The Ugly Truth

I like romantic comedies. I like Katherine Heigl. There were lots of stereotypes in this movie, but it was good for a bunch of laughs. Not like it's a manual in how to get and keep a relationship. In the end, I think they were just 2 clueless people who ended up falling in love with each other. That's good enough for me.

Brioche

After months of researching, reading and mulling over it, I finally got enough nerve to try baking bread. More specifically, brioche. While I was at it, I might as well make the most finicky version right? So here is the "rich man's" brioche. More like cake than bread and probably similar in artery-clogging effect.

 

For once, I decided to be like the food bloggers and have my mise en place instead of haphazardly running about the kitchen gathering ingredients. Most likely inspired by the first attempt at making bread which resulted in the discovery at 2am that there was no yeast in the house. Thankfully adding yeast to milk is the first step in the recipe.

Attempt #1 aka the trial run - it tastes good! A little more like cake than bread but there was a nice crumb.

Honestly, anything with that amount of butter would taste good. Satisfied that it was of sufficient quality to give to J&C and Pastors, it was on to batch #2. What I actually did was to make one big batch and halve it. The first batch was tested on family, friends and colleagues. The other half batch was frozen and defrosted so I could bake it on the weekend I wanted to give it to J&C and Pastors. That turned out to be a better idea as the dough was able to proof for an extended period of time and resulted in a better texture.

This time I remembered to take a photo before the bread was baked! Well. sort of anyway, this was taken through the glass of the oven door.

I had some nice chocolate ganache left over from another baking project, so that went into the bread. Pain au chocolat. Yum! The remaining dough was shaped into pull apart buns. *just in case, say, someone didn't like chocolate bread.* Don't ask me why I thought anyone would not like chocolate bread. In any case, here's what the innards of a loaf look like:

 

Sorry for the crap image, my phone doesn't work well under low lighting conditions.

Finally, all prettied up and ready for gifting!

Surrogates

Caught the sneak preview of the movie. Yay to competitions and free tickets!

Good thing too that the tickets were free. While the movie wasn't bad, it was fairly slow-moving at times. At one point I even leaned over to my friend and announced that I was going to sleep.

It was mindless entertainment and I spent most of the time trying to identify the surrogates from the real people. Which was not that difficult. After thinking about it just a little, I realised that all that pseudoscience babble in the show just totally does not make sense. Well, as my boss aptly put it, it's just a movie, it requires you to suspend belief in the basic laws of reality. Let's just say I preferred watching AI or Simone, watching this once was enough.

At least I had fun hanging out.

Work weirdness

I was out yesterday at bugis with some friends at this art, craft, gift & stationery shop. There I saw a cute stuffed yellow duck. Yup, if you're reading this you probably know my weakness for bright yellow stuffed ducks. This particular one had a rather oversized head which was tilted to one side. Almost immediately I started describing the poor duck's dysmorphism to my friend. Yes, work weirdness.

By the way, if you really wanna know, there was macrocephaly with a right torticollis. I'm referring the duck for physio!

Girls' Night Out

A couple of us girls had a chance to hang out with Cheryl for dinner. Woot! I'm constantly amazed how our leaders make the effort to take time out and catch up with us despite all they have on their plates. Speaking of plates...

First up, the obligatory shot of the tableware. I think I do this to distract myself when I can't decide what to order from the menu. My friend used to call it a displacement activity.

Cheryl's dinner

Janice's dinner

Jill's dinner

My dinner

For some reason I missed out Jie's meal. Think I didn't want to cause a ruckus by reaching halfway across the table just to take a picture. If i do find a snapshot of it, I'll put it up later.

Now for an honourable mention. Shan and her dinner.

Now you see it.

(Sorry the computer's not co-operating and  won't let me upload the picture!) Now you don't!

Oh... she's so gonna kill me!

Brioche Part 1

Picked up the custard brioche from Bread Society before my Lasik surgery. I'm doing a taste-test so I can make brioche for Jack & Cheryl.

It was not bad. Just not what I expected. It tastes like standard white bread with custard topping. The cranberry almond brioche at Cedele tasted better, at least that was light, fragrant and buttery.

Si Chuan Dou Hua

Family dinner for... Actually I can't remember what the occasion was. Anyway, this is one of our favourite places to eat out.

Appetisers: Cucumber, jellyfish, pork and 2 UFOs (unidentified food orders). That's the problem with posting long after the fact. I can't remember what I ate. But it was good I assure you.

Another UFO, this one totally eludes me. Don't think I enjoyed it that much either.

Peking duck in crepes. One plain and the other is green tea flavoured. I couldn't taste the difference between the plain crepe and the green tea at all. Much as I like green tea, all this green tea flavoured this and that seems like a fad to me. I'll stick with the original for now.

I'm sure we ate more than that, but I think I got distracted eating or the food wasn't very photogenic. I wish we had gone for lunch though, I like the dim sum here. At least the view from the 62nd floor is always good.

Loved

This is a 2 month long overdue post, but I still want to show off cos I feel loved! Gonna backdate it cos I'm OCD and want to be able to find the post in future.

The weekend before, Janice got me roses! I thought they were my present, but she got them 'just because...' That's what it means by loving extravagantly.

Handmade card from the CG, made by Jie. She should really start selling these cards. I would buy them! Notice the yellow duck? She put it there just for me.

From PS, care package to build spirit (devotionals), brain (sudoku) and body (cooking condiments). Topped of with a card full of memories. Yes, we did get through all those bottles of wine with the Melbourne clan.

Janice & CY are definitely onto me about the good food thing. And fueling my obsession to boot!

Funky tshirt from Jack & Cheryl! See it here where Jie & I wear it for Pastor's birthday celebration.

Joyce was a treasure too and made me a tshirt. Don't have pictures of it, but I'll snap a pic when I next wear it and upload so that you can check it out. Ooh and then last but not least, Jie & Shan got me 'Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell. Which I need to finish reading. Like soon.

I am a happy camper.

New year, new blog

No I haven't changed the calendar around on a whim like the Roman emperors of old. But today does mark the start of my 30th year of life. So I've been thinking of blogging again and today feels like a good day to start. This will be a place where I can record events, my thoughts and the food I've eaten or made. Anyway, this will be a work in progress till I get this page to look how I like it.

Yay... Happy Birthday to me... I love God, love others and love life!