sybarites

Lately, Sam has become more sensitive to loud noises in the kitchen.   Anything that bangs or grinds or clangs startles all four feet off the floor and backwards about a meter.  What has changed that every pot lid that clamps down on a pot, every dropped fork makes him jump out of his skin?   He finds it safer now to stand in the doorway of the kitchen while we’re cooking, to be safe from anything that might disrupt his delicate sensibilities.

If the kitchen drama becomes too scary, he will go off for a nap, sometimes where it feels safest of all.

On Sunday, it rained.   Ergo:  ginger-lemongrass martinis with candied kumquats.

Syrup Ingredients
Makes 1.5 cups

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 lemongrass stalk
• 1 inch piece of ginger peeled, sliced and smashed
• 4 kumquats sliced and seeded (optional)

Martini Ingredients
Makes 2

• 6 ice cubes
• 4 ounces vodka
• 2 ounces lemongrass-ginger syrup (or to taste)

Instructions
Cut and reserve a few lemongrass slivers to use as toothpicks later. Slice the remaining lemongrass.

Place the sliced lemongrass, ginger, sugar, water and kumquat slices in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain into a bowl and reserve the kumquat slices if used. Discard the lemongrass and ginger. Cool the syrup.

To make the martinis, place ice, syrup and vodka in a martini shaker and shake for 15 seconds. Pour into two glasses, discarding the ice. To make the garnish, pierce the kumquats with a toothpick or skewer to form a hole for the lemongrass. Place two kumquat slices on lemongrass toothpick and add to the glass.

Alternate: If kumquats aren’t available, try boiling sliced oranges or mandarins with the syrup, then float them in the martini glass.

“It would be impossible to describe in detail the lavish variety, the orderly complexity, the gleaming cleanliness of that great room, but the effect it wrought upon his sense was instant and overwhelming.  It was one of the most beautiful, spacious, thrilling and magnificently serviceable rooms that he had ever seen: everything in it was designed for use and edged with instant readiness; there was not a single thing in the room that was not needed, and yet its total effect was to give one a feeling of power, space, comfort, rightness and abundant joy.”  Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River (1935).     This exactly describes what the Microsoft Kitchen of the Future is NOT.

I’m reading American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes; it was from this anthology that I pulled the above quote.    Like a Rorschach test, the manifestation of this perfect kitchen could be imagined so differently by different readers- what, exactly, would be thrilling about one’s own ‘perfect kitchen’?    a Wolf range?  two sinks?  a moving sidewalk?  Without a dishwasher, our present kitchen, while serviceable, will never attain perfection.  But today, while out shopping, we obtained four items that soon will be cleaned and “edged with instant readiness”:   a  wide wire spoon for fishing fried things from molten oil, a 9-inch tamis (which was made in Japan and, from the label, appears to be something used to strain beaten eggs ??), and two long-lusted-after large, aluminum sheet pans.    What I won’t be able to do with those sheet pans!  There is a space in the kitchen that has been waiting for them, a place that I can reach them, half a step from the sink,  so they may assist in all the prepping, dry-rubbing, drying, marinating, resting, proofing, cooling and draining for which I have [long had!] need.

From the library, I also picked up The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook; complete with recipes, musings and terrible, terrible illustrations.   Originally published in 1954, I am amused by the recipes in which the tools, techniques and/or ingredients are out of date:

Suprême of Pike A La Dijonaise

Cut the fillets from a pike, see that no bones adhere and then skin them.  Interlard them as one does fillet of beef.  Put them in a deep dish with 1/4 cup brandy, 1/2 cup sherry, and 1 cup good, dry red wine, salt and pepper and 4 shallots chopped fine and 4 bouquets each containing 1 stalk of celery, 1 small twig of thyme and 1/4 laurel leaf, each bouquet tied in a muslin bag.  Baste with liquid and put aside.  In winter keep for 48 hours, in summer for 24 hours, basting twice a day.   When the fillets are ready to be cooked place in a deep earthenware dish which has been heavily coated with soft butter, the fillets, the four little bags and the strained marinade.  Put into preheated oven 400º for about 20 minutes, basting frequently.  When the fillets are well browned, remove from oven, add 2 tablespoons cream and 3 tablespoons soft butter. Baste and serve at once.

“I’ll be working from home today;  I must be here to interlard and then baste my pike.”

Weeks ago, we watched a corny Food Network special on “Kitchens of the Future”.   There was plenty of nonsense gadgetry and expensive ideas, but by far the silliest was the Microsoft Kitchen of the future.   Demo-ed by a Microsoft exec (she was female of course), the kitchen had the voice-response lighting and music controls, the baseline automation that comes with any futuristic home.   And then there were the add-ons, like the canned computer voice-response system, the recipe projection and the inventory management.   All of these “aids” were really annoying, even to watch, but by FAR,  the most aggravating feature was the real-life equivalent to that wretched paper clip;  as the woman started removing flour and yeast from the cupboards, the computer voice screeched “Looks like you are baking bread.  Do you want to see a bread recipe?”    Argh! Even typing that makes me cringe.    So the woman shouts. “YES.” and the computer projects a list of bread recipes onto the kitchen counter, through which she scrolls and then selects “Focaccia”.    “Hal” read the recipe aloud, at a pace too fast for the woman actually baking the bread, and then interrupted part of her on-camera interview as well.   She rolled her eyes and paused to shout at the computer voice to shut up stop.

The only thing that I might possibly concede as useful – though it is far outweighed by the amplification of annoyances in the kitchen – was the projected diameter for the focaccia she was rolling out.   This might make it marginally easier to roll out dough to the required diameter, if one’s head didn’t block the projection.    At any rate, MS has a looooong way to go before being welcome in my kitchen.

But after all this, I was tempted to make focaccia.  Never made it before, and bread is always a little daunting, but what’s the worst that could happen-  over-yeasting?   wasting bread flour?   I went straight for the recipe in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice;  the recipe was not read aloud by any annoying computer voice and no paper clips barged in on my baking.  Without a computer, I was miraculously able to turn out a rather spectacular focaccia, if I do say so myself.  Still warm from the oven, I cut wedges of the loaf in half, slathered them with fig jam, some hot coppa, a little asiago and grilled them melty on the Foreman.   Crisp, chewy perfection.

Much like every other woman in North America, I have recently read “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert.   I read it reluctantly, mind you, because of any religious parts, but my the members of my ex-book club insisted that there was little focus on “pray” and much focus was devoted to “eat”.   And they were right, I enjoyed the book very much, especially the food descriptions of the time she spent in Italy, eating plates and plates of pasta and two whole pizzas at one sitting.   At any rate, this was the first book I had read that took part (in part) in Bali.   Indonesia was really not high on my list of place to visit until I found myself in a neighbouring country with a few days to spare and a positive and interesting point of reference from Eat, Pray, Love.   From her descriptions, the island was cast in a fairly idyllic light: warm temperatures, easy going lifestyle, friendly people…  oh yes, and one or two spectacular beaches.    So, from KL, we made quick arrangements to zip to Seminyak and spend some time in the sun.

And it was sunny.   And it was hot.

Our $8/night room didn’t come with air-conditioning, so for the 5 days we were there, the only air-conditioning we encountered was in the mall (entered out of desperation for some relief from the heat) and the wee little cube of glass that surrounded the only ATM in the vicinity of our guesthouse.  We took our time whenever an extraction of money was required.   Across the street from the glass cube of cool air is a bar called Mixwell which, it turns out, is a gay bar, but that didn’t stop us from making it our first stop each night for the drinks and people watching.   It was hot as the surface of the sun, so what people wore – or rather didn’t wear – was an amusing topic for derisive comment over tall cocktails in the early evening.

We spent our days learning to surf.   What better place to learn?  Sure, there were rip tide warnings up and down the whole beach, and the current was so strong that my quads were sore just from having waded through the surf to swimable depth-  everybody was doing it.   The guy who rented us our beach chairs offered to teach us in between his naps on the big pile of chaise lounge cushions piled in the shade behind the beach café.  We agreed, mainly because the “lesson” included board rental, and set off into the surf.   Turns out, surfing requires quite a bit of strength and effort.  More strength than I had, apparently, because after several successful “surfs” into shore, my arms were shaky from pushing myself up off my stomach and my knees were bruised and a little raw from weakly dragging along the surface of the board to standing position.   That first day, we lasted about an hour in the water before becoming completely exhausted, and the days that followed didn’t see us get much stronger.    It was alot of fun though, and it beat learning in the frigid waters of Tofino or San Francico.

Before we left for Malaysia, I declared that the first thing I wanted to do when we arrived was have an Asian breakfast of hot and spicy soup.  Then I wanted to visit the iconic Petronas Towers of KL.

In reality, we arrived in the afternoon so the spicy soup craving translated into cold Asian beer, and the trip to the towers was less about the view from the 41st floor Skybridge between the towers, and all about our first taste of Malaysian food.   Geoff and Lucinda wisely determined that our introduction to the local cuisine should start with a visit to Little Penang Kafé in the KLCC shopping mall housed at the base of the towers.  Actually, to describe KLCC as a mall is not giving it enough credit;  it is more like The Mall.  Not only is it the base of the city’s most recognizable landmark, it is several floors of tiled, marbled, designer-labeled, brightly-lit haven of cleanliness and air conditioning.   Besides the air-conditioning, Little Penang was the best part.

Still in a bit of a jet-laggy haze, we wove our way through and around traffic (no sidewalks in KL) and found ourselves at a table at the back of the kafe, mouths watering at the welcome suggestions of what we should first eat.   Geoff recommended nasi lemak, which we were to learn is the national dish and can be found everywhere, whether you like it or not:   coconut and pandan flavoured rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Lucinda insisted on whatever it was that turned out to be chicken in sort of long, deep-fried egg rolls.  I’m sure one of us had beef rendang, and wasn’t there a penang rojak to be had?    Geoff shared his char kway teow, flat rice noodles fried over very hot PORK FAT with light and dark soy sauce, chilis, shrimp, sprouts, chives, and fish cake.  Wash this down with more beer and, for Lucinda, a tall glass of freshly-made green apple juice.   Oh Malaysia, no wonder you’re the [self-described] fattest Asian nation-   a country of people who love to eat and who generously lace everything with coconut milk, palm sugar or pork fat;  I will happily aim to fit in!

Less like laundry, more like architectural detail.

We had the worst luck in Singapore.   We arrived on a Sunday in Little India when, it turns out, the entire male Indian population of the city throngs to the area to just..   hang out.   Droves, hordes of people cramming the streets, blocking traffic, spilling over the sidewalks, shopping.   In hindsight, it was nothing to worry about, but arriving by bus to a new city late at night, it’s not exactly the calm, welcoming sight one might prefer.

The rooftop bar of our hotel was closed because it was Sunday (I know, the horror) and most restaurants were closed for the same reason.   At least we did find the basic necessities of cold beer and hot, spicy street food which somewhat made up for the “hardships”.

The next morning, as we walked out of the door of the hotel, rain like an open firehouse poured down onto the streets.  We walked 2 kilometers in the wrong direction for breakfast, and then when we gave up and took a taxi to a different place, the food was pretty… gross, actually.   Then we took another taxi to the Asian Civilization Museum only to find out that it was closed on Mondays until 2:00pm.   Thoroughly soaked, we walked through the rain further to find a mall, of which there is no shortage in Singapore.

And still it rained!  We wandered, we window-shopped, we ate fabulous Indonesian food.  We got lost, we found another breakfast place that closed down in front of us for maintenance work, we got splashed by passing cars in the street.   And yet, despite all these wrong turns and foul weather, this place proved to be someplace I could happily live.  It has all the things I love:  good food, a variety of good food, clean streets, wine, warm weather, ocean, and pork belly.  Pork BELLY.   Take this 3-inch think piece of pork, 2 inches of which are fat, sear it and then braise it and serve it with lobster and all of a sudden this is one of my favourite cities.

When it is so hot, so hot that your clothes stick to your person, so hot that you linger near the open refrigerator door, so hot that you feel like you need a shower immediately after having taken a shower, so hot that you can’t even remember what it feels like to be comfortably chilly, then a cold beer or cocktail is the only answer.

Geoff invented a drink in Malaysia which involves a double shot of dark rum and a colourful interlude of bright green guava juice.  When trying to think of a name, he remembered a drink that everyone seemed to really like from the hotel he stayed at in Senegal, called the ‘Mandingo’.   It seemed like a lyrical sort of name to apply to a drink and so the rum-guava cocktail was thus named.  Now look that up on Wikipedia.   Too late, that’s the name of the drink, and for vacation-happy-hour, it was always the right answer.   When not drinking at home, we did well to enjoy the upstairs open-air patio of a relatively swanky spot whose name I forget, but where they made an appropriately swanky Negroni.

Shortly thereafter, we were forced to drink Singapore Slings.  Well, maybe not so much forced as obligated;   we were in Singapore for a few days –  a short side-journey from Kuala Lumpur – and had no choice but to try the eponymous drink.    It turns out that though very pretty, I don’t like Singpore Slings.  Too sweet, I prefer a drink as bitter as my soul.

Singpore, however, is a place I could get used to, but more on that later.

The simple loveliness of fresh, prepped ingredients can be irresistible.