Its Beginning to look a lot like Christmas - The Christmas window at PID WeFo

Ok ... its beginning to look a lot like Christmas now that the shops are festooned with aisles of twinkly baubles, sparkly confectionary, rainbow coloured streamers and led blinkers for days! Oh and the odd dose of lunacy like this giant Lindt ball!

Here at the Temasek household things remain decidedly grim, but spirits must be kept up even as they're kept down to numb the despair.

So showered and changed, I forced myself out down the road to view Jos Van Hulsen's handiwork in the window of Post Industrial Design on Barkly Street, WeFo.

And I'm so glad I did as it was a very welcome distraction! There is something about a Christmas window that brings out the childish curiosity and wonder in all of us. When I was growing up, every other year or so, Dad would put up a Nativity Scene with a Cotton wool wrapped balsa wood frame instead of a Christmas tree. I would sit there and contemplate each figurine animated by the glow of the blinking lights. I'd invent Christmas stories in my head about hidden worlds round fairy lit corners; conjuring firelit rooms peopled by shiny faced toys and festooned with brightly wrapped presents - each an evenly cornered box with ribbons and bows. I don't think I have ever been that happy since.

Over the years Christmas has lost much of its magic and charm. The passing of time has an uncanny ability of wrenching the joy and wonder out of childhood experiences once held so dear. But as with most things (and this is one of the hardest lessons to learn as an adult) in life, you are unaffectedly the only one who can change this. No one is going to do it for you.

So why not try mixing things up a little this Christmas. Focus less on the gift giving and more on the opportunities to celebrate with friends and family. Don't waste money on decking the outside of the house in what will only end up as an exercise in replicating a John Waters pisstake. Spend it on oodles of yummy champagne instead. Don't fuss too much about dustbusting every single nook and cranny of your dwelling, but throw the doors open, and let your loved ones in.

And if you are in the hood, gather kids and pets alike or maybe partner and friends, or even just your very own self and take an evening stroll down Barkly Street to PID and spend a few minutes of wonder in front of Jos and Mary's Christmas window. I hear its even more magical at night when the rest of the shop is closed.

A Volante Christmas!!

Ok ... hello my dear blog readers, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and to thank you for your attention and your thoughtful comments.

We're about to descend into a maelstrom of Yuletide insanity, so we celebrated early with a Christmas present to ourselves.

We happen to wander down String Bean Alley at the Victoria Markets when we came across the Meykers stand housing products by Simon Cunningham (Volant Designs) and Gregory Burton (Visual Fields).

We were immediately taken by Simon's light fittings made with pressed plywood and coloured perspex. If you've been in The League of Honest Coffee in the city you would have noticed his Coffee inspired wall art.

We actually had our hearts set on a particular design which was no longer available when we returned for our final purchase. So we ended up with this:

We love the cream and blue colours against the wood, and its conical shape. This is where its going to go:

Now all we need is to organise an electrician to fix the botched job that currently exists in the ceiling. Cannot wait.

So once again ... Happy Christmas one and all.

Christmas Eve dinner - Braised Duck

Ok ... having baulked at the price of the smallest goose to be had (about 100 bucks), we decided on the next best alternative, a plump $17 whole duck from Little Saigon.

I hooked out a Teochew Braised Duck recipe online (great blog btw) which involved a slow braise with fairly straightforward ingredients. Boy did the final product pack a punch!

The recipe also includes instructions for an accompanying chilli sauce. I'm not really a fan of sour, particularly of the citrus variety, but it went extremely well with the richness of the duck.

I cooked mine for about 3 hours, although I think I may lessen the cooking time in future. I like a bit of give where my poultry is concerned (I think its the Asian in me). You could get away with about an hour and a half. But its worth the effort spooning the sauce over the parts of the duck not immersed in the cooking liquid. And definitely make sure you turn the bird over once.

If ever you have friends who bemoan the fact that they can't cook but are eager to wow some friends/family, tell them to try this. Its relatively simple but the results are complex in flavour and texture.

We served ours with some chicken rice and some pickled vegetables. The pickle was a quick soak in rice vinegar salt and sugar. The chicken rice was cooked in the rice cooker with a couple of teaspoons of bottled chicken rice sauce - I recommend Uncle Sun Hainan Chicken rice mix.

This is how you do Christmas dinner folks! Oh and thanks to a rather backhanded kris kringle (long story), we enjoyed a bottle of Andrew Glaetzer's Annaperenna, which is super hard to get and is probably worth more than $50 a pop. But oh so yummy!

The Post Christmas Deluge begins

Ok ... so now that the festive season is over, its time to knuckle down and squeeze in some reportage in between the unbuttoned trousers, gastric fevers, liver and lung perforations. Frankly speaking I'm over all this christmas goodwill and cheer, and would like nothing better than to get into my trakkie shorts and curl up on the couch with a bowl of clear chicken broth ... but there's NYE to come!!! So lets push on.

Firstly, wasn't the Christmas Day Hail amazing!! If those nuggets weren't so worryingly big, we could have pretended it was snow.

Still it was a lovely Christmas Day over at D's. Its always good to catch up with friends you only see about once a year.

M trumped with his curry puffs and plum puds.

He also added Sugee Tea Cakes to his party repertoire.

And over at J & CC's on Boxing Day, my lemongrass curry was apparently the "star" and "very excellent"! But my culinary nemesis DV surprised everyone with a sweet, his amazing trifle!

To top it all off, M gave me an automatic Coffee machine and he scored a Kenwood Patissier Mixer (in white though, the saga of a red one and my tanty at Good Guy's perhaps should be for another post).

Before we leave Christmas 2011 well and truly in the past, I will tell you about our amazing Christmas Eve repast ... thats coming up soon.

Merry Christmas Y'all

Ok ... I have been remiss and left it to the very last minute to wish you and yours a happy happy Christmas. I'm basting (well not right at this moment of course) a duck in my "dutch" oven ready for tonight's Christmas Eve repast. M is busy scraping out Curry Puffs from the oven tray in preparation for Christmas and Boxing day festivities ... and for these few moments, all seems right with the world.

See you in the New Year!! 2012 is going to be genius!! I know it!!

Its beginning to look alot like Christmas - 2011 Pt 2

Ok ... I was a victim of a Tinsel Attack!! Bless!

Boxing Day Bulleen

Ok ... we're at the end of the festive season, "greeting cards have all been sent, the christmas rush is through"!

So nursing slightly bruised livers and the odd brain spasm, we made our way down the chandler to our good friends J & CC in Bulleen for boxing day celebrations.

Knowing that a hot oven would have to be manned at some point, I started the day gently, making sure my first glass was emptied at a glacial pace until after kitchen duties were over and done with.

M brought his curry puffs and mini plum puds, and I made a Filipino signature dish called Chicken Adobo. It always a risk to make something that you have never made before for a party where expectations are high, especially when said party also includes your culinary nemesis who churns out restaurant quality dishes with effortless ease. I am speaking of our good friend DV.

 Final stage - adding coconut to the sauce

Chicken Adobo has relatively few ingredients, but the cooking process involves a number of different stages. It takes about 2hours to prepare and is well worth the effort. Although cooking with vinegar makes me nervous. I don't really like the stuff and I'm never sure if I have used too much or too little. The recipe I worked off called for about 3 cups of vinegar for 3kilos worth of chicken. So I was back on the "no one's going to touch it" train and most probably driving M quietly insane. I say quietly as he is now well and trully used to it and pretty much just rolls his eyes and ignores me.

 A-table

DV trumped everyone again with his home made Loh Bak which was absolutely out of this world. There's nothing like crispy bean curd skin, and the filling had just the right amount of crunch from the chestnuts.

 Loh Bak - ready for the fry pan

Served sliced with chilli sauce and cucumbers

He also contributed home style mee siam which in our part of the world is quintessential party food. DV's does not come with a sauce but he made his cheat's sambal belachan to go with it. You can easily do this at home by buying a commercial brand (I recommend Seah's) of Sambal Belachan and frying a portion of this with onions and sugar. I don't really have to tell you how yummy the whole thing was, do I.

 Mee Siam - homestyle dry version

There were other delights to sample at the table including a slab of turkish dellight covered in Rose petals which was divine and an apple slice with cinnamon made with a gluten free flour mix.

Unfortunately given our schizophrenic summer, we were unable to take advantage of the swimming pool, but whiled away the hours with wine and conversation.

 
As the party gradually diminished in numbers, the remaining dregs contemplated a barbeque and before long the chops and snags were out, and I was frying rice in a wok.

We sat down to more food and wine before an impromptu floorshow from CC which kept us entertained until it was time to go. Another sterling effort guys. Now if we can only ...

 And yes that is real unfortunately - picked up from a bin somewhere in Paris - outrageous!

Christmas Day at D's

Ok ... all I have to say about Christmas Day at D's is that we are forming a band and calling it the Pinoy Trannies!

Off to the next one ...

Christmas Eve 2010 at the H/N black hole

Ok ... I do believe that the H/N's pulled out all the stops this year and then some. As always, Captain M was at the helm of this culinary behemoth, skillfully manning his mis-en-place, while a crowd of deck hands scraped, washed, and cut their way towards our Christmas Eve repast.

Eschewing green ivy the H/N's headed straight to the Holly Berry for their decorative inspiration. Combined with the sunlight of a perfect summer's evening, the scene that met us as we walked in was one indeed of "good tidings and good cheer".

We were charged with providing an entree, and as it was to be a French theme, M prepared some chicken and mushroom voul-a-vent. But before this was served, we had a throwback from the past: Prawn Cocktails!

Preparing the prawn cocktails

A forest of Prawn Cocktails

MN actually made mayo from scratch which took the final thousand island sauce to a whole different level.

J bought some fresh plump oysters for those partial to that sort of thing at the table. And by the tone of that last sentence, you can correctly surmise that I am not. But they did look yummy.

K's mum, the lovely G, put together something called Smoked Salmon Crispy Wontons (I hope I got this right!) and they were very much worth seconds.

 G putting the finishing touches on her take on wontons

 The final product

Then it was time for M's voul-a-vents which went down a treat.

 Ready for the oven

Dispensing with tradition again, we opened a few presents and then trundled off (yup, yet again!) to Casa Tackisimo (see last year's Christmas post) to beg the question why and to muddle over how much and the damage to the environment ... but I am no scrooge (ok maybe a little bit), and seen through the eyes of a child, the lights and fixtures were a magic Christmas wonderland. With the exception of the serial killer snowman ... Merry Axemas Everyone!!!

Come to Daddy!

Safely ensconced back at the house, we sat down to another bout of tummy stretching goodness, which were the mains for the evening.

MN cooked a Duck L'Orange.

He also served a Beef Wellington with a stunning layer of home made pate that MN made from scratch (which I guess is what qualifies this as a French dish in some way):

The duck was succulent and perfectly cooked, but the beef was out of this world!!

To accompany these 2 sterling dishes were some asparagus spears served with walnuts and goats cheese. J put this scrumptious salad together and she cooked the spears in the microwave! (J, your secret is NO longer safe with me!)

We also had a carrot salad with thyme and Champagne wine vinegar and a rocket and pear salad dressed in black truffle oil which moneybags MN drizzled a veritable fountain of. Me and J scored a few drips straight out of the bottle ... Heaven! I will beg to differ with M, as I would most certainly welcome a big bowl of pasta with just olive oil and shavings of truffle! MN also made a Pommes Dauphinois - simple but so effective!

To round off the evening, J made a Tarte Tartin ... and despite her worry that it was a little burnt (see the what it should have been and the after shot below), it was delicious! M also passed round his mini plum puddings and finally dinner was at an end.

 

Nevermind

We are so blessed to have such amazing friends and to be welcomed so generously into their families. Apparently we have now been sucked into the H/N blackhole! Cheers!!!


And on to the next one ...