Queen

I overheard a science professor on the bus today talking to one of his students about research on the Drosophila fruit fly. The professor called it the Queen of Genetics.

Kind of made me miss biology, and chemistry a little. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing in Commerce. Granted, I do enjoy economics. Finance is just gag.

Anyway, I overheard 2 girls talking to each other, and one told the other how she teased her boyfriend about his dandruff once, and a year later he gave her a 200g bag of his dandruff.

He collected his effing dandruff.

She thought it was sweet. But super gross.

I just gagged.

Office

Working in an office environment has made me realise that I find it really hard to sit still for 8 hours a day. I guess my primary school teachers were right after all; I'm so fidgety.

Hmmm.

Ah well. At least I'll probably be churning out posts more regularly haha!

Heavy Smells

I was using the lat-pulldown machine at the gym and I farted.

The only person close by was this woman using the thigh-master sorta machine (abductor) that was right next to the lat-pulldown, and she started saying loudly to herself, "eww! did someone fart?" She said it like 3 times lmao it was so embarassing.

I had to control my laughter so much I had to go and hide in the toilet for a while.

Water Sports

Today I learnt that some restaurants have water lists alongside wine lists, and that waiters suggest specific waters to go with your meals.

FML.

I have a stye on my eye.

I have a stye on my eye and its massive. I am not happy. I am munching on delicious orange flavoured hand-made turkish delight I bought from this awesome Turkish store in Auburn. Best turkish delight in Australia if you believe those travel shows. $10 a box, ain't so bad.

I have a ceramics/pottery class tomorrow i'm starting to realise that Chinese may just kill me. I'm reading all these horrible things people are saying on the internet about studying ot for 4 years and still not being able to read a book.

GAH!

The Past, Passed

EARLY PRIMARY SCHOOL:

boy - name was "Sam" Aiche (fake 1st name, real last name).

teacher - [writing everyone's names on the board] "What is your name?"

boy - "Sam Aiche".

teacher - [writes Sam H.]

me - [very confused, thinks] Why did she write H?

FAST FORWARD a decade or so.

me - [*light-bulb-moment*] OMFG educated bitches pronounce "H" as "aiche" not "haiche"!

And that was how a decade of supressed confusion was solved.

(Clearly there's more to this story then i'm letting on.)

Office and Harry Potter.

I have a new job! I'm so COOL!

2 full days a week, giving me cash to fuel my exorbitant cake-making lifestyle. Woohoo! I went to DFO the other day and bought 2 awesome business shirts from DL that were on ultimate sale at 60% off and they weren't even the fat sizes I am so awesome.

I arrived in the office and felt like Mr Bean cos when I sat down I started pulling all these things out and arranging them on the table like Mr Bean did with his pink panther thing in that exam episode. I love Mr Bean haha.

And I watched HP6 last night. Daniel Radcliffe's acting is still tragic, as always, except that scene when he drank the Liquid Luck that was heaps funny. Special effects these days! So bloody amazing.

Helena Bonham Carter is amazing again LOL. I think she should really get herself psychologically checked out sometime soon, she plays psycho characters way too well.

Personal Trainer

I have a personal trainer now! I think it won't strain my budget too much. Just once a week to keep my form right and make sure I don't do any stupid things and stuff up my wrists any more than they already are. I'm tempted to take some before/after shots haha. Too bad my camera is having more of a life adventure than I am. It's in Syria now joy!

Maybe I should just catch a plane somewhere too. You only live once :)

Daring Bakers - Challenge THIRTEEN!

The June challenge is ... Bakewell Tart/Pudding!

I'm posting this way too late and I know it won't even count but I so don't care right now. I know I did the challenge during the month and that's all that matters right? And it tasted good and I'm happy. If I ever see another bag of almond meal again before my death it'll be too soon. Anyway. Think happy thoughts.

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

My sister ran off to Jordan and took my DSLR camera with her so crappy pics will be the norm for the next 6 months. SIGH. To think I paid a grand+ for it. :(

I decided to do half jam and almond frangipane and half nutella and hazelnut "frangipane". The shortcrust recipe they gave us was amazing. I froze the butter and it turned out brilliant. I'm definitely using this recipe again.

The tarts were really popular.

Sliced up mini-tarts. Pretty?

I personally preferred the jam one! Stood the test of time; must be good.

I'm losing motivation to do all these challenges. I liked the old forums better too. The new forums are really hard to read and navigate and are hard on the eyes. Sigh.

"Older Posts" Button

Does anyone know how to make an "older posts" button at the bottom of the page?? It's really annoying me. I vaguely recall it being there once upon a time. It's stupid having to click the archives just to see past posts.

Anyone good at blogger template coding? Html? XML!?!

Truth

To remember what it is like to live in truth...

Daring Cooks - Challenge TWO!!

Hello again!

Posted late (what's new LOL) again. So anyway, this month's challenge for my cooksie friends is potstickers, also known as Chinese steamed dumpling things. And sometimes fried on the bottom to make then crunchy.

A thin unleavened dough contains my filling. I found that it is a lot more enjoyable when the dough is thin. Too thick and it just feels thick and unpleasant.

Little Asian Tip: put vinegar in the steaming water to whiten the dough.

Look! Crunchy butts. mMmm!! :)

I filled them with a Malay-style curry chicken thing. Very tasty.

...and cut them in half with my Kyocera ceramic knife!!

Very fun challenge!

Live Without Regret

I've realised something that really gets in the way when I'm studying. Sometimes, I start to think about my first semester and all the stupid things I used to do and how my WAM is so bad and how I should have done this and should have done that and then my mind starts to wander to all the other things in my life and I start to think of how different my life could be right now.

Then I realised:

Concentrate on the Present.

Live without Regret.

Flow as the wind...

I've come to the conclusion (once again) that I will never understand my dad so (once again) I've stopped trying. And being indifferent/emotionless just doesn't work. So I just take everything as it comes, and go with the flow.

I want to fly.

The new fridge/freezer (well not so new) has this button that makes the freezer go into "quick-freeze" mode and it makes this cool noise. It's next to my room so I can hear it. My dad really likes pressing the button. I don't know if he knows I can hear it but he presses it a lot. When he walks past he presses it like 11 times then goes away.

Just so odd.

EXAMS AGAIN.

I am so over exams. Are you over exams? I think you are.

Another think I am very much over is Psychology. And to think I was contemplating doing a whole major in Psychology!! Urgh I hate Freud. Nutcase. Thank THE HIGHER POWERS I am no longer doing it. O_O.

Anyway, I just got back a mark for one of my assessments and it was plain old rape. *Sad face*. So the subject that doesn't count to my degree will pull down my WAM and reduce my chances of going somewhere schnazzy for exchange.

Oh did I tells you, I quite excited by the prospect of going on exchange. Somewhere new, somewhere I can have adventures! I really want to go to the UK. Or America? Why not both. Fufu.

So here I am studying at 1:11 in the morning for bloody exams. I had bad food cravings so I ate an entire loaf of garlic bread. Yes, like the whole long thing. Sometimes it's not so good to be able to good decent food.

I am so over people telling me to apply for co-op, over my current job, over everything I just want exams to finish so I can laze around and do NOTHING.

Awesome.

DAYUM.

So anyway I set a cake into the oven and put the internet timer (here) on for 20 minutes. Except I had another timer open on another page that already finished. So half-way through I saw the timer flashing 00:00 and thought ok that was a bit early and went to check the cake. It was wet in the middle and I thought nah that's not done, "needs 12 more minutes."

Then I went back to the window to check why it flashed to zero and realised I had opened the wrong window and when I went back to the timer it said 12 more minutes left and I was like DAMN I'M GOOD.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Waste of time!!

Today was the ultimate waste of time. I woke up at 3 p.m. and tried to go to the gym I have to go once a week for 10 weeks to get some free stuff lol anyway) but I also had to pick up the van from Bankstown station. So I thought I'd take the train to Bankstown, and using the van drive to the gym before 4 (see I have an off-peak membership so they don't let me in after 4).

But when I got to the van the engine wouldn't start. Frack. I called NRMA road service and the guy showed up and hour later, couldn't even fix the car, so I had to wait another 2 hours for an effing tow-truck to show up and then I dropped the van off at home.

All for nothing!

Finished Chinese!!

Woohoo did my Chinese final exam today. I hope I did well. I need that damn HD average to apply to go to exchange to UPenn. Sigh!! So silly in my first few semesters....

Anyway! Enjoy one of my Chinese passages! And if you can't read it don't worry you're not missing out on much. It's not very exciting...

王朋：李友，你上个星期考试考得怎么样？
李友：考得不错，因为你帮助我复习，所以考得不错。但是老师说我中国字写得太慢！
王朋：是吗？以后跟你一起练习写字，教你什么写，好不好？
李友：那太好了！我们现在就写。给你笔。
王朋：我教你写“难”字。
李友：你写字写得很好，也很快。
王朋：哪里，哪里。你明天有中文课吗？
李友：有，明天我们学第七课。
王朋：你预习了吗？
李友：预习了。第七克的语法很容易，我都懂，可是生词太多，汉字也有一点儿难。
王朋：今天晚上我跟你一起练习吧？
李友：好，谢谢你。
王朋：不谢，晚上见。

I CAN READ MOON RUNES NOW!!

Daring Bakers - Challenge TWELVE!!

The challenge for May is .... APPLE STREUDEL!!!

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Making some tasty streudel dough by hand. Who needs machines!?

Ah! Look at these ingredients!!! *DROOL*.

Naked apples haha. My mother would be angry. EAT THOSE SKINS!!

Chop chop. I added honey and lemon juice. Can't go wrong there!

I hate rolling dough with a passion.

Cripsy edges?

Streudel magic!

[clearly I am not having times for long posts hopings to you enjoying the pictures, yes no?]

BDSM, chilli and stale butter...

I didn't know butter could go off.

I just assumed I could leave it in my fridge forever and it'd be cool. Then the day I planned on making this cake for my sister's friend (who asked for it) I read the expiry date and they are all off! LAME. I thought ah stuff it it's butter should be alrite!

Then I tasted it and thought hmmm....

It left a funky sort of taste on my tongue I'm not sure if I imagined it or not. Sorta like if I licked a battery, but not quite so intense. Funky. So I chucked my butter stash in the bin and since the local supermarket closed down imma gonna have to drive to get my stuff.

ARGH. This better turn out good.

Yesterday I went to have sushi with my mates and since 2 weeks earlier my uni friend introduced me to the joy of actually eating wasabi (as opposed to mixing it into soy sauce) so I thought I'd be all cool and do it again except that it didn't quite work and I put too much and ended up dying.

Yes. I am dead.

At least my nose anyway. Oh lord! It did that fume-y painful thing and my nose was so painful argh my body probably hates me LOL! I remember the first time I had wasabi I though "LOL WASABI PLZ! I ARE LORD OF CHILLI."

Silly me.

But I do love my chilli. Not my green-horseradish. I think I might be starting to understand slightly why some people are into that kinky BDSM stuff. See one of my friends can't take chilli at all so I made him try this delicious thai thing and he didn't enjoy it at all cos his was dying from the actual physical pain of the chilli. Whereas I ate it and it stung a little but it was so enjoyable.

Maybe sado-masochism is like that. Normally people would just get off on the simple stuff and if they got whipped or whatever they would not be able to enjoy anything at all due to the pain but if they got over it maybe it would open up another avenue of enjoyment.

Like chilli does for me.

Daring Cooks - Challenge ONE!!

Huh? Daring WHUT?

Well, dearest readers, the masterminds back at The Daring Kitchen decided that "Hey! Let's branch off! Franchise! EXPAND. Why stick to just baking?? First cakes, next THE WORLD!!!"

Anyway, cut a long story short, now there's a savoury cooking challenge every month too! Yay cheer clap sing dance tiao wu! And this month's challenge is....

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi!!!

Woohoo...or not. I've never even tasted gnocchi in my life. always thought it had something to do with potatoes. I guess ricotta works too!

Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook.

Well, time to get cracking isn't it? You need some ricotta for ricotta gnocchi. Seems the story is the guy is always wet and that's never good so what we gotta do squeeze all all of his juice. Using a cheese cloth, of course.

Overnight's always good, till you get something like...

...this! Looks like a giant steamed bun~! YUM!

Apparently to test if the cheese is dry enough is to make a ball and leave it on a piece of paper napkin, and if no ring of water forms, then hey presto your good to go!

A little wet-patch but I think we'll be alrite.

Add some eggs, butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano...

...and mash mash mash till it looks fluffy and awesome.

Then wash your hands, take out your handy plain flour and get cracking! Roll all your dough into cool little ovaloid gnocchi things and dust them heaps or they'll get all sticky and you'll get pissed.

Leave in the fridge for an hour for a nice firm-up session.

When you're ready to cook, bang a pot of water on the stove, salt generously when it begins to boil, dump the gnocchi's in and lift them out when they float and are a little firm and...

.
.
.
.
.
.

Voila!

Prettiness!

Oh, forgot to talk about the sauce. It's just butter and a bit of water cooked on a skillet. I added garlic too.

Mmmmm tasty.

Gratuitous zoomy macro shot.

Haha. Haven't written a post like this in a while. Hope you liked it!

Here are some numbers for you pedantic-types:

For the gnocchi:

1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
plain flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:

8 tablespoons (227 grams/1/4 pound/4 ounces) butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

ENJOY!

Suan le!

A beautiful thing just happened. The last mini-post-it note in my mini-post-it note pen coincided with the last chapter in my microeconomics answers booklet that I had to tag.

It made me so happy.

Then about a minute later I tried to cut a wire with this pair of scissors i've had since 10th grade and the scissors broke. I'm surprised I'm only mildly upset. It's probably lucky I had that happy coincidence as a buffer or I would've had another breakdown hehe.

Taxes and Startrek

Thanks to the economic depression Yada Yada the government is handing out these coolors $900 stimulus packages to anyone who filled in a tax return last year. AND I DIDN'T. I thought that it wouldn't hurt to try and fill one in late so I just went on the ATO online website to fill in my first tax return.

I didn't earn much, and I thought it would be piss easy but then all they started asking all this crap about capital gains and how many same-sex babies and dependent invalids I had LIKE WTF.

So I clicked no to everything and hoped it would be alrite.

I hope I get them $$$RuddBucks$$$.

China China?

Today in my Week 7 Chinese lecture we were learning negation of certain verbs. One of those verbs was "yao" or something, meaning "to have to do" (not 100% sure i'm sorta guessing).

Anyway, the funning thing was that the negation wasn't "bu yao" as is for regular verbs, but suddenly became "bu bi". And so the lecturer was there screaming her head off saying BOOBIE BOOBIE BOOBIE and wondering what was so funny.

Haha I am so silly.

Daring Bakers - Challenge ELEVEN!

A child of April,

Creating my own
April-Children:

Abbey's Infamous mini-Cheesecakes!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. And I made them into little mini-mixed-berry friand sort of things. They look so pretty don't they? I bought a tripod and some half decent lighting off IKEA and my photos look a lot nicer now. Click on the shots! They go all big and detailed and you can even see the vanilla bean specks. Ah the vanilla mmMmm. Such a creamy cake. Here's another shot slightly zoomed out:

So waddya think!?

Dreamtime

I've been having dreams about death quite a lot lately. Twice I've had really vivid dreams about the whole human population being wiped out! Last night I had this dream where some sorta weird meteor shower was coming down and it killed everyone and it one of them hit me and I died. Except before that someone told everyone that we should go to higher ground (which kinda doesn't make sense) and hide under these metal sheet thingies, like that would save us lol, and then we all died anyway. And then we all came back to life and died again. And again and again and again. It didn't hurt though. It was just like boom you're dead.

Dead

Neighbour died. So sad.

She was really old though. She had a fall on the steps and had to go to hospital but she died. Now her husband is living alone. At the funeral her daughter got really drunk and started screaming and crying and rolling on the grass in the front lawn it was scary.

What is after death?

Missed a challenge...

Ah sigh. I was not able to do this month's Daring Bakers challenge. That makes me really sad actually. I had a goal of never missing any challenges, and I was especially excited about this one, but life is life. Uni work piling up, work is not going very well (had my first boss chastising experience today :( it didn't feel good. I suck. Sigh).

Daddy's back in the house and is managing to drive everyone crazy AT THE SAME TIME (quite a gift I must say). Constantly invading the privacy of my room. Ok I gotta explain this story. You see my family is huge and the house is small so my whole life i've never really got any personal space and my brothers are the biggest slobs the world has, so all i've known is a mess I can never clean and no sense of privacy.

So one day my mum felt sorry for me and said I can have the back room if I clean it up and I pounced on it straight away, cleaned it up (oh the agony of painting) and spent a grand or so at IKEA and hey presto! My room is beautiful and its ALL MINE.

So I really don't like my dad coming in here and making bloody silver colloid under my study table. GOD. F*#$U*ING SILVER COLLOID. IT'S FAKE. GET IT INTO YOUR HEAD.

And now after all these years just when I get my own space DADDY wants to move HOUSES YAY SO ALL MY EFFORT GOES INTO THE BIN.

Chinese

So I've started learning Chinese (mandarin). Every lecture/tute/seminar we sit there and chant pinyin until my throat is raw and dry and my tonsils also thought it would be a really good joke to pop up in an infestation at the same time.

I've learnt 6 characters out of 600 for this semester and I'm starting to get worried. Ah well. At least I'm studying in week 1, unlike in previous semesters. I want to fly away and die.

Uni Schmooni!

Uni starts tommorrow again.

Here's to an awesome semester of awesomeness.

*fingers crossed*.

Cakes cakes wonderful cakes....

One day I want to be able to make cakes like these...

...without using photoshop!

[via SweetArt]

What has been seen...

...cannot be unseen. :(

I went to the toilets at the shopping centre that is next to my old high-school. It smelt like shit so I just thought yay someone's been busy here. After I washed my hands I went to the hand-dryer machine and next to it was the rubbish bin.

And in the bin was a shit.

Yes.

A shit.

Not a piece of shit.

A whole shit.

Someone actually chucked a shit in the rubbish bin. Either someone squatted on the bin and did it or actually bothered carrying the piece of defacation and putting it in the bin.

I'm guessing it was the latter (it was not surrounded by toilet paper or anything so I guess the sick dude carried it in his hand). I know almost 100% without a doubt it was a guy from my old school. They're all sick and demented like that. He definitely got some sort of sick sexual pleasure from doing something like that ARGH that is so nasty!!

Kthxbye.

Daring Bakers - Challenge TEN!

This happy February,

In the joyous spirit of Valentine Love,
We The Daring Bakers, present to you...

The Chocolate Valentino.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

With only 3 ingredients (chocolate, butter and eggs) this deliciously moist and delicate flourless cake truly brings out the flavour and quality of the chocolate you choose to use.

Layered with rasperry conserve and served with a vanilla bean ice-cream, this is one of the most delicious cakes I've made. And so easy to make as well! This is one cake I will definitely be making again.

Queue Jumper Killer

There's this horrible news story out recently I read on the BBC. It's about this woman in the UK who queue-jumped at a Sainsbury's and then when someone got angry at her she got her boyfriend to punch him but he punched the wrong guy and the poor dude died.

Like. WTF?

So some dumb shit got caught out about doing something wrong and reacted like an animal and now some poor dude who had nothing to do with it died and left behind a family.

What a completely pointless death!

I don't get it...

[via BBC...]

YO!

I thought I'd pop around and write something as there seems to be more people than ever coming round this joint to read me ramblings. So here I am!

Random thought: "Zack and Miri" is an awfully awkward film to be watching with a group of friends. O_O. But oh so funny! Hahahahaha. Funniest and dirtiest scenes ever GAWD. Go watch it yourself for details.

Lawl.

Went to uni again a few times and saw ALL the attention whores again and told them to ALL GO STICK STUFF UP IN THEIR DARK PLACES. And then I got a free lemon slushie and stole some pens from the Islamic Society stall. They always have good pens.

Bought a shart-load of text books I will probably never use, dreamt of learning Chinese, Japanese and French, and slowly realised that maybe it might be a little hard. But then I said WHO CARES and dreamt of punching James Vincent in his Ghana-ish face.

But it's not his fault. He's a nice guy.

I met up with my academic mentor (mentor-ess to be more precise; I love morphology) who was really nice and indirectly encouraged me to get counselling because I didn't have a HD average the uni wanted me to get and told me that "I too know how it's like being a foreign student".

Note to self - people think I'm a foreign student! Read: exotic. Work it! Yay. Now I'll get some pity points from her. Pity she's an accounting professor. I wish I got someone from the economiccs department or something.

And I won another hannari tofu plushie from the claw game woohoo!

Letter to the Pisser

Dear Mr Tomkat,

While I do realise your pissing all over my door-step at least once a week is the only way you know how to express your deep feelings of love for the 3 female cats of my household, I must inform you that not only does it make me want to wringe your neck from the disgusting smell that only a strong bleach-assisted scrubbing will remove, but also that all the 3 pretty female cats that prance around tempting you with their bodies have, unfortunately, had their female parts removed, and so they are as butch as they come and have utterly no interest in you or your strange masculine cat pissing rituals.

XOXO.

- Ahmad.

Life, Reading and The Wheel of Time

Gah.

I totally forgot I'm supposed to be watching me language or else MVMU will reject me on moral grounds. NO! I really want my cooking blog. With cool graphic design.

Anyway, my Dad came and is driving me nuts (UTTERLY NUTS), my Mum ran away to live with her friend (joy for divorce) and I've just started the first book in the Wheel of Time series! I'm quite excited I've heard so many good things about it. And it's gigantic! I can feed my obsession for a while.

I hope it's not "awesome" like how Terry Pratchett was supposed to be "awesome". God I tried reading Small Gods and DIED of boredom. I'm really hoping just that one book was shit (there I go again. Sorry. Although it really was necessary language) so I can experience some more well written joy. But that book was just so bad.

Anyway. One day I too shall be a published author and you can remember how you read me first here. FU!

DSi

So anyway, I impulse bought a DSlite (cos I had a Pokemon craving), then I returned it, cos I found out a new version is coming out soon, and then I went out and bought more useless crap don't need and probably soon won't want. A consumerist through and through.

Cutter

I just threw scraps of my skin into the bin.

Yes. My skin.

Cutting myself has never been so enjoyable.

Mainly because it doesn't hurt. Wart-off is actually useful for something. Well more like "good" for something. If you can call the strange sort of pleasure you get from peeling strips of dead skin off or cutting blisters off and watching strange sticky fluids burst out "good", that is.

Usually I'd have gone to the doctor to let him do all the dirty work. But my sleeping patterns are just so insane (my sleeping hours are other peoples working hours) that I'd never get a chance to actually go to the doctor.

Plus, it's kinda fun.

If I could somehow get rid of the pain when it blisters, if I ever got bored (like REALLY bored) I'd so go to the pharmacist, buy wart-off and apply it somewhere inconspicous and peel off the dead skin.

Eww.

Dusty the Cat

Internet raids are scary. Especially when /b/ is involved.

So I went on my computer yesterday and Reddit's frontpage linked to some creepy ass video of this nutjob kid bashing a cat. Ah it was so dreadful. The cat was just so scared and silent most of the video, just taking all the abuse. It was clear that it had taken that sort of treatment before.

Then the internets gets angry and really quickly the kids details get uncovered and his phone number, address, etc all get posted up on 4chan and he gets his own little dedicated website:

http://www.kenny-glenn.com/

Ah. Justice is scary.

Wart-off

Wart-off is the most disturbing medicine I have ever used. And is also the first time a cure has hurt more than the disease. You see I woke up one day and realised I had three little warts (planta warts) on 3 fingers and went to the doctor. The warts were tiny and didn't hurt at all, no discomfort whatsoever, you could hardly see them unless I told you where to look.

Anyway, the doctor prescribed wart-off. He told me to keep applying it. I thought it would just go away, but then my fingers started to sting and blister. I went to the doctor and he got all happy that it was blistering ("Ah! I like it when it blisters." WTF?) and started hacking away at the skin. It turns out wart-off is actually an acid solution designed to make your skin die/blister/fall-off.

Then he said repeat for another week.

Now I am on day 2 of said "another week" and the skin has already completely fallen off. It is SO freakin scary. I applied it for 2 days, the skin raised up, and then fell off. There's these weird white patches on my fingers now where the skin fell off.

It is so so so disturbing.

But I keep applying it.

Terima Kasih

Oh the joys of being lost in translation. Apparently the Malay phrase for "thank you" means "your mother is well worn out" in punjabi.

Terima kasih - Thank you.
Teri mah kasih - Your mum is a [censored].

Well technically not a [censored]. But if you call a person's mother "well worn out" I would only assume at least a few people would come to that conclusion...

Daring Bakers - Challenge NINE!

And the challenge for January is .... Tuilles!

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

[Do click on it.]

I call it the Fortuitous Fruit Bowl.

Bit of a lazy effort, I know. Tartlette did some brilliant work! I had something in mind like that but it is so hot and I am so lazy. So instead, in the Chinese New Year spirit, which happened to fall on Australia Day, I made fortune cookies from French tuille batter and took a picture using Japanese technology.

I love multiculturalism.

Food Review: Canele Chocolate Patisserie!!

Hello friends! Here as promised, is my latest food review! It concerns the Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie (which by the way, I cannot pronounce) a classy little boutique based out of Singapore.

Anyway, as you my notice, the quality of my food porn pictures has increased by quite a degree! This is because I now have a DSLR camera which is uber awesome. Yes. Awesome. I encourage you all to click on the pics to see them in HUGE AWESOME QUALITY.

But enough babbling, onto the food!

I'm not exactly sure why they called themselves a chocolate patisserie since it didn't really seem like it had much of a chocolate emphasis. The place was very classy though. Black. A lot of black decor. Nice bags.

This little beauty was called The Jupiter. Anyone want to suggest any reasons why? The most brilliant icing job with the ganache; it was just SO smooth. And the sides were so vertical. It was wondrous to look at....

...tasting it however, was a different story. I'm not sure who thought putting passionfruit puree in the middle of dark chocolate mousse was a good idea, but let me just say it is not. It made it feel like there was something sour and greasy in my mouth, like the mousse was off. Not a good taste.

But it was so bloody pretty, so have another look. Ah! Sigh.

This next cake was called the Matcha, for reasons I would completely not have know had I not joined the Daring Bakers. They seem to like incorporating matcha powder into a lot of things, those Daring Baker people. Green tea powder.

This one was much better than the Jupiter; it had a bit of a graininess to it though. I'm not sure what it was. It was meant to be a green tea mousse or something. The biscuit at the bottom was kind of nice as well.

Last of the cakes, and probably the least, is this weird triple layered cheesecake thing that just tasted weird. I'm probably doing it a big injustice because I ate it when it was a bit warm, so I'm not going to say anymore about it. Not as pretty as the others though.

And now for the fun part...

!! THE MACARONS !!

[Haha. Like as if you didn't know it was coming :P]

Caramel, Raspberry, Chocolate, Rose, Passionfruit & Pistachio.

So here's my macaron review:

1. Passionfruit: [6/10] It was not too chewy, no air bubbles at all, a reasonably well made macaron. Little bit grainy/dry but it was still very nice. The passionfruit flavour was very strong. Very nice flavour.

2. Pistachio: [7/10] Very moist. Texture was very very good. The pistachio flavour was very delicate and soft but it was clear. Good flavour.

3. Rose: [8.5/10] Much much better balance of the rose flavour than macarons I've had in Australia, which tend to be too overpowering. A delicious buttercream that reminded me so much of a Malay drink called Bandung (which is basically rose syrup + milk). So moist. Again, the rose flavour was the perfect amount.

4. 80% Chocolate: [7/10] A well made macaron with a good strong chocolate flavour.

5. Raspberry: [7.5/10] A moist macaron filled with raspberry jam, which was sweet and slightly tart, which was a good offset too all the great sweetness.

6. Caramel: [9/10] My favourite out of all of them! Such a delicious salted caramel taste! Ah the caramel flavour in the moist macaron was just heavenly. Just so good.

I hope I don't sound too pretentious. I'm just writing down what I truly felt about everything I tasted on that day. At the end of the day everyone has their own set of tastebuds. I hope you found the pictures enjoyable!

[Fed to my little sister. I know, I'm so nice right?]