baby rambutan

our niece has just turned sweet sixteen, and her present is a trip to London with her parents. lucky girl! we just came home from her birthday dinner, and my farewell words to her after a lovely evening, which ended with a piano performance, were: “send us a postcard okay?” she was a little bit taken aback. “huh?” “you know, from London?” and then her face lit up, and she said, “oh yeah! yes i will!”
it must be because the sending and receiving of snail mail, be they letters or postcards, is not really very much a part of this current crop of youngsters’ lives. to me, getting a postcard from a friend traveling abroad gives me such a thrill, seeing the photograph and the stamp and appreciating the effort of sending it to me. priceless!
lately a lot of the postcards i get are from the dentist and the eye doctor reminding me of my need to make the dreadful appointments. it is a very effective way to get my attention though. more likely than not, i will call.
the visual and immediate appeal of postcards is undeniable, and there is an easy way to have them personalized for multiple purposes: invitations, announcements, business uses. there are many designs to choose from; i kind of like this cute one…

and then there’s the option of uploading your own photograph and adding your own logos or icons to put your very own personal touch.
i’ve sent and received photographs in the mail before, just putting a stamp on the back and delineating clearly the field for the address is quite easy. but now with the option of picking a particularly favorite photograph and ordering several copies for distribution to friends and families–that would bring back the romance of postcards that i’m quite fond of.

a hop on to the highway, to the yellow and blue furniture store and Costco with my sweet neighbor spiCes yielded a fun field trip and a big bag of juicy sweet Tarocco oranges from Sicily. what a revelation… they were juicy sweet plump fruits bursting with flavor, i’ve gobbled up four in one sitting.
i sectioned them out and went around the house popping them into the mouths of my preoccupied, unsuspecting babes. delicious!

so what did i do Friday? i had planned on surprising the kids with an outing somewhere, on their one rare day off from school. but they surprised me instead–they had made plans to hang out with their friends.
*sigh*
chauffeur mommy reporting for duty as always.
i decided just to make flan. i’d been searching futilely for the lime and cardamom mousse recipe i’d heard so much about from the chef who likes to say the f word too much. no luck there, but i chanced upon an orange flan recipe that i just felt compelled to try.

orange cardamom flan adapted from Aunty Susan‘s orange and cinnamon recipe.

i substituted the following:
i added a tsp. of ground cardamom , and 1 tsp. orange extract instead of orange liqueur to the flan mixture; 3 green cardamom pods instead of cinnamon stick to the caramel.
tip for success: use an immersion or stick blender to make the flan as smooth and velvety as possible.
even the orange marmalade required in the recipe disappeared into the mixture. (more…)

i know for a fact that this friend of mine doesn’t read this blog. but said friend sent me this lovely box of Godiva milk chocolate assortment…
how’d you know dearie? that chocolate cures what ails my hormonal self lately?

i think they’re too pricey, i can get them piece meal at bargain prices in my favorite salvage store. but i do concede, they are right up there in the fancy-chocolate- heaven-tier.
this is one of those things you have to bite and then close your eyes as you let the chocolate melt and spread out over your tongue to let the chocolate go to your head.
i haven’t had these since i worked in Manhattan, decades ago, when the marketing department bigwigs at the Book Club where i used to work, would pass around goodies, or ask me to buy them goodies for a meeting, a rah-rah-rah-sis-boom-bah get together…they served Dom Perignon champagne at my goodbye party.
i think they were happy to see me go?

books i’m reading, concurrently: (i know, it’s not an efficient way to finish any book at all, but when you’ve got to adapt to a short attention span out of sheer necessity, it gets done somehow.)

watch out for Spiced, by Dalia Jurgensen, coming out this month from G.P.Putnam’s Sons, of the Penguin Group. a thoroughly spicy take on behind-the-scenes real cooking. i think for someone like me aghast at the steady decline of the cooking shows on foodtv, will love the grit and raw energy of Ms. Jurgensen’s account of her on-the-job training on her way to becoming executive pastry chef.

and from the perspective of a culinary school star pupil is Under the Table, by Katherine Darling, from Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. i do so love reading books with embedded recipes, and i’ve already tried her perfect roast chicken–a technique new to me, which involved stuffing the chicken with celery, onions and carrots, then browning the skin, then baking. perfect indeed, with moist juicy flesh and crispy skin.

i say more power to the real women chefs, for breaking into the testosterone-soaked bastion of the restaurant kitchen.

The weekend’s over, and yes, another Monday morning has sneaked up on me, and this particular one is what I’d call a “full coffee pot” kind of day, wherein I’m pretty sure I’ll need all of it to make it through the day.
And the weekend was a bit of a washout, literally, because I spent it washing down the walls and ceilings of our upstairs bath.
Husband meanwhile took the kids out, and spent Sunday evening writing out checks for past due bills…not much fun either. All that online banking stuff? We don’t go there, if we can possibly avoid paying bills online we will. Husband’s sister used to pay all her bills online and lost a huge chunk of their checking account to an online thief. It may have been just that one fluke, but that was enough for us to stick to paying bills with checks.
Can’t get away from it, we do need them, such us for doctor’s visits, fundraisers at school, the dreaded heating oil truck delivery. Among many many other things! Husband has been ordering them from his bank, where they are *almost* free, but I think I’m going to convince him to check these out…
Personalized, colorful checks, with the possibility of getting free checks!, and a couple of cute kitties on the face. It just might make it a little bit less painful to write out the triple digits to the water department, the electric company, the dastardly cable company. This online printing service makes it easy to personalize and customize checks for individual accounts as well as for business, without the need for ordering large amounts, with strict and secure ordering process to keep your account information tightly under wraps.
So one could conceivably have different designs to fit one’s changing moods, with the option of printing it out with a logo or with different texts and colors.

no occasion, this is another one of those just because cakes.
but i did need to prove something to myself. the last two layer cakes i made had been miserable disasters–edible but i couldn’t bear to serve them at all.
i thought i’d lost the baking voodoo, or mojo, as husband called it.
in need of some cheering up i thought, “hmm if only i had one bite of good chocolate cake, good iced chocolate cake, that might cheer me up.”
i was almost tempted to buy one! the craving was so urgent.

i loved this one, again from Dorie Greenspan. when i read the recipe i was intrigued by the addition of melted bittersweet chocolate to the cocoa-buttermilk batter. that can only be a stroke of genius!

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (i used Dutch-processed)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

2 sticks (8 ozs.) unsalted butter at room temperature
1& 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk, well shaken
4 ozs. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

chocolate whipped cream * (needs 24 hours of chilling before use; minimum 4 hours)

center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350F. Butter two 9 X 2 inch. round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment or wax paper. put the pants on a baking sheet.

whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. add the sugar and beat for about two minutes, until it is thoroughly blended into the butter. add the eggs one at a time, then the yolks one by one, beating for one minute after each addition and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. beat in the vanilla. reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk; add the dry ingredients in 3 portions and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients); mix only until each new batch is blended into the batter. scrape down the bowl, and if you want, add the melted chocolate, folding it in with a rubber spatula. divide the batter between the cake pans.

bake for 26 to 30 minutes, or until the cakes feel springy to the touch and start to pull away from the sides of the pans.transfer the cakes to racks, and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. invert and cool to room temperature right side up. once the layers are cooled, they can be wrapped airtight and left at room temperature overnight or kept frozen for up to 2 months.

*chocolate whipped cream

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups heavy cream
2 to 3 tbsps. sugar, to taste

put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl large enough for whipping the cream.stir the cream and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. remove the pan from the heat and pour the cream over the chocolate. with a whisk beat the chocolate and cream together vigorously-you want to make sure you’ve got a smooth mixture. refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or better yet, 24 hours; cover the cream once it is cool.
if you’ve refrigerated the cream for only 4 hours you might want to beat it in an ice-water bat–set the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and water. with a whisk, beat the cream until it is almost
thick; this will happen quickly–pay attention. you want the cream to be just firm enough to spread but not so firm that it loses its lightness and creaminess. the cream is ready to use as soon as it is whipped.

tunay nga bang isang taon na ang nakalipas?
malaking panghihiyang ang hindi ko kadalasang pagdalo sa lingguhang kasayahang ito. pero ngayong may isang taon nang nakalipas ay sisikapin kong mas madalas ang pagsali.

it’s one year old!
incredibly, another marker to remind me that time is flying faster than i’ve ever felt it to fly: the first anniversary of the premiere weekly photomeme, and this time it is being hosted by a professional photographer.
it sure feels like a weekly party, one that i’ve not been able to attend as often as i’d like.
nahirapan akong mamili ng iisa lamang. napagpasiyahan kong isali lamang ang mga galing sa lumang camera, yung hindi digital kaya mahirap i-retoke.
it was hard to pick just one. i chose a couplefew from my very old photo albums, from a non-digital camera.

ang mga billet na may mga bata, ang may mga pinakamatatamis na ngiti.
a glimmer of hope, from the refugee camp where i used to work. my favorite pastime there was visiting our students at their billets. it was hot, living conditions were miserable, but the presence of little children always lightened the mood of living in what seemed like unbearable circumstances, not just in the physical, but in the psychological: months and months of waiting, sometimes with no certainty of what the future held.

ang kagandahan ng kanyang mukha, ang kalinawan ng kanyang mga mata. nakilala na kaya niya ang Katotohanan?
a nun at the Buddhist Temple, PRPC, Morong, Bataan.

parang na-tiyempuhan ko ang isang saglit na namagitan sa mag-ama, na kanilang kanila lamang.
taken on a Sunday picnic by the Charles River, many years ago, with my old Nikon EM. it sort of feels like a “paparazzi” kind of shot; almost like i’m eavesdropping on a private conversation. i love the expression on my son’s face: is he going to kiss dadda, or is he going to pinch dadda’s nose?

many thanks to our host, mr. L.I., for hosting this week’s event. now i get to check out the Gallery!