A crazy week filled with inevitabilities. It was inevitable that the gloriously hot weekend was just the thing for Boat Asia 2008 at Marina@Keppel Bay on Keppel Island. There were jetskis and sailboats for sale, and floating platoons to put together like real life Lego, and yachts to clamber onto for joyrides and also houseboats to dream of living and navigating the world in. Out of the heat, in the air-conditioned confines of TCC, we sat and chatted till the lights came on and some of... Read Full Story

So there are colleagues who spend hours doing a screen-by-screen critique of Edison Chen's home movies and then there are colleagues who, despite declaring themselves old skool, cannot resist folding in references to Nigella Lawson and her ample posterior into every (baking) conversation: "Hey, what chocolate do you think is best for this cake?" "Well, Nigella would say 'best dark chocolate' but look at her now." "Do you think I should up the proportion of butter?" "Well, Nigella always... Read Full Story

Made some petit fours for someone's birthday last week. She's a great fan of the colour pink so dyed the white chocolate topping pink and sprinkled pink sea flakes on the rest of the mini-cakes. They were accompanied by a small syringe of cream cheese - for those who might want a little extra on the side. The bottom row: the result of cake mixture baked in an oven that was moseying up to the desired temperature because someone couldn't be bothered to preheat it. The middle row: the... Read Full Story

So, there is nothing new under the sun. At a sushi-and-chips dinner (sounds trashy but they're really rather complementary), I started to play with my food experiment creatively with the resources at hand. Ridged chips/crisps dipped in dark chocolate is basically white trash, trailer park grub but as I have been soundly advised, it's all in the marketing. In a gourmet shop, this stuff would be ensconced in pretty tissue, nestled in a pretty box with pretty ribbons, labelled "hand-dipped... Read Full Story

She beckoned through the ceiling-high windows, flaunting her freedom, vaulting through luminous leaves, sparkling off the azure sea (the really real simulacra of cheesy literary adjectives). But we were inside the board room, haunted by the spectre of inter-governmental meetings, gathered round the enormous whiteboard, adding structure upon structure to an already complicated deal. Then at last it was over. And I ran like a beggar's dog into the last light of the day. Finally, the fresh... Read Full Story

Leftover flour, butter, eggs, lemon and cocoa powder from Easter = Reconstructed Deconstructed Lemon Meringue-ish Cream Tart Ugly tart shell was made from on-offer Digestive biscuits crushed with 55% Equatoriale dark Valrhona cocoa powder. (The kitchen being pestle-challenged, the butt-end of a vodka bottle had to be put to work for the crush-fest.) Wanted the chunky crunchy texture of a deconstructed tart shell for a more interesting mouthfeel than Mr. Crushed-Like-Fine-Breadcrumbs and... Read Full Story

The happiest days of my childhood were spent in the house garden. Being a Singaporean garden not given to pretention, not for her the niceties of harmony, patterning, fractals, visual jokes, anticipation of colour, historic style of classic garden design theory. The choice of vegetation probably hinged on the question: "Can eat anot?" In a back-corner, mangoes, deep yellow and fat and sweet, hung down heavy and luscious. In another, rambutans were red and abundant. We collected them by the... Read Full Story

The almost perpetual rain over the last few weeks ruled out all macho outdoor sports (cos those huge raindrops frighten us, yeah), leaving us with nancy indoor ones like badminton. And table tennis. And figure skating. Ugg Cookies Ugly like the boots but less woolly and more edible Why not go the whole nancy hog and bake something then. Darkies over blondies any day. Preferably the sort that will stick to the roof of your mouth, then to your gullet and then give you such a sore throat that... Read Full Story

A long week spent taking turns overnighting at wakes. Sometimes, there were no words of comfort to be spoken. Helpless to address the grief but unwilling that it should be be the sole companion of the bereaved, we sat and talked through the night. And there were stories: stories of Chinese schools, of the ill-disciplined students of prestigious schools, of Chinese teachers, of the optimal number of children in a family, of living abroad, of Cambodian history, of the ARPC Golden Group, of the... Read Full Story

"We're back from the National Museum," gushed the parentals some months ago, waving about Greek Masterpieces From The Louvre brochures, "they've brought in sculptures from the Louvre. You must go and see them!" "But we've seen them...at the Louvre!" "Did not." "We did. We went to the Louvre, you criticised I M Pei's pyramid, then you said you were bored and wanted to go shopping." "Oh."In any case, last Sunday, after Peter O'Brien'd delivered his 64th talk in the last 3 months, I popped... Read Full Story