Cookies For Sid

Following the concept of Twelve Cupcakes, where little pieces of small but very delicious cakes are sold at exorbitant prices, Cookies For Sid have recently opened to sell cookies at exorbitant prices. There are prices for one, three, six and twelve cookies. Seems like all good things come in threes nowadays.

 

I have come across the outlet some time back but the prices put me off. Recently I came across the outlet again, and this time, I thought to buy some and try. Afterall, who can resist a well-baked chocolate chip cookie? Definitely not me!

 

Since it is Easter, there is a special Easter cookie, made with chocolate topped with M&Ms. I was intrigued and went to take a look. There are a few flavours, namely chocolate chip, nutella, hazelnut, pistachio, crunchy oat and Easter.

 

Since I wanted to try out, I bought a set of six cookies for S$7.80, consisting of two chocolate chip, two nutella, and two Easter. The cookies are placed in a nice white sheer paper, and put into a nice blue box that resembles a jewellery box from Tiffany's.

The packaging the cookies come in

 The cookie box

 

Each cookie is individually placed in a sheer white packing like this

 



Back of the packing sheet

 

My order (from left) - two chocolate chip, two Easter and two nutella

 

The chocolate chip cookies are the hottest selling item. No guesses why. The cookie is baked to a crisp brown embedded with chocolate chips (what else?) that just melts in my mouth. Delicious!

 

The Easter cookie is essentially chocolate chip cookies embedded with M&Ms, which I find a tad overkill. Somehow the chocolate chips override the taste of the M&Ms, so it taste like any normal chocolate chip cookies.

 

The nutella flavour is essentially the dark chocolate sauce with hazelnut, but although the actual nutella tastes much sweeter, the cookie tastes a tad dry. Personally I think the cookie can do without the hazelnut as it tastes alright on its own, but somehow seems more dry with the nuts.

 

All in all, the cookies taste like any normal chocolate cookies that one can get from Famous Amos or some other place. I would not spend that amount getting a set, unless for very special occasions. Still, the cookies come in big pieces so one cookie itself can cure hunger pangs for those who are in need of an emergency snack.

 

Why is this called Cookies For Sid? It is named after the blue cookie monster from Sesame Street, whose real name is Sid. This symbolises the love for cookies, like the cute blue monster, hence the box is also blue.

 

One box of six cookies is a good treat to take to any housewarming or to any party, but if one is to have an event, I think I would prefer a box of Twelve Cupcakes instead.

Twelve Cupcakes!

In recent years, cupcakes are getting to be very popular, so much so that there are now specialty shops selling cupcakes alone. Normally I am not one for cupcakes because I always find them overpriced for something so small. I rather eat a normal cake that is more value for money.

However when I came across Twelve Cupcakes, I decided to try it out to see what the hype is about. And guess what? I fell in love with it! The cupcakes are so creamy and smooth that one can tell they only use good quality ingredients and real good baking skills. There is no hardness anywhere, the cupcakes are soft and moist. Furthermore, they have a variety of flavours, including their hot favourite Red Ruby.

 

This Christmas I had a gathering with the girls. So I ordered the Christmas box set of twelve cupcakes, consisting of chocolate, pistachio, cookies and cream, and red ruby. My friends were raving over them!

The Christmas box set. Most were gone within a few minutes.

 

I will highly recommend a box of cupcakes from Twelve Cupcakes for any function. So far all those I have given to all rave about how nice the cupcakes are. Bear in mind that these cupcakes are expensive though, so unless you are super rich, these should be saved for special occasions and functions and not all the time.

 

Now I only wish I can bake cupcakes like these!

Plane Food

For the first time, I get to go on a business trip, and for the first time, I took Singapore Airlines Business Class. I have bought the cookbook from Singapore Airlines some time back, and was wondering if they indeed serve those kinds of food on a mere plane? But now that I have taken Business Class, I realise that the passengers are really served well.

Besides reclining seats where one can lie sprawled out like on a bed and sleep, the table can also be extended into a long dining table. So come meal time, there would be white table clothes, utensils wrapped in white cloths, and generally a classy setting.

And the food! It is a normal three-course meal that is about the same standard at any good restaurant! I thoroughly enjoyed it! My first business class experience is really good! Now I really cannot go back to being a normal passenger in economy anymore!

First lunch - table setting

Appetizer - carpacio beef with udon

First dinner - Appetizer (Satay)

Entree - beef salad

Main course - Cod Fillet with potatoes

Dessert - Tiramisu cheesecake

In comparison, the food on other planes just do not seem that appetizing. On my way back, I took the same kind of food as well, although with a different menu. What made me so happy was that after days of eating casual American fare, I wanted to taste real honest-to-goodness local cuisine, and fried rice is on the menu! Hence I ordered that for supper after sleeping for a few hours.

2nd dinner - Appetizer (salad)

Main Course - Noodles with Pork Ribs and Chicken

Dessert - Chocolate Ice Cream with Vanilla Bean

Snack - Fried Rice

The breakfast food was great too! We had a choice of all-American breakfast or local breakfast. Because I was still jetlagged and hungry, I ordered both the American breakfast and local breakfast, which happened to be nasi lemak!

All American Breakfast - Fruit platter

Bread, with butter and jam

Cornflakes with milk

Nasi Lemak

Who can believe we can actually partake such good food on a plane?

No. 1 Party!

I was invited to a friend's son's first birthday celebration. And I absolutely love the cake!

What I will give to have a cake like that! I do not think I ever have such nice cakes, even in my birthday parties! Wonder where I can get such cakes, or must it be specially made?

Hungry BBQ - One Stop Service?

I was at a New Year's gathering last night, where we had a barbecue party at my friend's place. The barbecues I attended in the past were a hassle of buying chicken, marinating them, freezing them and then barbecuing them over the stove.

However, when my friend and I were deciding to host the barbecue, she told me of an online website where people can order barbecue stuff and have it delivered to the house on the day itself, with everything nicely wrapped and marinated!

Wow! I never know there is such a service! Wonder if I have been in another planet all these while? Apparently because of the popular barbecue activity so highly in demand with kids and adults alike, some enterprising people have set up a barbecue wholesaler to cater to these crowd. Seems that business is booming.

We looked through the menu and everything is there - from marinated chicken wings to satay to corn, to stingray to fried rice to packet drinks to black pepper beef, even skewers, covering, fire-starters and charcoal! What a great deal! Best is we need not need to slave over the kitchen stove marinating and preparing.

This one-stop service barbecue is really a very good idea! Kudos for whoever who came up with it! Perhaps I will use that for any barbecue session in the future!

My Favourite Childhood Snack

I cannot believe I actually found this!

This has been my favourite childhood snack of all times! But ever since my teenage years and adulthood, lesser and lesser provision shops have been stocking this. In the past, whenever I managed to find this, I would buy in bulk - at least twenty packets! They were so cheap, about ten or twenty cents per packet!

Unfortunately, for the past few years, I have not been able to find any of this. I was thinking perhaps it is finally out of stock everywhere, and moaned about the loss of my favourite childhood snack.

Then today, I came across this old provision shop in that neighbourhood. Suddenly, I saw a small display case with this snacks! Without thinking, I wiped out the entire stock! Finally I found my favourite childhood snack!

Through Emerald Hill

I have long heard about Emerald Hill but have not been there. I know it used to be a place for social escorts, then the stretch of shophouses was developed into pubs, lounges and restaurants.

I know Emerald Hill is near to the Mount Elizabeth stretch but I never know the exact position until last night when I realise it is situated at Emerald Hill Road at the former Peranakan Place.

Last night was my first time at a chill-out joint at Emerald Hill. We went to Ice-Cold Beer for drinks where there was an offer for Margaritas at S$10.00 each. We had three Margaritas and an Erdinger Beer, plus chicken wings. We happened to be sitting next to the pool table so we played two rounds of pool too!

Because this is World Cup season, there were many people around watching the match so the place was packed! We were already lucky enough to find a small table for us.

Besides the noise of people cheering and the loud music being played, this place seems a pretty cosy place to just chill-out. I will not mind going again! Maybe the next time round we will go pub-hopping along the stretch too!

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The Concept Of Communal Dining

Recently, I got introduced to the concept of Communal Dining. I have known about casual dining, fine dining, comfort food, bistro, individually-plated, but it is the first time I heard of Communal Dining.

I did some research and found out that Communal Dining is a new concept slowly gaining popularity in the West and here. However, even though Communal Dining itself is a relatively new concept, it has already been practiced by Asians.

You know those table dinners where there are a few dishes and everyone helps himself to the dish? One dish feeds several people. Just like for Chinese, when we eat, we use chopsticks to take the fish, the vegetables and scoop the soup. The whole family eats from the same few dishes instead of individual servings.

That is Communal Dining. It sems that we have been practising that all these while but never really thought of that in this context.

Communal Dining is not the same as those dinners we see on television where the dish is passed around and everyone takes just a scoop. It means a sharing of the dishes where everyone eats from the same dishes.

Seems that what we practise here is slowly gaining popularity in the West when all these while, it had been the Western influence on our culture and habits. Times have changed indeed!

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The Triviality Of High Tea And Afternoon Tea

As mentioned, I have been wanting to try high tea and afternoon tea at various places for a long time. So I was doing some research on the difference between these two types. A common misnomer is that high tea and afternoon tea is one and the same. I guess due to globalisation and the localisation of cultures, it is a thin line between high tea and afternoon tea.

However, I have always known these are two different concepts. I know afternoon tea is the English afternoon light meal of finger food and tea or coffee, whereas a high tea is an afternoon or early afternoon meal of buffet and heavier food.

It is only recently that I discovered the origins of both. In the past when England was one of the few developed countries, due to their weather and daylight savings in the summer, there would always be long hours between lunch and dinner. So lunch could be at noon whereas dinner could be at eight at night.

One noble lady invited her group of friends over to her home one afternoon. Knowing that they would be hungry by four, she arranged to have them eat light food like cakes, sandwiches and scones, spread with jam, butter and cream, accompanied by tea. Hence the concept of the afternoon tea was born.

Since then, the English afternoon tea has been a favourite activity amongst the ladies in the upper echelon of society. Perhaps that is how afternoon tea and high tea became mixed up, since it used to be only an activity of the higher strata in the social ladder.

But the real concept of high tea came about when the gentlemen of the upper echelon of society, meeting for poker and bridge, decided to have a very early dinner and then sit down and play.

They would meet at six o'clock, but that would be too early for dinner. Hence they called it tea, but it was served with fuller meals like meat and other kinds of food where the men could help themselves to. Hence the term meat tea, before it evolved to "high" tea.

Which is why afternoon tea is still served with sandwiches and savouries, whereas high tea is served with a buffet spread. Interesting! Maybe that is why I always prefer afternoon tea to high tea, due to its origins?

The Different Kinds Of Meals

I have heard that breakfast + lunch = brunch, and lunch + tea = tunch, what is dinner and supper? Does it make it "sinner" or "dipper"? Or lunch and dinner, does it make it "lunner" or "dunch"?

I have long tried to differentiate between the different meals. Those Enid Blyton books I used to read at a very young age, always talks about breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Where is lunch, I wonder? I was brought up to believe that the three meals means breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, then dinner in the evening. Any food after dinner is supper, and any food in between lunch and dinner is tea.

Through the years, I learned the concept of morning tea and afternoon tea. Morning tea is a mid-morning coffee break, whereas afternoon tea is a mid-afternoon coffee break. But some restaurants and hotels serve high tea in the afternoon, which consists of buffet spreads of a variety of food.

I have always liked the concept of the traditional English tea - three tier of sandwiches and cakes, tea with sugar and milk. Real English tea is to be drunk with sugar cubes and then milk in a jar, not the packaged sugar and creamer nowadays.

Whenever I source for caterers, I used to be rather confused over a tea reception and a buffet lunch / dinner. To me, is it not all the same? Afterall caterers only offer buffet, except for a few who offer sit-down meals upon request.

But upon studying the menu offered, I realise that a lunch / dinner reception normally comes with full meals - rice or noodles, variety of meat, vegetables, dessert and drinks. A tea reception menu consists of just finger food like sandwiches and canapes, with cakes and drinks.

So that is the difference! Personally, I much prefer a full meal than finger food, because a full meal is a proper meal. Not saying that a tea reception is not a proper meal, but if I am to take finger food, I much rather indulge in a proper high tea or traditional tea set. Now I can hardly wait for the next time I go for a high tea session!

Butter Batter

As Julia Child once said, which Julie Powell followed, "one can never have too much butter". I fully agree with this statement! I am a strong advocate of butter. I find food with butter tastes much better - bread, toast, etc. Even food cooked in butter tastes better than food cooked in oil!

Unfortunately, my parents are the practical and healthy kinds, so I grow up not having much butter. We use margarine on bread and cook food in sunflower oil. Hence, whenever there is butter, it is very well-treasured amongst my family members, especially me!

I have always wanted to try using butter to cook something, but since my house is severely lacking of butter, I have no choice but to cook using oil. So when we ran out of oil while cooking breakfast on Sunday, I suggested butter.

And butter we used. We used butter to cook eggs, sausages, hash browns. We even used butter to spread on bread and toast. And I was right - the food really tastes better using butter as compared to just normal oil!

I am swearing on butter now! If my mum refuses, I will just buy my own butter to do my own cooking! And I am going to use butter to cook and spread on my bread henceforth!

Of Sangria And Sheridan

I discovered a new drink last night - Sheridan! I know of this from books, about a drink called Sheridan, but last night I saw the cute bottle and tasted it for the first time. It is better than Bailey's! For the uninitiated, Sheridan is a type of Irish coffee liquor, by the same manufacturer of the Bailey's Irish Cream.

Sheridan has 15.5% alcohol content. The coffee is dark with rum. The bottle has two parts - half of it is coffee rum, the other half is cream. The spout has two openings, so when you pour it into a glass, the coffee rum and cream comes out together. All you need to do is to mix it. One whiff of it and you feel like gulping down the whole glass!

I had my fill of Sheridan last night. Chilled one makes the drink so much better! After a few glasses of sangria with lemon, coffee is very welcome. But I am not for drinking coffee at night, so when a friend asked for Bailey's, the host let us tried Sheridan instead. The next time I go overseas, I am sure to buy a bottle of Sheridan duty free!

The Different Kinds Of Rice

For the past two weeks or so, I have been eating a different kind of rice at home without even realizing it! All along, we were eating rice from Thailand – thick, a bit hard and rather aromatic. As an Asian, I grow up eating rice as a staple food. My parents are still open to adventures, if we go for different cuisines, but to my grandmother, rice is a must for every meal. She would frown if we eat steak or whatnot as our main course instead of rice, as to her, she can never fathom how anyone can be full without eating any rice!

I have tried different kinds of rice – polished, unpolished, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Australian. Rice can be cooked into porridge (for coarse grains) or congee (for fine grains). Chicken congee mixed with shredded chicken and fried onion, with fried dough fritters and sesame oil is the best! Japanese rice seems finer, as do Korean rice. Australian rice is pretty fine, and best to be used in making porridge.

When I was in lower secondary, we had to do a science investigative project and I chose to investigate the cooking times, temperatures and texture of the various kinds of rice. I discovered that Thai rice still takes the shortest time to cook and turns out the coarsest and most aromatic. There were times when I had unpolished rice, cooked as porridge. The porridge looks reddish brown, and tastes better than normal white porridge (which essentially is rather bland if it is just plain porridge). When I was young, whenever I had to take porridge, I would add it with Bovril or Marmite to sweeten it.

However, for the past couple of weeks, I did not even know I had been eating a different kind of rice! The price of Thai rice is getting rather exorbitant lately, and in order to buy enough to feed a family at the same price, my mum switched to Vietnamese rice. It was only after my dad commented the rice is a bit harder that I realize it was a different kind of rice!

The texture of Vietnamese rice is a bit coarser than Thai rice, thus harder. But the difference is very insignificant, in fact, hardly noticeable until my dad made the remark! It does not matter to me actually, whether the rice is hard or soft. It is just a staple food and I have gotten rather immune to eating it that I do not notice the taste anymore!

My Escargot Episode

I ate a snail last night. The friend I was having dinner with ordered a plate of escargots. Actually it is nice, but I simply cannot get the image of the slimy snail crawling around with its two eyes in the air, thus I had to psyche myself to eat it. And my friend was not helping matters, by telling me how he was playing with a cute puppy, went into a house for dinner, and came out to find the puppy gone because it was the main dish at the dinner. As well as the time he was slurping on something juicy, only to see under the table that he was eating monkey's brain instead.

I know he was trying to tell me there were worse things, but did he really expect me to be able to stomach any food after hearing that? Still, I was in the middle of chomping a piece of garlic bread when I told myself to just eat it, like how I ate the rabbit stew last year, so I popped the escargot into my mouth and quickly chewed and swallowed it without thinking. Well, it was not a bad feat, but after this, I do not think I can ever stomach escargot for a long time again!

Chiffon Cakes

I came across a small shop at the Raffles Xchange selling chiffon cakes earlier on. Being a fan of the pandan chiffon, I stopped to take a look. The chiffon cakes are the mini types and come in all flavours, namely pandan, durian, coffee, oreo cookie, banana, orange, chocolate, triple chocolate, vanilla and cheese.

I could not resist it. Since my family members like chiffon cakes as well, I bought almost all the flavours, save for coffee and vanilla. A few weeks back, I was supposed to go for a chiffon cake baking workshop, but due to a clash in schedule, I was not able to make the class. How I wish there will be another class then I can bake to my heart's content!

The Story Of Milk

Is it true that Asians are more lactose-intolerant per se? I know some never drink milk, or take any milk products like cheese. Even when they drink tea or coffee, it has to be without any milk. Some will also start having stomach problems once they drink milk, so the only alternative is soy milk.

When I was growing up, we hardly get to drink milk at home. We had full cream milk, but that was only to make Milo. We never drink full cream milk off the glass or powdered milk. Even though we are not lactose-intolerant, we are not in the habit of drinking milk since young.

When I watched television shows when I was younger, we saw milk coming in those glass or plastic bottles, delivered by a milkman and left outside the house. I thought how cool it would be to drink from those, instead of the packaged cartons we have.

So during the first trip to Sydney, I saw the milk which my aunt brought back, it was in a glass bottle. I drank up the whole bottle by pouring into a glass and drinking it all up. That was the first time I ever had a milk moustache!

Since then, I prefer to drink milk in a classy-looking transparent 250-ml glass, those glasses which are so common in commercials. But the glass I bought was broken by my grandmother, and since then, I have not been able to find the exact same one. :-(

When I was in primary school, there was a milk order service, where we had to pay S$2.50 (I think, cannot really remember the exact amount now) a month, and little triangular cartons of different flavoured milk would be supplied to our classrooms everyday for those who ordered.

I remember when I was in Primary One, I submitted the money late, so I got a refund. Nevertheless, being the ignorant and stubborn person, when the first batch of milk cartons came, I queued up for my milk. Because of that, a classmate who actually paid did not get to drink her milk, and I got scolded by the teacher due to this.

A few days later, the school assistant came up to my classroom and told my teacher to put me in for the milk order, so since then, I got to drink the milk together with the rest of my classmates who ordered.

The milk order service went all the way to Primary Six, and I ordered every month, every year without fail. There were plain full cream milk, banana milk, chocolate milk and strawberry milk, and each flavour would be rotated.

We could recognise the flavour by the colour of the design of the carton - pink for strawberry, brown for chocolate, light green for banana (perhaps yellow would be too light), and blue for the normal flavour.

So each time when the milk arrived, I would know the flavour just by looking at the colour. If I did not like the flavour (somehow I cannot bear the taste of strawberry milk, even now, although I like the rest), I would keep the milk in my bag and bring it home.

In lower primary, when I was still a young kid, I would keep the milk in my bag for ages. Until one day, there was a smell emitting from my bag, and to my horror, my teacher asked me to open my bag and she discovered the stale smell of strawberry milk. She made me throw away the milk and cleaned my bag thoroughly, before giving me a lecture on not keeping milk in my bag for long periods ever again!

Through the years, I no longer drink milk, except once in a blue moon when I would get soya bean milk or banana milk. But never full cream milk. The only times I come in contact with milk is when I am drinking tea or Milo, as I can never drink anything without sugar and milk (be it full cream, condensed, evaporated, creamer or powdered.) Or eating ice-cream.

I first came into contact with evaporated milk when I knew someone who absolutely insisted that making Milo without condensed milk was a big no-no, so I had to do it his way. But later I realised that condensed milk is a nice drink, especially if I mix it with water and drink it just like that.

As can be seen, I am definitely not a heavy consumption of milk or dairy products. (Chocolates are another story.) But milk itself is healthy and filling, otherwise babies will not be drinking so much milk. Perhaps if I had drank more milk when I was younger, I could then be healthier and smarter? Does that make a difference?

My Source Of Comfort Food

A couple of weeks back, the Sunday Lifestyle had about four pages attributing to the late founder of instant noodles by giving a hundred ways of cooking noodles. Instant noodles is the greatest invention in gastronomical circles. I can hardly imagine how I used to sustain my hunger at night when I was staying in the hostel without instant noodles!

Instant noodles is a source of comfort food for me, especially when there was hardly anything to eat at home, and I could not be bothered to whip up a full meal. All I had to do was to chop some vegetables, add the noodles and vegetables in boiling water, add in the packet ingredients, wait for a couple of minutes, and voila! a simple meal is ready to be partaken. All it takes is just slightly over five minutes.

Despite the comments on how unhealthy instant noodles are, it is deeply gratifying to have easy-to-make food readily available, anytime, anywhere. The invention of cup noodles make it even more convenient, as I need not even put any extra ingredients inside, just add boiling water, wait for a couple of minutes, and it is all ready to eat!

Thus, I was really happy to find the recipes for instant noodles, as I can then experiment on my own using the recipes available. Perhaps next time I can whip up a full meal of instant noodles without making it look like instant noodles!

Of Wine Appreciation

If I could, I would become a sommelier. Working in a high-class restaurant, recommending the finest wine to customers and mixing and matching the wine to get the finest taste out sounds so interesting! Just a pity I get drunk so easily.

Even though I am not a wine person, I get fascinated by the different types of wine available on the market. What is the difference between white wine and red wine anyway (besides the colour of course)? How to tell which wine goes with which type of food? And how to tell a Lafite from a Conti, a Chardonnay from a Shiraz?

What is apple cider and champagne? What is the difference between wine and beer? Spirits and rum? Brandy and martini? How I wish someone can supply me with all these answers, because even after researching, I am still confused!