Taste of heaven

Pierre Herme assorted macaroons flew to HK in business class, freshly delivered into my hands. What I like most is the texture - the thin layer of meringue forms a delicate shell, the ruffles on the side tell you these are baked perfectly (the biscuits can only be lifted up without any damage when the ruffles are formed). These are chameleon by nature, adopting different combination of ingredients to accentuate the flavors and tell you what they should be taste like.

From left to right: caramel with fleur de sel, vanilla, pistachio, lemon, rose, chocolate & caramel.
All line up for the photo shoot, ready to be eaten.
Why I like sweets so much? Because it marks a memory, because it makes me happy.

Le festin

Although french women may be unwittingly rude and unfriendly and stink, but they do sing softly and beautifully. French music with the traditional accordian has a romantic touch to it and kindles sparks of passion that soften your heart.

Le Festin by Camille.. what a beautiful voice.

Devil's advocate

Melbourne's finest! Australian lamb chops and Wagyue beef.

What you need for the lamb chops: rosemary, thyme, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, black pepper and salt. Quickly seared until crispy to seal in the juice, and then roast in the oven for around 15 min.

These Wagyue steaks are heavenly. It's like the otoro of blue fin tuna. More than half of the steaks is fat, and the meat is so soft, the texture is symbolic of ice-cream.

Managing expectation

This is not a very good start in 2008 as a blogger. I haven't been able to update as frequently as expected. I have been very busy at work, trying to learn a completely new language and often feel like an idiot when dealing with the professionals. Every day after work, my brain freezes up while feeling reluctant to think anything else except work or need to catch up with reading b/c of too many redundant meetings and ad hoc requests during the day. I am not complaining.. I enjoy what I am doing now because I can achieve greater gratification and make immediate decisions.

For quite some time, I kept thinking about the idea of managing expectation. Think of yourself, your professional life, as a common stock of your own. At the start of the career, you are similar to a hidden gem in the desert, you are deeply undervalued, you are a real bargain based on the market value. When you start gaining publicity, building up self-confidence, every step you take is the building block of credibility. People begin to scrutinize your work and judgment and imposing a value on you - how much do you worth and every year they assess your past year performance and set a benchmark for next year. At the same time, you try to manage their expectation and try to beat the benchmark for your own compensation.

If you are able to consistently surprise on the upside, you are a good stock for them to own and worth the high valuation. If luck is not on your side and you miss their forecast, they will cut loss and turn to something that provide greater value proposition.

Seems like to be an inevitable vicious cycle, and we are more like a commodity than ever. Should we strive for our dream for greater self gratification? That's the lifelong struggle for us all.

Hiking

While most of the people were still struggling to get up in the cold weather on Sunday morning, I met up with a bunch of friends at 10am at Parkview to start our 3 hr hike. It is totally refreshing to immerse ourselves into mountains and trees and fresh air, which is a luxury in this concert canyon HK.

Apparently I didn't know what I have signed up for in the very beginning and it turned out to be quite an ambitious hiking trail to test my stamina and persistency. We started with parkview and went along the HK trail over three hilltops and ended at stanley...what i can say is.. it involved a lot of steps...I felt like I climbing up the IFC tower, and running down the steep slope with shivering legs.

Along the trail we didn't see that many young people like us.. but most of the hikers are mid-age couples and elderlies...it seemed like most of the twenty-sth people must have partied too hard on Sat night and they were still sleeping in and weathering the hangover. It is amazing to see all these older age hikers are so much stronger and fit.. while we were whinning how many steps have we left to accomplish, they climbed 1000 steps and didn't feel a thing.

This is where we have down the first hilltop and forward looking to the second one...


Scary steps leading up to the second hilltop..imagining not being able to see the end of it for the entire 30 minutes..


Not including the 1st and the 3rd one.. which are easier, the second uphill has a total of 954 steps, translating to about 40+ floors.

I almost screamed with joy when I saw repulse bay.. and then stanley!

In order to compensate for the soreness of our leg muscles, we overdosed ourselves with fish and chips and ice-cream as a perfect ending for our accomplishment.

Chicken soup

My version of chicken soup for the soul - hot vanilla chocolate.

When cooking at home, we should always go for the premium ingredients because you know even the most ostentatious restaurants wouldn't be so lavish with everything they make unless you are talking about ingredients that are simply difficult to source from mass market.

What I used for this hot chocolate was valrhona guanaja chocolate, very intense dark chocolate flavor, also vanilla beans to kick it up a notch.

It is the warmth and full-body that gives us the sense of satisfactory. It is the combination of sweetness and bitterness washes down the throat to clean up the negative vibe and energy.

Sugar and milk

It is amazing that plain sugar and milk can create such a lovely flavor. This is my latest creation - caramel mousse cake, to celebrate our hard work over the previous year and embrace a more challenging 2008.

There are three layers in combination - fluffy cake base, crunchy chocolate corn flakes, and smooth and velvety caramel mousse on top and around, with caramelized banana for garnish.

Of course the procedure is a lot more complicated that it seems....ex. soaking and moisturizing cake base with godiva chocolate liquear, adding hazelnut paste into chocolate for a nuttier crunchy chucks. It is the subtlety of flavors that I will always strive for..which indeed absence from commercial cake shops. In the end, I am glad that everybody likes this cake a lot, giving me a confidence bust to create more new recipes with modern twist.

Caramel is next to chocolate in terms of adaptability with different ingredients.. I will make more sweet recipes to continue my lust for caramel.