breeze.

I only realized now that I should’ve never become a slave of the camera. What’s wrong with parking the old-fashioned way, without the aid of any high tech devices? I was pretty good at it before we ever had the aid of the camera. I backed our SUV into small Tokyo parking spots with no difficulties, and squeezing into tight parallel spaces was my specialty. Three years with the back camera, I don’t even know which mirror to look at when backing up. It took me four or five tries to wiggle into our own parking spot in the basement the other day and when I parallel parked on a street I was so far from the curb that I was worried about getting hit by passing cars. I am so glad we bought a sedan instead of a big-assed SUV, or would that have been easier to park because of the raised vantage point? God help me the next time I have to park the car!

Oh, did I mention I also seemed to have lost the ability to read maps?

Be Afraid, be Very Afraid

I was at my bank yesterday, closing up one of two accounts I have and transferring all the money into the other account. Then I changed the address on that other account to our Singapore address.

The whole thing was taken care of in less than 15 minutes and not once was I asked to show my ID! I brought my two checkbooks so I knew what the account numbers were, but is that proof that I was the rightful owner of the accounts? I couldn’t believe how trusting the bank manager was. I waited and waited for him to say, “Could I see a proof of ID please?” but nothing. Are ID’s obsolete in America? It must be, because today I successfully cancelled the electricity and water service to my parents’ house without so much as offering my name.

Contrast this with the interrogation and the slew of proofs I have to present every time I make any changes concerning any kind of accounts in Asia (gas, water, electricity, you name it), the difference is quite astounding. Are we Americans too naïve or are Asians too paranoid to the point of being anal? I’m still bitter over an incident with our internet service provider in Hong Kong. When we were leaving the country, they wouldn’t even fax me a cancellation form without speaking to Jason because the account was under his name. So that was way too extreme, but maybe a little bit of vigilance could do some good for the Americans? After all, I doubt any terrorists would’ve been successful enrolling in a flight school in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Moving Pains

It's been more than a month since we moved into our new place and I have yet to go to the pool or the gym just once. It seems that all of a sudden I had a million things to take care of everyday and there never seems to be enough hours in a day. All I did, all day long was opening up boxes and putting away stuff for the first week. When that’s done and taken care of and I thought I could take a breather, other issues started to present themselves.

Among the things to be taken care of was the air conditioner that wasn’t working in the kitchen. There are two, and according to the previous owner, one AC unit was “cooling the kitchen just fine” (her words). Well, not if you are doing pastry work. Fortunately, fixing the AC turned out to be quite fast and painless and along the way I sign a maintenance contract to have our nine AC units checked and cleaned and pampered every three months.

The next item that broke turned out to be a lot more stubborn and more resistant to repairs. Before I go on, I must say that I have never really trusted German products. They have all the high-tech design features and perform like a dream when they do work, but once they break down, it’s down right impossible to fix them, and they often do break down, quite unpredictably. Jason and I go through the same debate every time we move to a new country and try to buy a car. He’s all for design and performance whereas I value reliability above all else. So far I have always been able to steer him to buy a Japanese car, but this time I finally gave in and agreed to a German car.

Anyway, back to the piece of #@$% appliance that broke down. It was the less than three year old Gaggenau refrigerator that came with the apartment. Top of the line, with a price tag that allows you to buy a decent car in some countries, it all of a sudden decided to turn itself into a wine fridge. It would take six repairs, spanning almost six weeks to get it to work. First it was too warm in the fridge compartment that there was almost no point in using it, then it was too cold and everything got frozen, including eggs and milk. The repairmen could never seem to get the temperature just so. Actually, the verdict is still out on the result of the sixth repair, since it always takes a few days to show its true colors after each repair. It has gotten to the point where I don’t even know if I should blame Gaggenau for making such a crappy product (I mean, who’s ever heard of a fridge breaking down after only three years?) or the incompetence of the repairmen. After the third visit, it would take me an average of a week and at least five phone calls to get the guys to come again. When they do come, they look so grumpy as if it’s my fault that they weren’t doing their jobs properly. Well, now that I’m back in the US, if the fridge breaks down again, Jason will have to deal with them.

Needless to say, after this saga, Jason’s agreed to buy a Lexus. I am glad he could finally see things my way, but I just wish the convincing process didn’t have to be such a nightmare.

A New Chapter

On December 7th, 2006, I was handed my certificate of completion, diploma and a silver medal. My stint in Tokyo to finish the final level of the patisserie course at Le Cordon Bleu is officially over. In the course of two and half months I ate numerous cakes in the name of field study; bought too many cookbooks for research purposes; and force fed friends who are too nice to say no way too many versions of test cakes. What I thought was going to be two and half months of fun and carefree living turned out just to be that, thanks to the friendship and support of all my friends in Tokyo and my very supportive and understanding husband whom I left behind alone in Hong Kong.

Now that I have closed that chapter in my life, it’s time to move on, and move to Singapore. I flew back to Hong Kong the day after my final exam at Le Cordon Bleu to pack up the house. Libby left to go to Singapore three days ago on her own and we will leave in just four days. I am a little reluctant to say goodbye to Hong Kong, a city which I didn’t really get a chance to know better. I also feel sad to leave the new friends that I’ve made in my short stay in Hong Kong, but I am sure our paths will cross again some time in the future. At the same time, I am excited to move into our new home in Singapore and becoming LynnInSG. Until then, this is my last post as LynnInHK.

Just my luck

“I should go to the morning practical session even though we’re only making jam and jelly candy today.”

“I’m so tired I just want to go home and sleep.”

“Ok, if I can make the 8am bus I’ll go to class. If I miss it, I’ll take the Narita express and go home.”

“But even if I go home I’ll only get two hours of sleep before I have to get up again and go to the afternoon lecture.”

These thoughts drifted in and out of my half-awake consciousness the entire six hours of red-eye flight from Singapore to Tokyo. In the end I barely convinced myself to go to class, mostly because I thought it was more trouble than it’s worth to go home for the morning.

When I got to school, with 25 minutes to spare, however, I was told that there would be no school today because there’s no electricity. We were asked to write down our phone number so the school could contact us later to let us know whether there’ll be school tomorrow. Nobody knew why the electricity went out because all the other buildings in the area had electricity.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Out of all the days, it had to be today, when I had to drag both my sleepwalking self and my luggage from the airport to school! To think that I could’ve saved myself the trouble had I decided not to come in! I knew I shouldn’t have been so diligent…

Moving, yet again

To make a long story short, five months after moving to Hong Kong, less than four months in our apartment, and two months after getting our brand new furniture that are custom made to fit our apartment, we are being transferred to Singapore. To be fair, the choice was partly ours because I never really managed to like living in Hong Kong, and on a recent trip back to Singapore I realized how much cleaner and orderly it is over there and how much I had missed the food. So when we were offered the chance to move back, we jumped at it.

Don’t get me wrong, Hong Kong has its good points: the best dim sum I’ve ever had; the best sales; my huge kitchen with the double fridge; the numerous hiking trails nearby; and the fantastic view on a clear day… But then again there’s the stress of having to deal with substandard quality of service on a daily basis; the crowd every time I go to Central to run errands; the language barrier; and the constant feeling of being ripped off because you’re an outsider and don’t speak the language.

So we’re moving, back to Singapore where Jason lived for more than four years when he first started working and I for less than three years. The only complication is that I’ll be in Tokyo for almost three months to finish the advanced level of Le Cordon Bleu’s pastry course and our move will happen while I’m in Tokyo. The packing won’t be too bad because the movers will take care of everything, but Libby has to be in quarantine for one month in Singapore and I won’t be there to visit her everyday. My poor baby!

Water Water Everywhere

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere as wet as Hong Kong in my life. On top of the almost constant rain for the past month, water is literally coming out of thin air! Don’t believe me? Here’s how.

Almost as soon as we arrived in Hong Kong, everyone started warning us about the humidity in Hong Kong and how everything is susceptible to mold. A dehumidifier seems to be THE must-have item, so we duly purchased one. The water tank is 4L and on average I empty it twice a day. A week later, we found that all the clothes in the closet feel damp to the touch, so we buy another dehumidifier for the clost. This one runs 24/7 as well and with the smaller water tank (about 3L), I sometimes get 2.5 tanks a day. That’s a total of 15L of water per day! I wish there was some way I could use this water, because, doesn’t it feel wasteful to just pour it down the drain? With the water shortage in Hong Kong, you’d think someone would’ve thought of a way to take advantage of this “natural resource.” As for us, we’ve gotten a third dehumidifier to put in the kitchen, to keep the cork coasters and brown bagged flour from going moldy.

Would you like a piece of my soul to go with that?

Remember the apartment that I told you all about (the one with the nice kitchen and a double fridge)? Jason liked it too and we put in a bid for it. After a few rounds of back and forth we came to an agreement with the landlord on the rental price. This happened over the weekend, and I was so happy that this saga was finally coming to an end that I went furniture shopping. Then yesterday we received a copy of the lease. Now I think we might be back to square one, looking for another apartment.

What can go wrong after the rental is agreed upon? Let me quote some of the terms from the lease so you can get an idea:

Under Tenant’s Obligations: “To reimburse to the landlord the cost of all broken and damaged windows and glass whether or not the same be broken or damaged by the negligence of the Tenant.

Huh? Forget about typhoon or heavy storms, which HK is known for, let’s say the landlord takes a rock and throws it into the window. Window breaks. I have to pay for it?

Another example under Exclusions of Liability:
“The landlord shall not in any circumstances be liable … of any loss or damage to person or property sustained by the tenant … caused by or through or in anyway owing to any defect in or breakdown of any lifts, fire and security services equipment and/or other facilities of the said building…”

So if the elevator that the landlord is supposed to maintain breaks down and kills me, he is not liable??

The list goes on and on. The entire 28-page document was filled with tenant’s obligations, restrictions, prohibitions, and exclusion of landlord’s liabilities, except for three short paragraphs on landlord’s obligation, and it doesn’t even mention maintenance of electrical appliances that come with the apartment.

When we put in a bid for this place, one of things we thought of as being positive was that the entire complex was owned by a very well-known developer. We thought it would be easier to deal with a big corporation rather than a private owner, that they’d be fairer and less likely to cut corners. Our agent assures us that this is a so-called “standard” contract singed by all the tenants, but I just can’t imagine anyone in his/her right mind will sign a contract that so overwhelmingly protects the landlord’s interest. For instance, there’s a whole section on buying third party insurance to cover the contents of the apartment. We are not talking about our personal belongings here. Apparently the landlord wants us to buy insurance to cover any damage to the apartment, including appliances owned by the landlord! When I asked our agent if the landlord is out of their mind for making such ridiculous demands (well, not in those exact words), she said not to worry because all tenants sign it and nobody buys the insurance. Incredulously, I pointed it out to her that it states explicitly in the contract that the landlord has the right to demand proof of insurance including premium payment. She laughs it off and says the landlord never asks for proof, therefore there is no need to either buy the insurance or worry too much about the details. Excuse me, but are we not speaking the same language? Is the concept of a contract completely foreign to them? If I don’t have to do what’s written in the contract, by extension, am I to assume that even if the contract says the landlord has to maintain the apartment, which this contract actually doesn’t, they don’t have to do it, because… well, they didn’t think it was binding??

When we talked to friends in Hong Kong who are either renting from landlords or who are landlords themselves, they all agree that this is the weirdest contract they’ve ever seen. So now we’re in a really bad situation where on the one hand I want to move out of this serviced apartment a.s.a.p. so our normal life can resume, but on the other hand I refuse to enter into a contract that puts us in such a disadvantage where the landlord has iron-clad protection on all sides and we have nothing.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, right after we put in our bid, this apartment complex was all over the news for two days because a buyer sued the developer for falsifying sales record. The story goes that this guy from China bought two units in the complex for an obscenely large amount of money, after seeing past sales record from the developer of twelve other units in the complex sold for similar prices. He later found out that the two units he bought were the only units EVER sold after the building’s completion two years ago. Of course we’re not buying (who would at that ridiculous price!) and we wouldn’t have given it any second thoughts under normal circumstances, but it doesn’t exactly boost our confidence in the landlord/developer, does it? If they can conjure sales records out of thin air, who knows what they are capable of doing to us armed with a contract we ourselves signed?

House Hunting in Hong Kong

Jason has a strange fascination with apartments and houses. Back when we were in Tokyo and looking for a property to buy, he would sit at the computer and sift through hundreds of web pages, looking for something to catch his eye. When it became pretty clear that we were moving to Hong Kong, his attention turned to Hong Kong rental properties. He found about half a dozen property web sites and systematically searched the major neighborhoods that we were interested.

Me? I have no patience to do the sifting. I just want to find a place quick. I am also entirely practical when it comes to a place we don’t own. All I need is a nice and spacious kitchen with an oven that’s big enough to fit my baking sheets, and a fridge that has a spacious freezer compartment; plus a balcony or terrace so Libby can get some fresh air and where I can start a little herb garden. Very reasonable, won’t you say?

Combined with Jason’s requests, here’s the “LIST”:
- fully equipped gym
- easy access to Central, where Jason’s office is
- nice and spacious kitchen
- balcony or terrace
- unobstructed view i.e. not looking into someone else’s living room
- white walls and wooden or marble floor with simple finishing
- closet/built-in wardrobe in the bedrooms
- a maid’s room that’s not the size of a shoe closet

Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. There must be some kind of unknown gold and green/brown marble quota to be used up by the contractor, because it is damn hard to find a place with just plain white walls and nothing gaudy such as ugly-assed chandelier-type light fixtures and gilded faucets everywhere you look.

Hard enough as it is to find a place that doesn’t make you go “ewwww”, there’s also the husband who doesn’t know how discouraging it is to see apartment after apartment that’s nothing but crap, and the elation of finally finding one that doesn’t have as much gold or green marble that you could actually see yourself dealing with it. After I showed him one place that I thought was not half bad, he turns up his nose and goes, “You actually LIKED this?” as if I’m the one with such unforgivingly poor taste that he can’t believe I’m wasting his precious time like this.

Then I finally found one as close to being a dream home as you can get for a rented place: spacious regularly shaped living/dining space with floor to ceiling windows, on top of Victoria Peak with an open view, a nice kitchen with a DOUBLE fridge, plus a fully equipped gym, swimming pool, and tennis court. What does Jason do (before even seeing it)? He decides the landlord’s asking price is way too much after hearing his buddies’ advice. Yes, I do think the rent is a little ridiculous but what can you do about it? Hong Kong rental price went up by almost 40% over the past two years after SARS, but is it our responsibility to take on the landlords and make a statement by depriving ourselves the place we really want to live in? Isn’t our happiness and peace of mind so much more important than the vindictive satisfaction in knowing that we didn’t yield to the landlord’s squeezing? What are we going to accomplish except getting stuck in a tiny serviced apartment for months on end under the illusion that one day a perfect place will come up on the market for us to grab for a reasonable price? Why does Jason always have to become a man with principles at the most inopportune time? I only hope that he will like the place as much as I do after seeing it and put things into perspectives. Fingers crossed.

For the Love of Libby

Take a good look at this picture. Can you find the bed? This is Shama SoHo, the one and only serviced apartment building in Hong Kong that will accept a dog. Located in the heart of Hong Kong’s SoHo district, it’s a stone’s throw from the famous bar and club district Lan Kwai Fong and just around the corner from the mid-level escalator. Not a bad place to be if you are into hanging out in pubs all day and clubbing all night, but definitely not ideal for walking our four-legged princess. Still, we were more than thrilled when our moving coordinator told us that he had found a place where Libby could stay with us. After putting her through a five-hour flight, I wanted to do everything to avoid sending her to a dog hotel for potentially a whole month before we find a permanent residence. I surfed through the hotel’s website and was satisfied with the services they offered. I did, however, have my suspicions when I spotted the word “boutique”. From past experiences, whenever a hotel calls itself “boutique” or “quaint” it invariably translates to overpriced and tiny. This one is no exception.


When our driver deposited us in front of the building I couldn’t quite believe that this was any kind of residence. The iron gate is only about shoulder-width. Although the stairway is nicely lit and tastefully guarded by a Buddha-like statue, there is no any semblance of a front desk. How do we get in? Luckily our driver from the car service is a man with a sense of responsibility and decided that he couldn’t just leave the two of us standing in the street with our bags. After a few phone calls he told us someone was coming. Two minutes later a young guy in a gray uniform materialized with mobile in hand. He unlocked the door and motioned for us to follow him. No elevators, and we are on the fourth floor!

While the boys, mainly Jason because the guy from the hotel looked like his arms would break if too much weight was applied didn’t do much to help, wrestled with the bags, I did a survey of the place that we would call home for the next month. It didn’t take long since there was only one room plus a little nook as “kitchen” and a bathroom. “Where is the bedroom?” I asked as soon as the hotel guy came in. “Ah, let me show you how the bed works,” he replied cheerfully and proceeded to the kitchen nook. At the push of a button, a bed started to lower from the ceiling, directly above the dining table. Jason and I stared at each other with the look of “you’ve gotta be kidding me” on our face. I mean, seriously! Not only is this room is smaller than my bedroom in the two-bedroom apartment I shared with someone while in grad school, we also have a bed that drops out of the ceiling? I was starting to think that Libby would have more space to move around in the dog hotel that I checked out with big air-conditioned rooms than this. Remembering seeing something about a one-bedroom apartment on the website, we decide to find out if we can move to another unit first thing the next day (the guy turned out to just work there and didn’t know the answers to anything we asked him except for how the bed worked).

Bad news came pretty early the next day. Our apartment was the last vacant one in this ten-unit building. Unless we are willing to ship Libby to a dog hotel, this is home until we find a place. Resigned to our fate, I started to unpack. Miraculously, everything fit, and this place is starting to grow on me. For one, the bed is surprisingly comfortable and it brought back childhood memories of sleeping on bunk beds at school (yup, Jason and I went to the same boarding school when we were little). The roof terrace is pretty nice and I discovered a little herb garden in the corner that had some pretty healthy mint and rosemary, among other things. I’m immediately thinking of mint tea or rosemary lamb chops. But above all, it’s the best incentive for us to find a place as fast as possible so we can move out of this tiny little thing of a “boutique” serviced apartment.

From Tokyo to Hong Kong

Let’s see, in my last blog entry I was telling you the secrets to perfect macorons. Two months passed by without a sound from me, and now I’m writing in a tiny little serviced apartment in Hong Kong’s SoHo district, sans dog, with a pot of hot soup simmering on the stove, waiting for Jason’s return from work.

Yes, life can be funny sometimes. Just when I thought I had everything planned out (I was going to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu and open up a cooking studio/language school at home, teaching French pastry in English or Japanese, depending on the students’ wishes) Jason decided to take a job in Hong Kong. Within a month we sold most of our furniture and the car, packed up everything, and voila! We are in Hong Kong!

I don’t quite yet know how I feel about the move, but let’s just say I am experiencing a sense of true sadness leaving Tokyo, something that never happened the last two times I moved (from US to Singapore, and from Singapore to Tokyo). I don’t think I fully admitted to myself that we were leaving Tokyo for good the whole time I was selling off furniture and household appliances. It didn’t hit me until the captain of our flight announced the final descent into Hong Kong airport. At that moment it was like a sledgehammer hit me in the chest and the wind was knocked out of me. That’s the moment that I realized that Tokyo is no longer my city. It made me want to cry.

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Why can’t life always be peachy and perfect?

Ok, to be fair, my life is not too shabby. We’ve got our health, Libby’s still going strong at age seven, and we are happy with the way things are for the most part. So I shouldn’t complain, right? But it's my blog, so I am going to anyway, damn it!

It all started three weeks ago when we went to Hong Kong for the weekend to see some friends. Since we only had two days and have exhausted most of the tourist attractions on a prior visit, we focused our attention on food. After the first day I started to break out in hives, little bumps like mosquito bites here and there, nothing major. I figured it must’ve been the fengshui or something I ate that didn’t agree with me. I expected the problem to go away when I got back to Tokyo. It didn’t, and in fact got even worse. My stash of Claritin only relieved the symptoms when I took it but never made the problem go away. The problems with western medicine!

So frustrated by the ever present itchiness somewhere on my body, I almost gave in to Jason’s constant nagging and went to see a doctor. Luckily though, I talked to my parents, two veteran allergy sufferers, first. Their theory, and mine, is that some allergies come from within, caused by a toxin inside the body that somehow got triggered by an outside factor. According to them, to make it go away, I have to stop eating any food that could be allergy-triggering or are “heating.”

We Chinese believe that certain food will “bring on” diseases, or in other words, make the body susceptible to illnesses. We say they are “fah.” We also divide food in three general categories: cooling, heating and neutral. I am somewhat familiar with the heating and cooling properties of food but am completely clueless when it comes to which food brings on illnesses. So I asked my mom to give me some examples of food that’s “fah.” “Well, cilantro is a big one,” she said matter-of-factly.

Wait! Woah! Hold on a minute! Cilantro??!! Fragrant, green, healthy-looking cilantro? I just bought a big bunch and in a race against time to prevent it from rotting away in my fridge have been putting it in everything. I even made ice cream with it. No wonder my allergy is not getting any better!

After I calmed down she told me more. Seafood is no good, although fresh water fish is benign. (not helpful because there ain’t no fresh water fish sold in Japan, except for that very seasonal ayu) Spicy food of any kind is bad (I found fresh jalapeno pepper for the first time in Tokyo and had been eating nothing but spicy food lately). Chicken, and especially turkey should not be eaten either, and it’s best not to touch beef or cheese. Hmmm, I think that’s about 80% of my daily diet right there. Add to it the “heating” food such as oranges and anything red in color, I’ll have to eat nothing but rice and green vegetables until my allergy clears up! And no turkey? What about Thanksgiving?!

“So, um, is there anything left for me to eat at all?” I asked. “You can always eat pork and duck!” mom offered enthusiastically. Sure, that helps! The only way I know how to cook a duck is to roast it, and what’s that going to do to my waistline if I make it a daily item on the menu?

Arrrrgh! This is all so irritating. I guess with a mom that’s allergic to just about everything she touches and a dad whose pollen allergy is so severe that he used to schedule his overseas trips to coincide with the peak of allergy seasons, it’s a small wonder that my allergy problems didn’t manifest until now. Still! Why can’t I eat everything I want and be happy?!