Covet

Quiche was the first food I ever really coveted. In my last two years of primary (grade) school, I went to this nearby boulangerie chain almost every day to get myself a hand-sized tuna, chicken or curry chicken puff pie for lunch. Not because I particularly loved these pastries but because they were the cheapest lunch-able items on the menu.

I’d watch enviously as my friend S would fold back the wax paper from her Quiche Lorraine and allow the rich savoury fumes to waft in my direction. I wanted one badly but my 11-year-old pocketbook couldn’t justify the extravagance of a $5 lunch. Besides, I had to save some cash for a chaser of the pre-teen favourite, the Slurpee, for dessert.

So I waited silently, vowing that I’d one day save up and buy the quiche. But I didn’t. At least, not until I was well into my teens and price differentials of $2 or so weren’t an issue anymore. The chain’s quiche was ok. Rather anticlimactic after the slow build up.

No matter. By then I had also been exposed to better quiches, in France and at fancy restaurants. They were wonderful. Mass produced quiche became something safe one ate at the airport, you know, like bad pizza. There’s a limit to how disgusting it can be.



Still, I always thought it was something complex and difficult to make, requiring skill and finesse I didn’t have. It’s not. It’s really simple and in the last few years it has become one of my favourite recipes. So easy yet so impressive. Here’s how I make it. I hope you’ll like it too.

Quiche Lorraine
Adapted from the quiche recipes in Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier

For the pastry:
1 1/3 cups flour
125g butter
1 egg
Pinch salt

For the filling:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup greek yogurt, creme fraiche, single or double cream (almost any creamy substance would work here, even non-dairy ones like mayonnaise)
4 eggs
125g cheese (gruyere is good)
200g cubed ham or sautéed bacon

To make the pastry:
Combine the flour, salt, and butter in the processor. Process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and mix again for a few seconds, until the dough comes together into a ball.

To make the filling:
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, yogurt, and eggs.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Press the dough into either a 10-inch/25cm ceramic tart pan or divide it amongst mini tartlet tins. Prick the bottom all over with a fork. Bake for 7 minutes, until lightly golden. Remove the pan from the oven (leave the heat on). Sprinkle the ham/bacon and cheese over the tart shell. Pour in the milk mixture and bake for 35 minutes (for a big whole quiche) or 15 minutes for mini ones.

The language of menus

I pride myself on understanding the language of menus. It’s not hard to learn the lingo if you love to eat, which I do. When you are as greedy as I, every trip and expedition opens up another opportunity to eat. And to be well fed in a foreign country, you study every word on your list of options carefully. Food names become associated with countries.

For me, the most memorable word on a trip to Italy was not buon giorno, arrivederci or even grazie but ceci as in pasta e ceci. I had just set foot into the world of legumes and the soupy pasta dish inspired religious fervour on my part.

Buko pie became the Philippines and Molokhaya Egypt. Daube de boeuf was France while Tafelspitz was Austria.

Despite this very specific cursory knowledge of world languages, however, when it comes to China and Mandarin, my mother tongue, my skills are sadly lacking. I knew I should have tried harder at school. But on trips to China, my communication mostly involves pointing and nodding. Sure I understand well enough. It’s just finding the right words to respond when I need them that is challenging.

I was reminded of this flaw, on a most recent visit to Beijing, travelling with my brother for a Mandarin course at Xing Hua. I had seriously considered joining the program myself (you know, to actually remedy my problem) but decided that there were more immediate gains to be had by finding temporary employment back home.

So while my brother focused on preparing for his lessons, I focused on eating. Teahouses became a favourite haunt. With my family, I wondered into many, the most memorable of which was located in Bei Hai Park. We had stopped for a mid afternoon pick-me-up and it was one of the rare occasions where I’ve thought the ambience made the meal.



Situated by a lake, with the White Dagoba visible in the distance, the eatery served little more than Zha Jiang Mian. We ordered a bowlful to share and sat down. A serving of plain wheat noodles arrived with six little condiment vessels on the side. We tossed in the accompanying dishes of bacon-like pork cubes, fresh soy beans, bean paste, scallions, radish and cucumber as instructed. Steam rose from the bowl as we mixed the hot noodles with sauce to coat. It was so pretty. The steamy noodles, the old-fashioned marble tables, the blue patterned porcelain crockery and the park in the background. Everything.

And we didn’t have to say anything but communicate our desire for the dish.

Someday I hope to speak flawless Mandarin and navigate China like a pro but till then I’ll have to be content fooling myself that the language of food is enough. It is when all else fails (cheesy as this sounds), something we can all understand.

Zha Jiang Mian

1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-cm piece of ginger, minced
½ tsp chilli paste
250g ground pork
1 tbsp yellow bean paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
½ cup chicken stock mixed with 1 tsp of cornstarch to form a slurry
180g Beijing noodles, cooked according to the instructions on the packet
Shredded or julienned cucumber, to garnish

Heat oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add garlic, stir-fry 30 seconds, then add ginger and stir-fry another 30 seconds. Add ground pork and cook until lightly browned. Add chilli paste, yellow bean paste, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, sugar and cornstarch slurry and simmer for about 10 minutes. Pour the meat sauce over the noodles. Top with cucumber and serve.

A necessity

I’ve mentioned the time I spent at Trinity College here before. It was a good year, and brought me many things - more likeminded people in a year than in the rest of my life put together, some confidence (if only temporary) and most lastingly, rice pudding.



My pudding making developed out of necessity, which is as I hear, the mother of invention. My student-housing-mates and I were on meal plans where dessert featured only occasionally and the food, despite the best efforts of the kindly lunch ladies (they had a budget to stick to) was not very good.

Out of necessity, that is, if you as I do, consider dessert a necessity, a bunch of us would ferret way some plain steamed rice from the dinner spread and port it over to my friend, A’s little abode across the street. A was especially sensitive to noise and had decided early in the year that a house full of seventeen-year-olds was just not for her. She made a request to move and when a space opened up, carted her stuff across the road.

Most nights, we’d converge upon her kitchen and make dessert. In A’s little kitchenette, I must have stirred up more than a dozen pots of rice pudding. Sometimes I’d caramelise fruit, make Blanc mange or bread pudding but mostly we ate rice pudding.

Our group got creative with flavours. Sometimes we’d add a dollop of jam we’d snuck away at breakfast and occasionally we’d sprinkle over dried fruit and nuts. Once we even mixed in Milo powder, but by far our favourite addition was a gob of sweet salty peanut butter. When the pudding was ready, we’d settle down in front of the TV, plant a big bowlful smack in the middle of the coffee table and dip our spoons in the communal bowl till there was none left. Hygiene be damned, we’d fight to the last bite.

Now, I know that many people have only lukewarm feelings towards rice pudding. In fact, I once suggested adding rice pudding to the buffet at a restaurant I did a very short stint at and got a wrinkled nose and rhetorical “who like rice pudding?” in response. I completely understand. Buffets are all about what has mass appeal and if no one will touch it, it will go to waste.

But at home, you have only yourself, or maybe a few other palates to please. You can afford to be more adventurous and I would really encourage that if only for this pudding. It’s hardly any work and if you have leftover rice handy, (which if you eat a lot of Asian food, is almost a given), it actually helps use up leftovers and prevent waste!

Seriously, it comes together in just a few minutes, which is as I learnt, quickly enough to prevent even a bunch of teens from becoming restless, so there’s really nothing to lose.

Peanut Butter Rice Pudding
Adapted from Tyler Florence’s recipe for Rockin Rice Pudding

An extra sprinkling of crunch-giving peanuts would not be amiss here but if you don’t have any I wouldn’t worry. This is the sort of thing you want to be able to make with whatever is on hand whenever necessary.

3 cups white rice, cooked
3 cups milk or cream or even coconut milk (for a dairy-free version)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 - 1 cup smooth peanut butter

Combine cooked rice, milk, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan. Add peanut butter. Cook until most of the liquid is absorbed. Spoon pudding into a serving dish and serve.

Serves 4 to 6

Variations: If you want to eat this pudding cold, I would suggest that you fold some whipped cream or even vanilla yogurt through the chilled pudding. Otherwise, it tends to be a little stodgy.

Or if you have leftover pudding, you could make peanut butter rice pudding tartlets. Mix a few eggs into your leftover pudding (about 1 egg per serving of rice pudding). Pour the mixture into pastry lined tartlet tins. Bake about 15 minutes at 180C/350C. Leave tartlets to cool. Whip together some peanut butter, butter and honey (adjust quantities to your own taste). Use to frost the tartlets. Chill and serve.

Thoughts on Italian food and the “date”

My parents introduced me to Italy in the summer of my fifteenth year. This was shortly after the prune-mascarpone incident and Italy held an abundance of quality foods for my newly intrepid palate.

The trip began with a breakfast of Cornetti (Italian croissants) oozing with apricot jam, eaten starving off the plane (us not the Cornetti) and only got better. Pasta alla Norma, stuffed crespelle blanketed with besciamella and saltimbocca were my favourite discoveries. Beef tenderloin con balsamico charmed my parents. Italy was suffering a heat wave that year and it was scorching but it was nothing a cool creamy serve of vitello tonnato couldn’t solve. So taken was I with the above dishes that they were all attempted at home, with mainly happy results.

So, perhaps you can forgive me for being a little spoiled the day I went for the only (pseudo) date I had in uni (I dragged my friend N along because I was scared. Hilarious, I know. Don’t worry, I told him about it before hand, he looked disappointed but agreed).

We met the guy from the club, W, on Lygon Street. Although I just cannot get excited about the sloppy mess of coagulated noodles and over salty ham pizzas that generally (there are exceptions) masquerade as Italian fare on Melbourne’s Lygon Street, for convenience sake, it was our designated meeting spot.

He ordered a small (most menu items came in both starter and main sizes) chicken breast (white not dark meat! the horror!) risotto and claimed it was delicious but only finished half before declaring himself too full to eat another bite. I scoffed at his insipid obviously pre-cooked clumpy mush of a meal and mentally tsk tsked his poor taste. I, on other hand, powered through with a relatively tastier oversized calzone (only available in large) and finished the entire thing before making room for a dessert to be shared with N. This should have been the first sign.

He talked almost solely about his volunteer work, to which he seemed genuinely devoted. I have huge respect for this, we should all be more charitable, but really all this succeeded in doing was make me realise how morally inferior and incompatible I was. On my part, I bored him with stories of squid ink and where to find the best chocolate dessert calzone. He was bored. I was bored. This was not working out. The feeling was mutual. We made vague plans to see each other again sometime. He never called. I was glad.

What I was not glad for was possibly coming across as an unbearable foodie snob. In some ways I am. I have rolled and sliced my own fettucini by hand (look ma, no machine!). However, I also take immense joy in a sometimes low brow recipe I like to call baked pasta.



While it might find its roots in pasta al forno, my baked pasta is more often a dish to make the authentic Italian cook scream. When I have the luxury of time, it is crafted with homemade ragu and fresh grated parmigiano reggiano. But when time is scarce (far more likely) it is chock full of bottled pasta sauce, sliced frankfurters and a packet of pre-shredded “parmesan”. For sure, my baked pasta can be a compendium of food products that would never cross my lips individually. But together, they become perfectly acceptable. It is a dish that pleases the family and one that I make often.

Baked Pasta
I love cooking the béchamel (or besciamella, in Italian) for this recipe. It is a most reassuring sauce. It always thickens up like magic.

In terms of eating, this dish offers no challenging flavours or textures. It is just smooth soothing eating. I offer two versions of the recipe here, the original and the speedier but trashy (I mean this in the most positive way) alternative. The latter may be more Rachel Ray than bona fide Italian but it is a big bowl of comfort and sometimes that’s all we need.

The classy way

250g penne, a little under cooked (it will continue to cook in the oven)

For the béchamel:
1 ½ cups milk
125g fresh grated parmigiano reggiano, reserve some for sprinkling over later
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter

For the ragu:
500g minced beef or cubed stewing beef
500ml chicken stock
1 tbsp sugar
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/3 bottle of a good red wine
1/3 cup tomato paste
2 tablespoons flour
a pat of butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil

To make the béchamel:
Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Add the flour. Stir for about 3 minutes, or until no lumps remain. Whisk in the milk, a little at a time, to keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

To make the ragu:
Heat the butter and oil in a large casserole pot. Brown the beef over high heat. Set aside. Lower the heat a little and toss in the onion, carrots and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix in the flour. Add the tomato paste. Cook for another minute. Add the wine and cook until the alcohol fumes subside. Stir in the stock and sugar. Put the meat back into the pot. Bring to a simmer and then cover. Stew for 2 to 3 hours.

To assemble:
Toss penne with the ragu. Pour into a greased Pyrex dish. Cover with béchamel. Sprinkle over reserved cheese. Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 minutes. Serve.

The trashy way
250g penne, a little under cooked (it will continue to cook in the oven)
1 packet frankfurter sausages
1 bottle pasta sauce
Bechamel sauce (the recipe above but made with a packet of pre-grated parmesan)

Toss together penne, sausages and pasta sauce. Pour into a greased Pyrex dish. Cover with béchamel. Sprinkle over reserved cheese. Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 minutes. Serve.

Booze

I’m not very exciting. I don’t club, don’t drink and don’t smoke. I probably shouldn’t admit this. Especially since I will be twenty one in less than two weeks. It makes me seem terribly un-fun. And a little sad.

Yes, I get disproportionately excited about certain things and my voice goes all high and squeaky when I talk about them, but they’re not particularly edgy. They are terribly safe things, like food and (more recently) making little pastel oil paintings of cartoonish characters.

Wait…no, no…that’s not completely true. Once, I did go to a club. It is a funny story really. But it hardly counts. It was for a Singapore Day celebration and a friend, N, was on the organizing committee. I went and very un-coolly forgot to bring ID.

Fortunately, I met another friend in the line to get in and she vouched for me. The bouncer guy (is that what he’s called?) took one look at me, smiled and let me in. I probably appeared too harmless to be any trouble. I do look like a frightened mouse. My default expression is “deer in the head lights”.

I hunted N down. She was busy but introduced me to some other members of the organising committee. They got back to work. I made weak attempts to socialise and stood around. A group of girls took pity on me and told me I was cute (not as in pretty, as in you look like a bunny. I get that a lot). I stood around some more. One guy sort of asked me out (I later found out he was even more of a goody-goody than I was but more about that in the next post).

Then I remembered the coupon each of us had been given for a free drink at the bar. I proceeded to the bar in the hope of procuring a, you guessed it, a non-alcoholic drink.

This is not as easy as it seems. Bars are smoky and by this point in the night I had developed a nasty sore throat so speaking at a volume loud enough to be audible above the club’s thunderous base beat proved tricky. The bartender leaned over as I strained to communicate my desire for a non-alcoholic drink.

“Do you have any non-alcoholic drinks? May I have one?” I enquired.

“What?” the bartender asked. I repeated my request at a higher volume.

“What?” he asked again.

I began pointing and gesticulating in a totally unhelpful and probably confusing manner and gave examples of possible drinks. Orange juice, fruit punch, even water…but try as he might, the poor bartender could not process my request.

We continued on like this for a while. A crowd gathered to see what the fuss was about. Then, a look of understanding flashed across the bartender’s face.

“Oh I get it,” he said, “wait here, I’ll be right back” and disappeared behind the counter.

“Goodness,” I thought, “I didn’t know I’d cause him so much trouble by asking for a non-alcoholic drink.”

He returned. With a look of triumph, he presented me with a cigarette lighter (!) and said cheerily “just give it back when you’re done.”

“Do I look like I smoke?” I thought (no offence to the smokers out there). In case you missed the previous three references to my appearance, I look like a fluffy woodland creature people. Fluffy!

I tried to repeatedly to decline but he kept his hand stretched out saying graciously, “it’s fine really, I don’t need it right now.”

I took a deep breath and made one final attempt to secure my G-rated beverage. I worked and I got my orange juice. The crowd dissipated.

Now, after that ordeal, you might be wondering, what could possess this girl to hate alcohol so much?

I don’t. My childish tastes simply haven’t developed a taste for straight hard liquor and I just don’t understand those girly sugary cocktails. Plus, if these things are hereditary I’m probably quite a teetotaller.

I have nothing against drinking per se. This may not sound like much. But when in Germany I once enjoyed a glass of beer with my dinner. On occasion, I do partake in free dinner party wine. Now and then, I appreciate a digestif.

And I positively love boozy desserts. Though apparently not traditional, I like my tiramisu to slide down the throat with a good alcoholic burn and once made a fruit cake so laden with cognac that just a whiff made you woozy.



And about chocolate cake, the first one I ever made was a mere vehicle for Tia Maria. And covered with lemon icing. It possessed a wonderful amalgamation of flavours – bitter from the liquor but also sweetened just enough to counter any overwhelming harshness. The addition of lemon icing offered a surprising but totally complementary layer of tangy flavour. I felt so adult eating it. I was sixteen and it was the first time I remember really enjoying alcohol (well, other than those secret swigs my friend, M and I snuck from her father’s stash at age six. But that too is another story).

I’m thinking of reviving this recipe for my 21st. It seems appropriate, no?

Tia Maria Cake with Lemon Icing
Adapted from this recipe posted over at the blog, i was just very hungry back in 2004

Twenty-first birthday or not, this cake is delicious. It is moist but has a definite crumb. All too often damp cakes fall into the trap of being overly wet and clammy. This cake finds just the right balance.

For the cake:
225g (8 oz) butter
360g (12 oz) brown sugar
4 large eggs
150g (5 oz) pure cocoa powder
400ml (1 2/3 cup) Tia Maria
225g (8 oz) all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda

For the icing:
225g (8 oz) icing (powdered) sugar
4 Tbs lemon juice
Water

To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Grease a 9 by 9 inch (25 cm) square cake pan. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the cocoa powder, mixing well. Add the Tia Maria a little at a time (don’t worry if it foams up a bit). Blend well. Add the sifted flour, the baking powder and baking soda. Mix well. Pour into the pan. Bake for about 1 hour.

To make the icing:
Mix the lemon juice into the icing sugar with a small whisk. If necessary, slowly add a bit of water to the icing, a drop at a time, until you have a thick, smooth paste. Spread this on top of the cake, and let set before cutting it up. Slice into squares.

A packed lunch, well deserved

I guess I was about fifteen before I realised that my family eats better than most.

I don’t mean this boastfully, in fact, I (ok, very occasionally) feel guilty about the somewhat indulgent way we eat. Delicate dim sum is a staple, fresh sushi is standard, Peking duck is not unusual and three-course French lunches are a fortnightly affair. It is almost hedonistic. (Plus, I know eating this way on my own dime will be financially impossible, at least for a few decades.)

It took inviting my secondary school classmates home for project work to enlighten me on how lucky I was. They met even seemingly everyday food, like egg, tuna or chicken salad sandwiches and fried bee hoon (rice noodles) with great enthusiasm.

“I normally hate tomato, but I don’t on this sandwich!” and “This bee hoon has all my favourite things in it, may I have some more?” were just two surprising reactions. Maybe they were being polite but something in the spontaneity of the response tells me it was genuine.

It wouldn’t be too surprising if my school’s canteen fare was any indication of the average diet. Choices included soggy spaghetti drowned in a pool of diluted ketchup and a version of mixed rice that comprised of dishes covered in a slick of cornstarch thickened sauce, sometimes neon pink, coagulated at room temperature.

I sought comfort in bowls of soupy noodles, topped with mushrooms and ground meat and ate it almost exclusively. Tangy tom yum soup poured over the same noodles provided a little variety.

Eventually though, I got smart and began packing my own lunch. Sandwiches bursting with hummus and tomato, avocado and Boursin or pate made the regular rotation. I went through a prosciutto and sweet (i.e. unsalted) butter phase (I had just read Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr Latte and was quite taken with her chapter on in flight dining). Cream cheese on banana bread was another favourite.

Once, I brought quiche. This actually caused quite a stir. People crowded around my table to watch me eat and ask questions (they had never seen quiche before). I was annoying evasive, explaining quietly what it was and then looking down, concentrating on my lunch, so there would be no further questions. It was especially uncomfortable for me, a self-conscious recovering anorexic. I secretly thought they were being overly nosey.

In hindsight, their fascination might have been partly due to hunger. Whether it was for lack of time (our lunch break lasted only twenty minutes) or fear of weight gain, many girls skipped lunch. Now, this is pretty ridiculous, as apparently “you're so thin, it's like you're Asian” is a saying now. Or so Rachel Getting Married will have me believe.

But curiosity and skinniness aside, I met some of the nicest most decent people I’ve ever known in secondary school. The type who doesn’t forget even a casual friend’s birthday and who is always ready with a gift. The kind who tries to keep in touch no matter how recalcitrant a companion you may become, withholding information and what not.

The sort who is delicate about your clearly abnormal weight lost, gentle prodding with questions but never becoming aggressive or accusatory. (It was only later that I learnt not all people were so kind. Some girls, more privileged girls, I met at summer camp later that year were decidedly more explicit about their views on the issue of eating disorders, calling sufferers “disgusting bitches”. Not what you need when you’re trying to recover.)

And the type who receives the products of your first forays into baking with appreciative smiles and not complaints of allergies, a hatred of any cake that is not chocolate or an avoidance of carbs. None of that rubbish, these people eat your food.

And in doing so, it feels like they accept you. I like to think that I brought cake to class to share my good eating fortune and to spread “the love”. But really, I know I did it out of selfishness. After a long hiatus from eating, I insisted on experimenting in the kitchen to get comfortable with the idea of being around food again and there were simply not enough mouths to eat it all at home. My classmates allowed me to try new recipes without fear of wastage.

By consuming my food, they helped me so much. And they didn’t even know it. Looking back now, I just wish I could have packed lunches for all who were interested, instead of being shy and cryptic about what I was eating. They certainly deserved it.

Chicken Liver Pate
Adapted from flavours magazine Nov-Dec 2005

Pate is impressive and slightly exotic. It is exactly what I would have brought to class for my more adventurous friends at school. This recipe’s ingredients list has been whittled down to the very basics but I don’t think it is worst off for it. Spread on a roll or sandwiched between thinly sliced dark rye bread, it makes a great portable lunch. It was one of my favourite things to take to school, though the pate I used then was more likely to come from a can than be home-made.



75g butter
1/2 a small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
250g chicken livers
Salt and pepper, to taste

Extra melted butter, to seal

Trim the chicken livers of membranes and clots. In a frying pan, melt 2 tbsps of the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken livers. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring until the livers are browned outside but slightly pink within, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly. In a food processor, pulse the liver mixture. Add the remaining butter and pulse to blend. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pack pate into a ramekin. Cover with some melted butter to seal. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or until firm.

Serves 4

Let them eat cake (!): the rules and recipe for recovery

I used to keep all my cake photos is a folder called Let them Eat Cake. Its title would make my friends giggle. But this clichéd phrase, often attributed to Marie Antoinette, was also my mantra for recovery from anorexia.

I promised you a story about my legendary cake eating abilities. And now that I’ve come clean about my history, I think it is probably wise to provide a little more information, lest I be accused of being a tease. This blog may be called Confessions of the Edible Kind but until recently, I haven’t confessed anything particularly juicy. Besides, from experience, most people are quite curious about eating disorders and find it refreshing to be able to talk to someone who is relatively open about their experience. And to me, recovery and cake will always be inextricably linked.

As an anorexic, my mind liked to work with patterns, lists and rules. At my worst, these rules prohibited the consumption of almost anything edible. As I began to get better, these rules relaxed but remained strict in the most arbitrary of ways. They were designed to help me gain weight while still retaining control.

Mostly, I allowed myself to eat baked goods. I could eat bread, but only if it was whole wheat. I could eat scones but only if they were plain and did not contain any add-ins. I could eat muffins but only blueberry, chocolate and banana ones, i.e. the regular flavours. I did this so that I could compare the versions at each and every cafe I could find. This was my way of rationalising eating. Starvation and malnutrition just didn’t cut it as excuses.

I could, of course, also eat cake. In fact for a while, I subsisted almost solely on café-bought cake. I tried a slice of every single cake available at Delifrance (I was not aware of the better options then) and NYDC but refused to allow any repeats. My parents patiently drove out to purchase these slices once and sometimes even twice a day, just for me. How they kept from strangling me I will never know. Like Marie Antoinette, anorexia can be selfish, out of touch with normal people and behaviour.

So entrenched were the rules in my mind that I began to lose sense of what I really liked outside of these self-imposed laws.

“What do you like to eat?” seems a simple enough question, but for the longest time, it is one I struggled to answer. It took me years to regain even the simplest knowledge of my own likes and dislikes. The confusion I felt sort of reminds me of a scene from Gilmore Girls* (episode 3, season 7) that goes something like this.

Lorelai sits in the kitchen and stares dazedly at her breakfast, a plate of broken Pop-Tarts. Rory comes out of her bedroom and sees her…

Rory: (perplexed) Are you enjoying your breakfast?
Lorelai: I don’t know if I like Pop-Tarts
Rory: Did you fall on your head while you were sleeping?
Lorelai: I dunno. Do I like this? Is this something I like?
Rory: So you fell on your head and now you have some kind of very specific amnesia. Is that it?

If you’ve ever watched the show, you’ll know that Lorelai and Rory are nuts about Pop-Tarts. But in this episode, Lorelai feels lost after her parents fail to react to her breakup with her fiancé Luke. Her parents' disapproval provided a compass for her that helped shape her likes and dislikes. The rules were sort of like that for me. But bit by bit, I let go.



Over the last few years, I’ve made quite a few discoveries. As it turns out, even free from the rules, I do love cake (who doesn’t). I also like underrated cuts of meat like the neck or the cheeks, steamed buns filled with oozy salted-egg-yolk-custard (nai wong bao), the sensation of biting into a shard of darkish milk chocolate (about 55 per cent) with gritty cocoa nibs, Greek yogurt, cabbage (especially with bacon and walnuts), sushi (the taste of sweet mildly acidic rice against creamy slices of raw fish is unbeatable), steamed vegetable dumplings bound with the barest amount of pork and doused with plenty of sesame oil, aged balsamic vinegar and peanut noodles.



It gives me great satisfaction to list the items above. It took a long time to get here. And I couldn’t have, if not for cake.

*Sorry. I guess if you haven’t watched Gilmore Girls then this example is probably moot but why on earth haven’t you? It’s great. So funny. Seriously, you’ll love it.

Marie Antoinettes (Lemon Cheesecake Tartlets Topped with Strawberries)
Adapted from Blue Ribbon USA by Georgia Orcutt and John Margolies

Often, I use the term “cake” loosely, to describe any sort of dessert eaten with a fork. Kind of like the way the British use the word “pudding” to describe all desserts. These tartlets are great for when you feel like just a little bit of “cake”. They are adapted from a Blue Ribbon winning recipe and are just as rich and well-dressed as their namesake. With their pointy strawberry noses raised to the sky, they’re a bit snooty too.



Pastry, your favourite recipe (both short crust and puff work here, you could even use store-bought if you’re short on time)

For the filling:
4oz (125g) mascarpone
1/2 cup lemon curd
1 egg

For the topping:
18 small strawberries, de-stemmed but left whole
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (to bring out the strawberries’ flavour)
1 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Roll out the pastry. Using a cookie-cutter cut the pastry into rounds and press them into a greased mini muffin pan.

To make the filling:
Combine the mascarpone, lemon curd and egg in a small bowl and whisk till smooth. Use to fill the pastry-lined muffin cups. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

To make the topping:
In a small bowl, combine the strawberries with the sugar and balsamic vinegar. Toss to combine. Place one strawberry on each tartlet, cut side down. Press to secure. Chill and serve.

Makes 18 tartlets.

On moving, magic and misconceptions

For as long as I can remember, my family has travelled regularly (four times a year before my brother and I started primary/grade school and twice a year when our school schedules got more demanding). We nearly never went with tour groups. I am thankful for that. When the cost was not too prohibitive, we hired a mini van and a guide, a great luxury.

Most of the time though, we navigated foreign cities on our own. You might think that this meant getting lost often and wandering around aimlessly. But it didn’t. No thanks to me of course. My own sense of direction is quite poor. It was my father who guided us through whatever city we found ourselves in, his stocky legs moving purposefully at double speed. My mother and I often joke about it, calling him Speedy Gonzales.

If you ever see a small compact man brisk-walking across Red Square or weaving through Nepalese crowds to get to an especially impressive stupa, with his equally compact family struggling to keep up behind, you’ll know that’s us.

My father has almost never steered us wrong. Just name the place and “poof” we’re there. Like magic. When I was especially little, this effect was all the more apparent because all he had to do was pick me up or strap me into a car seat and off we’d go. No foot work required.

I thought all fathers had to possess a mental map of every city in the world, even if they had never been there before. I suspected this information was provided in the secret Papa Handbook which all men received when they became fathers. Years later, I learnt that this handbook does indeed exist. It goes my many names. Frommers, Fodors, Lonely Planet and DK are just a few.

For sure, travel teaches you much.

I have learnt (or rather my parents have) that hiding a tiny flu pill between a nine-year-olds breakfast, even if it is one of Jamón Serrano squished between doughy rolls and eaten beneath ceiling-hung legs of said ham (ah, the novelty), will not, I repeat not get her to swallow.

But I have also derived a terrible misconception about that food which is sacred to many, bacon. Travelling has meant eating a lot of what I call “hotel buffet bacon”. A leathery, sodden excuse for cured meat that some how manages to be both greasy and dry at the same time. For the years I thought I hated bacon.

That is, until one day about two years ago now. It was the festive season and even though it is not in our culture do so, because of the general feel-good spirit of the season, I usually turn out a few Christmasy dishes – cranberry sauce most definitely, a clove studded ham and some indulgent sides.

A quick search on the Food Network site revealed that Tyler Florence had a complete guide to the festive meal, complete with online video demonstrations. He included a sort of updated green bean casserole that called for the green beans to be sautéed with pancetta and mushrooms, then finished with a dollop of sour cream. It sounded good, very celebratory. But I couldn’t find pancetta and had to buy bacon instead.

Just because I didn’t like bacon, I saw no reason to deprive everyone else of it. I figured hey, it’s chopped up how bad can it be? Actually, wasn’t bad at all.

The beans were well-seasoned, substantial and just creamy enough. They had soaked up the smoky goodness of the bacon and were quite a hit. Such a hit in fact, that I started throwing bacon into all my vegetable dishes. Clearly, bacon as a flavouring is something I’ve really grown to like.

One evening, a few months later, I came back from the gym to find my cupboard bare save for a quarter head of cabbage, a handful of walnuts and some bacon. I was starving. So I cooked them up and dinner was served.



It was hands down the best after gym meal I’ve ever made. It’s mainly cabbage so it feels kind of healthy, but there’s also good fat from the nuts and savouriness from the bacon. A new dinner staple was born!

Stir-fried Cabbage with Bacon and Walnuts

¼ head cabbage, shredded
2 slices streaky bacon, chopped
Handful (30g/1oz) walnuts
1 tsp oil

Fry the bacon in the oil until it crisps up a little and some of the fat is rendered (about 5 minutes). Stir in the shredded cabbage. It will seem rather bulky at first, but as it cooks, it will start to collapse. Stir so it cooks evenly. Cook for about 10 minutes (the cabbage will retain some of its crispness). For softer cabbage, put a lid on the frying pan so that it steams and cooks faster. Sprinkle over the walnuts and stir through. Plate and serve.

Serves 1, with leftovers

Shy

I am, in person, ridiculously shy. Despite my best efforts, even the simplest of lines, is difficult to get out when spoken to a stranger.

Tall people in particular intimidate me. Seriously, when I meet someone new and they’re of a certain height, I can barely look them in the eye. I guess that’s why my closest friends are pretty petite. In my first year at uni, my friend L and I actually toyed with the idea of starting a club just for short people. That is, until we realized that it wasn’t very fair to arbitrarily exclude people for some thing they couldn’t control (plus, we wouldn’t want to miss out on friendship with all the nice and tall people out there).

I’m even drawn to writers who tend towards being pint-sized rather than statuesque. Amanda Hesser is one. Molly Wizenberg, who calls hers a “very little family”, is another example. Though I’ll tell you, she’s got nothing on my tiny clan. I’m five foot one (almost) and my father is the same. My uncles are of similar proportions. Plus, compared to two of my three female cousins, I’m downright gigantic. Seriously, sometimes I feel like an elephant. But it has given me lots of experience interacting with people who are smaller in stature.

Other than that though, I am woefully lacking in experience with social interaction. At the ripe old age of twenty, I’ve never been kissed, let alone had a proper boyfriend. I’m the type who has only a few close friends at a time and am terrible at staying in touch.

It follows then, that there are even many things I eat which make me self conscious. Not because I don’t enjoy them or they are trashy (well maybe the microwaved eggs and processed cheese product that I favoured from ages 5 to 10), but because they are unfamiliar to my eating companions.

I like crème fraiche in my bircher muesli and see shedding some cheese atop my sweet bread pudding as an extension of Mexican Capirotada. To me, the strong sour scent of balsamic vinegar, rising from the pan, first thing in the morning is most welcomed and not cause for a scrunched up nose or reason to crack open an extra window.

Of course, these are not sentiments my parents always share. I don’t expect them to. I am guilty of polluting the air. And before 9am no less. I am sorry.

Still, if my memory serves me right, M.F.K Fisher, in her book, An Alphabet for Gourmets, states that a gourmet is one guided by his or her own appetites and who does so without embarrassment. I’m trying to put this attitude in to practice. In food, as well as life.

After all, when I’m gone (lets hope there’s a long time yet) I want people to say things like “she felt deeply and always laughed out loud”. So as you can see, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

The only time I’ve ever felt anything less than terrified by the world around me was during the year I spent at Trinity College doing a foundation studies course before university. All the students were international like me and the school was small. I felt like I knew everyone in my classes on some level or another. When I walked down the street, people waved at me. When I did presentations in class, I did not stammer but felt confident enough to bring cake. To be more specific, chilli chocolate cake (my presentation was on the history of chocolate).

Truth be told, the cake was a little dry. But I had just discovered this charming little South American café and the owners were so friendly, I couldn’t stop purchasing their Latin (totally new to me at the time) desserts and pastries.

Anyway, a roomful of college-aged students could only be happy with free cake. They claimed to like it. My classmates were sweet.



I have since experimented with the flavours of chocolate and chilli on my own at home, with a cake recipe that I feel very strongly about. If it was the prune that turned my condition around, it was cake, and especially this cake, that sustained the change. It was the first cake I ever made that my family loved and it will always have a place in my heart. My favourite author, Molly Wizenberg calls it Winning Hearts and Minds Cake and Clotilde Dusoulier, the talented lady behind Chocolate and Zucchini, came up with the chocolate chilli variation posted in slightly adapted form here. It is a great cake – sleek and subtle but also bold with spicy flavour.

It is the cake I aspire to be.

French-Style Chilli Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

Cake:
200g butter
200g dark chocolate, chopped
200g sugar
5 eggs
a rounded Tbsp of flour
1-1/2 tsp ground chili

Chocolate Ganache:
100g dark chocolate, chopped
100ml cream (single or double, crème fraiche, even sour cream is fine here. I like the tang)

Double cream, to serve (optional)

To make cake:
Pre-heat your oven to 200°C (400°F). Grease an 8-inch round cake pan. Melt the butter with the chocolate in a small saucepan. Add the sugar, mix with a wooden spoon and let cool a little. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well with the spoon after each addition. Add a rounded tablespoon of flour and the chilli. Mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and put into the oven to bake for 30 minutes. Put the pan on a cooling rack on the counter to cool completely.

To make ganache:
Melt together the chocolate and cream in another saucepan. Stir well. Pour into the sunken hollow that will now have formed in the cake.

Refrigerate cake but take it out about half an hour before serving. Serve with double cream, if desired.

Serves 6 to 12.

How prunes turned it all around

Like most women, I have had issues with my weight and food. In fact, for a while, when I was in my early teens, I was anorexic. I worry as I type those words. There are many anorexic-girl-haters out there. I understand your frustration. But I don’t know what to say to you except that we don’t do it on purpose. I swear. Nobody would.

Other than that blip in my teens, I have always been a good eater. I have however also always been especially conscious of weight and size. When I was in kindergarten, my friends and I used to pretend to be Disney princesses. I always ended up as Snow White. Mostly because with her dark hair and eyes, she looked almost Chinese (which I liked) but also partly because she was slightly chunky or, to be more politically correct, pleasantly round (which I did not like).

But by far the worst incident exposing my strong weight prejudices occurred the year I turned twelve. Every now and then I still feel sinking pangs of regret that that year at summer camp, I asked a rotund facilitator if “he was always that fat”.

I didn’t mean to. It just came out. I was thinking it and when it came my turn to ask him a question (I believe we were doing an exercise to get better acquainted) and I didn’t have one prepared, it just slipped out (I say stupid stupid things when I have to speak in public unprepared). I have often hoped it would give him comfort to know that only a year later I was anorexic. But deep down I know he wouldn’t, he was far too nice for that.

But I tell you this not to elicit anger at my selfishness or pity for my “special” plight (unfortunately, girls with eating disorders are dime a dozen these days). I tell you this as means of expressing my love and gratitude for the humble prune (plus, writing is cathartic and it seems long ago enough now that it doesn’t hurt to share).

The anorexic girl of the dried fruit world, the prune is hated and ridiculed for its laxative properties. But I don’t care. Prunes turned it all around for me.

It happened at this crepe place called Out of the Pan. I had a crepe stuffed with mascarpone and poached prunes (I may have still been 32kg but I was beginning to understand I needed to get better). It was extremely rich of course but it was also complex and fruity. Once in the mouth, the prunes collapsed into a puddle of juice and mixed with the mascarpone to form a deep creamy sauce. I loved it.

Anyone who knows a little about eating disorders will tell you that it is all about control. You feel that you can’t control anything in your life, so you control how much you eat. And it was at the moment that pricey cheese met tongue that I realised one could control not only the quantity of food one ate but also the quality. Thus began my road to recovery.



From then on stewed prunes and mascarpone on toast entered my breakfast rotation. My method was nothing to be imitated. It came from a very basic cookbook found in my secondary school library. The recipe called for the prunes to be microwaved in some earl gray. It did the job, but these days I use this recipe from Orangette. It is worlds better.

Stewed prunes and mascarpone on toast

Stewed prunes and mascarpone on toast was the dish that reacclimatised my palate and stomach to cream. And that of course that opened the door to cake consumption (for which my eating abilities are legendary) but that’s another story. For now, I will leave you with the only recipe that I can truly claim changed my life.

5-7 Stewed Prunes, with some of their syrup
A generous spoonful of mascarpone
A thick slice of bread (I like a dense and hearty wholegrain bread for this)

Toast the bread to desired doneness. Dollop a spoonful of mascarpone on to the toast and smooth it out with the back of the spoon. Artfully spoon over the prunes and drizzle with syrup. Eat.

Serves 1.