Look Ma, I’m A Cook! Part Deux

When I announced my impending foray into the world of cookery, I had done so with the brilliant idea of doing a series of posts leading up to my cooking class end of this month. You know, to keep readers in mad suspense (“will she or won’t she?” – screw up the tarragon chicken, that is) and on the edge of their frayed, moth-eaten swivel chairs, but now that it’s been a couple of days since my first post – see Part Un – I’m feeling the pressure to follow it up with Part Deux. The problem is, I haven’t actually cooked anything yet and I have no clue what I can possibly talk about, so I’m going to do the next best thing: post loads and loads of pictures of food with minimal text. Heck, I’ve done it before and had gotten away with it too – just look at this beauty.

So today, I’m posting pics of some of the food I ate on my trip to Cognac and Champagne, France, last month. Words cannot express how incredible the food on that trip was (read: I spent 90% of the time in a blissful food-induced stupor wonderfully worsened, no doubt, by the endless rounds of champagne), so I’m going to let my pictures, amateur as they are, do all the talking.

LE PEU DISTILLERY, COGNAC

Sea snails, duck pasta, fish salad, slices of buttery salmon, the most delectable oysters ever – no wonder because we were near Marennes-Oleron, the most famous, biggest oyster-cultivating region in all of Europe. It was a seafood-laden buffet lunch at the distillery and I’m not ashamed to announce that I had three (heaped) rounds of mains. I had so much oyster here I nearly died. And went to heaven.

But no matter how stuffed you are, there’s always room for dessert … especially if it’s the chocolate variety

… and the grape variety and oh, while we’re at it, the bread variety … you can never be too thin, too rich or have too much bread.

Dinner in Cognac was at a restaurant just minutes from where we were staying - Chateau de Bagnolet, a quasi-colonial estate, over two centuries old, that used to be the private home of the Hennessy family. While I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, save for the fact that it sounded somewhat English, I do remember the proprietor – a friendly, gangly Frenchman clad in a bright orange shirt with wire-framed glasses and an Einstein mop of hair who scurried over when we arrived, unleashed a flurry of French (explaining the menu, I presume) and then whirled away. Minutes later, our tables are filled with plates of … oysters, oysters and more oysters! Except this time, they were eaten with slightly spicy fried sausage. I still dream of those sausages. And oysters. And later, perfectly cooked venison and creme brulee.

MAISON HENNESSY, COGNAC

Lunch at the Hennessy Maison began with this dish - comfort food at its best, chicken soup for the soul. It’s a bowl of warm noodles with chicken cheeks, truffles and leek …

… then, monk fish with green peas, zucchini and bell peppers … and ended with crème brulee made with Hennessy V.S.O.P with spongy golden Madeleines …

CHATEAU DE BAGNOLET, COGNAC

The perfect start to dinner that night at the Chateau de Bagnolet: oysters, lime and ze best beurre in ze world! We wolfed down oysters (or rather, I wolfed down the oysters; I have no idea what the others were doing) … and then came dainty spoons of amuse bouche. There was so much I can’t remember them all but I do remember the wild boar, salmon and the black truffles. By this time, I was pretty stuffed and dinner hadn’t even started.  

But not stuffed enough to miss dinner. Dinner was served French-style, meaning the waiters come to you with each course, hover beside you, knees bent, arms balancing the heavy silver trays upon which the food sits and remain in this awkward position while you spoon the food onto your plate in as sophisticated and un-clumsy a way as possible (you’re dining in France, not walloping BKT in Klang). We began with  a vegetable soup, or rather, a farmer’s soup made with local vegetables. I prefer farmer’s soup – it’s got a more rustic sound to it …

… then, we had cognac-marinated sea bass sitting in a pool of Hennessy V.S.O.P sauce and topped with candy-sweet ribbons of onion confit …

… and then, chunks of tender, melt-in-your-mouth pork cheeks with ginger, pan-fried shiitake mushrooms and balls of potato. It was challenging to spoon this particular dish onto my plate. How much could I spoon without looking like a greedy pork cheek-obsessed gorb? I have no idea what a gorb is, btw.

And then, a slice of creamy white chocolate cake in red berry sauce. It’s one of those desserts that’s so calorific that you get a mad urge to run up and down the length of the Charente river right outside the chateau. In the middle of winter.

HOSTELLERIE LA BRIQUETERIE, CHAMPAGNE

In Champagne, we stayed at La Briqueterie in Vinay, a town in the Champagne region. Loved, loved, loved the place! It was the most adorable room … but wait, I’m not here to talk accommodation. So anyways, on our first night there, we had dinner … which began with oyster! That’s it. I’m packing my bags and moving here.

… then, sea urchin – rich, creamy, gooey, delicious … and a scallop main. Omg, see, told you I need to pack up and move here!

MOET & CHANDON MAISON, EPERNAY, CHAMPAGNE

After a full morning visiting the cellars of Moet & Chandon, we had lunch in the maison’s gorgeous dining room. I particularly loved this meal. Every dish was paired with a Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage – 1975, 1992, 2002 and the 2002 rosé. You know what they say: you can’t be too thin, too rich, have too much bread or drink too much champagne. First up, scallop and lobster couli with curry sauce …

… popcorn with chestnut soup, accompanied with truffle on crouton. Move aside, chicken soup! This chestnut soup is for the soul!

… then fish with slices of mandarin oranges and mushrooms …

… and the dessert – cake with red berry fruit coulis infused with mint, topped with a little Tagada …

… and an ultra close-up: that bit on the fork is Tagada, a very famous French strawberry candy that everybody is apparently crazy about.

58 TOUR EIFFEL, PARIS

We also dined at the 58 Tour Eiffel which – needless to say but I’m going to say it anyway – is a restaurant at the Eiffel Tower. But ah, here’s the dastardly twist: it’s on the first floor. We started with a prawn salad on avocado cream sauce …

… salmon with a pouf of culinary foam …

… and lemon meringue dessert … at this point in my post, you can tell I’m suffering serious food fatigue – not from eating but from blabbing somewhat incoherently about what I’d eaten. I guess my prologue about letting my pictures do the talking was nothing but major waffling on my part – looks like I did more talking than my pictures

Champagne: Merry Christmas

Ah, feels like Christmas already …  

Pretty nice huh? And I’m not even terribly fond of Christmas. Why? Well, because this year, it falls on a Saturday, all the shopping malls are perpetually jammed (no fun when you’re actually working in one) and they keep playing that damn Bonnie M in the parking lot. I swear if I hear Rivers of Babylon one more time, I’m going to puncture somebody’s tyre.

Besides, I-dun-like-Christmas stories are almost always more interesting than annoyingly happy I-lurve-Christmas stories. That said, I don’t totally dislike Christmas. There is one thing I do like about it – the fact that it’s one week away from the New Year.

2011, here we come! As we coasted farther down the road in Epernay, I could see the sun starting to peek out over the horizon …

I was struck by the explosion of fiery light and in it I saw hope. I saw promise. I also saw how filthy the bus windscreen was, but that’s a story for another post. After staring into the sun for a while, the light began to bug me and I had to put on my sunglasses. Ah, but I digress.  

Once I was no longer blinded by the sun, I saw once again hope, promise, a new beginning, a beautiful calm … 2011 is going to be a good year. I can feel it from the top of my frozen head to the tips of my gloved fingers right down to my thick winter socks. I can’t wait.  

The Art Of Doing Nothing

I’ve never been particularly good at doing nothing. I get nervous, antsy and above all, guilty. But last weekend, I did nothing. Three blissful days of absolutely nothing. And I didn’t feel nervous or antsy or guilty one bit …

… and how could you possibly blame me? Just look at this place.

There’s no room for anxiety in a place like this.

There’s only room for hanging out at your private villa …

… taking a dip in your personal plunge pool, immersing yourself in your own hotsprings jacuzzi, lazing around on your king-sized bed, taking an outdoor shower, being pampered from head to toe at the spa … I could seriously get used to this.

Thankfully, I didn’t though. Because I had to pack up and go home. And of course, once I returned to the city, the nice feelings vanished and the guilt of doing “nothing” for three days hit me like a ton of bricks. Needless to say, I have yet to master the art of doing nothing. However, I have decided that it’s a skill worth developing. It won’t be easy but with lots of practice and many (many, many) days of being massaged into oblivion at a wellness spa retreat, god willing, I will succeed.

Man, I need another holiday.

Paris: Room With A View

Every picture I took while up in the Eiffel Tower … hmm, how do I put this delicately? … sucked. Which was shocking because the view was phenomenal, I had a fancy camera and I was looking really good (I usually do when it’s dim). 

But it’s okay because this pic Room With A View by French photographer and artist Sophie Calle says it better than anything I take ever will.

Paris: Ladurée Pattiserie & Tearoom

On our first day in Paris, we don’t have much of a plan. We dump our bags in the hotel and fly out the revolving doors into the avenue of Champs-Élysées. The avenue is perennially jammed (and Parisian drivers aren’t the most genteel, no matter how pretty they sound when they speak).  

With the Arc De Triomphe at its west end, the iconic avenue is one of the most expensive in the world and the most stunning tribute to consumerism (probably sacrilegious to label it as such). It’s 2km long and filled with every luxury designer store and eatery you can think of, and lined by horse chestnut trees clipped into squares – that’s the one of the first things we notice, that the trees in Paris are square.  

 

We’re hungry, so we nip into the prettiest tearoom we see, which just so happens to be Ladurée, Paris’s first and grandest luxury patisserie and tearoom established as far back as 1862. It was one of the first few places in the city where groups of women would meet for tea – that’s saying something back in the 1900s when women weren’t even allowed to go out without male companions.

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

We step into Ladurée and there’s a round of ooh’s and aah’s – low-hanging lights cast a soft glow over the customers queuing up at the pastry counter. A closer look shows why …

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

… gorgeous, too pretty to be eaten.

I bet they’re buying them to have them framed up at home.

Anyways, we decide to have a quick bite and soon find out that the most elegant tearoom in Paris doesn’t exactly have the most efficient service. The room is packed to the brim and cramped – think elbow battles and heavy eavesdropping. It takes forever for the waiter to attend to us despite several attempts to attract his attention. Obviously, he doesn’t particularly care that we’re starving to death. Maybe it isn’t terribly fashionable to be starving to death in Paris.

When he finally does come, we discover that he understands no English – not surprising, of course. Luckily, the menu is translated into English (not all restaurants in Paris offer the same benefit) and we have to do a lot of pointing to get our orders across. He doesn’t crack even the faintest smile.

It takes forever for the food to come. The bill takes forever too.

Despite the rather lukewarm first-time experience, we decide to breakfast there the next day after hearing a local wax rapturous about it. Well, it is the most famous patisserie in Paris. Just as everybody knows that the best ice-cream in the city is Berthillon …

… a French luxury ice-cream and sorbet that’s found at every corner …

like here …

… here …

… and here, the best pastries can be found at Ladurée. And since we’d pretty much do anything for a sugar high (including suffering the indignities of being pooh-poohed at by a stony-faced waiter), we decide to give Ladurée another go.

When we arrive the next morning, we are directed to the breakfast area (Stone Face is nowhere to be seen) situated in another section of the tearoom. It’s like entering an underwater world almost … with its soothing shades of celadon and shimmering glass windows. You feel totally cut off from the outside and can easily lose track of time in here if you’re not careful.

 

We order the breakfast set …

… and this glorious slice of cake – I forget the name – with its layers of cream and caramelised biscuit in some sort of cappuccino flavour. It is sinful. And therefore utterly delicious. I fight the urge to order another slice. Instead, we join the line to buy some pastries to go – we get a bunch of stuff plus, of course, what they’re most famous for: macaroons!

Buying macaroons anywhere other than Ladurée when you’re in Paris is considered brutish and sacrilegious. The confection comes in every imaginable flavour – coffee, rose, blackcurrant, caramel, lemon … the list is endless. Our plan is to stuff ourselves silly, then sashay it off. That’s how French women stay skinny, so we figure we’d give it a go too. (The scale proves this method futile – a horrifying fact I discover only two days later and therefore, too late).

Ladurée can also be found in London (we spot it in Harrods), Geneva and Tokyo – definitely worth checking out. Maybe I’ll manage to get better pictures next time round.

Paris: Musée du Louvre

There’s something to be said for planning ahead. I visited the Musée du Louvre without doing a smidgen of research beforehand and paid dearly for it. I mean sure, I knew some things about it – I’m not entirely ignorant all the time, you know – for instance, I know that it is an art museum (one of the biggest and certainly the most visited in the world), it’s most recognised for those two glass pyramid thingamajigs in the compound, it’s really big and houses the most famous painting in the world.

What I didn’t know – which I now do – is that it’s bigger than I’d anticipated, contains about half a million works of art, is divided into eight curatorial departments and spread over multiple floors, is a biatch to navigate (especially for someone like me who can’t read a map to save her grandmother’s life), and contains the most famous painting in the world that is just …

… wait, I’m not going to give everything away just yet. You’ll have to read my whole post to find out – oh stop griping, life isn’t fair and you know it.

So anyways, we go to the Louvre and there’s a line going into the pyramid. We get in and make our way to the ticket counter: entrance fee: €9; multimedia headset: €6. Not having done any research, I’m not aware (come to think of it, I’m not fully awake either) that there are in fact, three entrances to three different wings – Richelieu, Sully and Denon. We wander into Richelieu because it’s the nearest. Headsets on, we bid each other adieu and go our separate ways with an agreement to meet back at the ticket counter in three hours.

I am now going to take a deep breath and stand tall, unashamed to confess that I spend a good half hour (okay, maybe more) trying to understand the multimedia guide. It’s proffering an ear-load of instructions, none of which makes any sense. I don’t see any of the sculptures / paintings / nude people / walkways / whatever it keeps talking about. I’m inspecting the sculptures and can’t find any code to punch into the headset for the English audio explanation. It gets a little frustrating because the only source of information is the placards and they’re all in French. Come to think of it, what does Richelieu mean anyway? (It’s a rhetorical question; don’t answer.)

After what seems like an eternity, I give up and venture into the museum sans multimedia headset tour guide. Because I’m in the Richelieu wing, I find myself in the French sculpture department. Lo and behold, everywhere I turn, I’m blinded by flashing cameras. I remember seeing the ‘No Flash Photography’ signage outside but in here, it’s zoo-like. Even the museum personnel, dressed smartly in uniforms and sitting in their designated corners, look a little resigned, like they’ve given up trying to battle the hordes of bug-eyed tourists scampering all over the place, desperate for that perfect Look-Mom-I’m-At-The-Louvre shot. 

This scene brings to mind another thing that I saw earlier: a ‘No Food’ signage outside. That’s when I spy an elderly American couple sitting on a bench, masticating a croissant, a blasé look on their faces that can only be perfected after having spent sufficient time in Paree.

I really enjoy wandering amidst the French sculptures, marveling at the detailed expressions on every face, the anatomically correct chiseled bodies and of course, the naked chicks – gotta love the naked chicks.

I discover that most of the works don’t have a code, which means they don’t come with English audio explanations, which means you don’t know what you’re looking at because all the placards are in French. With visitors streaming in from all over the world, you’d think they’d at least have the descriptions translated into English. It’s a little frustrating, to say the least, which is why this is one of my favourite paintings.

Sometimes, words are not necessary. Just as music is a universal language, so is nipple-crimping. Haha … this one did have an English explanation though and let me tell you, it is fascinating.

Along the way, I chance upon Napoléon’s Apartments. It’s where the world conqueror used to stay when he was in Paris. Done up in the opulent style fit for an emperor, it is magnifiqué. 

That said, I can’t imagine living in a place like this. I’d be restraining the urge to burst into the first stanzas of All I Ask Of You every time the chandeliers lit up.

I am well into the third hour of my three-hour allotment when I notice the time. Only then does it hit me that I’m still in Richelieu. I haven’t gone anywhere near Denon, haven’t even grazed the surface of the Italian greats – Michelangelo (my personal favourite) … Donatello … Raphael … and of course, Leonardo Da Vinci … which leads me to the Mona Lisa. Yes, it’s cliché but it’s like going to Champs-Élysées and not paying homage to the Louis Vuitton boutique or to Rue Cambon and not snapping a picture of No 31. It’s just something you have to do not necessarily because you want to but because God has ordained it that way.   

And so, obediently, I make my way to Denon (which, in retrospect, is the wing I should have started with in the first place). I walk up the stairs – the stairway to heaven – and see a bunting with the Mona Lisa on it. Oh good. It’s near.

Now, either Parisians are not very good with signages or I’m directionally-challenged because I march down the long, long, long hallway only to get to the end and find that there’s no Mona Lisa. To make a long story short, I wind up asking several museum personnel where the old lady is. Finally, after much walking and asking, I get there.

Can you hear the angels singing? The hallelujah choruses? Can you see the bright light beaming down from heaven? Yeah well, I can’t either because there are …

… way too many people!

And all of them are here to see …

… the Mona Lisa.

Yes, I know. My thoughts exactly. Well, to be precise, two thoughts. The first is, “What? That’s it??!!” followed by, “I’ve seen this picture somewhere before.”

So do her eyes really follow you across the room, you ask? Who knows? She’s too tiny, too far away and too well-protected – the painting is displayed behind a bullet-proof, climate-controlled glass fortress. But who can blame her? For such a venerated work of art, she’s been through more than her fair share of abuse – crazies have stolen her, doused her with acid, thrown rocks at her, sprayed her with red paint and hurled tacky museum souvenirs at her. But yet here, she still stands (or rather, sits). It’s pretty amazing when you do take time to think about it: this is a painting that’s over 500 years old. The same painting that Da Vinci had laboured over for years. The actual one that bears every stroke of his brush, that he had looked at and touched half a millenium ago. Wow. No wonder it’s behind bullet-proof, climate-controlled glass. Hmm, maybe I should take a closer look.

Nope, that’s it – that’s as close as I’m going to get. Look at that guy cam-whoring in front of the Mona Lisa. Hey dude, get a room. Hahaha.

The Louvre is definitely worth a second visit. It’s an incredible museum and if you really want to comb through even a small fraction of its artworks, will take days.

A few points to note though:
1. Plan your route beforehand
2. Wear really comfy shoes
3. Bring in the map and headset (it does help)
4. Bring water and a camera (you don’t want to miss the opportunity to snap your very own Wikipedia-like Mona Lisa shot now, do you?)
5. And keep everything in a knapsack or something so you have your hands free to touch the sculptures and paintings – just kidding. Although I was rather disturbed to see several visitors getting touchy-feely with the nudies.

Paris: The Eiffel Tower

I visited the Eiffel Tower. One day after the bomb scare. What can I say? I like living life on the edge. We wanted to escape the daytime crowd, so we went at night so that we could … join the nighttime crowd.

It’s a short walk from the metro and we get all excited when we see the tower from afar. The 81-storey lattice tower looks like it’s been dipped in pure gold and it erupts into sparks every now and then, making it look as though it were one enormous firecracker.

The tower’s massive size really hits you once you get beneath it and look up.

There’s a long line to get tickets – tickets are 13 € per person to go all the way to the top. You can be jaguh kampong and walk up – it’s only 300 steps to Level 1 and another 300 steps to Level 2 but that’s as far as you’re going to get because after that, all levels are closed to visitors and you gotta take the lift. So we line up to get tickets …

Then we line up to get into the lift …

Then we get off at Level 2 and line up to get into the next lift …

Then we reach the top – the ride up is surprisingly short and my ears don’t pop once. Feels more like a 30-storey ride and not the purported 81. The observation tower is crowded, to put it mildly. It’s narrow and overflowing with eager visitors attempting to capture that perfect Look-Mom-I’m-At-The-Eiffel-Tower shot, which is what we’re trying to do too. Obviously. Needless to say, I’m not about to post that picture here; what I am going to post is a whole lot less embarrassing.

Wow, what a view.  

I’d love to be able to say that we get so caught up in the magic and romance of it all that wild horses couldn’t tear us away but the truth is, it’s cold, it’s crowded, and after a while, you kinda really need to pee. We stay up there for a few more minutes before we decide to leave.

Then we line up to get back into the lift … and we line up to get back into the other lift … well, you get the picture.

Oh, I’m sorry. Was this not the soppy Sleepless-In-Seattle* account you were hoping for?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

* Of course it wasn’t - that was the Empire State Building. 

Congratulations, Diver Number 0910AV5266!

I finally did it: I collected my PADI Open Water Diver card. 10 months after I passed the certification. Take a close look, folks.

 

It may look like a card, feel like a card, and taste like a card but it is Not Just Any Old Card.

It is a symbol of my having faced my fears (“Me? Dive?? In the water??? Wah lau, I don’t know if I can really do this.”) …

It is a sign of my having overcome my doubts (“Crud, I major failed in all my pool sessions, and now I’m going to go do this in the LAUT??”) …

It is the evidence of my decision to quit the mental wanking (“I’ve already come this far – okay la, Redang isn’t all that far but still – so stop worrying, shut the heck up and just bloody effing do it!!”) …

This is my dive instructor. Her name is Sharon. She will kick your butt and make you laugh at the same time. This was taken the week after we returned from Redang. We wanted to show her that the time she’d spent with us in the pool hadn’t been in vain. Not only were we well and alive and in one piece, we could now dive!

She was ecstatic. You can clearly tell from the picture.

It’s now 10 months later and the closest I’ve been to the sea is looking at a postcard with a picture of the sea on it. Throw a BCD at me right now and I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

I need to go read my book again.

(Yup, it’s one thick S.O.B.)

But it’s worth it. Because …

Well, I don’t know if I totally agree with that but it’s a nice thought.

I Have A Question …

Why am I not here?

… wearing this?

… sipping this?

… and doing this?

Oh yes, I forget. I have a job.

And it’s only Tuesday.

Paint Me A Pretty Butterfly

I did the unthinkable when I was in Penang last month: I went to the Butterfly Farm. I know, what the %@#$!@, right? I’m not the sort who visits places like this, especially not smack in the middle of the afternoon. The CNY sun is notoriously merciless and will roast you to a crisp. But something possessed me to visit it anyway.

Although I had my doubts at first – I mean, it was the BUTTERFLY FARM, for god’s sake – we wound up having a pretty decent time.

Sure, it was unbearably hot, but after catching sight of the first butterflies at the entrance, something took over me and I transmogrified into something of a novice nature photographer, finger poised on the shoot button of my trusty digital camera, all bug-eyed, waiting for my next butterfly shot. These are some I managed to get …

… and some funny signages on how not to behave here lest we upset the butterflies.

For instance, don’t torment the butterflies by stealing their lunch!

Oh yeah, I also made a little friend along the way.