Although I enjoy cooking, I don’t particularly enjoy baking. That’s why I used to weasel my way out of making cookies as a child. Maybe I don’t have patience. I don’t enjoy waiting for batches of cookies to bake, or waiting for them to cool, before I could consider it all done and over with.
And I don’t really like cookies or biscuits either.
But cakes.
Now cakes are heavenly, in my book, and I love my Aunt’s Philadephia cheesecakes. (She does everything by hand, even creaming the cheese.) She does not make them very often now as everyone in the family is either on a perpetual diet (hence, no fattening cheese, please) or have become health freaks (cheese = cholesterol = clogs up your arteries). These people are the sort to eat chicken without skin. Now tell me, what sort of enjoyment is THAT?
I’m very partial to cakes. Banana cake, cheesecake, Indonesian layer cake, butter cake, I am game. Cake-making is simpler than biscuit-making too. You just need to whip everything into a tasty batter, plop batter into pan and bake it in the oven. In less than an hour, the aroma of baking cake will seduce your senses. And it goes well with tea and coffee.
A Sunday ago, I made a steamed cake using a cake premix. I know, I know, the purists out there will shake their heads. It’s not right to use cake premix. It’s a short cut only lazy people succumb to. As I said before, I am not much of a baker. I don’t know my flours, I don’t know my butters but I do know I want to eat cake!
Month: June 2006
Speaking From the Heart
Blogging is something that I have been doing for the past three years. It gives me much satisfaction to write. It keeps me sane particularly when business goes a bit nutty (nutty meaning when I have to deal with people who just keep demanding more and more although there’s only one of me!)
Today, I shared my insights about blogging in a 35-minute talk at KDU Penang in conjunction with their Literary Day. It was refreshing to talk about something close to my heart because I feel that blogging is a great way to write, an immensely fun method to practise writing, to make friends online, to participate in other people’s blogs and to receive instant feedback on one’s writing.
Don't Miss F for Female
This is a quick plug for a friend of mine whose work will be shown this coming weekend at The Actors Studio, Green Hall, Penang.
Networking for Penangites…Women Only
Jo and I had been toying with the idea for a few months now. In fact, I had the idea last year and she had the idea even before her daughter was born (her daughter is now 2 plus!). When she brought it up in a conversation, I’d agreed heartily knowing that it was truly godsend.
Yesterday, we managed to group together about 7 women all together in Jo’s shop for our first ever networking meet for women business owners in Penang. We felt it was the right time because we were both longing for something to happen in Penang. Instead of sitting around and hoping something would fall into our laps, we’d decided we would just do it, to borrow a phrase from Nike.
The Relationship of Blogging
I got around to thinking about blogging last week because a friend, J, had asked me to help her out with her upcoming college literary day. She was looking for a variety of speakers to talk to her college students and hopefully get them all fired up about oral and verbal aspects of the English language.
Chuan Bee's Hainan Delights
Chuan Bee is a narrow, nondescript coffeeshop in downtown Penang (China Street, off Pitt Street’s Kuan Im Teng or Goddess of Mercy Temple) which at first glance seems to be rather ‘biasa’.
“I think this is it.” Aunt Jo peered into the shop. Aunt Jo had only been in Chuan Bee once but she believed she remembered the shop based on the old man she saw.
We were craving for roti babi. My aunts, my sis and I took this opportunity to get some good chow. And the mere mention of Hainanese food can make me drive miles and miles to get some.