ramen and cake

A four-month long almost-round-the-world holiday was never gonna be easy on the budget. But then, what holidays are? On our first week back, my mum had to buy our groceries and parents had to lend us money. Suddenly, we were first year uni kids again! Here's two things we made (one each) to lift our spirits; ramen and Nutella cake.

promises in an jar of ube jam

The adoration of dessert foods made up of sweetened mashed root vegetables or legumes, or jelly-like substances swimming in liquid, I always think of as a uniquely Asian thing. Red bean buns. Bubble tea. Grass jelly. Buchi (sesame seed) balls. Mooncakes. A couple of days ago, my mother left me a jar each of nata de coco, white beans, macapuno, and ube jam. The jars, all lined up in a row, are like a promise that I can eat my way back to my childhood. Or at least, assemble a damn good halo halo stand.

incredibly specific kitchen gadgetry

My brother got us a SodaStream for Christmas. That's totally out of left field. Outside of, maybe Sweden, I know of only one person who has ever woken up and wished for a SodaStream machine. And that guy was kinda only joking. According to Wikipedia, 20 percent of Swedish households own one of these things. And no kidding. Look at the happy family on this ad insert! Target audience, much?

the amphitheatre neighbourhood

I'm lucky to be able to see my home through fresh eyes; I still have my tourist glasses on. The harsh light; too full of contrasts, making everything look too dark, then too white. There's a hodge podge of buildings along the waterfront, all angular, all different styles, different materials, nothing much to unify the skyline. The space. The big gaps between people on the street. The casual dress, as if everyone's just thrown anything on to buy milk from a corner store. Here, even our bars have outdoor sports, volleyball, tetherball, ping pong. People can't sit still. And the wind. My god, the wind. A friend of ours called it "limiting". Sometimes, I want to scream into it. It's a love/hate thing, this being home. 

food for cottingley fairies: lemon almond cake with rosewater creme fraiche icing

The Cottingley Fairies would eat this cake. After a mad day flitting around some rhododendron bushes, they'd alight on top of the glossy creme fraiche icing and just dig in. It's a recipe from The Caker by Jordan Rondel which I reviewed here. 

I've baked this cake twice so far and it's consistently easy to make, easy to make look fancy, and easy to eat. There's some pretty flash ingredients involved, so make sure it's pay day or leave for a special occasion. It's dense, buttery, and moist. If you don't like the sound of rosewater flavoured icing, I think you should try this anyway. The flavours sounds intense but the end result is actually quite subtle. 

peanut butter and jelly cake

This afternoon, my mother was over hassling our dog, chasing him around, hand-feeding him luncheon, and carrying him around. I didn't want to interrupt their epic love story so I kept out of the way by baking a peanut butter and jelly cake. The recipe is from The Caker. I did promise to let you know what the actual cakes tasted like once I got around to making the recipes instead of just gormlessly flipping the pages and admiring the pictures and publishing flippant reviews of it here.

The recipe calls for only 50 grams of butter, but the peanut butter icing called for 480 grams of icing sugar. Guys, a normal bag of icing sugar is 500g. That's nearly an entire bag of icing sugar. Holy heck! Though dubious, I gave The Caker the benefit of the doubt and did as I was told. Which now means I have a takeaway container full of leftover peanut butter icing in the fridge.

Ahm. Yes. "Takeaway container" is a totally legit unit of measurement.

yemenese pancakes

Finc is our local. Sometimes, the food takes a while to come. So, don't go if you're impatient or in a hurry. If you do stick around, you'll get a chance to appreciate this kinda strange mix of Western, Asian, Moroccan, and Turkish flavours they've got going on. Also, they have powdered DOUGHNUTS/DONUTS at the counter. And that's so okay with me.

We were there for brunch and these Yemenese pancakes just wouldn't quit. They also couldn't decide whether they were crumpets or crepes or hotcakes. But I'm not mad at it because they were delicious. Turns out, you need yeast and patience to make these puppies. So they're more dough than cake. The pancakes were paired with rhubarb, pears, this spicy, pinky ginger syrup and creme fraiche.

Yemenese pancakes with rhubarb, pears, ginger syrup, and creme fraiche: Angle 1

Yemenese pancakes with rhubarb, pears, ginger syrup, and creme fraiche: Angle 2

the caker

I bought The Caker from Unity Books yesterday.

That's Jordan Rondel (aka the Caker) very delicately eating a very tiny cake.

banoffee pie wonder

This is only the second pie I've ever made in my life. The first was a pumpkin pie and even though I burned the edges, the next week and a half chewing through warmed slices of of that pie with vanilla ice cream was pure autumnal bliss.

I had left over ready-rolled sweet shortcut pastry so I figured the next classic pie to take on was the mighty banoffee. Rolling out the pastry was nerve-wracking but poking and prodding it to take the shape of my pie dish then pressing the tines of a fork to the edges was fun and made me feel like Nigella Lawson or, even better, Keri Russell from Waitress.

This is the kind of tin that you should stash in your emergency kit.

Bought my pie dish for $6 at New World. Oh and ripe bananas = tons of banoffee flavour.

I burnt the edges again. But that might have been because I was finishing off a book and wasn't paying attention. Then when I was mixing the butter, golden syrup, condensed milk, and brown sugar together, I thought about diabetes and my friend who swears that whenever she binges on sugary things, she drinks 2 litres of water to compensate and help her pancreas react. Then I called my husband over who wanted to be told the minute the condensed milk tin was opened but he didn't come and when he finally did, I'd thrown the tin out, and he made a sad face then tried to eat the tin from the rubbish bin and I had to stop him. True story.

your momma's jeans

Hey, so my friend and I brunched at Loretta's. I had green eggs and bacon, a rhubarb and rose soda, chocolate lava cookies, and a flat white (stahhpp!). She had some vegan smoothie thing and some sandwich bite thing with broccoli, feta, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds, and a banana cake with blueberry cream cheese icing. My friend was warned that the sandwich bite was small which I liked because there's nothing more annoying than going to a restaurant, really hungry, and accidentally landing yourself with the dreaded big plate + small stacked food in the centre combo. That -ish makes me hangry.  

Loretta's was pretty basic. Don't get me wrong - it was delish. It carried on Floridita's signature of classic foods done with quality ingredients presented in a no-fuss way. The interior was also right on-trend if you think Scandi-modern, handmade ceramics, and artfully stacked gourds on a windowsill is on-trend. Which I do. I love that stuff. 

But the trouble is my friend and I like to think we're bosses. And basic doesn't usually mix well with bosses. You know what I'm saying? Probably not. Don't worry. Read this. Anyway, we managed to get around this issue by eating double what people were eating, cackling really loudly in the corner and talking about really nasty, yuck stuff that people shouldn't normally talk about when they're eating. If you like the sound of that, you should come join us for brunch.

where everyone knows your name

A couple of years ago, this restaurant opened up in the city and I took my family there for my brother's birthday. Now, my mother's there almost every week and when she walks in, the manager gives her vouchers and free plates of chorizo. Imagine that! Imagine spending so much money at a place that when you walk in, they give you money! Crazy times.

I recommend Ombra deeply and sincerely. I used to think tapas was a joke 'cause I thought it was a secret society intent on forcing me to eat small portions infrequently. I take it all back. Go for dinner. Go for lunch. Order the polenta chips and the serving of meatballs and leave room for the chocolate salame.

But don't go for breakfast because Wellington is one of the brunch capitals of the world (fact) and if you wanted to eat a continental breakfast, you'd stay at home or GO TO EUROPE where no one knows how to do brunch. Okay?

Campari. Glorious campari. And Edison bulbs everywhere.

My mother asked the manager for ten of these empty bottles for her flowers. They got it for her. 'Cause they're great.

This hot chocolate was more bitter and rich than sweet and rich. I know which one I'd prefer. In a hot chocolate and in a person!

My brother just had this chocolate croissant 'cause an hour later he was having all-you-can-eat firecracker chicken

Full disclosure - I live a blink away from two NZ designer stores. One of them is literally my downstairs neighbour. Also, I have a classic champagne-taste-on-a-Spumante-budget. Sound familiar?

So sometimes, I find myself in these stores, on the way home from work or from walking the dog, and suddenly, I'm in the changing room on my banking app transferring money from my runaway fund into my checking and thinking This is an illness. It's really not. Unless poor self-discipline and money management are illnesses.

A bracelet that tells you to run when you know you can't. Depressing much?

I like to wear the bracelet to remind myself that I'm about to turn thirty and therefore RUN is exactly what I want to do but also the very thing I can't do. Physically due to fitness but also metaphorically as in I want to RUN from work and responsibilities and paying a mortgage and walking my dog every day and unloading the dishes BUT guys, I can't. 'Cause I'm allegedly an adult. So the bracelet helps with this quandary. You can get one too from Karen Walker.

The dress? I just like the dress 'cause I like Zoey Deschanel and I like Orla Kiely and it reminds me of both and it's pretty. Damn you, Kate Sylvester!

My dog has no idea what's coming to get him.