Cavalock and The Christmas Fruitcake Shout-Out

A quick shout-out to anyone out there in Singapore who wants some great Christmas fruitcakes this year. I have been enjoying these amazing home baked fruitcakes every Christmas for several years now and trust me when I say they are the best I have ever had in my entire life. It's so rich and moist you wouldn't wanna with just one bite. It's just October but all the fruits are already soaking in glass jars of Bacardi Gold rum and that's why they are taking orders this early. You can order them as well as other cakes such as the sour cherry pie and the classic orange sugee cake, over at the Only Slightly Pretentious Food site.

If you have been reading bout all the retro stuff that I have been digging up in the old family home, you would recall that I got reams and reams of fabrics and material from the 60s and 70s. I have passed several vintage reams to my friend and local designer Audrey from The Girl's Kaksh, and you can see some really nice designs she came up with last year. Neat eh?

So the notorious Ashley Madison site is coming to town. I gotta admit I was mildly amused when I first heard bout the website over a year ago, and even more tickled with the local uproar that followed the recent local announcement. Way I see it it's a whole bunch a double standards especially with the government coming in and saying how wrong it is. How different is that from giving licenses to dozens of legal brothels in Geylang, mega casinos and shady KTVs all over the island cos I'm pretty sure all those did their fair share in breaking up more than a couple of marriages too. Stay outta it. Let us decide what's right or wrong, the same way you trust us to decide on whether or not to go visit a hooker in Geylang or the casino.

Cavalock and The Little Things That Matter

Ended my Restaurant Week experience with a meal at Salta at Icon Village. Dinner started with a very pleasant blue swimmer crab timbale. Not too heavy and just smooth enough to guide me into my pan seared sea bream main course. I chose this instead of the beef steak cos I figured they already do great steaks since that's their specialty, so I wanna see how was their fish. And I totally enjoyed it! The sea bream was pan seared to perfection but what I really liked was the pumpkin puree that came with it. Awww man, that sauce dialed it up for me. I freaking cleaned the plate up with it. Been a very long time since I had a fish meal this memorable. The dessert was amazing too. The lavender scented bread pudding tasted like an almost perfect kueh lapis, with a nice scoop of coconut ice-cream on it. It was a perfect dinner if not for one very minor detail ....

... and that was how old the menus were. Old enough for them to possess a certain whiff that instantly transported me back to the old Stamford Road National Library. Maybe I'm too sensitive but the menus sure smell like some ancient parchments. You know that really old book smell? But really, that didn't spoil my dinner at all. I had a wonderful time, no complaints about the food or service. In fact, we even left them a 10% tip even though there's no service charge. Will definitely drop by again for lunch or dinner.

I have mentioned before that I started this blog to more or less talk bout stuff that made me happy. I try not to write bout the things that brought me down. Had quite a rough week so I figured I'll remind myself of the little geeky things that brought a smile to my face recently.

The Magic the Gathering playmat I won in a lucky draw on Wednesday nite, the Abomination action figure I found at Takashimaya and the arrival of my (first) Kickstarter boardgames Via Appia and Templer. All the little things that may not a lot to anyone else but certainly lifted me spirits when I got me hands on them. I'm not a hard guy to please. Oh and remember my family's vintage cheongsams? Brought them to a local history professor and he sure was impressed by them, more on this later if it all pans out.

Cavalock and The Jiggy Jello Collection

In the words of Will Smith, let's get jiggy! Here are more kitchen relics I found in the old family home again. First up are jelly or jello moulds from the 50s or 60s. It's kinda amazing the different shapes and sizes they all come in and I really like bigger ones. The tiny ones would be great for jello shots. Now I don't actually remember seeing these being used although my late Mom did make jelly on a pretty regular basis but that's like after we moved to another house. And when she made them, they were in glass or crystal bowls like the ones I found earlier.

The Imperial Navy jello mould! Only geeks will get this.

These glass jelly bowls or "blows" are the kind that my late Mom would make for us when we moved out of the family home. So she would add cocktail fruits in them too and I would always go for the grape or raspberry ones. Didn't like the lemon or orange flavors cos they were always too sour. I found a whole lot more of the glass or crystal bowls so I guess when we moved out all them decades ago, we left some behind in the dusty kitchen cabinet.

Now I'm seriously tempted to try some agar-agar or jello recipes. Been searching online for some simple ones involving coconut cream and espresso since I got easy access to both. And I found this simple enough recipe from Serious Eats on coffee-coconut agar agar.

It turned out better than I expected. Minor problems I had was deciding when to pour the second coffee layer and gauging how much to pour cos you wanna make sure the proportions are right. You also don't wanna pour the second layer too fast and hard otherwise it'll break the first layer, you gotta spread it out gently with a spoon. So watch out for all that if you are doing any double or triple layer agar agar.

Check this out! The coconut coffee combo was great and eating something that came outta a 50 or 60 year-old relic is quite an unforgettable experience.

Cavalock and The Tingkat from Thailand

Another day spent picking through the old family home and here's something I found in the kitchen recently. Not exactly an unusual sight as most of us here have seen 'tingkats' or tiffin carriers before. I guess what's different bout this tingkat I found is that it's at least over 40 years old and comes all the way from Thailand. I dunno I'm thinking mebbe someone in the family back then ordered some serious long distance takeaway food.

It's sightly larger than most of today's tingkats and notice the intrinsic designs. I also like the little three cups or containers in the top tier. Like most of the other old stuff I found in the kitchen, this was nicely wrapped up in plastic and look as good as new. I thought this would make a cool accessory for anyone attending the Diner en Blanc later this month. No, I ain't going but it looks kinda classy non?

My Dad turned 80 last Monday (yah, my folks had me late and another reason why I'm an only child) so I thought maybe I'll just post a buncha pix he took at our national Bird Park a week or two ago. He actually took a few thousand shots and is right now considering getting an extremely expensive Cannon camera. I know he'll be using it everyday but still, it's damn expensive and heavy too.

Cavalock and The Week of Crazy-Ass Indulgence

I must say that this has been a rather exceptional week in terms of gaming and dining. Notice how it's gaming first then dining, well, at least for last week. The gang's all hyped up over Magic: The Gathering card game again as we played our hearts out at the Theros pre-release and release weekends, as well as enjoying a host of other new card and boardgames. *Whew*

Playing games has been one of the few ways I de-stress after my caregiver duties and when I say "games", it's usually the analog types and not the digital or PC ones unless it's on the iPad which is a whole new other past time of mine. So anyway, this week saw a whole buncha games that I have been waiting for to launch or reach our little island.

From top clockwise, we got us the Planeswalker Elspeth, Sun's Champion, the mythic rare Magic: The Gathering card that won 2 out of 3 two-headed giant games at the Theros release weekend. It was a team event and my friend and I were down to 3 life points in our first game but we made the most awesome comeback ever to win the match with that card. Triggered her second ability to clear board and waited till we had a small army to mow down the opposition. Went home with 12 boosters and one promo foil for just S$42 entry fee.

The last pack of the Star Wars Hoth cycle cards arrived this week too. Nice game although I just don't have the time to play it and since most of the gang are back into Magic, this might be the last pack I'll be getting for awhile. I'll just stick to the cards I already have and still play with them.

Bottom left is one of the most popular boardgames right now, Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. Great management resource and worker placement game with a very unique movable wheel system where your workers' resources changes every turn. A very intense game, lots of tactical decisions to make and you really got to plan before you decide where to place or collect your workers. Definitely not for boardgame newbies but oh, soooooo much fun!

Then there's The Downfall of Pompeii boardgame that I bought from a local online boardgame shop. Haven't played it yet at time of this writing but saw and read really cool stuff about it. The game is actually divided into two parts, first each player take turns populating the city, then when the volcano erupts later in the game, everyone tries to get as many of their own people out as possible. Winner is the guy who gets the most out.

Well, like I said earlier, food took a little back seat to gaming last week. But I still managed to stuff my fat face with some new and old goodies. Checked out the mushroom burger from Meat Packing District along Waterloo Street for the first time and I kinda liked it. Wasn't too sloppy and everything tasted really fine.

And last Saturday nite started with ribs at The Chop House over at Vivo City. One word to describe the whole experience "CUMIN!" If you are a fan of that Eastern spice, hey, this is the place cos they apparently dumped a ton of it on everything! I would have been a victim of OD-ing by cumin if such a thing was possible. After that I really needed something to clear my ...er... palate or system cos I'm pretty sure I got cumin oozing outta my pores by then. So we drove to Dempsy Hill and it being F1 weekend last week, the place wasn't that crowded at all. Had a nice cheese platter with a bottle of excellent moscato wine at Jones the Grocer.

Finally at the bottom right pix is my usual cheap Friday nite dinner of "scissor curry rice" consisting of a chicken wing, fried egg and cabbage, at the popular stall along Jalan Besar, before I head off for my Friday night gaming session.

So how was your week?

Cavalock and The Call of The Challah

Immensely satisfying and extremely therapeutic, that's how I would describe my bread making experience. I honestly never thought I would derive such a sense of gratification from kneading and shaping a mountain of dough.

Of the three kinds of bread I learned to make earlier that week, I decided to attempt the challah on Sunday, the other two being baguette and soft butter rolls. Really a coincidence that it was Yom Kippur the day in case anyone was wondering.

I always said how baking was more a science compared to cooking. It's perfectly OK to wing it while cooking but you gotta follow the recipe really close if you are baking. Well, that's not entirely true. Leaving the dough to ferment for one and a half hours like it says in the recipe isn't a good idea in our weather. And a good way to tell if something's baked is peering through the oven door instead of following the given time. Yah, you'll find yourself staring anxiously at the over door, not unlike the contestants on Great British Bake-Off (anyone else watching the latest season?). Grinning to yourself as your loaf slowly turns golden brown.

As you can see, the challah came out great and I'm already thinking of spicing things up the next time by adding stuff like poppy seeds. Er .... that is if I had any poppy seeds, not saying I do which of cos I don't since they are illegal! I HAVE NOOOO POPPY SEEDS!!!

Now just when I thought there was nothing else to found in the old family home, I decided to raid a single kitchen cabinet and look what I found tucked in the back of it! Besides a lot of lizard crap, there's this whole stack of retro glassware! Don't worry, they were nicely wrapped in plastic bags and looks brand new except for maybe the candy stand. The cool colored plates came in pairs but I have no idea what country they are from. However the clear glass plates are marked "Made in France". Wonder what else I'll find next time. Oh, and don't forget these are still for sale!!!