Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Afganistan or Pakistan

I was buying lunch in the cafeteria and over heard 2 lectures talking to each others.


Lecturer A : Tengok topi budak tu, mesti dari Aghanistan
Lecturer B : Tak lah, itu macam topi orang pakistan

Student : Selamat petang Encik A.

Lecturer A : Cantik topi awak, dari mana tu?
Student : Dari uptown Shah Alam.

Lecturer A & B : Oh!!!

Lecturer A : Tapi macam topi orang Afghanistan tu. Mesti buatan sana.
Student : Oh ya ke, tak tau lah pulak. Kejab ya.


The student then took of his cap and turn in upside down and looked inside for label.

Student : Emm, made in China.


I paid my lunch and walked off smiling.

Everything now is made in China. But this one surely does not have melamine inside it.

Mini Bakpao

29 oktober 2008, rabu

Husband minta dibikinin mini bakpao, keingetan ma toko yg jual mini bakpao depan skul zhongda dulu...jadi nostalgia lagi nih...soalnya dulu sring ngebeliin ginian buat doi...hihi

Resepnya bisa dilihat disini. Kali ini nyobain bikin dagingnya, tapi daginya dimasak mateng dulu, didinginin, baru dimasukkin ke kulitnya...biar ngukusnya ga perlu kelamaan gitu..
Lumayan lah...buat cemilan....hehehe

Husband pulang kantor, langsung comot aja...hihihi, enak die bilang....wah, seneng deh. Apalagi Mei n Xiang juga mo makan...

Oh A Burger and Real Fries


You just cant get a burger in Suncheon . You can get lotteria or MacDonald s . Not quite what you looking for well you just got to make it . Ever week or two I host a cooking meeting where a few of us get together to cook something we cant normally eat in Korea this week it was Burgers.


Burger
Ground Beef (with some fat maybe 20-25%)
Salt and Pepper - A little curry powder or Worcestershire sauce- thyme -rosemary.
Your choice what ever seasoning you like.
NO EGG. NO BREADCRUMBS.

Toppings
Tomato, Iceberg lettuce, Onions caramelized with balsamic vinegar
Shiitake Mushrooms sauteed in butter , Pickles, If you like heat Jalapenos
Cheese, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayonnaise (a little is good it works as a bond between the burger juices and the bun, Preventing a soggy burger bun.)

Deceptively Delicious

If you marry a famous person, does it make it easier to get your own cookbook? Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry Seinfeld, has a cookbook out called Deceptively Delicious. The object of her book is to create recipes that sneak vegetables into foods her kids love. She does this using vegetable purees. Broccoli puree in beef stew, cauliflower puree in mac 'n cheese, butternut squash in spaghetti and meatballs - just a few examples of the creative ways that she can fool her children.
I got a hold of this cookbook from my neighbor Michelle. One day she texted me to come up to her apartment because she had made muffins and I had to try one. Naturally I showed up moments later, breathing hard, looking for free muffins. As I started eating she quizzed me on what I thought the ingredients were. Peanut butter? Yes. Pumpkin? No. Finally I gave up, and she revealed that there was cauliflower in the muffin. I couldn't taste it at all.
In fact, I borrowed the cookbook, made banana bread with cauliflower puree, and it tasted great. My brother got the majority of the loaf and if he tasted it before he inhaled it, he might have agreed that there was no sign of cauliflower.
Michelle admits that some of the recipes, like the aforementioned mac 'n cheese, and some of the veggie dips, are not good. But I'm curious to try other ones. Seinfeld claims that her tofu nuggets dipped in spinach puree and rolled in breadcrumbs taste like fried cheese to her kids. But we're talking about a 6 year old's palate.
My one concern about hiding vegetables in kids' food is that they never learn to eat them, but Seinfeld encourages moms to serve normal vegetables as well. And although I don't have kids, I can see the benefits of boosting my own vegetable intake - while enjoying a baked good.

dalam hati

sy bersyukur. sy punya Islam. sy punya iman.
Allah sentiasa ada. mama dan abah tak pernah abaikan sy.
kawan - kawan, semuanya baik - baik.
bertuah sungguh sy kan?
sy ada mata. telinga. mulut.
cukup sihat dan sempurna anggota tubuh badan.
bersyukur aqilah. bersyukur. jgn takbur. jgn riak.
sy bukanlah sempurna. jauh sekali. sy, biasa.
sentiasa buat silap. sentiasa terleka juga. lalai juga.
kadang kala berputus asa dgn diri sendiri.
bersedih. dan menangis sendiri.
sedih dgn diri sendiri. yg masih punya banyak kelemahan.
malas. itu sifat sy yang paling negatif.
bukanlah malas sentiasa.
tetapi, itu paling teruk.
ada kesedaran saja tak mencukupi.
sekiranya tidak disusuli dengan usaha untuk berubah.
bila buat silap. sy sedar sy buat silap.
tp kdng - kdng, sy buat juga.
hakikatnya sy tahu benda itu salah.
sy tertanya. kenapa sy buat juga?
sy wanita. punyai emosi yang lebih dr lelaki.
itulah kaum hawa.
sekuat - kuat sy, sy masih tidak sekuat mereka yg lain.
ada kalanya, sy pun terasa sepi.
letih. sedih. dan tak sanggup utk berdiri lagi.
diam sy, sabar sy, jgn diuji.
tiba masanya, meletup juga. tewas juga.
senyum sy, jgn diambil kesempatan. sy juga manusia.
apa pun. sy cuma berharap. sy akan sentiasa kuat.
dan sentiasa diberi petunjuk utk memilih.
yg baik. dan yg benar.
dan di atas kesedaran diri ini juga. yg serba kekurangan.
dan sentiasa mencari - cari kekuatan. kebenaran.
saya hanya berharap.
sy bahagia & berjaya dunia dan akhirat.
sudah mencukupi. insya allah. amin...

Melamine

Korean Beat Tells us about more Melamine

A restaurant Blums in Brooklyn

October 29

As I’ve discussed before, former Olive Garden and Burger King executive Brad Blum is opening restaurants in New York. His Dogmatic Sausage System opened a couple of weeks ago near Union Square, and now, NRN’s Elissa Elan tells me, he has plans to open a Mediterranean restaurant in Williamsburg.
Once the full story appears on NRN.com, I’ll link to it here, but for now, some details:
The 3000-square foot, 74-seat restaurant will be called Green Canteen and will focus on seasonal ingredients for its 60-some-odd menu items, including ready-to-serve antipasti, salads, flatbreads and hummus bowls. Healthful shakes “high in energy but not in sugar” also will be offered. Menu items will be priced at under $10 and per-person average checks are expected to be less than $20. He hopes to open it early next year.
Blum used his own money to finance the restaurants and he hopes to slowly expand both concepts, gradually opening additional units.
Blum’s people didn’t reveal Green Canteen’s exact location, but a company called Green Canteen-1-Williamsburg LLC apparently has applied for a wine license at 106 N. 6th St.
They did tell Elissa that it’s a building built in the 1890s, which is being restored right now.

Paul Liebrandt’s back

October 29

Of all the chefs whose food I’ve eaten, I think Paul Liebrandt’s is the easiest to recognize. It’s very modular, kind of like the written Chinese language.
As you probably know, Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet. Instead it has thousands of “characters,” each representing a concept or an idea, or, well, something (one character represents the notion of an action having been completed; another indicates that something was done to something else — the equivalent of a passive-voice marker),
Most Chinese words have at least two characters in them. Combine them and sometimes the meaning is obvious:
“electricity” + “brain” = “computer.”
Sometimes it’s more poetic:
“electricity” + “shadow” = “movie”;
“can do” + “mouth” + another “can do” + “happiness” = Coca-Cola.
Paul Liebrand’s food is modular like that. Each flavor component is expressed with clarity and precision. If there's key lime in the foam served with your lobster, by golly it tastes like key lime. If he says the bubbles of milk on the plate with your squab is flavored with pain d’épices, boy, you can taste those autumn spices.
I personally find the results exhilarating, and I’ve liked his food since he was a cocky young kid running the kitchen at Atlas back at the turn of the century.
Now he’s, well, still quite young — 33, the same age as Jesus when he was crucified — and I imagine his ego remains intact despite his moves from Atlas to Papillon to One Little West 12th to Gilt, and now to Drew Nieporent’s newest restaurant, Corton.
Corton is where Montrachet once was, although the space has undergone massive renovation, with the kitchen having been moved to the south side of the building, leaving one spacious dining room with 60 seats where once there were two that, together, seated 80. I'm not a décor guy, but I was taken by the main chandelier, made of thin metal pipes with holes poked in them.
And I was taken by the fact that Drew himself was there, not merely holding court, but greeting people at the door, serving, clearing tables, doing tableside flourishes like pouring sauces on plates.
The restaurant wasn’t full last night, but it did have a quality crowd. Picholine executive chef Terrance Brennan was there, and Food & Wine founders (and current Food Arts editors) Michael and Ariane Batterberry showed up shortly after I did.
“The BAT...terberrys are here!” Drew said at one point as he drifted by our table.
I came with my friend Andy Battaglia, a sensualist who likes weird things and who has been a Liebrandt fan since the chef cooked for us at One Little West 12th back in 2004. That restaurant was really a club whose guests wanted miniburgers and the like, which Mr. Liebrandt made for them, but he didn’t stay there for long.
Actually, he wasn’t at Gilt for too long either.
Corton just opened, but to me it seemed like the chef has found his groove again. Drew seems to have his back, and the sommelier, Elizabeth Harcourt, who also worked at Montrachet, did some cool wine pairings. To wit:

For me:
Veal sweetbreads with Violet Hill Farm egg confit, carrot and argan oil (the combination actually tasted like classy barbecue sauce)
2004 Audrey & Christian Binner Katzenthal Riesling (Alsace)

Wild striped bass with sweet onion, gnudi and chowder sauce
2006 L'Ecette Rully ‘Maizières’ (Burgundy)

Squab with chestnut crème, smoked bacon and pain d‘épices milk
2007 Comptoirs de Mageala ‘La Chance’ (Provence)

For Andy:
Foie gras with hibiscus-beet gelée and blood orange
2005 Bernard & Robert Plageoles “Muscadelle’ (Gaillac, southwestern France)

The same bass, with the same wine

Maine lobster with chanterelles, toasted hazelnut-lobster jus and, not mentioned on the menu, some kind of foam that sure seemed to be an intense key lime, and served with a side of lobster riso with house-made botarga
2005 François Gaunoux (Burgundy)

What we shared for dessert (pastry chef Bob Truitt worked at Room4Dessert, which was headed up by Will Goldfarb, who was Mr. Liebrandt’s pastry chef at Atlas; small world):

First, a palate-cleansing quince sorbet floating in an unusually thick kind of foam, and then:

Caramel brioche with passion fruit, coffee and banana (one of the best things Andy’s ever eaten)

White sesame crème with lemon, huckleberry and salted toffee

Mignardises, including a passion fruit truffle, a salted caramel chocolate bonbon and a citrus macaroon
brewed coffee

Independent Thinking

October 29

Please welcome to the floor NRN’s latest blogger, Mr. Mark Brandau, whose infectious laughter entertains everyone at NRN headquarters. You should make every effort to sing karaoke with him (he tends to fill in with the harmony) or otherwise enjoy his good company. And you also should read his blog, Independent Thinking, for news, interviews etc. for independent restaurant operators.

Bokbunjaju Poached Asian Pear Pie

Bokbunjaju (Korean Raspberry wine )


This pie was not quite as nice as I had first taught. I wanted a light flaky chocolate pastry, White chocolate mousse With the poached pears on top.
My pastry was not so flaky I think I messed up the blind baking ?
My white chocolate was not the kind you can melt. So I went with whipped cream instead. But the pears were a huge success and very Delicious. I poaches the pieces in the Bokbunjaju for about 15 mins.

New banner and explanation

There it is in all its shining glory. Look, just up there. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while and every time I’ve opened the page my eyes have drifted upwards and done the visual equivalent of a sigh when I’ve looked at the vague ineptitude of the image that was there before.

But no longer. Now you can actually see the name of the blog as well as a few favourite pictures which may, or may not, change according to the seasons.

There is also a new logo up there, see? Well, new in one sense. It’s actually my old logo but it is new to this site. I designed it a couple of years ago to compliment my first business venture which I hoped would make me millions. Ultimately it just made me stressed and poor but it was fun.

The company, also called Just Cook It, was set up in the hope of encouraging people to cook from their very own personalised cookbooks. Instead of buying a recipe book and only cooking two or three meals from it, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a cookbook where every recipe was tailored to your exact requirements?

And so Just Cook It was born. Customers could subscribe and make requests, however specific, and we would create a recipe or dinner party menu based on their exact requirements which would then be emailed or sent to them along with wine suggestions and other miscellaneous information. As far as I could tell, at the time it was the only service of its kind in the world. Perhaps there was a reason for that…

But the bottom line was the bottom line and for now at least, the only thing that remains is the logo, a hammer and sickle pastiche played out with a pan and whisk designed to signify the democratisation of the kitchen and compliment the simplicity of the name. Just Cook It. That was the message.

And to a large extent it still is. This blog isn’t about endless lists of recipes or restaurant reviews or the occasional post about what I had for my meal last night. It’s about food and cooking in a more general way and I do try to put those centre stage. Naturally it is about my experiences with food but I do try to put something of a spin on my writing to make things both interesting and relevant to as many people as possible because, as a writer, that is pretty much my raison d’etre.