Pickles n' Tickles by JJ

I'VE had an extraordinary childhood: have definitely experienced a way of life which may have even been unfamiliar to my peers then. A part of it includes food. From growing it, getting our supply from growers in the neighbourhood and to cooking, there was plenty of good food around. A common crop in the house garden was the tapioca or cassava. We had planted like 50 of those all year round, back to back. Till now, I still couldn't figure why we did that because after harvesting what's needed for us, some neighbours and friends, we still had extras. My dad and grandma (maternal) were crazy about this root. Their sentiment, I think, wasn't something that stemmed from its lovely flavours. Rather, it was more deep-rooted than that. Both dad and grandma had lived through the dreadful Japanese occupation era in Malaya (Dec 1941 to Aug 1945) during which time, food supply was scarce. Staple rice was out of the question. People's lives depended mainly on tapioca because i...

FLIPPING through some food sites, I came across an interesting recipe for an alcoholic beverage. The writer calls it the Milk of Amnesia. At first, I thought I had read it wrong but there it was again. Milk of Amnesia. The article soon broke into a series of pictures of how it's done. Fresh milk is used with sugar, vodka, oranges and lemon. The combination is left to ferment for 10 days after which it's filtered and ready to go. So, the pictures went from a milky, gross concoction of floating citrus to an end product of something that represented a clear, golden liquid much like a fine icewine. Elegant and sophisticated. I was curious and drawn to it.  Lab coat on and ready to experiment. That night, I cut some oranges and a lemon, threw them into a jar and dumped in sugar, milk and when it came to the vodka, I realised I didn't have any. I went through my little closet bar a few times but all I had were bottles of various vile-flavoured vodka, not the ordinary ...

I love a good frozen yoghurt especially one that's blended with fresh fruits like those served at Yogen Fruz . A scoop of your favourite fruit is crushed and blended with plain yoghurt. For me, it has to be the blueberry or cherry mix. Topped with just a bit of runny chocolate sauce, a small tub of the FroYo is bliss. Fruity, tangy and sweet all at the same time! Well, I can't be running to the store every time I crave for one of those. So I compared a few recipes, tweaked and made something I like even better using blueberries. Love this recipe for its creamy fruitiness. The lemon just adds more zing to it and the colour of the final product is simply gorgeous.  Blueberry Frozen Yoghurt  You will need ... 450g low fat vanilla yoghurt ( or you can use plain yoghurt with a teaspoon of vanilla extract) 170g fresh or frozen (thawed) blueberries  2 -3 tbsp honey or maple syrup ( I prefer honey) Zest of a lemon and juice of half (or more if you like) ...

SO the Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies were baked with much pleasure. A fool proof recipe for anyone to follow really. I didn't sieve the flour and used a different variant of sugar and even reduced the call for chocolate morsels. Yet it did not compromise the yum factor one bit ( although I did switch the dark chocolate to full milk chocolate chips! ) Seriously, there is only so much chocolate you could stuff into these cookies before it actually becomes chocolate itself. These cookies have more solid chocolate than you could imagine and baking them was a challenge as I couldn't tell if they were browned and baked enough! Therefore it's important to watch over while baking so as not to burn them. Due to its richness, one probably can't consume more than a cookie at one time but with greed and determination, nothing is impossible of course. I like eating them cold out of the fridge with a glass of warm milk. Bliss!  Here you go. Click here for the recipe...

NOTHING profound here but just a note to say that I know it's been a loooong time since the last post and I'm sorry for not following up or leaving comments. It seems like I'm in the middle of a rather saucy semester of my life! When I last wrote on here, I didn't think that there would be a pause like this but some matters came up, and they needed my full attention, and they're still going to need much attention for some time. However, I've said to myself that I'll try to keep things happening on here as much as I can. On another note, the weather has perked up and I've totally weaned off Cookie Crisps. My day begins with fresh juices and more fresh juices whenever I feel like it although washing the juicer can be a real pain in the arse. How I wish the machine could magically clean itself after each use! Too bad for me, I rather drink than eat most fruits, unless they're really sweet cherries or berries of sorts.  My favourite combination...

I have a habit of buying cookbooks. Not the sort that have well-modelled pictures above straight-forward recipes but more like those with rambling stories, recipes and then well-modelled photos on glossy pages. Going through these books is like reading fairy tales. They always have a happy ending but kind of somehow leave you high and dry after that, unless of course, you decide to preheat that dormant oven and follow a recipe confidently. If it turns out well, it's good, otherwise you'd have the satisfaction of having tried it at the very least. Sometimes, these cookbooks even read like chick-lits. ( My all-time favourite chick lit, although some may argue that it's just really a bloke-lit, is Date Expectations, written by a man, Paul Reizin.)  By now I own quite a few of em, cookbooks, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it had initially kicked off with Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess! Mich and I used to look through this book (and other L...

HOLIDAY is over and I'm back into this time and space, trying to fit in. It's almost 3am now and I can't sleep. Current time in Doha, Qatar is about 10pm, and usually around this hour, all throughout last week, I was dining in some place nice with a bunch of fun-loving friends. I must say the city has some truly  impressive restaurants. A real test to my child-bearing hips, tease to my tastebuds. I'm still thinking of that ever-so-yummy Wagyu Steak from La Cigale (hotel) and at this quiet hour, it's even more tempting because I'm really hungry!  A survey in the kitchen turned up a high pile of chocolates, a box of Taiwainese pineapple shortbreads, a container of assorted nuts (unsalted) and dried fruits, a variety of instant noodles, some cookies and cheese, and my dad's pickles. Funny thing is I don't really eat these things (except for the nuts/ fruits, cheese and pickles) but they still somehow end up in my shelves. What I really would like right ...

"I swear to god that guy who just passed by us thinks we are having sex tonight. Did you see the way he looked at us?," said Mich to me.  Incidently, I was touching her hair somewhere at this point.  Mich and I  were having dinner at the Mezze Bistro yesterday during one of world's most commercially celebrated occasion when flowers are sold at ridiculously exorbitant prices and restaurant's try to squeeze in as many oysters into their Valentine's Day menu in the name of love.  Lucky for us, Mich and I are not fans of oysters. The fresh ones particularly remind me of a vagina - wet, raw and slimy. I guess I'm not cut out for that as I'm really just a Jarrod and Rawlins kinda girl at heart. Mich too but that never stopped the attention we get whenever we're out together. Mich and I at the restaurant  Driving was crazy last evening especially at hot spots like Bangsar, Damansara Heights and Medan Damansara where we were headed to. Bumper to bum...

I've always loved honey but I'm kind of obsessed with it these days. The 'nectar of gods' as it says on a bottle of Malaysia's Wild Honey from the deep jungles of Kuantan, Pahang was recently given to me by the man who markets it. It's been just weeks, but the content is already measuring very low in the ML scale. I should go get a new one soon. The thing about wild honey is that the flavour varies from season to season, depending on what plant is flowering during a season. So if you like the flavour of a particular season, you better grab a few bottles of it while stock lasts. Honey harvested during a rainy season may not hold strong in the flavour department too. Well, that was what the honey man told me. My current obsession with Simple Sugar is probably also psychological but I find going to bed after a glass of warm honey gets me to sleep like a baby. I also look forward to drinking it in...

This is a continuation from My Food Biography (Part 1) . 6) Ipoh Curry Mee Curry Mee One of the foods I sorely missed during my Uni days in Penang was the Ipoh Curry Mee . Penang was all good. I was away from home, and only my rules applied for everything in my life, food including. Yet I missed everything from Ipoh, especially the food (despite Penang always being referred to as the country's food haven :D. No offence, but I diagree). I grew up in a house, which was located opposite a Chinese noodle stall. So, on the mornings when we didn't get our Chee Cheong Fun, my brother and I crossed over to get our Curry Mee, and sometimes Dry Curry Mee. As a family, we also often went out for a good bowl of Curry noodles on Saturday nights at the hawker stalls in First Garden. The prawn (sometimes crab) base soup, with a light consistency was heavy in flavour. I missed that simplicity and familiarity when I was in Penang. When I am home these days,...

THANKS to Hsian for a link that inspired me on this two-parter post. Food and life are  inseparable, and for someone such as myself, who lives to eat, writing a chronology of my life using food as reference sounds delectable. From the time I'd discovered the joys of eating, I'd never compromised a good gastronomic experience for anything. Not for my lactose intolerance, or a host of other allergies that was born with me. Here's my Food Biography in 10 dishes (first 5). 1) Chee Cheong Fun I can eat this all day long, everyday No milk and cereal for me for breakfast. As children, my brother and I woke up to packs of Ipoh Chee Cheong Fun that my dad bought at the morning market. It was always a delight to slurp on strings of flat rice noodles, all covered in thick mushroom sauce, mixed with sweet chilli sauce to wake up the tastebuds in the mornings. Garnished with pickled green chillies, sesame and some dr...

My i-Phone camera doesn't do justice to the real deal THAT photo on the left does not do justice to the product. During one of our strolls in Desa Sri Hartamas recently, Michele and I discovered this lovely frozen yoghurt place on Jalan 25/70A. It's called the Froyo Deli . For those who are used to choosing and twisting their own yoghurt at the Tutti Fruitti  outlets,  the menu at Froyo can be quite disappointing because you won't be spoilt for choices.  It's either Plain or Strawberry or combine for a Twist. Twist is good. You can try both flavours and later decide on your favourite in the next visit. I've been there a couple of times by now, and still stick with Twist because both flavours are perfect. From its consistency to flavour, it's just really that good - packed with natural yoghurt taste, not just ice and artficial flavourings.   A cheery interior I love the Strawberry flavour b...