i hereby announce house arrest for myself from today till mid march.
no casual social gatherings unless absolutely necessary, eg. friend flying off, friend in hospital.

the heat is ON to finish off this dissertation. the deadline is so near.

i have my 'game on' face.

CHIONG AH!

Jed, Gem and Jo @ Botanic Gardens 13th Feb 2011 Sunday

It took us ages to leave the house on a bright cheery sunday afternoon. But when we did, it was a gorgeous and relaxing day out with 2 of my best buds: Gem and Jed. :)

It's Jed's first time walking such a long distance, so we had to be prepared to carry him home but the power packed mini pin was a good sport all the way there and back. The only times when we had to tend to him was when we had to run across the pedestrian crossing because the tar road was too hot in the midday sun and he was hopping and kicking his feet in the air because it was scorching his uncallused paw pads (since he's at home most of the time), and when we used our ice water to cool his ears down (which cools him down).

We took a walk from home all the way to the Botanic Gardens where we sat down to take a break and recharge before heading for dinner and back home.

Jed ever so often gets mistaken as a chihuahua. Meh. But at least the commenting passersby always exclaim that he's so cute. Ah, but of course. :)

Hopefully boy and dog had a good time out. By the time we left, it was 7pm, ended dinner at close to 9pm, and got home close to 10pm. We had a Vietnam moment during dinner when we had to sit by the roadside with our tapao-ed dinner since eateries don't welcome pets on their premises. But we had a good time all in all. My polar watch also said that i burnt some good fatty calories. Yay.

muay thai?

I've been thinking about this for the longest time, to do some other sport other than running/jogging/walking/weight training. Those are good and cheap ways to exercise, and also pretty boring sometimes. I really could do with a challenge! So can my post-canada-chinese-new-year-feasting body. *burp*

but yes, have been thinking about this and i think it's about time to take some action. Some serious, literal action.

Hello, Evolve MMA...?

My literature review draft 1 is out! Such a relief it is... so now i've got to get all my interviews done and transcribing done which is the no-brainer work just before the brain squeezing part: the analysis. But that's okay by me, qualitative study is more up my alley than quantitative.

And it's Chinese New Year this week! We'll all be getting extra long weekends... So lovely. :) Nice to have family around, though that means i probably won't be able to get much work done though but i'll try.

i've noticed that every time i log onto blogger of late, i see a new "follower" being added every now and then. i've never actually had blogger followers, just my regular friends who drop by to read.

this is quite new to me, so i'd like to just say, hi? :) and are you really reading this space? i'm just realllllyyy curious. :D

i wonder if this is what they call "post holiday depression". did i enjoy myself too much? or fell in love with Vancouver? or fell in love with being free? i need to work around my mental representations of what life is, or i'm going to be living in a dissatisfied daze.

i don't know why. i'm beginning this year with very strange negative vibes and feelings. it's as if, i'm angry at something, angry with a group of people, just plain angry at everything. it's making me just want to retreat to a very faraway place, to just communicate at the minimum level with people. although i know that that would make me feel lonely after a while. but still.

i also get this feeling of intense dissatisfaction. i don't know if this is because i've been away and i've seen another side to life. i wonder if other travellers feel the same way too.

it's feelings that come from knowing that there is so much more to life out there than here in Sg. The market here is so small, our daily occurrences are so small in comparison to what's happening out there. Basically, perspectives are so limited here.

You have to FIGHT for what you want to do. It seems like such a tough and unforgiving kind of society. Or, seems so. Life here seems to be about neverending striving, pace of life keeps you stressed and wanting to keep up to par with everyone and with expectations of society, of yourself and others. It's all about the doing, doing, doing, doing.

I know how Jonah from the bible feels. Knowing God's calling but wanting to run away from it. Running in the opposite direction, far far away. While Jonah knew God was calling, I have simply forgotten. I find myself wondering: did God really call me into this field of work? I can't remember.

Where has my heart gone, Lord? I feel it hiding underneath so much disappointment, angst and dissatisfaction. Can you revive it Lord, like, genuinely revive my heart? I feel so dead.

we never seem to be able to have a normal time. there's always a current of tension beneath what we've got and at any time, at any trigger, either one of us blows up.

it's amazing and beyond my understanding how you can totally and utterly fail to see how you push people away. you complain about how others run away, and when it is explained to you why, you sniff at the explanation and deny that anything is wrong with you. such is blindness brought about by pure and unbridled pride or pure density, or the sheer inability to self reflect.

like you said, it's a love-hate relationship. and i'm so sorry to hear that, in all honesty. i don't see why it has to be that way. i don't think God meant relationships to be that way.

i never want to be like you.

my snow angel. :) the snow wasn't very thick so it didn't come out distinctly. had to give it a hand by drawing some lines.

all bundled up standing on the lake (now frozen) beside our hotel. standing directly on flat ice is really an experience! it's like standing on a huge ice cube. it's slippery, and there's hardly any grip when you walk. and yes, that's an ice sculpture behind me.

meet Marcus, or Mark, the guy in charge of "Pet Relations" at the Fairmont hotel. haha. You'll never see dogs lying around in a Singapore hotel! we all thought that he was an old, lethargic but friendly K9 employee, but turns out that he's only TWO YEARS OLD. Goodness, the poor thing's obese, i tell you.

Anyway, i'm back home and i'm glad that the weather has been chilly. Helps us to readjust back to tropical, summer weather all year round. Spent 3 days clearing up the luggage stuff and running errands, so i'm going to have to go full speed into my dissertation. Jetlag has served me well this time around, helping me to sleep and wake up early, which i quite like. I'm really hoping to keep this up.

I'm missing Canda a lot, wishing that it was easier to get there and not have to sit through the 15-16 hours (with a transit in between) on the plane in a cramped position and unable to sleep properly.

I'm hoping to start work soon and earn some dough to go on a trip to Australia. Or some really nice island getaway. Somehow. Somehow.

dinner feast we had with some relatives over. veg, salad, beef rendang, thai basil chicken, prawns, sausages and hot rice.
view of the sun setting between the two trees.

love how the wooden building stands out against the sunlit mountain.

water suspended in time.

yummy lunch of egg-mayo-onions, tomato, cheese and black pepper. i think i'm getting a little pudgey. hmm.

one of the dogs from another dogsled team. handsome guy isn't he? :) i love how he stared right into the camera.

this is Sun and Chocolate, two of the dogs from my dogsled team.

and this is Sun again. he's so adorable and in doofy way but he used to be one of the top racing dogs around in Vancouver, BC.

dog butts as we go along! they apparently love running and they thrive in subzero temperatures! like, -10degreesC and below? i think it was -25. the guide says they eat 5000 calories a day!

stopping for a break and i get a really good shot of them looking back at us. they're probably saying: c'mon guys! lets get going already!

my morning hot chocolate before the dogsled tour. it's so good on a cold, snowy, slushy morning.

a snowball for my targets. muah hahah. but had a change of heart afterwards and didn't throw it.

random shots from the day. :)

doing the snow angel thingy. it really did look quite pretty when you get up!

soiling my pretty boots. but boy, they are so comfy, and right out from the box too!
aunt says: it was meant to be. i say: amen.

cold and windy up here! we were coming out from the food court to go back to the gondola station and had to run through a bit of open space. we decided to brave the cold for some photos, so aunt, mum and i each took turns to scamper to that scenic spot.

yes, mum's idea to put reindeer branch ears on ourselves.

heehee, finally, a post NOT on macarons. yup, so i'm now in lovely and COLD Canada for my wintry family holiday. it's 11:10pm and i'm having a little personal computer time at the dining area with my cousin. am tired from the long flights and head feels a little woozy from the lack of proper sleep and maybe the plane ride. in general, trying to remain psyched for the days to come.

the streetview outside where i'm staying at. had to snap this quickly, but i like it a lot. didn't have much time to take my time to do macro shots of the lovely dried leaves on the ground because, 1) had to keep touristy behaviour to a minimum cos cousins and i were walking to the sushi shop, 2) temperature was below 0 degreesC. Eeps.

the food i've had so far has been lovely. trying to keep tabs on my eating cos the cold tends to make you overeat!

okay, going to sleep now though i would love to post pictures of the food i've had. i have been enlightened. had the biggest salmon sashimi piece ever for just $1.20 (Canadian). Man, Sg rips people off when it comes to food!

L to R: Green tea, Peppermint, Lemon and Tiramisu

The fruit of many hours in the kitchen. Credits to Weizhen for giving me the idea of doing a tiramisu version... V (close friend) really liked it even though she isn't even a macaron person. One of Gem's friends also enjoyed the tiramisu one. Whoopee! :D

Thinking that i would be leaving on sunday for my Canadian adventure, i thought i had time to do up the literature review of my dissertation. But instead, i discovered that the 31st is THIS friday. Good job, Jo. So now i'm rushing out my literature review and am guessing that i'm making more headway in these few hours than in the last 7 months.

Just thought of sharing this photo with you, as part of my macaron madness journey. :)

it's been birthday meals after birthday meals (treats from friends and family. love.), and then doing my research's interviews in the last week or so.

and today, i spent 14 hours in the kitchen baking macarons for parties i'm going to. it was a real macaron marathon i tell ya. started the morning off with coffee-chocolate shells (zen's great idea of making tiramisu macarons), and moved on to making green tea shells, then lastly, lemon shells. from 10:30am to 12:30am, thereabout. I really enjoy the process, i'll admit. though the repetition of steps and the worry over whether the macs will crack/will not have feet/will have lopsided feet drives me a little nuts.

and i found out 2 keys things to prevent macaron death. 1) get level trays. 2) Air-con

Spoilt biscuits, aren't they? Even i don't rest in air-con rooms. hurhur. the lengths i have to go to to make them, just because i live in singapore where the humidity is high.

can't wait to experiment with flavours! going to attempt to deviate from the usual flavoured white chocolate filling and try making a buttercream. It's lots more work though. Meh.

hopefully i'll have photos to show you tmr. :) for now, toodles, good night.

Counsellors and people who have done transcribing before will know this.

1hour of recorded conversation takes about 8 hours to transcribe. Recently did an interview that lasted 1hr 25 minutes or so. And i have 5 more interviews to do.

Jesus, I need your divine speed...

***

Opened the fridge to find little brown-yellow bits on the shelves. Thinking they were broken pieces of fried noodles, i nudged one of them with my finger to swipe it off the shelf. I noticed it was soft but thought, maybe it was the, i don't know, the cool air and liquids that softened the noodle.

Then it hit me. Each piece of "broken noodle" was the same length. One had a tiny black dot on it, conveniently looking like the noodle had an eye.

Then i thought: Worm? Maybe. But they aren't moving. Maybe they are dead.

Took a piece of tissue and picked one up and did a double take when i found that my noodle MOVED. IT WIGGLED. @#$$%$^%&*&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you know me well enough, you will know that worms are my greatest nemesis. Next to snails.

I was shrieking bloody murder inside but managed to clear off all my "broken noodles" from the fridge shelves with enough tissue so that my fingers wouldn't be able to feel their soft bodies.

I called mum in her office (yes, i was that desperate to find out where in the world the critters came from) and i was told they came from one of the mangoes.

Now i jump at the slightest sensation of anything wriggly or ticklish on my skin. Ugh.

Made green tea macarons today! They were pretty much a success because i decided to be patient and pipe less macarons on each baking tray. It minimised the number of fail macs so for once i had more "pass" than "fail' mac shells. Gave most of them to 2 friends by the end of the day and i'm hoping they like 'em. It's really a pleasure to just bake and give the outcomes away. I'm enjoying the baking process so much so that the pleasure is all in the baking and not the eating.

I kept the fail ones to eat and one nice one to take a shot of and post it here tomorrow.

So far i've been achieving some level of success with the italian meringue method, but i still have that annoying problem of having a hollow space in between the shell and the base. Oh well. They taste fine, but perhaps the texture isn't quite so satisfying.

I'm quite determined to achieve success with the french meringue method. In all my 4 attempts, i've failed 4 times. But i'm not throwing the towel in yet. I've already got my egg whites aging on the dining table, waiting for their turn to be made into macarons... i need ideas on what flavour i should attempt next.

So far, i've done:
- rose with white chocolate filling
- chocolate with chocolate and vanilla-peppermint filling
- green tea with white chocolate and passionfruit ganache/chocolate peppermint filling
- lemon/orange blossom with lemon curd filling

hmm, what's next? Maybe...

- chocolate with salted caramel
- vanilla/chocolate with peppermint buttercream
- chocolate with butterscotch filling
- some fruit thingy...?
- some cinnamon thingy?
- some lavender thingy?

I owe my sister a pure peppermint one with crushed candy canes in the filling. Am trying to devise a yummy way of making that macaron.

Going to zonk out now, in 3,2,1.

Short note to self:

1) too much green tea powder killed the green tea macaron!
2) but this time, my french macarons didn't fall flat and didn't have that hollow beneath the shell which is a good thing. so, aged eggs do work. i left the egg whites on my dining table for 24 hours before using it. no feet still though, but it's an improvement nonetheless.
3) mom questioned me on how much money i throw away every time i make an inedible fail batch.... i've made a calculation, and depending on what i put in the batter, it can range from $4-$17 bucks. So far, that is. my heart breaks every time macarons go straight into the bin, but what am i to do? they are just simply not edible.

in other news, my 4-5 year old Acer Travelmate has died. Hard disk crashed. And has taken away all my recipes with it. Really sad but what am i to do? Dad and i also discussed that paying a base cost of $350 that can balloon to $3000 for the lost data is not worth it. So... it's goodbye school work, music, photos, recipes. May whatever cyberspace god that that is out there watch over you. sigh. :(

Note to self:

1) the left/back side of my oven sucks big time. Temperature rises really really fast, i finally saw it objectively with my oven thermometer.
2) the right side sucks small time, so beware.
3) To increase number of successful macarons, pipe batter in the middle of the tray and place in the middle of the oven, (therefore, try to "undermix" the batter a little since i'm going to have the batter sitting in the piping bag), OR,
4) Pipe as per normal but place tray in vertically and to the right side, and shift tray around as per needed. Eg. When macarons start to puff up, crack, etc. I'll still lose some though... I think i might go the way of point 3. Much less heartbreak and wastage.

Made some lemon ones with my newfound technique. Some got destroyed due to uneven heat but otherwise, i think i can now finally finetune my baking time to achieve a less dry macaron. 14 minutes seems a little too long. Shall try 12-13minutes the next time.

Chocolate shell with dark chocolate mint filling, and the other one is lemon with lemon curd filling. I can't wait to make my green tea with white chocolate ones! The green tea powder is pricey so i've to make sure that i can consistently make okay macarons before using the matcha powder.

After my 4 failed trays of macarons (4! FOUR! That's a painful lot of failed macarons...) two nights ago, yesterday afternoon i gritted my teeth and set to work again to find out what went wrong and what i should be doing to achieve nice looking macarons. Notice i say "nice looking", because perfecting the insides is another madcap adventure altogether.

The recent consistent failures really started to sap my reservoir of hope and belief in myself. For every 1-2 pretty macarons you see here on this blog, there were tons more that didn't make it. Tray after tray of wasted ingredients, time, money and energy.

But it was those early successes (Thank You Lord!), without knowing how in the world i did it, that's keeping me driven to keep trying. It was because i managed to make them before that i know it's possible to make macarons at home! It's not just for the professionals. I read up on macaron 101s from credible bloggers (who are equally MacCrazy), made notes and tried to understand the problem behind the failures.

So back to yesterday afternoon.

Inserted my first (rather crowded) tray of macarons into the oven, and as usual, they started their dismaying habit of puffing up and cracking, and not developing any feet... In my desperate attempt to save them, i opened the oven door slightly to reduce the temperature in hope of stopping the impending macaron death. Before, i would have kept the temperature at 150degress (Heat should be set to come from the bottom. But that's just my oven.) because that's what the recipes said.

But this time, i decided to take things into my own hands. (though i did remember some advice out there that mentioned to lower the temperature once you put the macarons in. some people agreed, some disagreed. i didn't think it would work for me, but...)

Strangely, i noticed that some macarons looked smooth. The top wasn't cracked, and to my delight... they started to develop FEET. Even, pretty feet. The pretty ruffled bottoms! I was on the verge of screaming. Hyperventilating. But okay, theatrics aside, all i did was message 2 of my life's dearest people, Jiejie and Gem.

Sure, some of the macarons died because of the uneven heat distribution in the oven. BUT HEY! Some turned out looking REALLY good! I was ecstatic. And i still had one more tray to experiment with.

So, preheated the oven back up again to 150-160degrees (it overshot a little this time) and buanged the 2nd (not so crowded) tray in. I did the same thing, which was to let the temperature settle down to 140degrees thereabout. I had to sit in front of the oven and stare into the window very intently, watching the oven themometer's needle and watching my macarons' reaction to the heat.

Result: Perfectly smooth, feet-ed macarons. I was so pleased. And messaged Jie and Gem that i could now Rest in Peace.
(to which Jie replied: "Dun die so fast leh, u havent made the peppermint ones")
Oh yeah, I had promised to make her those.

I'm not 100% sure if this is the solution to my macaron problems (other than not making them on a humid day). So i'm going to try again soon to replicate the conditions, after i'm done eating/passing out to GP List the ones i just made. The positive thing about seeing the same looking failed macs is that i know i'm doing everything consistently. Which means, there are perhaps only just 1-2 (God forbid more than that) factors that need to be tweaked. Guess it turned out to be the temperature fluctuations.

I'm guessing that the higher temperature first allowed the shells to puff up nicely and harden while the falling temperature ensured that they don't crack right through. 140degrees allows the insides to cook and the macaron to form pretty feet.

The 1st tray. With dead and live macarons.

The beginnings of a discovery...
And here! Pretty macarons! FINALLY! After so many heart breaks.

I've got empty lemon and chocolate shells waiting to be filled... Yummy. :D Shall go look for ideas now. It took so much reading up to get the right tips online! Once I get consistent results with the italian method, i'm going to venture into the french method. Muah hahaha...

Now, if only the same zest for my dissertation would kick in...

MacCrazy

Yes. I've finally bought my equipment (i think the baking pans could be better though) and curiousity got the better of me... And so i've begun trying my hand at making the Diva Biscuits, aka the Macarons. The instructions looked easy enough. I soon found out it isn't about the steps. It's the technique.

I'm a fan of these sweet little monsters (you'll see why i call them monsters soon). And when i say i'm a fan, i really mean a slobbering, shifty wide-eyed, hyperventilating creature with a maniacal smile plastered all over her face, whenever i see macarons in the distance. Ask Gem if you don't believe me. I'm quite adept at shapeshifting like that.

Won't say too much, and let the photos do the talking.

Macarons have infinite ways of going wrong. Out of 2 trays, only 1/4 of them can be known to survive. My heart gets broken often by these tyrants. But i think my oven is partly to blame too.

Flat, porous, feetless pancakes. Friend says they look like japanese crackers. Too true!

More japanese prawn crackers. Meh. These were hollow, feetless and porous.

These miraculously had feet, but were sticky, flat and altogether just ridiculous.

After many tries, these macarons were born... Orange blossom with lemon curd filling, and rose with white chocolate filling.

Did them the italian meringue way which i will stick to for the moment since i've had some success with it. Making macarons the french meringue way has resulted in 100% failure rate out of the three times i have tried it! But i WILL get down to making them at some point in time.

Right now, i'm going to use the italian meringue method to experiment with different flavours. I think it's going to be green tea and white chocolate soon. And i so need a macaron flavour directory right now. Whoopee!