What a vague title this is, but this is exactly the wording that describes how my life is right now. A bit in-between nowhere… But in the name of being pro-active, just to kickstart the ball, I welcome you to my new blog!
#002
How to cook Japanese brown rice
(Recipe)
Did you know that if we sow brown rice, it will sprout? Whereas white rice will just rot? Brown rice, even the rice that’s been packaged & has sat on the shop shelves for a long time, is still alive. ~ Life dwells in brown rice ~ Isn’t that simply beautiful? 🙂
#003
The ultimate creme caramel
(Recipe)
So, here is the ULTIMATE recipe for Crème Caramel that I have been indulging in lately. I call it ‘ultimate’ because, I can honestly say it really is the most creamiest, & yet most delicate Crème Caramel I’ve ever tasted in my life! Every luscious spoon sends blissful melt-down of your surroundings, & before you know it, it’s gone… – & you curse yourself for not making more.
Recently, I am consciously searching for opportunities to appreciate & say “thank you” more often. Soon as I started this practise, not only did I easily find people to appreciate and say thank you to, like to the familiar people in life, such as family & friends, I found appreciation in the surrounding environment also, such as being able to eat delicious rice everyday, being able to wake up pleasantly, feeling the sun’s warm rays on my skin… & so on. – This made me happy because it was a confirmation that I was in a good place.
#005
“Look Mamma, there are living creatures in our fridge…!”
(+ Traditional rye sourdough starter recipe)
A thought occurred to me the other day about how keeping the sourdough starter is a litmus test to review the ‘(wo)man in the mirror’. When too overwhelmed with daily life & don’t have the space in your mind to mind the starter? It will let you know by becoming sluggish & lacklustre.
#006
Macrobiotic Umeshō & Sannenbancha
(+ Recipe for homemade umeshō)
The macrobiotic way of eating is about finding the balance between yin and yang in the foods we eat. We mustn’t be too much of neither, as that would create imbalance and un-stability in the body and mind and make us ill. So when you think you’re leaning too much toward yin, i.e. you are feeling cold, fatigued, faint or have a stomach-ache, you can try find solace by eating yang foods to remedy.
#007
Get in to the healthy ritual of dry body brushing!
(+ get a poster for you to download!)
For the past year & a half I’ve been dry brushing my body every-time before I take a shower or a bath. It’s to a point where it has become a ritual for me. If I don’t do it, I feel it just isn’t right & the bathing just doesn’t feel complete! – For me, it’s comforting to think that I am doing something positive toward being better.
Dry brushing is a safe, self-massage technique that helps the lymph liquid that contains infection-fighting white blood cells flow around your body better. This flowing liquid (which was squeezed out of your blood vessels by the way) sweeps up any infection to the nearest lymph nodes where infection-battlers called B cells and T cells reside. B & T will gang-up (= multiply) and fight the bad stuff then filter through only the cleaned lymph liquid, which will flow back in to the blood circulation.
#008
355 words to describe food
(+ get a poster for you to download!)
I write a lot about food – on this blog as well as on my Instagram feed. Despite quitting my food business almost two years ago (omg… time flew by…), I am still very much absorbed in thoughts for all-things food. If you see me quietly contemplating something, you betcha my brain is preoccupied with, yes you’ve guessed it, about food. Lol… – My love of food extends to reading about it as well. I love reading not just cookbooks but also food essays, journals and even scientific reports at times. When it’s written well, I marvel at how the words are deliciously composed. I’m not a fan of the word ‘foodporn’ but it does describe how I feel about reading about food. So, with much respect to the great food writing out there, I thought it’ll be interesting to list the words that describe food. In producing this list hopefully I can expand my food vocabulary to write better?!
#009
The ABC of miso soup
(+ get a poster for you to download!)
When I was writing my guide on how to make Japanese brown rice in my previous post, I always thought I should lead up to writing about miso soup, as, for every Japanese person, rice and miso soup go hand-in-hand. (Here, I was wondering what the western equivalent might be: Burger and patty? Fish and chips?) - But I realised that there’s so many snippets of information I’d like to say on this subject! And so to avoid my miso soup recipe looking like a college dissertation paper, I thought I’ll get these snippets out of the way first!
#010
I am still in love with my plastic-free kettle~!!!!
(+ get a poster for you to download!)
A year and a half ago I bought myself this Ottoni Fabbrica Italian Kettle “Fjord Satinato”!!!!!!!
CONTENT – – Should it be all cream or should we add yogurt and milk too? – – Accompany it with sauce, compote and texture. – – Champion seasonality and locality. – – Seasonal fruit/ nut/ herb chart for the sauce/ compote. – – The panna cotta itself can be flavoured too. – – The ingredients that changes the gelatine strength. – – Should the dessert be less creamy for summer? – – The all-important gelatine to liquid ratio for the jiggle. – – Gelatine conversion formula by bloom strength. – – Using gelatine sheets rather than powdered. – – De-moulding hack. – – Panna Cotta with Roasted Rhubarb Recipe!
One of my bugbears when going shopping in supermarkets is that the produce that are not-in-season sit shoulder to shoulder with in-season ones. So: I’m extremely proud to share with you a set of monthly seasonal food screensavers/ lock screen wallpaper that I put together. I have this as a lock screen on my iPhone, so whenever I’m shopping at a supermarket, I know which food is seasonal against non-seasonal.
#013
The best recipe for maple (or honey) teriyaki sauce that I know!
The standard teriyaki sauce has just 4 ingredients, which are soy sauce, Japanese sake, mirin and sugar. And to figure out how much of each ingredient, you can simply apply the following ratio 2:1:1:1 (double of soy sauce compared to each ingredient). It’s that simple that it’s easy to remember off by heart. Here on with this foundation, we can customise. Like reducing the sweetness, adding garlic, ginger etc for pizazz. For example, I like using maple syrup instead of white sugar, and I like it less sweet, so my customisation is the following: