...cycle?

We've got a new routine...instead of my dear happy feet and S having to wait for me on our night walks, I've started to cycle really slowly next to them....or double back for them if i get too far..
It works out great since A now no longer has to wait for me catch up with them...and she loves chasing after me on the bike!! I love that it gives her a great cardio work-out!

Don't have any photos of A chasing after my bike...but here're some photos of A at the dog run last weekend and O with his new friend....

...train for the marathon (week 6)?

I was mad this week. Jogged more than my usual and faster than my usual. Maybe making up for the fact that I will lose 4 days of running next week when we are in Bali. But have to give those legs a break, my calves are aching!

ST's training schedule:

Mon - 35 mins (optional)
Tues - 20 mins
Wed - 45 mins (optional)
Thurs - 20 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 20 mins
Sun - 60 mins

My training schedule:

Mon - 35 mins
Tues - 40 mins
Wed - Day off
Thurs - 30 mins
Fri - 35 mins
Sat - Day off
Sun - 60 mins

...train for the marathon (week 5)?

Forgot to update on the training schedule last week, but it was a bad week, in terms of training. I was recovering from the half marathon on Mon and Tue, sick the remaining days, went to Malacca for the weekend... but still managed to squeeze in a run on Sunday. Pray that the sick bug stays away!

ST's training schedule:

Mon - 35 mins (optional)
Tues - 30 mins
Wed - 75 mins (optional)
Thur - 30 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 30 mins
Sun - 90 mins

My training schedule:
Mon - Day off
Tue - Day off
Wed - Day off
Thu - Day off
Fri - Day off
Sat - Day off
Sun - 31 mins

... have a Wordless Wednesday

A rough week so far but nothing like some random loveliness and devastatingly stylish eye-candies to chase the blues away. No words. No reason. No curating.

...train for the marathon (week 4) / complete a half marathon?

I jogged, walked and limped my way to another half marathon today. Have completed 4 half-marathons to-date, but my timings have been deteriorated. Not sure if it is because of inadequate training, lack of a running partner (it's quite lonely running alone) or the injury on my ankle and my flat feet which made it rather painful.

Anyway, just glad that I finished it and completed it. At least now I know I can definitely run 18.5 km, now I just need to make up the next 20 km for the marathon in Dec!

ST's training schedule:

Mon - 35 mins (optional)
Tues - 25 mins
Wed - 60 mins (optional)
Thur - 25 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 20 mins
Sun - 75 mins

My training schedule (this being my birthday week, training was severely hampered, haha):

Mon - 35 mins
Tues - Day off
Wed - Day off
Thur - Day off
Fri - 30 mins
Sat - Day off
Sun - completed half marathon

...have a taste of Japan in Singapore?

I made a new discovery in Far East Plaza today.

I met a friend for dinner today and after shopping around with little to show for it, we were both famished. My friend then suggested having Japanese food.

"It's supposed to be good....Somewhere on Level 5," she quipped. She was about to call her friend (for the umpteenth time, according to her) to ask about the venue when we noted a queue quietly forming just around the escalator on Level 5.

Understanding that "queue=good food", we figured that there was little to lose and swiftly joined the queue. To our delight, the queue moved quickly and before long, we were greeted warmly by the waitress at the entrance. We were fortunate, because there seemed to be a lot of reservations and we managed to get in only because we promised to finish our food in one hour.

We soon found out that Nanbantei Japanese Restaurant's specialty was Yakitori and decided on a Set B combination and grilled Saba to share. Set B came with sashimi, eight sticks of Yakitori, rice, miso and pickles. Every stick tasted really good - tasty and not too greasy. Personally, I enjoyed the beef, tomato and chicken the most!

Overall, the food was a tad salty, but otherwise yummy. The decor was typical of a Japanese restaurant - small and cozy. The chefs (at least one of them) were Japanese and I particularly liked the part where the entire crew greeted every guest who comes into the restaurant!

Though very different, Nanbantei* reminds me of Gonpachi in Tokyo, which also serves Yakitori. For an hour, I felt I was back in Tokyo. Until I visit Japan again, I guess this will be one of the choices** whenever I need my Yakitori fix! :)



* Nanbantei Japanese Restaurant, Far East Plaza, #05-132.

** I will remember to bring my camera the next time so that there are pictures to show how good the food looked!

...train for the marathon (week 3)?

Am sharing my weekly running schedule, partly as a way to record my training journey towards completing a full marathon for future reference, and partly to share with others who might be interested one day to attempt a full marathon.

This week's training was seriously hampered by my weekend activities, haha. It's Sept, I'm turning 30 and it's time for some serious celebrations. :)

ST's training schedule:

Mon - 30 mins (optional)
Tues - 20 mins
Wed - 30 mins (optional)
Thur - 20 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 20 mins
Sun - 30 mins

My training schedule:

Mon - Day off
Tues - Day off
Wed - 22 mins
Thurs - 30 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - Day off
Sun - Day off

Choose handmade wedding stationery with a vintage flair...

Invites for LOVEFEST have been sent out.   You girls in Singapore might have received it already and all you overseas babes will get it in a few days, I'm sure!  I am not putting photos of it on the blog but instead I have decided to share "the-making-of-the-letterpress-invitation".

Letterpress combines my love of all things vintage and my obsession for beautiful design and typography.  I love the history of and imperfections of old things and the detail and time taken to make common, usually unimpressive things visually rich.  

As a printing technique, letterpress is a form of relief printing where the raised surface of text and images is inked and then pushed onto the paper. The resulting print can leave a deep impression, easily felt and seen on soft paper. Such relief effects were not traditionally desired by commercial and trade printers.  But to me, and many DIY and indie-crafter circles, it is this very character and charm of craft letterpress that makes it undeniably chic.

With some luck and my almost-advanced Google skills, I arrived at this hidden gem of an old printing shop.  Y and I walked in and the atmosphere was magical.  I immediately felt part of a royal history that this old printing process has - the antique machines were on individually fed and the prints were incredibly prepared and finished lovingly.  Paint pots were strewn on the floor and one could no longer tell what colour the original floors were.  I knew in half a heartbeat that this is the perfect place to print the wedding stationery (actually, to print anything!)

A second visit was to check the colour and the final artwork.  No squinting in front of the computer deciphering Pantone colours, mind you.  If was like art school again, paints and pots and mixing galore!  And after we found the perfect warm dove grey, the paint was fed into the machine and the machine began taking on a life of its on, animatedly and wonderfully boisterously dishing out the prints.  

This is where it starts.  The letters in lead - where each lead stump is a single alphabet.  The shop-owner, Zoom, in his charming humour explained which lead stumps and strips are the modern day Microsoft formatting equivalents, i.e. Kerning, paragraph indents, double lined spacings and so on.

This is how it is done!  The master-typesetter, patiently, passionately, a piece at a time.  

The man and his machine - the trusty 'Original Heidelberg'.  This was imported from the States about 2 generations ago.

The master-letterpress crafter mixing the perfect warm dove grey ink for my wedding invite.  We got it at the sixth attempt after some experiment of some Pinks that resemble old Barbie dolls' dresses, Beiges and some Almost-Blacks.

The actual block used to print the invites.  For the design, we said yes to vintage, eclectic, chic fonts and a carnival theme.  And no to anything cute, sweet or just screams bridal. 

 

Looking forward to hear from you when you get the invite.  And do enjoy the little whiff of antique ink and glorious printing imperfection in your hand!

...train for the marathon (week 2)?

Week 2 of my training:

ST's training schedule:

Mon - 30 mins (optional)
Tues - 20 mins
Wed - 60 mins (optional)
Thurs - 20 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 20 mins
Sun - 60 mins

My training schedule:

Mon - Day off
Tues - 30 mins
Wed - Day off
Thurs - 35 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 22 mins
Sun - 70 mins

...start training for the marathon in Dec (week 1)?

After a short hiatus of 2 weeks, where I was under doctor's (I mean, sinseh's) orders to stay off running for two weeks (to cut a long story short, my knee was swollen after one whole night of walking around on heels), I am back to training for the marathon in Dec.

At the same time, the Straits Times published a training schedule for those who are training for their first marathon, so I'm using that as a guide.

Straits Times' Training Schedule (Week 1):

Mon - 30 mins (optional)
Tues - 20 mins
Wed - 45 mins (optional)
Thurs - 20 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 20 mins
Sun - 45 mins

My training schedule (Week 1):

Mon - Day off
Tues - Day off
Wed - 20 mins
Thurs - 20 mins
Fri - Day off
Sat - 24 mins
Sun - 48 mins

... rediscover the joys of baking?

Life has been crazy good. Good because I'm happy and crazy because I haven't found the time to indulge in one of my favorite things on earth for ages! Today after Core Fusion, I decided to take a walk through Boston Commons (Boston Commons is so lovely this time of the year, with the prettiest flowers in full bloom.) to the Whole Foods at Charles River Plaza. I picked up some cherries and made a clafoutis with the apricots and mangoes I already had in the refrigerator. Work has been stressful of late but baking, and particularly the warm and sweet scent that emanates from the oven, always relaxes and cheers me up.

Now I'm just waiting for it to cool completely and for someone to return from NYC before we tuck into it!

...have one of the best ramen at Mutekiya?

I asked KS for a list of food places in Tokyo before K and I went on our trip last month. He gave me a list, and said that the restaurants were listed in order of priority.

Top of his list of recommendations was Mutekiya. He said that the ramen was so good that that he would usually visit the restaurant more than once on his travels to Tokyo; and that locals would queue 30 minutes in the cold during winter for the ramen.

So K and I decided to head to Mutekiya on the second day of our trip, and found ourselves in a short queue. We waited for about 20 minutes (there are only 17 seats in the ramen bar) before being ushered in.



K and I both ordered the ramen that came with one slice of char siew and one egg (I can't remember what it is called, maybe K will remember?). It must have been the best ramen I have ever tasted in my entire life.



The soup was boiled with pork bones and was really tasty. Best of all, you could tell there was no MSG because even though K and I drank up all the soup, we did not feel thirsty at all! The ramen was cooked al-dente, the egg was perfect, runny and soft inside but firm outside, and the one slice of char siew was very delicious. All this for only 780 yen (that's about S$12)!

The ramen was really very good that K and I decided that we absolutely have to go back again before we left Tokyo. So we found time on the second last day of our trip and went back to Mutekiya for lunch. This time, I had a bigger bowl! With 3 slices of char siew and 2 eggs! And only 980 yen (less than S$15.60)!



Mutekiya is a must-visit when you go to Tokyo. I can't wait to have it again!


Mutekiya
1-17-1 Minami-Ikebukuro
Take the East exit of Ikebukuro JR station
Walk about 10 minutes along Meiji-Dori

... go for a mud spa?

A just turned 1! My lil’ gal is all grown up now…..almost!

Today, someone at the dog park discovered a new dog breed- a bicolor golden retriever – part gold, part mud! Ahhh….a beautiful pool of muddy waters amidst lush green surroundings and lots of new friends…a great beginning to a first birthday!

If only it wasn't so difficult to get all that mud out of her beautiful fur after all that!

...fall in love with him?

He is 31 this year.

He was trained in classical music and plays many different instruments, but I think he plays the piano the best.

He plays basketball as well, as far as I know and handles a pair of nunchuks rather well.

He is apparently very filial to his mother and grandmother who brought him up.

He is also apparently a non-smoker and a non-drinker.

Contrary to what people may say, I think he can sing. I have heard him sing live and it's real and good.

He is arrogant, but, he has every right to be. In fact, I think it makes him cuter.

His name is Jay Chou. 谁叫他是周杰伦!

I just attended his concert, and I'm still smiling to myself at the memory of it and singing his songs in my head. Gawd, I feel like a teenager all over again. :)

... enjoy summer's bounty?

It's summer in Boston and while I'm not a big fan of the Boston summer weather (these past two weeks have been exceptionally brutal-- think heatwave + high humidity or thunderstorms), I tolerate summer in New England because that means I get to start shopping at farmers markets again! Unlike California (I miss you, Berkeley!), the growing season in the Northeast is way shorter and that makes eating locally challenging. This is especially true late in the winter when I'm starting to get sick of all the winter squashes I've been storing since late fall. But for now, we have plenty of berries, stone fruits, tomatoes etc. in season. Aside from being too lazy and busy to cook of late, I also think that fresh good quality in-season produce should be enjoyed with as little cooking as possible. As a result, I've been having lots of salads (both fruit and vegetable-based) and desserts that incorporate fresh fruits.

Perfect Summer Breakfasts: (clockwise) Apricots+raw honey+yogurt; Strawberries+peppermint+yogurt; Raspberries+peppermint+yogurt

Perfect Summer Lunch: Heirloom tomatoes, Fiore di Nonno handcrafted small batch mozzarella, sweet basil (from my window sill!), Maldon sea salt, fresh ground pepper, extra virgin olive oil

 Perfect Summer Dessert: Champagne mangoes, coconut milk infused sticky rice, coconut cream, toasted mung beans

...make a trip to the Land of Smiles?

HY, LK and I am making our long-awaited trip to BKK! Finally!

While discussing online last night, we were getting ourselves really excited with the prospect of yummy food, good (and affordable?) shopping and lavish treats of massages....and most of all, catching up on all the girly stuff...

So yes, Land of Smiles...here we come! :)

... find your way to the largest religious gathering in the world - The Kumbh Mela?

I was all packed for Kashmir's lovely weather when a last minute hesitation to board the plane to Srinagar started me on a long 12-hour car journey to Haridwar. There, I witnessed the Kumbh Mela 2010 - the festival that gained international fame as "the world's most massive act of faith".

Kumbh Mela is a mass pilgrimage. The 45-day festival takes place at the confluence of the three holy rivers in India, the Ganga (Ganges), Tamuna and Sarawati.  The celebration is said to be anywhere from 3,000 to 8,000 years old; bringing the holy people of the Hindu religion, their followers, and a few "immortals" together.  Each 12-year cycle includes one Maha Kumbh Mela or Great Kumbh Mela.  The Ardh Kumbha Mela is celebrated every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, while the Purna (complete) Kumbha always takes place at Prayag every twelve years.  The 2001, Maha Kumbha Mela was attended by around 60 million people, making it the largest gathering anywhere in the world.

Here are the visual spoils from my trusty Olympus EP1...

The Kumbh Mela 2010 attracted more than 40 million devotees to Haridwar.

The main highlight for most pilgrims during Kumbh Mela is the observance 

of sacred bath at the sangam.

. 

Bathing in these rivers during the Kumbh Mela is considered an endeavour of great merit, cleansing both body and spirit.  It is belived that bathing in the river has a purifying effect. In the place where the three rivers meet, it is said that the bather's purification is increased one hundred times.

Breakfast with the holy men.  Carbo-loading before the day's religious procession.

In the camp of the holy men. A camp of the Naga Sadhus.

Sadhu is a common term denoting an ascetic.  Nagas, the most important in the hierarchy of Hindu holy men, wait to take the plunge at the Kumbh Mela festival on April 14.

The Kumbh Mela honors the Hindu legend in which the gods fought for possession of a pot of amrita (the nectar of immortality).   The confluence of the Ganges, the Yarmuna and the Saraswati (or "Invisible") rivers is held in Hindu mythology to be the place where the gods dropped the amrita.  

A religious procession towards the Ganges on the day where only the Sadhus can bathe in the river.  One Sadhu will "find the nectar". 

...walk and eat your way through Tokyo?

K and I are back from Tokyo!

It was a great trip - with lots of walking and lots of great food! Best of all, we kept to our budget, think we probably spent only around S$2,200 for a week in Tokyo, including airfare and accomodation!

Will start blogging about the food and the sights when I have tidied up the photos!

... seek perfection?

My friends all know that I love trying new recipes and that I rarely cook or bake the same thing more than once unless I am absolutely head over heels in love with it, it takes less than 30 min to prepare from start to finish, or one of them really love it and they ask me to make it again. There are just way too many delicious concoctions out there for me to remain fixated on one thing for too long.

My friends also know that I have a soft spot for desserts, and tangy and citrusy desserts in particular. When we go out for dinner, I ineveitably gravitate towards something with lemon, meyer lemon, yuzu, lime or key lime come dessert time. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I do tend to enjoy things with a good amount of acidity in general-- Thai food, bright and refreshing white wines and the aforementioned type of desserts.

Since I started baking a year and a half ago, lemon yogurt cakes have been my number one obsession. Aside from my weakness for tangy and citrusy desserts, I am also on the constant lookout for somewhat healthy desserts that I can indulge in without feeling too guilty. Lemon yogurt cakes are the closest I've found that are both delicious and almost healthy. I also started out my baking odessey with yogurt cakes because they are apparently so easy and foolproof that French children make them all the time.

The first yogurt cake recipe I tried was Clotilde Desoulier's Gâteau au Yaourt à la Framboise (Raspberry Yogurt Cake). I liked it-- easy, moist and tasty but I didn't fall head over heels in love with it. This was back in Winter 08 and since then, I've made and tried countless other cakes, yogurt cakes, olive oil cakes, butter cakes, genoises, chiffons etc. (Incidentally, I have a serious weakness for chiffon cakes too but I think recipes that require a large number of eggs, and very different number of yolks and whites are a little too fussy for me on a day-to-day basis. I save these for times when I feel incredibly motivated to bake, which is not very often.)

Over 6 months ago, I first heard about Ina Garten's supposedly amazing Lemon Yogurt Cake from various posts on both Serious Eats and The Kitchn. Then, when I went back to Singapore over the Christmas holidays, I saw a writeup of the same recipe, with a few modifications, in The Sunday Times. "Well, it seems like I'll have to try this recipe when I return to Cambridge", I murmured to myself as I read (and subsequently cut out) the article with interest.

When I returned to Cambridge, life and work both got crazy (in good ways!) and it wasn't until one sleepness night in late March that I finally tried Ina's lemon yogurt cake recipe for the first time. The result? Yumminess-- moist, tangy and not too sweet. (I had substituted half of the AP flour with whole wheat pastry flour, used extra virgin olive oil, cut the amount of sugar, upped the amount of lemon (juice and zest), included some orange zest as well (yes, I love citrus zest!) and used my favorite Wallaby nonfat yogurt since that was what I had in the frigo and I wasn't about to go grocery shopping at 2 a.m. in the morning.)

Attempt 1: Exterior

Attempt 1: Cross-section

In short, I loved it (and so did the rest of my friends and colleagues who tried it). Ina's lemon yogurt cake was definitely the best I've tried by far, but it wasn't quite perfect yet. The soaking syrup is genius but it didn't create a crusty exterior similar to that of Tante E's Syrup Butter Cake (spiked with some rum of course!).

It was back to the drawing board. Maybe I need to up the sugar ratio in the soaking syrup? Two months later, I found myself with time to test out another version. This time around, I used limes instead of lemon (because again, this was what I had at home), 100% whole wheat pastry flour, and upped the sugar ratio in the soaking syrup. (To my scientist friends: I know you're only supposed to tweak 1 variable at a time but unfortunately, I am constrained by my impatience and what I have available at home. Besides, I'm a social scientist=P.)

Attempt 2: Exterior

Attempt 2: Cross-section

Upping the sugar ratio didn't seem to help form that crystalized layer I was hoping to achieve (Or perhaps the 100% whole wheat flour substitution affected it too-- serves me right for tweaking too many things at one go!). There was also a little too much of a nutty taste from the whole wheat and the lime gave it a slight bitterness too. Again, good but not great.

Last weekend, a friend's House Cooling Party gave me the perfect excuse to experiment yet again. This time around, I used 100% AP flour and tried upping the sugar ratio again (I also replaced an egg with flaxseed + water because I only had 2 eggs left). Midway through the baking process, I suddenly experienced a flash of inspiration though. Why don't I toast the cake after I slice it? This way, I'll achieve a lovely crisp outer exterior AND caramelized sugar is always a good thing. So I took the cake out from the oven 5 minutes earlier (I didn't want it to lose too much moisture since I was going to effectively bake it twice-- like biscotti.), sliced it into half-inch wide slices, and tried to figure out the best way to obtain that perfect crisp I was seeking.

Attempt 3: Toasting in the oven (L) vs. on a grill pan (R)

I tried toasting it in the oven at various temperatures and grilling it on my stovetop grill pan (see photo above-- I forgot to take a photo before I wolfed down half of each test slice, in the name of research no less=P). In the end, while the grill marks were pretty, obtaining a 90% uniform crisp crust on both sides from toasting it in the oven at 400 degrees (F) gave me what I was looking for-- lots of crispy parts and a hint of caramelized sugar!

Attempt 3: Toasted lemon yogurt cake, raspberry sauce, peppermint

The only minor drawback of this method is that the cake has to be freshly toasted to retain its crispness. So I quickly sliced up the rest of the cake, packed it up in foil and rushed over to my friend's party. Everyone there loved it and one of my friends who dislikes cakes in general said it's probaly the best cake she's ever had! I smell success. Was it perfect? Of course not. But it's close and other ideas are brewing in my head as I type. The search for perfection continues!

...decide to take a trip to Tokyo during lunch?

K and I are headed to Tokyo for a week (one glorious week!) this coming Saturday night! This was a trip that was decided only earlier this month - K and I met for lunch, and were talking about taking holidays and viola! our trip was born.

Looking forward to it - it's going to be my first time ever in Japan. Woohoo!

Watch out for our blog posts in the coming weeks!

...spend your Sunday afternoon listening to songs from another time and space?

I am listening to a 97 hit by Faye Wong "你快乐， 所已我快乐".

It's been a long while since I listened to the radio on a weekend at home, and the feeling is surreal. I remembered a long time (or maybe not so long ago, depending on your point of reference) when nearly everyday was accompanied by my favourite radio station and keeping a lookout for my favourite artiste's latest album...learning the new songs and belting them out in the games we used to play or during karaokes every now and then...That's always a highlight.

Between 1997 and now, we graduated, we started work, and we are now "grown up".

But I don't feel all that different, do you?