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Sunday, October 12, 2008
, 1:37 PM
Japan is really into the bento/lunch-box culture. From hyaku-en (100-yen) stores to special brands, there are many varieties of gorgeous lunch boxes and related paraphernalia for one to choose. So what do I do? I cave into the utter cutesy-ness of it all.
Let me present to you my star buy from the 9-storey Animate shop next to Sunshine City at Ikebukuro.
MY BEAUTIFUL TOTORO LUNCH BOX!!
It was so beautiful I couldn't resist. I was looking for a two-tier lunchbox to separate my rice and sauce dishes anyway... I really wanted to buy the Totoro chopsticks which came in these absolutely gorgeous chopstick cases, but 1000yen was just a little too much for a pair of chopsticks. ><
Unassembled
I pretty much only bought it because I'm a Totoro freak and I was semi-looking for a lunch box, but it turned out to be a very good choice once I opened it up and discovered all the amazing things hidden within. The chopsticks safely nestled in its own 'compartment', the removable white disk that divides the upper compartment (very useful for separating my rice & sauce dishes!), and the rubber band to keep it from falling apart. It's basically everything I was looking for in my lunch box, all packed in a beautiful 1500yen (15CAD, 22SGD) Toronto collectible. (:
The 100-yen cutlery set (chopsticks, spoon, fork) and lunchbox bag that I'd bought previously. I don't think I need the cutlery set anymore oops but the lunchbox bag will still be useful.
They certainly weren't lying when they said Japan was the land of Hello Kitty and Cutesy. Besides the tons of Hello Kitty merchandise everywhere, I think Japan must be one of the only countries that sells beautifully packaged cigarettes decorated with pastel pink flowers (sometimes with accompanying pink lighter). For 160yen. That'd be CAD1.60 or SGD2.20 for 10 cigarettes. Wtf.
Lunch time will make everyone happy! :D
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
, 5:30 AM
That's my new slogan for this week.
It's so bad, I swear. On Fri/Sat I worked on my red velvet cake, Sunday my butter chicken (that didn't take so much time though), Monday peanut-butter-swirl brownies (I argue that was my celebration for finishing ECO206) and today steamed/oven-baked Chinese buns. I need to ban myself from the kitchen during exam periods in the future, I think, or restrict myself to rice and raw lettuce. I always underestimate the time I'll spend on these foods.
I just spent 15min on a practice paper (my first foray into studying today) and then I got distracted googling banana bread/cake recipes (I have 6 over-ripe bananas in my cupboard nearing compost-stage). I think I should freeze my bananas till Thurs is over...
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Monday, August 11, 2008
, 1:38 PM
A small bunch of Singaporeans clustered at my place yesterday to eat semi-Singaporean food and celebrate National Day in a way I wouldn't even bother celebrating back at home (oh, irony).
The highlights of the menu that night were fried rice and beehoon, singing/trying to remember the national anthem & pledge, intellectual discourse over the identity of a Singaporean (which went like this: Audrey is not a true Singaporean because she does not like anything with chili), watching the Olympics and the surge of national pride when Tao Li made it into the swimming finals.
clockwise from top: bak kwa, thai fried rice, singapore-flag red velvet cake, pineapple fried rice;
sadly, the beehoon only arrived later so it did not make it into this pic. :(
I was initially intending to make bak kut teh, but gave up when I realised the number of medicinal herbs/spices I would have to get my hand on (I happily forgot to include them in my first test round). I thought of making beehoon, but apparently I cannot reconstitute vermicelli properly, as it turned into a massive slimy ball that wouldn't separate into noodle strands. I tried to make agar agar; keyword being TRIED. I was greatly ridiculed for the failed wobbly wet mixture that was my final product. The only half-decent creation in the end was the red velvet cake, which was a) not red b) icing looked pretty gross. I'll blog a separate entry with the cake recipe & more bemoanings later.
It was a fun dinner. (: Thank you guys!
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Friday, August 8, 2008
, 1:56 PM
What's causing my cake to fail?
Amazing site. AMAZING site! And it confirmed my suspicions that I doomed my red velvet cake to failure when I added a second cup of sugar suspecting (incorrectly, obviously) that I'd forgotten that cup. And my test cupcake rose SO beautifully the first time around. I guess red velvet cake really is supposed to taste kind of bland without the frosting...or maybe it's because I messed around with the ingredients too much.
Ugh, I should stop making food that I've never even EATEN before; how the hell will I know if it tastes right then!? And I wasted at least 5bucks on this recipe, not to mention all my red food colouring! A:LKDJASL blah.
I am such a baking failure. Blah. You'd think after a decade in front of the oven I would fare a little better...
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008
, 6:37 AM
JULY ?, 08
portobello mushroom burger, italian-style, :3
So many things to make, so little time. Recently, I decided to stop being ambitious and instead of adding to the list of things to make, to actually get rid of some and focus on clearing up all the stuff I still have in my kitchen. So I just did a clean-up of the 'serving soon' section on the sidebar and removed those that I don't feasibly think I can make by the end of summer (22 days, ahh!) to a draft entry for future cooking/baking purposes. (:
I don't even know if I'll be able to make all those things on the list. I have 24 items in total, which is more than the number of days I have left here! And I can't make more than 2 items in a day. Today I made flower cupcakes (more specifically, plain cupcakes with cream cheese frosting) and I feel deadbeat. 4 hours, including decoration! (the baking alone was probably only 1.5hr max, which is decent). But I'm proud of them. They're my most beautiful creation yet. [: Recipe will be up soon!
So this picture I have. I've been reading a lot about portobello mushrooms recently, and one dish I've been itching to try is the portobello mushroom burger, portobellos being the 'steak' king of mushrooms. It was an okay recipe...I followed a simple recipe on google but I'm not really one for the whole balsamic vinegar and olive oil thing (although I do use olive oil as my staple oil for stirfry).
But my point anyway, is that cooking is such a strange thing. Some recipes are so simple and common-sensical I can't bring myself to post them on my foodblog. Yet this foodblog isn't only supposed to be a recipeblog, but also to chart my ongoing progress in the kitchen...
And another thought today. Why do I bake? a) Store-bought mixes are so cheap nowadays it's actually cheaper/similarly-priced to make food from the mixes. The only way I can think of differentiating myself is by decorating my creations, but I'm so non-artistic, and decorating is like 10000x more time-consuming and exhausting than the baking process. b) It's such an expensive and time-consuming hobby...sometimes I think I should just adopt webdesigning as my hobby instead. It's (even more) time-consuming, but at least it's free (relative to baking).
Seriously, baking is SO TIME-CONSUMING. It's 6pm already and I have done NOTHING, and my finals are next week!
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Friday, August 1, 2008
, 1:47 PM
by Lorraine Summerfield
(I would have linked to the original entry instead of reposting it wholesale, except I couldn't find a permalink for this particular entry)
WHEN I COOK, THINGS HEAT UP.
“Arlene made the best spareribs, can we make them sometime?”
Whenever I’m away, the lads of my household are joyfully fed by a revolving circle of friends. I actually leave a calendar of where they should show up each evening. Arlene is a fabulous cook, but now down to usually cooking just for her husband, she loves the energy brought to her table by my crew. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I asked her for the recipe. Her eyebrows shot up.
“Really? You want a recipe?” she asked, not even bothering to hide the concern in her voice. My culinary skills are widely noted. And feared.
“Be quiet. Just adjust it for me,” I told her.
She later emailed over a Lorraine Version of her Cuban Ribs. Almost every line included a phrase like, “have Ari do the chopping – he’s better than you”, and “get Ari to tell you what it means to glaze the spoon – he’ll know”. In all, the whole thing was qualified to make sure my 13-year-old son was in charge of all the complicated bits.
I bought everything on the list, including hot peppers. I love hot peppers, and as we were doubling the recipe, I gleefully flung handfuls of the little suckers into my cart. That night, I looked around for Ari.
“He’s out riding his bike,” said Christopher, 16. I hesitated.
“You wanna help me make dinner?” I asked him. He started laughing. And left.
I started at the beginning, smashing away at garlic, measuring red wine vinegar and orange juice. Every cutting board was in motion. Poor Sod passed through the kitchen and glanced at the activity.
“Where’s Ari?” he asked with alarm.
The last to go in were the hot peppers. “Chop finely and seed peppers,” Arlene’s voice echoed through my head. Artfully clipping off their little heads, I carefully dug out all the little seeds. Some stuck, but using my nails, I did a great job. All four got neatly chopped and flung into the pot.
As everything was simmering away for an hour, I noticed a tingling in my fingertips. I thought I had a paper cut. Too late, I remembered from some show that you’re supposed to wear gloves when you touch hot peppers. I called Arlene.
“You didn’t put in the part about the hot peppers,” I accused her. It was hard to hold the phone with my hands on fire.
“Oh, dear, you poor thing! You truly don’t have a single instinct in the kitchen, do you?” I detected some sympathy underneath the laughter.
“It didn’t say,” I accused her.
“Where was Ari? He’d know….”
”On his bike,” I said through gritted teeth. The flames were traveling up to my wrists.
“But the recipe said you could use dried peppers! Didn’t you read the bottom part?” she asked.
“I made it line by line. Why would I cheat and look at the end?”
“It’s not a book! It’s a recipe! I put in asterisks! You’re supposed to read them!” I should tell you now that Arlene is my former high school English teacher. We have a history of her being right, and me being wrong.
Holding ice packs, I tried to Google for help. I was practically typing with my elbows. I had to send an editor an email with some random notes. He typed back asking why I was sending him a ransom note.
For the record? People on the internet are stupid. I tried ripe tomatoes, alcohol, lime juice, and cortisone cream. The only thing that worked was ice packs.
And wine. Taken internally.
An absolutely hilarious piece on this columnist's misadventures in the kitchen. I couldn't stop laughing while reading it. The most embarassing thing; this is exactly the kind of thing I can imagine myself doing (now and even in the future, minus the hordes of sons).
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Saturday, July 5, 2008
, 3:03 AM
So, as the title dictates, this post is to chronicle the conception, birth and early
REASON
So for years I'd scrimped on eating. I liked food; who doesn't? But my mentality was; why squander money on something that lasts you a few seconds of enjoyment as opposed to something more permanent? Then came the nomadic life of university, and I realised how easy it was to give up my books, CDS, animanga collection. But the final shift of thought came in summer, when bereft of my meal plan, dumped with ingredients/cutlery from outgoing dorm friends and installed with a kitchen, came the explosion of flavours & choices from all over the world! & so I created this foodblog to share my foodie adventures, in particular my own experiments in the kitchen. [:
NAME
'Makan' means to eat in Malay, while in Japanese 'jikan' means time. Using this strange fusion of quite unrelated languages is probably near top in the Worst Ways to Name Your Site countdown, since probably only a small group of Southeast-Asians with some knowledge of Japanese (or the other way around) would understand, let alone remember the name. However, when this phrase came to my mind randomly one night, it just stuck. So too bad for my potential net fame, I guess I'll have to stick with something that's truly me - Singaporean with a love of Japan. (...and food)
DESIGN
Unearthed the prototype for the layout somewhere in my computer and with a few tweaks (yeah well, if several hours + div/css/etc problems later constitutes 'few') the layout has become what it is now! I would have liked to add certain elements (notably tag links on the sidebar) but I'm not going to learn a whole new blogger coding language (already did that for livejournal) to be able to use xml/widgets so screw that.
FOCUS
The majority of my posts will probably be baked goods as I've been baking for half my life now and am more confident of my baking skills. I'm a fledgling cook (in the sense that I do things like tossing un-softened rice noodles straight into the wok) and so a) most of my successes involve mixes/simple stirfry and random adding of sauces that hardly constitute a 'recipe' b) everything else fails. And I might have one or two entries on my external food hunts, though I don't know if I want Makan Jikan to turn into that kind of blog, because that just means more time spent on maintaining the blog, not to mention I don't have the highest standards in food. (& I really love streetside hotdogs) As for region, I would probably have more Chinese food (with regards to cooking) since I'm Chinese, but I'm a huge fan of the new and unusual (to me) and so would love to try my hand at as many international recipes as possible!
So. Clearly not 100+ words. The longwinded granny in me does take over often. Back to working on the layout...
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