Joe Hisaishi Concert by SSO

 

Friends got us some great tickets to watch a Joe Hisaishi concert. This was way back in February 2014, one day after Valentine. It cost us only like SGD19 per ticket, and we got front row seats! Amazing! Held at the Star Vista, which itself is an amazing place to hang out if you're even in the West side of Singapore!

Anyway, I'm a fan of Joe Hisaishi simply because I'm a fan of Hayao Miyazaki's movie's soundtrack. I would like to take a moment to clarify here that I'm not a fan of Hayao Miyazaki's movies although I do like some of them, and I do think Totoro is cute and all, but it is the soundtrack of his movies which I truly love. And the person behind those beautiful music is none other than Mr Hisaishi.

Here are the songs that were played during the concert. And a montage of the event done by one of my friend.

One of the highlight of the concert was the story telling of the Totoro movie thru narration and music, and also this piece from the movie Departure. If you have never seen this movie before, you should. I cried buckets watching it. The music is call おくりびと (Okuribito, "one who sends off")




Ref:
Joe Hisaishi
SSO
Star Vista
Hayao Miyazaki
Totoro
Departures

Shangrila

Finally visited The Line buffet at Shangri-la Singapore after hearing so much about it. It was a treat from my brother for his birthday as me and my husband got him a xiao-mi phone for his birthday. The highlight for me was actually the macaroons as I was suffering from a critical craving for quite some time now and heard they serve it at the buffet. And so they did! Look at the pix above, aren't they pretty? I was all happy and glowing and was trying to eat a proper lunch before going after these babies! The usual sashimi and other meat dishes were served, notable Mediterranean, Indian, and the gyoza was super nice! But when I eventually tried the macaroons, only 50% were nice, and the crust was really disappointing! No further comments.

I absolutely love the cheese platter and went there almost every round, and only discovered the tea selection at the very end of it. I had a French Rose Vanilla tea which was just heavenly!

After lunch, we visited The Rose Veranda as my brother say it was a very nice place for high-tea. Love the ambiance there although I would prefer it was on the ground floor in or near a garden. Still, the spread was rather reasonable, and I look forward to visiting it next January during my birthday!

Note that if you make an online booking for the buffet, you get a 15% discount. 

Ref:
Shangri-la Singapore

Badass Ugly Macaroons

I love macaroons, even before I know what they were. They were French, and that was good enough for me. But they were expensive little buggers. And when I eventually cough out enough money to buy some to try, I didn't immediately take to them. They were too sweet for me. But then one Chinese New Year, my brother got me half a dozen of Canele's macaroons, and I absolutely love those! And they remain, my fave in Singapore. But they were expensive. And there were no Canele in the East side. So eventually, I got it into my head to make my own. Craving can make one do crazy things.

First I borrowed like 8 books on macaroons alone from the library, and I watched a lot of youtubes and read a lot of websites to mentally prepare myself for it. It took me a week or two to gather all the equipments and ingredient.

Many of the websites talked about the macaroon Gods. So I thought I would rather be safe than sorry. So before starting, a peace offering to the macaroon Gods as seen above :P

Here are all the stuff you need to make those little buggers. I ripped them off a website I found. You can find the recipe in the 2nd link below. I was going to make chocolate macaroons cause I figure if it s going to turn out into a disaster, I can always lick the fillings and be happy about that.

 

I hand whipped my meringue. I took me just a few minutes. But when I mixed in the dry stuff, it was kinda lumpy as I didn't have any shiever. Doesn't matter to me since everything is going to end up in my tummy eventually. I drew the mold on my baking paper, and the first 4 batch were quite disastrous.  I didn't know they would grow so big when baked! I got some letter "8", some "Anpan-man" looking macaroons, some almond biscuits and almond bread thingy, and some burnt one as well. Every batch was quite hilarious to me. I can only say I laugh a lot at what came out of my oven! They were ugly as hell! But they taste so good! So full of body then those I had in a famous hotel just a week or so ago.

Here's the nicer looking end product. I made about 2 to 3 dozen mean looking chocolate macaroons, and 3 strawberry and cream macaroons (same almond crust with a dollop of thick cream with freshly slice strawberry.  I had some for breakfast, some for supper, some for tea. I gave some away to house guest, and packed 8 into a house box to give to my brother. Ugly as they are, they were all gone in 3 days!

Would I make them again? YES! They were delicious! I think I'll make more this weekend! They make me happy, and sugar high, and I just love chewing on them! Yes, the one I make is kinda chewy which I kinda like. And I got some consultation from friends that to make the legs, I need to let them dry completely before baking them. One friend also told me not to stir the dry stuff with the meringue, but to fold it in with just a few swipe. Hmmm.....I shall try it again! がんばって愛ちゃん!

Ref:
Canele

http://bravetart.com/recipes/Macarons

http://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com/2011/04/how-to-make-macarons-whats-working-for-me-right-now/

http://bravetart.com/blog/TheTenCommandments
Anpan-man

Owl Patch

My friendship was put to a test last weekend, over these adorable patch craft that I sew. It started when my colleague wanted to buy some coaster from Daiso and I casually told her not to waste her money when I could sew her some. And since another ex-colleague have given me some adorable owl fabric which my colleague has requested me to make something out of it for her, I thought it was a great time to finally make use of the fabric. So last Thursday night, I set out to make two coaster for her. Here are the picture of it.

 

I decided to use hand stitch instead of machine sew cause somehow, it end product seems more personal and perfect in a wabi-sabi kind of way.  Initially I wanted to add blue laces over it, but looked kinda too much, and owl just doesn't go well with laces. Maybe it's an eastern thing? But the color and tone of it to me was rather Japanese. When I finished it, I was having a personal conflict of whether to give it away. It looked so adorable! The label that said "Made only for you, Priceless" sits perfectly under an owl at the back of the coaster. I got those as a bobbin of ribbons that cost me only SGD1 or SGD2, and it comes with a row of labels you can cut and stitch on your craft to make it look personal. Love them! Anyway, I did eventually gave them away, reasoning that I have more fabric left and could always make more for myself :) The two coaster took me around 2 hours to make both, but 30 minutes of that was spend matching fabric and planning.

I was meeting another friend on Saturday, and she has offered to gave me some of her old French Language books. So I though it would be nice to give her something as a thank you gesture. Above is a book mark I made for her. She likes lavender color, so I tried to gear it towards a more purple look as oppose to the coaster that was more blue green in theme. For the bookmark I used purple thread and purple ribbons. The three fat owls in front of it are so adorable! I just love them! And at the back, again, another label that says "Thank You" for her gift. When I'm free I need to make some of these stuff for myself! Interestingly, she gave me two more fabric from Japan, and I'm excited about and wonder what to make next. I have a few project in mind, but finding the time to make them is the challenge.

Lastly, here's a last picture of those fat owls! Thank you Ms Loo for the beautiful fabric from Taiwan! Hopefully I have time to make you something soon!

Penang Nyonya Nasi Lemak

I was back in Penang for the Chinese New Year 2014, and as usual, I ask my mum to buy me a tub of Sambal Belacan for me to bring back to Singapore with me.Well last week I cooked Kiam Chye Boey to eat it with the sambal, and I was hooked and planned out the next few week's meal plan to go with the sambal. So this week, I made Nasi Lemak Penang Nyonya style. It's amazing what a little sambal can inspire you to cook! Basically you could say that this meal was powered by Sambal Belacan :)

  

I headed to the market at 8:45am to get my materials. It was a lazy Sunday morning, so I didn't bother to hurry myself, making it back only by 930am. Above are the key ingredient required for the dish. I prepared and cook everything from 9:30am till 1215pm. So it's kinda labor intensive I guess. But I didn't care, cause cooking it's kinda therapeutic for me. And in the kitchen, I play classical music to accompany me. So this morning Andrea Bocelli sang while I cook away :)

Cooking Instructions:

Nasi Lemak: 2 cup rice, a few pandan leave tie into a knot and slightly shredded. Throw everything into the rice cooker, add santan (coconut milk) and water up to the level you would normally cook rice with. On the rice cooker. 10 minutes before it finish cooking, stir the rice up to ensure all the coconut milk is mixed in well with the rice. Cook time around 20 to 30 minutes. It actually smell much better when we heat it up again for dinner.

Assam Prawns: Half kg of prawns (SGD8), cleaned and marinate for an hour with assam paste (tamarind paste). Stir fry with a little oil. When the prawn is about done, add some sprinkle of sugar so that it will turn black as the sugar caramelized. The tricky part to this is to get the prawn and the assam to fuse and burn together until it's thick and black. Cook time 20 minutes.

Fried Fish: 8 Ikan Kunign (SGD3), cleaned and marinated with kunyit(tumeric) and salt for an hour. Fry it up with oil. Cook time 20 minutes. Again, getting it charred enhances the taste! But I'm lazy, so I just fry it so so. I read somewhere that double frying it will make it crunchy as well.

Sambal Ikan Bilis: I cheated on this. Interestingly this is the most labor intensive and unhealthy dish of all. First toast the ikan bilis till it's brown and fragrant. That took me almost 30 minutes on low heat. Next, caramelized 2 onions and some garlic (another 20 minutes of so). Add in like 8 packets of chilli sauce to make a paste. Add in the ikan bilis and you have your short cut to sambal ikan bilis that has no sambal :P

Serve rice with some slice cucumber, and half a hard boil egg.

  

This is the table setting of the meal. The sambal belacan is that tiny dish in the middle of the two plates of rice. Yup, that's how small things inspire a whole table of food! I totally love the taste of the nasi lemak as it's fragrant and heavy with the taste of santa, so to me that's really has the essence of home cook to it. Nostalgic. 

Ref:
Sambal Belacan
Andrea Bocelli