Life & Times of a Trendy Glutton

All Day Earth Hour

2009-03-29T15:49:00.007+08:00

I've just come back from 3 nights in a "jungle" camp along the Kinabatangan river, near Sabah's east coast. The riverine forest connecting a series of reserves along the river is all that remains of the original rainforest. Since vast areas of the rainforest are now replaced by oil palm plantations, the wildlife is squeezed into the green corridor along the river.

Not good for the animals, but it makes for fantastic wildlife viewing. I saw orangutans each morning, Borneo's endemic proboscis monkeys, silver leaf monkeys, a crocodile, lots of gorgeous birds including hornbills and jewel-bright kingfishers, plus lots of "small stuff". Oh, and the nightly phenomenon of dozens and dozens of flying foxes leaving their daily roost and flying over the river to spend the night foraging.

The local people living in the upper reaches of the river observe Earth Hour all the time; no electricity here. But there are still fish in the river, and plenty of water for doing the laundry at the usual floating pontoon near the river bank.

My photos aren't that great — wildlife photography is not easy, especially when animals seem to like a strong back light. You can scarcely use a fill flash on an orangutan way up a tree about 30 metres away!

Bemused by Blogger

2009-03-17T13:36:00.002+08:00

In the past, whenever I tried to load photos, they appeared as several lines of gobbledygook (text) which I could move around at will — more or less — but now they appear as an image and don't seem to be able to be moved around on the page. Thus, my big hunk of shin got cut off in my last posting. I realise now that I had my setting at Edit Html instead of Compose, so I'll know next time. But because I'm stubborn, I'm posting the photo again.

Doing it Both Ways

2009-03-17T11:04:00.004+08:00

It's been ages since I posted a recipe, but to be honest, I haven't been very enthusiastic about food lately. I did, however, recently come across some local shin beef that inspired me to compare classic French and Chinese recipes for this cut.

We rarely eat beef here, as the imported meat is expensive and the local stuff really tough (even the "fillet") and lacking in flavour. However, an Australian acquaintance who's a specialist in abbatoirs and cattle has gone into a venture here, fattening up the beasts before slaughtering them in his own place. This means we can sometimes find cuts of meat that are never imported, such as a huge chunk of shin with the marrow-stuffed bone still in. There was so much of it that I used half for a Pot au Feu and the remainder for Chinese braised beef.

The Pot au Feu was tasty, but dare I say, a tad dull, even when eaten Provencal-style with capers, cornichons and mustard. Maybe we just missed the spices and sauces used in most Asian cuisines, and much preferred the Chinese recipe. Perhaps the secret ingredient that gave the meat a rich, deep flavour is red fermented bean curd, tiny squares of bean curd fermented with red rice and salt that packs a powerful punch and is used only as a seasoning. I've seen it referred to as Chinese Stilton, but that gives no idea of its heady tang. Incidentally, the bean curd keeps indefinitely on the shelf, and locally, is often served as a condiment with rice porridge or congee. Yummmmm.

Here, then, is the beef recipe.
750 g brisket or shin beef, cut in large cubes
1 tablespoon oil
2-3 thin slices ginger
2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
2 spring onions, cut in 8-cm lengths
3 dried chillies, halved lengthways
1 1/2 tablespoons fermented red bean curd, mashed
1 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 whole star anise
Sauce:
2 cups (500 ml) good chicken or beef stock
1 1/2 tablespoons crushed rock sugar
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons (30 ml) Shaohsing rice wine
lots of freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the beef in boiling salted water for 15 minutes, drain meat and discard the water.
Heat oil in a wok and when starting to smoke, add beef and stir-fry until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic, spring onion and chillies and stir-fry another 2-3 minutes. Lower the heat, add fermented bean curd, hoisin sauce and star anise, stirring to mix well. Add all the sauce ingredients, bring to the boil, then cover, lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours or so until the meat is really tender. Even better if cooled, fat removed and gently reheated.

Learning Curve

2009-03-08T08:05:00.001+08:00

Please be patient with me. I've never bothered learning how to do a proper hyperlink to a website (as is obvious from yesterday's debacle). Now I'm going to see if this works.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/tabletalk/jilldupleix/2009/03/03/thefiftybestrecipesever.html

incredible!

2009-03-07T11:41:00.000+08:00

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/tabletalk/jilldupleix/2009/03/03/
thefiftybestrecipesever.html

perhaps this will work?

the correct link (I hope)

2009-03-07T11:37:00.001+08:00

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/tabletalk/jilldupleix/2009/03/03/thefiftybestrecipesever.html

For some reason, my cut and paste of the Sydney Morning Herald feature was abbreviated. The one above should work.

On the List!

2009-03-07T11:31:00.002+08:00

I was browsing through the Sydney Morning Herald on-line this morning — as one does when one should be working — and caught side of food-writer Jill Dupleix's list of the 50 best recipes she's ever cooked. To my surprise, there was my Singapore Laksa.
(check it out at http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/tabletalk/jilldupleix/2009/03/03/thefiftybestrecipesever.html

The recipe is in the new edition (2007) of my Singapore Food; it's a lot of work but obviously I'm not the only one who thinks the effort is well worthwhile.

Doing the Maths

2009-03-06T18:13:00.003+08:00

There's something about the fragrance of passion fruit that really makes me delirious. And it's one of the few foods which, in my opinion, taste just as heavenly as they smell. The morbid and heavily Christian Spanish, on discovering the fruit in South America, gave it the name passion fruit as the flower reminded them of the passion of Christ. Well, you figure it out. I'm not interested.

I promised to bring a dessert to our Danish neighbours' home the other night, as they kindly invited me up for dinner and to watch a couple of documentaries they were involved in (conservation of turtles and whale sharks in Southeast Asia).

I took them a passion fruit Quatres Quarts ("four fourths") which I'm told is rather like the English pound cake. I'm not great at baking (I leave that to my daughter) but I seem to have a knack with this easy basic cake, made as follows (this one's for you, Lene):

3 eggs
plain flour, sugar and butter
1 1/2 teaspoons sifted baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2-1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 tablespoons passion fruit pulp (or other flavouring such as grated lemon zest)

Weigh the eggs (mine usually total around 180 g) and set aside. Weigh an equal amount of flour, sugar and butter. Blend the sugar and butter until smooth (I do this in my food processor fitted with a plastic blade, since I don't have a proper cake mixer), beat in the eggs, salt and vanilla, then pulse several times to mix in the passion fruit. Put in a greased cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper and bake at around 180 degrees C until cooked, around 45-50 minutes, depending on how wide your tin is. Turn out and cool on a rack. Eat with gentle sighs and start planning where to plant your own passion fruit vine.

Gifts from the Sea

2009-02-16T15:55:00.004+08:00

I know I've written about seaweed on this blog before, but I can't help going on about the stuff. This "vegetarian caviar" deserves to be on the menus of finest restaurants, though the fact that it's difficult to keep would be a deterrent. The local Bajau tribe put a leaf or two from a tree that grows in coastal swamps with the seaweed to help keep it plump and fresh. It seems to me that it should keep a day or so if stored in seawater, but I never get to test the theory as we eat it almost immediately.

To my delight, Jok En (visiting us from Rome) found some seaweed in the Filipino night market here in Kota Kinabalu, so I trimmed the grape-like bunches off the stems, rinsed them and tossed them with lime juice, shredded young ginger, sliced shallots and a bit of tomato. Such an explosion of flavour in every mouthful!

Another gift from the sea is yellow-fin tuna, quite abundant and inexpensive here. I bought some in the Kudat fish market for RM12 a kilo (about US$3.50)from the fish seller who managed to conduct a conversation on his mobile phone while cutting off a thick slice.

I kept some of it for pan-frying (dipping it first in Dukkah spice and nut mix) and the rest went into a vaguely Asian tuna carpaccio, made as follows:

1/2 cup (125 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup (60 ml) lime or lemon juice
4-6 teaspoons fish sauce (depends how salty you like it
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
400 g sashimi-quality fresh tuna, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander leaf

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, fish sauce and black pepper in a small bowl, whisking to blend. Pour half of the dressing onto a flat plate large enough to hold tuna slices in one layer. Arrange the tuna on top of the dressing, then spoon the remaining dressing over the top. Cover the plate with plastic wrap and refrigerate 20-30 minutes. Transfer the tuna slices to a serving plate, sprinkling with fresh coriander leaf.

The Chicken and the Egg

2009-02-15T18:07:00.000+08:00

I just spoke on the phone with my grand-daughter, who was busy eating chicken pie for dinner. “Was it bought or made by mummy?” I asked. “Mummy never buys things, she makes always them herself” came the indignant reply. We’re one step before (or after) the chicken, as we’re having egg curry this evening, together with Indian pilau, a couple of vegetable dishes and yoghurt. Coincidentally, the on-line version of the Telegraph has a feature on eggs this weekend, called “Ova Easy”. I promise you a simple, great-tasting recipe, without saturated coconut milk and without a cringe-making header.

EGG and TOMATO CURRY

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 small-medium onions (preferably red), fairly finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
2.5 cm ginger, grated or very finely chopped
3 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2-1 teaspoon chilli powder
4 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
salt and black pepper
1/2 cup hot water
6 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled and halved lengthways
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
fresh coriander leaf to garnish

Heat the oil in a pan and gently stir-fry the onions, garlic and ginger until soft and starting to turn golden. Add the coriander, turmeric and chilli, stir-fry for 1 minute, then put in the tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Cook uncovered, stirring from time to time, for 5 minutes. Add the water, cover and simmer until the gravy thickens and everything is really soft. Add the eggs and heat through, sprinkle over the garam masala (not essential) and serve with rice and other dishes.

The Missing Moth

2009-02-13T15:30:00.002+08:00

Guess Who Came to Dinner?

2009-02-13T15:17:00.004+08:00

Last night, I was getting ready for dinner at home with my oldest friend, Jok En, whom I met way back in 1968, and her Italian husband, Sandro. As I walked past our low table, I noticed this cute little fellow, who obliging let me photograph him before jumping out to the verandah where he sat on one of the uprights of a dining chair, as if waiting to join us for dinner.

Later, Jok En found a moth on the floor, sadly dead but still beautiful. How lucky we are to have such visitors!

You Can Go Back continues

2009-02-06T15:37:00.007+08:00

I don't know what happened with my last post, text left out and photos on top of each other. Here's the missing text and photos:

Up in the far north of NZ, we were pleasantly surprised by glorious beaches (virtually deserted, even in peak holiday season), old Maori co mmunities along huge Hokianga estuary on the west coast and pretty little towns where I’m happy to see the old grocer shops of my childhood, Four Square, still exist as small supermarkets.

We loved the tannin-stained lake the locals (understandably) call Coca Cola Lake, just inland from the endless Tokara Beach.
Perhaps one of the reasons we enjoyed ourselves so much is that we didn’t spend any time at all in a city. And that we spent most of our time surrounded by family. So what’s to disappoint?

You CAN Go Back

2009-02-06T14:44:00.014+08:00

The last time I'd been in the Marlborough Sounds in the far north of New Zealand's South Island was when I was six! Even though that’s more than half a century ago, I had several very clear memories and wondered how I'd react when we went there for a
family holiday at the end of December. I've always believed you should "never go back"

to avoid disappointment. But to my delight, this part of NZ didn’t disappoint. How could it with such a pristine, clean environment, where everyone seemed to genuinely care about conservation? Where it was so easy to swim with wild dolphins, watch seals sunning themselves on a beach and see Oystercatchers with their chicks?

Letting it all hang out

2009-01-31T17:15:00.010+08:00

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. I love to cook and equally, I love to gaze through my “window” (no glass, just security bars) at our ancient mango tree which attracts brilliant little birds such as flowerpeckers, sunbirds and tailor birds.
If the super-trim, minimalist kitchens installed in the new homes of my sister, Jillian, and sister-in-law, Ilona, are anything to go by, my 50-year old kitchen is (not surprisingly) hopelessly out of date. I was stunned to use drawers that slide back effortlessly on rollers, and to have loads of bench space. But although Jillian’s kitchen has a small walk-in pantry where everything is arranged on shelves so you can see at a glance what you’ve got, everything else in both kitchens is hidden away. Not in old-fashioned cupboards where you can fling open the door and see several shelves of stuff, but in those whisper-quiet sliding drawers.
Want a coffee cup? Pull out a drawer. A mixing spoon or a large ceramic platter, a grater or a glass? They’re all in those damn drawers! And as each drawer holds only a fairly small amount (and I could never remember of what), I kept going from one to the other in search of the elusive item.

I have decided that I really appreciate aspects of my tiny old kitchen (apart from its bird-watching opportunities). I enjoy seeing what I want hanging up there, whether it’s my bamboo ginger grater or an antique brass draining spoon with the original owner’s name engraved on the handle.

It gives me great pleasure to see my copper pots hanging on the wall (even if they do need a shine), and it gives me a sense of continuity to be cooking traditional Asian dishes with the various coconut spoons or clay pots that would have been used when my kitchen was new.
As a Timorese friend once remarked, my kitchen is “seperti dapu nenek-ku” (it’s just like my grandmother’s kitchen).

On Holiday with My Family & Other Animals

2009-01-23T14:05:00.008+08:00

The Land of the Long White Cloud (aka New Zealand) surprised us during our holiday with three glorious weeks of sunny weather, one of which we spent surrounded by family at lovely Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds (at the tip of the South Island).

We took advantage of the sole drizzly day by having poker lessons from the Master (James) and 8 year-old Phoebe proved to be a real whizz! Our week together slipped by with bush walks (I'd forgotten how gorgeous the NZ native forest can be), dips in the freezing sea or under a waterfall for the foolhardy, kayaking, tennis, trying to decide which is the best Kiwi beer and — for Tiffany — hours spent conquering a horrendously difficult jigsaw puzzle.

New Year's Eve marked a special occasion for Mon Capitaine and me: the 25th anniversary of our meeting at the Singapore Yacht Club. Although the evening's celebrations didn't go quite as planned, we decided we each definitely want to "sign up for the next 25 years", as Jean-Francois put it.

I promise that my next posting will be about "other animals" and places rather than solely focussed on my family. But it was so special to be with them again that I want to see them all up here on my blog (Tiff hates being photographed, hence her limited presence here).

Do They Know It's Christmas

2008-12-23T15:29:00.004+08:00

Many years ago, during the famous Band Aid concert to raise funds for Africans dying of starvation, there was a popular song with the refrain "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" Of course not, most of them are bloody Muslims, was the comment of a cynical English friend.

Since we're flying to NZ late on the afternoon of Christmas Day, I was going to ignore Christmas, a cultural rather than a religious celebration for us here at Ridge House. But then that seemed so mean-spirited (and lazy), so I put out a few token decorations a week ago, and today, with our Christmas CD playing full blast, I started cooking for Christmas Eve dinner and lunch on 26th.

Before this, I'd bought a Chinese roast duck, full of flavour and sold with a sauce made from the liver and another little plastic bag containing mixture of Chinese sauces. Add a liberal splash of Cointreau or Caracao, some orange juice, reheat the duck et voila: Canard a l'Orange Chinois. The cold left-overs will be wrapped in rice paper with hoi sin sauce and cucumber for lunch before we leave for the airport on Christmas Day.

Braised red cabbage has been a family tradition since my children were babies. The special flavour and melting smoothness of my version comes from sautéing the red onion and cabbage in goose or duck fat, or better still, fat from a tin of foie gras. The sautéed cabbage is then simmered ever so slowly with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a tiny bit of water, salt and black pepper. After about 1 1/2 hours and a few more splashes of water , add a spoonful or two of guava (or red currant) jelly. Taste and adjust so it's slightly more sweet than sour. My Norwegian friend, Tova, adds a red apple and Ribena — probably works just as well.

For Christmas morning, we'll be having a Pannetone, that wonderful brioche-like Italian bread. It's rich in eggs and butter, with golden raisins and home-made candied orange peel. Plus, of course, lemon and orange zest and orange essence. My still-warm loaf smells divine. Perhaps we won't wait until Christmas morning after all.

Christmas will truly be with us, however, only when we meet up with Tiffany, Andrew, my gorgeous grandchildren and James for a holiday in NZ's Marlborough Sounds. It will be four days after the official Christmas Day, but sharing Christmas or any festival (even belatedly) with those you love is what it's all about. Non?

This blog will resume mid-January, no doubt with an overload of NZ photos and stories. Merry Christmas one and all!

A Cosmic Joke?

2008-12-08T14:32:00.002+08:00

Last Monday night, I looked up at the sky from the back door of our rented house in Kudat and it seemed like the moon was smiling down at me.

I have never before seen two stars (actually, the one on the left is, I think, the planet Venus) placed above a sickle moon. It seemed to me as if the moon was laughing at some cosmic joke. Wish I knew what it was!

How to Create a Kitchen God

2008-11-30T16:20:00.003+08:00

Just before Chinese New Year (no, don’t panic, it’s not until 26 January), traditional housewives make offerings of a sticky round rice cake, cunningly designed to glue the lips of the Kitchen God on his annual visit, thus preventing him from making any negative reports to heaven on what’s been going on in the kitchen over the past year.

My Kitchen God is a little less celestial: it’s my heavy cast-iron wok, seasoned by at least 35 years of cooking and loving treatment. It doesn’t need to be tricked to make good reports back to heaven, only to be treated with care before and after each usage so that whatever is cooked inside will sing its praises.

How do you get a Well-Seasoned Wok, where you can cook a spice paste in a minimal amount of oil without it sticking? Well, you start by buying a heavy carbon steel or cast-iron wok — never be tempted to buy a non-stick wok. Your new wok will probably be covered by lots of nasty gunk designed to prevent it from rusting, so when you get it home, wash it several times with lots of hot soapy water to get rid of every trace of industrial oil.

The next stage is the heating and absorption of cooking oil to produce a glossy black patina and make the inside of the wok feel like silk when you stroke it (yes, I do have a rather intimate relationship with my utensils). You need to repeatedly heat the dry wok, which makes it “open its pores”, then coat the surface with oil and burn this in so that it does deep into the metal.

Here’s how you do it. Put your washed and dried wok (or an old rusty one you’ve had in to cupboard but not used for ages) over heat — preferably gas — and let it get really hot; this will take a few minutes. Use either a brush or a wodged-up piece of paper towel dipped in non-virgin olive oil or canola oil, and smear the oil generously over the entire inside surface of the wok. Cook over maximum heat, turning the wok slowly so that every part of the bottom is touched by the gas flame, and burn the oil for about 5 minutes. It’ll smoke, so be sure to open your kitchen windows first.

Now leave the wok to get completely cold. Wipe out any trace of remaining oil, and repeat the entire heating, oiling, burning and cooling process for as many times as your patience permits.

Each time you use your wok, heat it first, before adding any oil, to make it “open its pores” and permit the oil to penetrate slightly before you start cooking. (Think of it as moisturising your face before adding make-up.)

As soon as you’ve finished cooking, slosh lots of water into the empty, still-hot wok. Leave it standing while you eat, and when you’re reading to clean up, just wash it with hot soapy water and a cloth (never a scourer), dry with a cloth, then put it over heat to thoroughly dry it. Rub an oil-soaked bit of paper towel over the entire inside surface, heat it for about a minute, wipe with clean paper towel and when the wok is cool, store it. Don’t worry about cleaning the bottom of your wok. Any traces of dribbled oil or burned on food carbonise and add that “wok hei” or inimitable wok flavour to your food.

Indecent Proposal

2008-11-26T07:49:00.003+08:00

Last night, I was offered — absolutely free — the use of a brand-new, luxurious apartment in one of the swankiest condominiums in town, for the next 30 months. Since I'm not exactly the sort of woman a sugar daddy would stash away, you may well ask why.

It was nothing less than a bribe to buy my silence, offered by the contractor building 3 monstrous apartment blocks in the once-lovely green valley to one side of our hill. I have been complaining constantly for the past year, threatening the developer with press exposure, complaints to High Places, and to the police, in order to get an agreement that there's no work after 7 pm (the din starts daily at 7.30 am) and no work on Sundays. Mon Capitaine has already been to the police, so they know we are serious.

So here was the contractor, asking us to move out of our house so we wouldn't hear the noise, and so he could work until 10 pm daily. I asked him what he was going to do about the dozens of other people on the other side of the destruction site, but he claims "they don't complain". Well, we do. We're staying put (imagine leaving our haven in the forest for a nasty apartment!) and the fight continues.

To Market, to Market, to Buy ...

2008-11-19T16:11:00.006+08:00

I went to the market in Kudat this morning, the best day of the week with lots of small local fruit and vegie growers selling their wares, along with tribal Rungus squatting over piles of tobacco, herbal medicines and copies of their much-loved beads. Here is what I bought for the day:

Apart from the usual tiny sugar bananas, lychee-like rambutan and papayas,and some corn (which turned out not to be the nice sweet hybrid but a boring maize), I brought back my favourite seaweed with we eat with lots of shredded ginger, shallots, chopped tomato and lime juice.
Some cleaned fresh anchovies which I'll stir-fry with lots of garlic, some bird's-eye chillies, then splash with fish sauce and lashings of juice from the limes in the garden here.
Lovely fresh squid which I'm still dithering about how to cook for this evening.
Soybean junket with syrup, for a late afternoon snack.

Did I ever tell you how spoiled we are for options here?

My Family & Other Animals

2008-10-30T15:45:00.002+08:00

Unfortunately, I live with only one member of my family, but the animals in our life are a numerous and often surprising cast.
For example, when I got up at 5.30 this morning, a tiny blinking light high up in the living room proved the be a firefly, the first we've ever had in this house. It was like a star trying to avoid the dawn — so lovely I watched it for about 5 minutes before going on to the lawn and doing my Chi Kung exercises as the sun came up.

As the windows in our house are never closed, and as there are open ventilation panels at the top of the walls, almost anything can (and does) come into the house. Over the years — apart from the everyday insects, moths, grasshoppers, bugs etc — we have had:

* snakes: harmless grass snakes but they do give you a surprise when you're reading on the couch and suddenly realise you're sharing it with a serpent.

* big black scorpions: these I DON'T like, even though they will only give you a very painful sting but won't kill you. They used to be fond of scuttling across the floor in the dead of night — not nice if you're padding barefoot to the bathroom in the dark. Fortunately we haven't seen one inside for several years.

* a Copper-throated Sunbird that was nesting in the jasmine bush against our verandah; she following insects attracted by the light inside and unbeknown to us, spent the night perched on our bedroom ceiling fan (luckily it wasn't on). She survived, the egg hatched and all lived happily ever after.

* a small bat that has been scooting in and out of the living room these past few nights, obviously chasing insects that were invisible to us.

Even though mon capitaine is up north in Kudat for 4 evenings each week, I'm never really alone here.

Triple Treat

2008-10-19T16:36:00.004+08:00

We are now in the midst of what the locals call the fruit season. Not that we can't get a huge variety of tropical fruit year round, but that there are certain highly prized fruits that appear just once (or sometimes twice) a year, depending on subtle changes in temperature and rainfall. The entire house is almost vibrating with the smell of durian (on the left of the fruit tray) and tarap, the hedgehog-like brown fruit at the back, although the oblong green soursop (right) doesn't smell.

We both agree that the durian is unsurpassed in terms of overall sensory experience. Its pungent odour (like that of a latrine, according to durian haters) becomes ambrosial once you love the flavour. But it's not just the taste. The sticky creamy flesh clings to your fingers, forcing you to lick them for every last bit of the unique caramel-sherry-onion flavour, and all the while, the fragrance is making your head spin. You don't eat a durian, you have an intense relationship with it.
The soursop is another matter entirely. The sparkling white flesh has an incredible balance of acidity and sweetness, but the multitude of shiny black seeds means it is best to squeeze out the pulp and turn it into a sorbet or jelly. To be eaten with little sighs and murmurs that maybe, just maybe, it's almost as good as durian.

The humble tarap must be eaten with the fingers, the seed-filled white globes of flesh carefully savoured as you try to describe the flavour. Is it a hint of pineapple, or peach, with perhaps an overlay of turps? It's a waste of time trying to describe it. Just go ahead and enjoy!

R.I.P.

2008-10-10T08:32:00.003+08:00

My lovely La Rossa has just been murdered. Our evil dog Bisou, who looks like a thoroughbred dingo, grabbed her this morning shortly after she was let out for her daily forage around the garden. Despite having lived amicably with the hen for more than a year, Bisou suddenly grabbed her by the neck and ran around with her. Every time I tried to catch Bisou, she raced under the house with poor La Rossa hanging from her mouth. So now I'm left with a grazed knee and elbow (I slipped on the wet path), and a heavy heart. I really DO NOT LIKE DOGS and keep them only for security reasons.

Poor La Rossa, such a sad end for an unusual companion.

KISS

2008-10-09T18:08:00.003+08:00

Some of my favourite recipes just happen to be of the Keep It Simple Stupid variety. As I keep my kitchen well stocked with spices and special flours such as besan or chickpea flour, I can make recipes such as this (based on a recipe by the wonderful Madhur Jaffrey) without having to make a run on the shops.

EASY CHICKEN KEBABS
500-600 g skinless chicken breast or boneless thighs, in 2-3 cm cubes
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice
melted butter or vegetable oil for basting
Marinade:
3 tablespoons plain yoghurt
1 tablespoon chickpea flour (besan)
1 teaspoon very finely grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed to a pulp with 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder, preferably freshly ground
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder

Sprinkle the chicken with the salt and lime juice and set aside while you prepare the marinade.
Put the yoghurt in a bowl and add all other ingredients, mixing well. Put in the chicken pieces, stir to coat thoroughly then set aside for at least 15 minutes. I usually refrigerate the chicken for an hour or so, but it really depends on what happens to be convenient; you could even leave it overnight.
Thread pieces of chicken onto the skewers, brush with melted butter or oil and grill under moderately high heat for about 7-8 minutes, basting a couple of times and turning to cook until golden brown all over. Serve hot with lime wedges.

La Rossa & The Chicklets

2008-09-28T10:41:00.005+08:00

No, it isn't the name of an all-girl band but the residents of our Istana Ayam (Chicken Palace). La Rossa has been with us more than 3 years, the sole survivor of barnyard accidents, dog attacks etc. She was once injured by a falling frame (entirely her own stupid fault for trying to perch on it) so I took her to our vet then hand-fed her pain killers til she recovered.

So I'm sure you can understand (even though the pragmatic locals can't) why we haven't consigned her to the pot even though she's passed her egg-laying phase. She struts about, free-range except at night, like a Chelsea Pensioner, resplendent in red coat and living on the past.

The Chicklets represent the egg-laying future: three little hens past their cute fluffy stage but kind of appealing in a gangly, brainless, adolescent way. We're hoping by the time we return from our NZ holiday in January, they'll be laying their first eggs. The difference in flavour and texture of organic, free-range eggs makes it all worthwhile. And to be honest, we've rather come to like our feathered friends, and even our two dogs have come to accept La Rossa — provided she doesn't help herself to their food until they decide they've had enough.

Pins & Needles

2008-09-26T08:44:00.003+08:00

It may seem somewhat strange that even though I've lived among the Chinese in Southeast Asia for 40 years, until now, I've never tried Traditional Chinese Medicine, or more specifically, acupuncture. The reason is that I have been blessed with good health and never needed it, but about a month ago, an X-ray showed I have "mild to moderate" spinal degeneration with bone growths on a couple of vertebrae pressing on a nerve and causing leg pain.

Through a series of incredible good luck and coincidences, we were introduced to a TCM doctor from northern China, who has a "clinic" here. He and his wife don't speak any English or Malay (despite 4-5 years in Kota Kinabalu) but we've been lucky to be introduced to a very kind woman who not only speaks Mandarin and English, but Malay and a few Chinese dialects. she acts as our go-between with Dr Wong.

Today is day #10 for both JF and I. Amazingly, my leg pains diminished after the first treatment and only once have I had to resort to pain-killers since starting the course of acupuncture. JF is feeling less shoulder pain and starting to have relief from his chronic insomnia, so we're both delighted.

The "clinic" inspires less confidence than the doctor himself, trained at a Beijing university, 30 years experience, understands Western medicine and asks you to bring in X-rays and MRIs. He has a strong northern accent, which makes me giggle as it reminds me of someone from Somerset. The clinic is room 6021 in the Ruby Hotel, on the edge of the old Kampung Air (Water Village) district. It consists of 1 double bed (the conjugal bed after hours); 1 single bed; 1 proper massage table and 2 armchairs, all separated by curtains. However, one day I found myself sharing the double bed with an elderly lady having treatment for a stroke! At least a pillow was placed in the middle to mark a separation!

Although I hate needles and injections, the insertion of the acupuncture needles (we have our own set, sterilised after each use) isn't painful. They only just pierce the skin, then are connected to electricity for light impulses over a 20-minute period. The only discomfort — no, dammit, it was pain — was a couple of times when the needle must have been touching a nerve and when the power went on, I felt I was being electrocuted. I realised that I would have been a lousy member of the Resistance — no way I could have withstood torture, especially if it involved electric shocks!

As well as the acupuncture and acupressure massage, I've embarked on Chi Kung, the ancient art of energy management which can be very effective for degenerative disease (such as my back problem). So after four decades, I'm fully embracing the Chinese approach. But regretably, I'm still not speaking Mandarin.

Shrimp In a Bottle

2008-09-17T13:17:00.002+08:00

The mantis shrimp is fairly common in Sabah’s seafood restaurants, but instead of swimming live in an aerated tank like other prawns and shellfish, each mantis shrimp - normally about 20 cm in length — occupies its own small plastic bottle filled with seawater. Obviously, the tiny shrimp are popped in the bottle which is partially closed until they’re too big to force their way out, so the unfortunate creatures sit there growing until someone chooses them for dinner. Stir-fried with salt and black pepper is the recommended cooking style here.

Until a couple of days ago, I’d never seen mantis shrimp in the fish markets, so when I spotted fresh (but not live) ones at a remarkably reasonable price yesterday, I bought them. They weren’t very big or fat, but I figured that once they’d been steamed, the flesh would be good with pasta for lunch.

I don’t know if it was a question of their age or freshness (they looked and smelled fresh), but it was impossible to remove the flesh in one piece, as with a prawn. It was a really fiddly business to scrape out every morsel of the soft flesh, which I put into a pan with finely chopped garlic sautéed in olive oil, and a dash of chilli flakes. I boiled the empty shells with water and used this to cook the linguine, extricating as much flavour as possible. The result was very tasty, but I just wish there’d been more shrimp meat.

When we saw a mantis shrimp doing acrobatics off a coral reef during a dive trip a few years back, my dive buddy remarked they were “so sweet” she wouldn’t eat them. Being a foodie almost as much as a conservationist, I replied that I eat them precisely because they are sweet. Would I buy them again and go through the hassle of digging out the flesh? Probably not. I’ll save mantis shrimps for the next time I see them in a bottle at a seafood restaurant.

Not Just Desserts

2008-08-29T12:04:00.001+08:00

Isn’t this the most gorgeous looking pineapple? Can’t you just imagine the sweet juice dribbling down your chin as you bite into a succulent slice?

Sorry to go on a bit, but I’m really proud of this home-grown pineapple, which represents victory in my on-going battle against our horde of marauding squirrels. Each and every pineapple in our garden has to be enclosed in a wire mesh cage, “stitched” at the bottom with fine wire, to keep it from these rats with furry tails.

Pineapples grow easily in this climate. When I asked our Timorese friend a few years back how to plant the pineapple crown I’d twisted off a ripe fruit, he took it from me and tossed it down the grassy hillside. When I looked shocked, he reassured me that it would take root on its own, no need to dig a hole, put fertiliser or anything like that. He was right, of course, and two years later, the plant bore fruit.

Although in the West pineapple is most commonly eaten fresh as a fruit, or made into desserts or cakes such as the excellent pineapple upside-down cake, in this part of the world, pineapple frequently appears in salads, soups, stir-fried dishes and stews. Here are some of the ways we enjoy pineapples such as this beauty (apart from biting into that succulent slice I mentioned):

∑ chunks blended with Asian pennywort (daun pegaga or gotukala) and iced water to make a healthy green juice
∑ fine dice mixed with cucumber (ditto) and sliced shallots, seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar and salt
∑ chunks mixed with sliced shallots and bird’s-eye chilli, tossed with a mixture of sambal belacan, lime juice, sugar and salt
∑ slices dipped in sweet soy sauce with sliced red chilli
∑ slices sprinkled with salt (to heck with blood pressure problems!)
∑ my favourite Laotian fish, beansprout and pineapple soup (recipe in my Green Mangoes & Lemon Grass)
∑ Vietnamese-style slivers of beef seasoned with oyster and soy sauce, stir-fried with garlic and pineapple, then splashed with lime juice and fish sauce

The Magic Grain

2008-08-24T15:34:00.005+08:00

These days, most of us eat far more exotic grains and starchy products than the familiar wheat, rice and barley. There's polenta, which is made from corn and which is regarded in Italy as poor folks' food, definitely not trendy as it is or was in many Australian restaurants. Then there are couscous and burgul (yes, I know they're made from wheat, but in different forms) and the magic grain of the Andes, quinoa.

I’d eaten quinoa only once before we went to Peru, and found it pleasant, light but unremarkable in flavour. The tiny pale grains are actually the seeds of a leaf green veg, and as well as being high in protein, are full of all sorts of valuable minerals. No wonder the Incas could toil away in the potato fields at 3,500 metres or more!
When we were in the Sacred Valley last year, we noticed that most locals ate soupy stews in the markets, often with quinoa, vegetables and sometimes a few shreds of chicken. A small Peruvian cookbook I bought in Lima has a recipe for quinoa soup, which I’ve adapted slightly. The lack of spices and minimal use of herbs makes it almost like nursery food after the Asian and Middle Eastern food we most often eat, but it’s certainly healthy!
You should crumble in fresh white cheese, the sort shown in the photo here, but I find Gruyere a perfectly adequate substitute.

1-2 tablespoons pork lard or vegetable oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 – 3/4 cup quinoa (depending on how thick you want the soup)
1 medium potato (or sweet potato if you like), sliced
1 medium carrot, sliced
handful of spinach leaves
1 cup milk
1/2 cup crumbled white cheese or grated Gruyere
salt and pepper to taste
flat-leaf parsely or fresh coriander leaf

Heat the lard or oil and sauté the onion until soft. Add the stock, bring to the boil, then stir in the washed and drained quinoa. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add the potato and carrot and simmer until tender, Put in the milk and spinach leaves and cook til the spinach wilts. Add the cheese and when it has melted, season and serve with chopped flat-leaf parsley or fresh coriander.

The Sausage that Got Away

2008-08-21T10:29:00.002+08:00

I don't know what went wrong with Blogspot, publishing the code for the photo on my last posting rather than showing this gorgeous Italian sausage in all its juicy glory.

Down by the River Side

2008-08-21T10:08:00.005+08:00

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There’s something about a barbecue that seems to bring out the cave woman in me. I am a real pyromaniac, and love gathering firewood, twigs, dried bamboo leaves or casuarina needles to make a blaze. Last Sunday, however, I diplomatically left it to the chief caveman and his (male) assistant to get a good fire going while I concentrated on the food (yeah, I know, sexual stereo-typing).

Our favourite picnic spot is along the Kiulu river, where there’s a wide grassy stretch on one side. The water is deliciously fresh and clean, fed by streams tumbling down the Crocker Range from Mount Kinabalu. It is the perfect spot for lazing about, keeping cool with a dip in the river aided by the occasional beer, and playing a spot of boules or petanque. During our picnic, a few young local guys turned up for a swim and the universal game of skipping flat river stones.

The main event for our picnic (after Belle’s pakhora) was Italian sausage, which I’d decided to stuff into one continuous coil rather than bother twisting and tying to get small sausages, and then risk them falling through the grill into the fire. I held the coil together by piercing it through with thick rosemary stems (saved in my freezer for months). Thanks to Belle and Jim, who carried back sausage skins from England, and to Markus, whose parents carried a giant jar of skins in brine from Germany, I’ve enough sausage skins for at least a couple of years. Just as well, as you simply can’t buy a decent sausage in Sabah.

In case you are also crazy enough to make your own sausages, here’s the best of the recipes I’ve tried since becoming an amateur charcutier.

1 kg minced pork (at least 15% fat)
1 1/2 tablespoons fennel seed, toasted
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tsps freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup dry red wine
chilli flakes with abandon

Mix minced pork together with all other ingredients and leave refrigerated for 4 hours or overnight for the flavours to blend. Stuff the sausages and then poach in barely simmering water for 10 minutes or (preferably) steam over water in a covered wok. Drain and refrigerate, freeze or grill right away.

Careless Omnivore

2008-08-20T14:07:00.001+08:00

I forgot to say that in the Omnivore food list I just posted, items I have NOT tried are in italic type.

Are You an Omnivore?

2008-08-20T13:50:00.002+08:00

There's nothing like a deadline to encourage you to do everything except finish that article/ad/book. This morning's distraction was an amusing list of things an Omnivore should try at least once. I have tried 77 of the 100 items, missing out on American rubbish like McDonald's and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (it took me a while to figure out what PB & J was!, and I still don't know what S'mores is (I doubt it's the Dutch Eurasian Smoore!; ditto for Hostess Fruit Pie. The latter sounds like something Hannibal Lecter would relish.

Here's the list, in case you're interested.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

2008-08-03T11:29:00.000+08:00

I adore yoghurt (home-made, of course) in every way possible, but for some reason, I'd never tried to make a yoghurt ice-cream. A famous Asian iced yoghurt chain is now strutting its stuff in Kota Kinabalu but their ic-cream is sickly sweet and 1 scoop costs as much as 1 1/2 litres of home-made yoghurt.

When I was in Singapore last week, Julia and I visited the superb Singapore Garden Festival, where we spent 5 hours drooling over orchids, pitcher plants, "fantasty gardens" (plus, I admit, indulging in a bowl of piping hot rice porridge with century egg and chicken to warm us up after 2 hours of freezing temperatures). One of the exhibitors kindly gave me several kaffir limes, those small, bumpy-skinned fruit from the tree whose double leaf has the most heavenly fragrance and is used in Thai and Nonya cuisine. I have a tree in my garden but although the providesmore leaves than I need, it has never flowered and given me fruit.

Anyway, I put the singapore kaffir lime and yoghurt together in the following recipe. By the way, the sickly colour of the lime in the photo is because I'd deep-frozen it. They're lovely bright green for the first hour or so after they defrost (but can be grated while still frozen) but then they take on this awful colour. The yoghurt ice tastes great, sort of herbal or even reminiscent of newly cut grass. You could, of course, substitute lemon rind and lemon juice for the lime. And if you have an ice-cream maker, you don't have to keep processing and re-freezing it as I do.

400 ml plain yoghurt (home-made or the best quality you can find)
grated zest of 1 kaffir lime
60 ml lime juice
130 ml sugar syrup* or a mixture of honey and sugar syrup
a liberal splash of limoncello or light rum

* I make mine with by boiling water with several chunks of Chinese yellow rock sugar, which is a mixture of cane sugar and honey and gives the syrup an unctuous texture and delightful flavour

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl, then taste and add more syrup if needed; remember, when it's frozen the sweetness is less noticeable. Put in a freezer until it starts setting along the edges; whizz in a blender, return and freeze again. Whizz once more to break up the ice crystals, returning to your freezer container, cover with foil and return to the freezer until about 20 minutes before you need it. Then transfer it to the lower part of the fridge to soften. Serve, preferably with crisp sweet wafers.

2008-07-22T14:31:00.001+08:00

We went to see The Dark Knight last Sunday. It was stunning, the only really impressive film version of that totally unreal comic strip, Batman. Heath Ledger's performance as powerful as all the critics said. However, I thoroughly agree with the reviewer from the Daily Telegraph who said:

The Dark Knight may well be judged the best of this summer's blockbusters. It's a thrilling action movie laced with psychological subtleties, its haunting crepuscular images underpinned by an edgy, nerve-jangling score. And at its heart is a spine-tinglingly incandescent performance from Heath Ledger as Batman's crazed arch-nemesis the Joker. Without doubt, this is a major cinematic achievement. And, without doubt, it's not for kids.

The One that Got Away

2008-07-20T18:56:00.004+08:00

When I wrote about my saffron debacle earlier today, I had a problem getting my photos the right size and in the right place. If you upload a photo with blogger, you get 6 lines of computer gobbledegook with countless other symbols (which I daren't typoe here in case I muck things up again). Then you have to move these lines into the appropriate spot in your text. As I was hurrying with the post (we were off to see The Dark Knight, with a brilliant performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker) so I screwed up.

I hope this time I upload correctly 2 photos that deserve to be seen in full glory.
c

I Should Have Known Better

2008-07-20T15:05:00.006+08:00

I decided to prepare an Indian vegetarian meal for lunch today: carrot pachadi (with coconut, spices & yoghurt, one of my favourite recipes from Singapore Food); dhal; cucumber with yoghurt & mint;poppadums and Basmati rice. Why not improve the rice with some of the saffron I bought in a souk in Fes?
It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase from a general mini-grocery/hole in the wall while I was buying some argan oil, which works wonders on dry skin. At the time, it seemed to me a real bargain, saffron for such a cheap price!

If I'd bought it in Marrakesh in the wonderful specialty store with spices, dried rose buds, flower essences & nuts, I'm sure it would have been great.

Today, however, when I put a pinch of strands into a little warm water, the water suddenly turned pink. It should have been deep yellow, with a heavenly aroma. This fake saffron liquid looked like a pale version of Fanta Grape (one of Tiffany's childhood favourites) and totally lacked any fragrance.

It's not the second time I've been fobbed off with fake saffron in an exotic location. The first time was in Mapusa market in Goa, more than twenty years ago. A gramme of saffron is literally worth more than a gramme of gold — when will I learn?!

Desert Dreams

2008-07-17T11:09:00.007+08:00

Did you know that the splendid version of Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O'Toole, was actually filmed in southern Morocco, around this old outpost of Ait bin Haddou?
No, I didn't either.

As I sit here in humid north Borneo, I keep thinking of the dry heat of southern Morocco and of the sandstorm at the edge of the Sahara, where my camera lens got covered in junk (sadly visible in my photos). And where, despite my tucking it under my shirt, my lens got a grain of sand trapped in the extendsion tube and is now in Kuala Lumpur for intensive care.

How anyone but a camel could stand this type of wind, which can blow non-stop for 7 days (so I was told), is beyond me. And to think they used to ride from Zagora to Timbuktu, a mere 52 days' journey.

Slowly Does it

2008-07-13T16:20:00.003+08:00

Last night, we enjoyed braised lamb shanks cooked in much the same way as I usually prepare them with tomatoes, a little white wine and chicken stock. Jean-François commented — after finishing every morsel of meat (poor dogs, only bare bones to chew on) and mopping up every drop of sauce — that it was the best version of this dish I had ever made. What did I do differently?
Nothing, I replied. I always add the seasonings agak-agak, not measuring them — something I do only when testing recipes for cookbooks. Then I realised the difference was that I’d slow-cooked the meat in my terracotta Romertopf dish in a low oven, rather than speeding things up in the pressure cooker as I normally do.

Now don’t expect me to explain the science of it all, why the texture of the meat is so much more melting and the overall flavour so much better when it is cooked slowly in the Romertopf (which the English call a “chicken brick”). But as I remarked in an earlier post, using terracotta to make a sort of clay oven for my bread works wonders.
The recipe for the meat? Slowly brown all over a couple of whole lamb shanks (for 2 people) in a little olive oil in a frying pan. After about 10 minutes, transfer them to the Romertopf or a heavy oven dish (Le Creuset or similar). Add about 1/2 cup dry white wine (or 1/4 cup each dry vermouth and water) to the pan and let it bubble and reduce for a few minutes. Add 2-3 large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, and simmer until they soften a little. Add 1/2 cup really good quality chicken stock, salt and pepper and pour this mixture over the lamb shanks. Bake at around 150 C for about 2 hours, until meltingly soft. Check the meat a couple of times and if the sauce is drying out, add more chicken stock.
You can sprinkle the top with a mixture of very finely chopped parsley, garlic and grated lemon zest when serving. I normally do, but although I prepared this mixture last night, I forgot to add it to the meat. Tant pis —no problem — it was superb anyway.

A Moroccan Feast

2008-07-10T05:37:00.005+08:00

You might think that our most memorable meal in Morocco was the lavish spread we enjoyed (10 "salads", which were mostly cooked vegie dishes, to commence; chicken tajine; pastries and mint tea & fresh fruit) served in an opulent Dar in Fes with rugs, coloured tiles, mirrors, brass and copper everywhere. But no. It was in a simple café opposite the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Volubilis, once the biggest Roman post in north Africa.

When I went into the gloomy interior of the café, where old men sat sipping black coffee, I asked the young owner what he proposed for lunch (since there wasn't any menu). How about salad followed by tajine of meatballs in tomato sauce? Sounded great, so we sat on the terrace overlooking the café garden and the Roman ruins. A few moments later, after giving us the inevitable bowl of olives and flat Moroccan bread, our host, Mohammed (who else?) walked a couple of paces and cut a lettuce from the garden. He then went and picked a ripe orange, and made us a superb salad seasoned with oil, vinegar and lots of black pepper.

The meatballs were bathed in a really rich tomato sauce, simple but incredibly good. Time and again in Morocco, we found the fresh produce (which had never seen a refrigerated storage room or a supermarket chiller) intensely flavoured and ripened to perfection. Even the meat always looks good, and you can see which part of the beast it has come from.
After we finished our meal, Mohammed asked us if we'd like to see a special place. Why not? So we followed him into his orchard where two pomegranate trees meeting overhead formed a shady spot. "Would you like to have a siesta here?" he asked, indicating the large mat under the trees. Alas, we didn't have time, but we did have time to enjoy the bowl of freshly picked figs that he gave us. "I don't charge you, they are a gift because I like you". Now that is true Moroccan hospitality, and what turned a simple but delicious meal into a feast.

And then there was ...

2008-07-06T11:37:00.004+08:00

You'd probably think I was crazy if I told you one of the things we brought back from Marrakesh is a loo roll holder. But if you saw the washbasin that inspired us you'd understand.
In all the riads and well-off homes (as far as we could tell), bathroom fixtures are in brass or copper. Drool. But even though we brought back a card table from France (for camping and picnics) wrapped in my Moroccan rug, we drew the line at a washbasin. Instead, we compromised with the holder, which JF has just attached to the bathroom wall after some nifty drilling and screwing. My hero! (In case you think I was being lazy, I was making Claudia Roden's Sephardic Jewish orange cake for dinner tonight, using some of the orange flower water I bought in the souk.)

BY THEIR SUITCASES YE SHALL KNOW THEM

2008-07-04T06:51:00.006+08:00

I have finally unpacked everything after my 5-week trip to Singapore, France, Morocc and London. In doing so, I reflected that you can know a lot about a person by the contents of their suitcase, especially the goodies they have brought back from a trip.
From our idyllic travels in Morocco (11 days which we wish could have been more) I brought back:
• A typical mat made by a tribe from the High Atlas mountains, south of Marrakesh. The carpet shop was great (see photo), the mint tea routine reminded me of buying donkey bags in an Afghan bazaar 35 years ago, and the rug itself I find charming: simple, unassuming, a colour which goes well in our bedroom and cheap too!

• An old silver pot for making mint tea, bought in the souk in Fes. Lacking wine and beer during our stay, we became addicted to this drink and the heavenly aroma of mint permeating the vegetable souks.
• A simple blue and white bowl bought at the pottery of Tamegroute, way south near the start of the Sahara.
• Alas, I couldn’t add a heavy pottery tagine to my luggage, so bought (in the same pottery at Tamegroute) a turquoise-coloured mini-tagine which holds a tea light.
• Purple olives bought from an old man in the Fes souk; he assures me they’re the best type to add to tajines.
• A wooden spoon for scooping the olives out of their liquid.
• Several beautiful brass and copper spoons and cookie cutters from the medina where we stayed in Marrakesh.
• A hand-crafted wooden water mug with brass bands bought from the artisan in one of the souks in Fes.
• Ras el Hanout, the ultimate spice blend, bought with the help of Jamilah from our gorgeous riad in Marrakesh. The whole spices were weighed out then ground in front of me. Can’t wait to cook with them!

Suspended Until Further Notice

2008-05-22T08:53:00.004+08:00

This blog is suspended, not so much because of lack of interest (although the deafening silence cause by lack of comments is disheartening) but because I'm going away for 5 weeks. France for family, Morocco for adventure (and food) and London for culture (West End and V&A, here I come). Be warned, this blog will probably bore you with photos and stories from Morocco in July — still, it'll be a change from Borneo.

Doggerel Time

2008-05-06T08:24:00.004+08:00

There are times when the beauty of the rainforest really jolts the emotions — and the memory. As Cede Prudente (a superb photographer and nature guide) and I recently gazed at this stunning giant towering over the forest, we both started reciting "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree"...

The tree in question is a Kompassia excelsa, known locally as menggaris. Luckily for the tree (and us), it has no value as timber — it's hollow at the core — so still stands tall in the logged forest. The trunk is so smooth and rises so high before the branches begin that bears and orangutans cannot climb it to steal the honey from the nests that the bees so cleverly build here.

Meanwhile, out in the Rainforest

2008-05-05T17:58:00.006+08:00

I haven't written anything for ages (apart from work-related material) and this time, I actually have a good excuse. We've spent the past couple of weekends out enjoying what we love most about Borneo: its amazing environment.

The highlights of our 3 days/2 nights at Tabin Wildlife Reserve in eastern Sabah were spotting a gibbon mother and baby; lots of exquisite birds including hornbills galore; eagles; the world's smallest raptor, the white-fronted Falconet, only 15 cm and devouring an even tinier bird; a diminutive Black & Yellow Broadbill which looks like a child had tried to use every colour in the paintbox to create a bird; an exquisite Black-backed Kingfisher; a Crested Fireback Pheasant stalking along the forest floor; a rare porcupine; a Bornean Pygmy Elephant — known as "Naughty" by the resort staff — who knows he owns the place; a 3-metre python and a deadly Pit Viper twined around a tree just 2 metres from our dining table.

Three days back home and then it was off to the peat swamp forest of Binsuluk, a couple of hours south of KK, to see lots of different species of pitcher plant, more birds and even the odd proboscis monkey. To wash off all the mud before we returned yesterday, we lolled about in the warm waters of the South China Sea.

This Friday, we're heading south to the Sarawak city of Miri, and the International Jazz Festival. Not a bird in sight (though there will no doubt be bottles).

Forever Summer

2008-04-26T15:01:00.004+08:00

Asking someone to choose their favourite herb is a bit like asking a mother who is her favourite child. You love them all equally but in different ways. Because I cannot imagine cooking without herbs, I have lots of both Western and Asian varieties growing in my garden or in pots. However, thyme flatly refuses to grow here, and a rosemary shrub brought back from Provence survived a few months until some nasty insect attacked it in my absence. Dill grows sulkily, refusing to develop a strong flavour and to stand up straight and strong.

However, all kinds of basil seem to love this climate; I have “Thai” horapa basil, lemon basil, Italian basil and another Italian-basil-on-steroids (a gift from an Italian chef who grows it in Brunei for one of his restaurants there) which has an incredibly intense flavour and aroma, and really big leaves.

Because it’s bright and sunny today (after a fierce storm, wind and flooding late yesterday), and because there are lots of tomatoes in my fridge begging to be eaten before we go away for three days tomorrow, I decided to make this excellent iced tomato soup as part of tonight’s dinner. It is from Elizabeth David’s Italian Food. This dog-eared copy was bought in 1965, the year before Australia went decimal, and cost only 5/-. I reckon I’ve had a lot more than my 5 bob’s worth from it over the years.

ICED TOMATO SOUP
good slurp of olive oil
750 g ripe tomatoes (good quality, not nasty supermarket ones), peeled and chopped
1 large clove garlic, smashed and chopped
fresh basil, chopped
pinch of sugar
salt and black pepper to taste
600 ml good chicken stock

Heat the oil in a pan, add the tomatoes, garlic and basil and cook gently, stirring from time to time, for just 5 minutes. Add the seasonings and stock, bring to the boil, cover and simmer another 5 minutes only. Transfer to a bowl, cool, then refrigerate until really cold. Scatter with more fresh basil and a little black pepper when serving.

All Fired Up

2008-04-25T14:54:00.004+08:00

Ever since we chanced upon a Breton festival at the hamlet of Keroscoet in France many years ago, and watched the baking of bread in an ancient wood-fired oven, I’ve had a yen for my own.

Since that’s a tad impractical when you live less than 6 degrees north of the equator, I’ve devised my own form of oven which produces a loaf of bread that has the incomparable texture and flavour of bread baked in a wood-fired oven. And my “oven” is created using everyday terracotta items you can buy locally: a wide dish sold to put under pot-plants to catch the water, and a huge Indian-made curry pot that I bought in Singapore more than 25 years ago.

Here’s how it works. You make your dough (see later), turn your electric oven to 230 degrees Celcius and put in the empty dish and pot. After 12-15 minutes, when the terracotta is thoroughly heated through, you remove them from the oven, slap the bread dough on the dish, invert the curry pot (which, by an incredible stroke of luck, is exactly the same diametre as the dish) over the bread and put the whole “mini-oven” into the electric oven. Leave for 30 minutes, then remove the curry pot cover. Put a sheet of aluminium foil loosely over the top of the bread to stop the top burning and return to the electric oven. Lower the heat to 180 degrees and cook a further 25 minutes. Cool on a rack.

I also use the pot-plant dish as a pizza “stone” and bake Arab bread on it. Here’s our favourite bread recipe using Wendy’s Non-patented Wood-fired Oven Equivalent.

BEST-EVER BREAD
Although this is not that healthy, since it’s made with white flour, it doesn’t have nasty bread improvers, stabilisers and other chemicals. It also happens to be the easiest bread I’ve ever made as it doesn’t require needing. All you need is time.

3 cups white flour, sifted
1/2-3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 (yes, only one-quarter) teaspoon dried yeast
1 1/3-1 1/2 cups water

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then stir in the water to make a rather wet dough. It’ll be a bit claggy, not a nice smooth ball, but don’t worry. Simple cover the bowl with a plastic bag and leave to rise in a warm place for about 12 hours. Sprinkle a tea towel liberally all over one side with flour, then tip out the bread onto the tea towel and shape roughly with your floured hands into a ball. Flip over part of the tea towel to cover the bread and leave to rise (about 1-2 hours). Bake as directed above.

The Fleeting Moment

2008-04-22T08:45:00.002+08:00

The Japanese believe that ephemeral beauty is to be valued even more than beauty which lasts. As I sit here swooning with the fragrance of translucent white pigeon orchids, I'm inclined to agree. Our huge old pink-flowered frangipani is almost swamped by this easy growing orchid, which has a very predictable pattern of flowering: exactly 9 days after a sudden drop in temperature together with rain, innumerable tiny white blooms with a streak of daffodil-yellow on the top of the lip burst open and release the most incredible fragrance. Either on the tree or arranged in an antique blue bottle on my desk, the pigeon orchid blooms will have faded by this evening.

So much beauty and for such a short time. I get the feeling that Nature (this time with a capital N) is reminding us to treasure every moment to the fullest.

Kitchen Aid

2008-04-18T10:31:00.002+08:00

No, unfortunately I don’t have that Rolls Royce of kitchen appliances, the incredible do-everything Kitchen Aid, although my lucky daughter does. But what I do have is this cute little plastic pastry cutter, something both Tiffany and I bought at a Chinese stall during the Sydney Food Show a few years back.

“Perfect for curry puffs!” I said. I don’t often make curry puffs or samosas, but it’s always handy to know my little cutter is there hiding under the satay skewers, vegetable grater, tongs, measuring cups and other junk in my kitchen drawer. I pulled it out this morning and used it to help create my curry puffs, which have a filling of potato, boiled egg and green peas spiced with chilli, cumin and sour mango powder (amchur).

I normally follow my own recipes but this time, decided to use one from one of my favourite Indian cookbooks. I dutifully made my own ghee yesterday and this morning made the dough and set about filling it. To my surprise, the amount of dough is nowhere near sufficient to hold the given quantity. Tant pis! That’s helped me decide what to have for dinner tonight when mon capitaine returns from Kudat. The potato and pea filling as a vegetable dish, with marinated chicken kebabs (I just happen to have chicken fillet in the fridge), Basmati rice, home-made yoghurt and a nice fresh tomato & red onion salad.

Another Weekend in Borneo

2008-04-15T10:23:00.003+08:00

Although I rarely drink tea (and even then, only green Japanese or Chinese tea), we stayed Saturday night at Sabah's only tea estate, sprawling over the hills to the east of Mt Kinabalu. We had a marvellous swim in the river carving its way through boulders in the rainforest, and in the morning, I got up very early to see wonderful views of Mt Kinabalu (4,093 metres) and watched a big Crested Serpent Eagle.

Not too far from Sabah Tea Garden, the Poring Hot Springs are part of the huge Kinabalu Park, and although the bathing area has become a mess (how lovely it was 20 years ago, before the hordes of tourists), there is a fantastic orchid research centre. In addition, the world's largest flower, the Rafflesia, blooms in the surrounding forest and we were lucky enough to see one of these unreal flowers, about 80 cm across!

But the biggest surprise of the day was when we were wandering about the orchid garden and came across a female orangutan — completely free — who looked as if she had a hangover. These astonishing creatures lived wild in the Park, maybe some still do, but Jackie (as this lady is known) grew up in captivity. She normally returns to the forest every day and wanders back at night for a free banana or two from the Parks' staff, but last Sunday, she was sick so hid out in the Orchid Centre.

We went looking for orchids but came across an orangutan. Even after all these years, I find that Borneo still comes up with surprises.

There IS Such a Thing as a Free Lunch

2008-04-14T15:37:00.005+08:00

Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when Western hippies poured into India in search of holiness and hash (probably in the reverse order of importance), Sikh temples in popular areas were obliged to close their doors to freeloaders who took advantage of the Sikh tradition of hospitality. The Sikhs believe there should always be sleeping space in the temple — albeit on the floor — and free (vegetarian) food for anyone who asks.

Today, I once again enjoyed the Sikh tradition of the free lunch or langgar at Kota Kinabalu’s charming and architecturally idiosyncratic temple. The occasion was Vesahki, the celebration of the founder of Sikhism’s birthday, with special prayers followed by the usual communal lunch.

I had been invited by my good friend Balvinder, who married her English boyfriend at the temple 5 months ago; her family took their turn to host the meal, and in the usual manner, women from the community got together early this morning to make giant pots of dal, mixed vegies, chapati, Basmati rice, salad and rice pudding (yes, Mary Jane, but it was flavoured with cardamom).

As is traditional, men waited on the tables — regardless of their wealth or status. How democratic! It almost persuades one that a religion of such egalitarian ideals is worth joining. However, when it came to washing up afterwards, it was a women’s-only affair. Ah well, I guess nothing’s perfect!

Ladies That Lunch

2008-04-10T13:29:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, I joined a couple of other women for lunch in a restaurant (North Indian, in case you’re curious), something I do maybe once every six months. Today, I’m happily working away at home, writing about the avifauna of Tabin Wildlife Reserve and looking forward to seeing the birds there once again in a couple of weeks.

However, my stomach tells me it’s getting close to lunchtime so I stared in the fridge but nothing spoke to me. I went out into the garden to see how my tiny rocket seedlings survived the night of rain after yesterday’s transplanting and there it was, lunch staring me in the face: Asian pennywort.

This herb grows wild in much of Asia and used to be in our lawn in our Singapore home at Rochester Park. It was Jamie’s job to pick the daun pegaga for Fatimah, our wonderful Malay amah who kept the house clean, the clothes ironed, the dishes washed and was second mother to the children. Fatimah always said this plant was “good for women” and it is, indeed, a very valuable medicinal plant: rich in vitamin A, good for purifying the blood, boosts the memory and concentration (well, so they say), lowers blood sugar levels, relieves the pain of arthritis and rheumatism etc etc. I just love the slightly bitter taste and often add a handful to some fresh pineapple and whirr it in the blender to make a pale green and alarmingly healthy drink.

In Sri Lanka, this plant is known as gotu kala and is often made into a side-dish called Mallung, which is what I’m going to have for lunch, mixed with some grated coconut (a tiny packet removed from the fridge), onion, lime juice and dried mackerel flakes (katsuobushi).

Vegetarian Caviar

2008-04-02T10:30:00.002+08:00

I really am slack. Here's my daughter, with one husband, two kids, three jobs and god knows what else going on in her life, still writing funny, sophisticated, thoughtful stuff in her blog every few days. I haven't made an entry for a whole week. She puts me to shame — and drives me to my blog.

So I'll share with you what I found in Kudat market this morning. Wednesday's the best day of the week, as all the Rungus tribal folk, the Bajau islanders and so forth come in for the Tuesday tamu or big open-air market, and stay overnight to sell the rest of the goodies around the pasar or regular market.

I found a Bajau woman from the big island of Banggi north of here selling wonderful tikars (woven mats made from dried pandanus leaf). Just as Tiffany believes one can never have too many pairs of shoes, I believe one can never have enough tikars, mats, Oriental rugs and the like. So I bought a perfectly plain, double-sided mat that I'm currently trying to get the creases out of.

The mini-grapes in the photo? They're my favourite seaweed which is like vegetarian caviar, and which you find very occasionally here at Kudat. It's known as lato and when you bite into it, the plump little "grapes" just explode in your mouth, spraying it with flavour and juice (and minerals). After rinsing the lato and getting rid of any thick stems, I toss it with mild rice or coconut vinegar (or even lime juice), some sliced shallot, shredded young ginger and diced tomato. I can scarcely wait for lunch today!

Of Mice & Men

2008-03-25T14:49:00.005+08:00

The best laid plans of mice and men oft gang awry. My plans for today have been ganging awry or getting side-tracked big time. Today’s plan was for some serious work on a book I’m writing about Tabin Wildlife Reserve (a place twice the size of Singapore, in eastern Sabah). However, when I tried to turn on my computer, I found my back-up battery/stabliser was kaput, so I had to drive down to my computer whizz and leave it in intensive care.

Since I was already downtown, it made sense to do some essential shopping. While in the market, I caught sight of some parkia beans or petai, long pods which grow on a huge tree in the jungle. I adore these bitter beans, also known as stink beans for what they do to your urine afterwards (yes, I share everything with you).

I adore petai cooked with a spicy prawn sambal, so that meant going across to the fish market for the prawns, where I happened to spy some lovely fresh tuna. I bought a large slice, then when I got home, decided it was too much for one meal so figured it was time for an indulgent lunch. I therefore made a tuna carpaccio, which was wonderful with a bit of baguette and a big bowl of mountain-grown beans that taste incredibly like scarlet runner beans.

TUNA CARPACCIO
This makes enough for 1 happy luncher; multiply by 4 or 6 as needed
100 g absolutely fresh tuna, thinly sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon fish sauce
lots of freshly ground black pepper
scaterring of chopped fresh coriander leaf

Put the tuna in a wide bowl. Mix the oil, lime juice, fish sauce and pepper together, then pour over the tuna. Toss gently, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate 20-30 minutes. Serve with the coriander leaf on top and more pepper. You can drain off the marinade but I like to dip a chunk of baguette into it.

Of course, as I was preparing the carpaccio, I had to run for my camera a couple of time to take some photos of one of the scarlet sunbirds that visits our garden daily to sip nectar from the tiny purple flowers on a young pineapple, and from the brilliant heliconia flowers.

So here it is, early afternoon and not a word written on the Sumatran rhino, the mud volcanoes and other delights of Tabin. I was about to start work then it occurred to me I should do a web search on the maker of the gorgeous blue porcelain plate I used for my tuna. It has a crest saying “Leonard Livada & Co, Constantinople” with London printed below. I couldn’t find anything on line. Can anyone help?

Eat Your Heart Out

2008-03-14T18:11:00.003+08:00

Why do I have this idea that just because someone is from a country which has stunning food, they’re bound to be a good cook? I was rather disillusioned last night when a Thai friend (a lovely girl who shall remain anonymous for obvious reaons) cooked a meal for us. Three dishes plus steamed rice, and all three dishes contained coconut milk! Where were the salty, sour and hot flavours?

And wouldn’t you know it, the salad I volunteered also contained coconut milk! My salad was made with fresh heart of palm, prawns and coconut cream flavoured with freshly made nam prik pao (a mixture of hot chilli, shallot, garlic, shrimp paste, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice).

The heart of palm came from a Brazilian peach palm I’ve been nurturing for about 10 years. With this specie, when you fell the palm to extract the heart, you’re not killing the goose that laid the golden egg, as is the case with coconut palms. Cut the palm and that’s it. However, the Brazilian peach palm obliging produces lots of small palms which sprout around the mature one, so in theory, you have a regular supply. In reality, we get about two per year. Perhaps their rarity makes them taste even more special.

My Thai friend certainly thought the salad was special. She ate more than the rest of us combined!

Please note this entry is ROA (Recipes On Application).

Romancing the Love Apple

2008-03-08T16:32:00.003+08:00

I'd like to think that the apple with which Eve tempted Adam was the love apple or pomme d'amour, better known as the tomato. So much lovelier and more seductive than a Granny Smith or Gala. However, unless the Garden of Eden was in Central America, there wouldn't have been any tomatoes around. Luckily, we can get really tasty tomatoes here, grown on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu, and we must consume about 1 1/2 kilos per week.

Last night, I made one of my favourite tarts, one which doesn't contain cream so it's not quite as cholesterol-laden as your average quiche. When the French "haven't a thing in the kitchen", they claim airily "on peut toujours faire une tarte". Well, maybe you can always whip up a tart easily if you live in France or Australia or somewhere else that sells ready-made short crust pastry, all rolled out and ready to simply push into a tart pan before filling. Here in the wilds of Borneo (ok, slight exaggeration), I always make my own pastry. For savoury tarts, I really like a mixture of oats and flour; it gives a better texture and more flavour to the pastry crust. As for my favourite filling (based on a Provencal recipe), just try it and you'll see why we love these tarts so much.

TOMATO, CHEESE & MUSTARD TARTS

Pastry:
125 g oatmeal
125 g plain flour
generous pinch of salt
125 g chilled butter, diced
water as needed
Filling:
6 small tomatoes (60-80 g each)
6 heaped tablespoons best French mustard
125 g gruyere or cheddar cheese, grated
fresh or dried thyme, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil

Put the oatmeal in a food processor and pulse a few times to break it up a bit. Add the flour, salt and butter and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add 2-3 tablespoons iced water and pulse until it forms a ball. Pop in a plastic bag, chill about an hour in the fridge, let it come to room temperature then roll it out. Line 6 small tart tins (preferably with a removable base) with the pastry. You can let them sit at room temperature (even in the tropics), lightly covered, for at least an hour.

Heat the oven to 200C. Cut each tomato in quarters and squeeze lightly to press out the juice. Sprinkle with salt and leave in a colander to draw out more juice, otherwise the pastry will be soggy. When the tomatoes are well drained, spread a heaped tablespoon of mustard on the bottom of each pastry base. Add 1/6th of the cheese, then top with 4 tomato quarters. Sprinkle with herbs, pepper and a good dribble of olive oil, then bake at 200C for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to about 180C and continue cooking until the tarts are done, about another 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm. Mon capitaine thinks they're even better cold.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

2008-03-07T12:12:00.003+08:00

JF sent me this view, taken not far from his "office" (c'est a dire, son bateau) in Kudat Harbour yesterday: a sizeable sailfish being delivered to the nearby market by the latest transportation equipment.

It's sad to size the profusion of small reef fish sold here. There is no enforcement of catch size — not surprising that the amount of fish here is dwindling rapidly. And the best fish go straight to the expensive seafood restaurants to be bought by the Taiwanese, Korean, Chinese & Japanese tourists. It's a lucky day when the average shopper finds slipper or flat-headed lobsters or decent-sized crabs in the market.

There are a few non-rainy patches in between the rain, which has gone on either day or night (or both) for the past 28 days. Here's a photo of the Likas water village taken on a recent morning before the rain started.

Pithed Off

2008-03-06T16:07:00.006+08:00

Did you know that the flesh of the pomelo (the heaviest of all citrus fruits) weighs less than half of the total, once you peeled off the very thick skin and got rid of the spongey white pith? I weighed a whole fruit (taken from "our" tree in Kudat) and then weighed the resulting pale pink flesh to learn this. (Amazing the things you do when you're not madly busy!)

I was disappointed by the opinion of Tom Stobart (The Cook's Encyclopaedia) that "the chief distinction of (the fruit) is that it is probably the ancestor of the grapefruit". He's obviously never tasted a good pomelo in Asia to give it such faint praise!

The ones from the garden in Kudat have very juicy, palest pink flesh, not very sweet which is why they're good in this Thai salad. You can try it with grapefruit if you can't get pomelo.

THAI POMELO SALAD

1 medium pomelo or 2 grapefruit, peeled and flesh broken into small segments
1/2 cup freshly grated or dessicated coconut, lightly toasted in a dry wok
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon castor sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice, or more to taste
1 tablespoon crisp-fried shallots
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced and slowly fried in oil until crisp
fresh coriander leaves

Put pomelo flesh, coconut, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice in a big bowl, stirring to mix well. Taste and add more lime juice if needed. Just before serving with rice and other dishes, scatter with the shallots, garlic and fresh coriander.

2008-02-29T12:41:00.006+08:00

As I was driving back down to Kota Kinabalu this morning, I was remembering my outlaw brother and sister, Alain and Giselle, and their reaction to Sabah roads when they visited us a few years back. "What does 'awas' mean?" they asked. "Basically, it means watch out, danger, take care, and it's cheaper to put a warning sign than repair the joke of a road you are about to encounter", I told them. To enliven our 6-hour drive, we started grading the "Awas" spots with *, ** or ****, a sort of Michelin system for dangerous road conditions.

As I crossed the 20-km stretch of collapsing road on the edge of the Crocker Range (a place I've dubbed Killer Hill), I decided to stop and take a few photos to share with you. At least a couple of these spots are *** Awas, wouldn't you agree?

Life in the Orchard

2008-02-28T16:29:00.002+08:00

My friend from way back when (would you believe 1968?), Vivienne, wrote from London asking me where Kudat is located.

Kudat's a small, rather delightful town in the far north of Borneo, which we first sailed into by yacht more than 20 years ago. The boat theme continues ... Jean-Francois is now working on a boat project here for a few months, so we've rented a second house almost 7 km out of town.

Kudat district is the heartland of the Rungus, Sabah's most traditional tribe, some of whom still live in longhouses and make great baskets and weavings. It was the first capital of British North Borneo in 1881, and is where the earliest boatloads of Chinese immigrant labourers (Hakka Christians from southern China) landed.

Today the town is a mixture of Chinese (very laid back and friendly they are, too), local Muslims, Rungus and (unavoidably, given our proximity to the Philippines), a number of Filipinos. Kudat is astonishingly orderly for Sabah. People park correctly (and there's actually plenty of parking, unlike the nightmare that Kota Kinabalu has become), there aren't any traffic jams, and the public toilet by the market is spotless and decorated with pot plants and plastic flowers (yeah, I know, but it's better than wodged-up wet tissues and other unmentionables).

We're living in the semi-rural area of Sin San, where the Chinese were given a few tools, seedlings etc and told to go forth and plant. And plant they did — mostly coconuts, which are still everywhere. It's really lush and green, masses of fruit trees (and birds, especially nasty Glossy Starlings that attack the papayas. In a small road going up a hill not far from our house, and where I like to do a late-afternoon walk if it's not raining, people are still growing crops to sell. "Our" garden here is full of old fruit trees — see the jackfruit I picked yesterday, alongside my pot of Italian basil brought up from KK.

Inspired by Basil

2008-02-27T14:26:00.005+08:00

Released from incarceration by a break in the rain, I dashed into the soggy garden and gathered one huge ripe jackfruit, 3 pomelos, a bowl of kalamansi (little round green limes known as calomondin to botanists) and a bunch of intensely fragrant Thai basil growing wild amidst the long grass.

Last night, the basil inspired me to prepare a Chinese aubergine/eggplant dish that I seldom made because the aubergine is deep-fried. Don't stop reading! If you have the temperature high and drain the aubergine thoroughly, it's not too oily, and the flavour and texture is excellent.

AUBERGINE WITH THAI BASIL

3-4 long slender Asian aubergines
plenty of ordinary olive oil (not EV)
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1-2 teaspoons sugar
large pinch of salt
handful of Thai basil, stalks discarded

Roll-cut the aubergine by laying it on the board, cutting in about 3-4 cm length, rolling the uncut portion 180 degrees, cutting again. Repeat this until you have a pile of wedges. Or if I haven't explained the technique correctly, just cut across diagonally in 3-4 cm lengths.

Heat a generous amount of oil in a wok. when hot (but not smoking, you don't want the vegie to burn), add a small handful of aubergine wedges and fry, stirring occasionally, until it is golden and soft — about 3-4 minutes. Drain well on paper towel and repeat until all the vegie is cooked.

Tip out all but a smidgen of oil, reheat the pan and gently fry the garlic for a few seconds. Put back the fried aubergine and stir fry for a moment or so. Splash with soy sauce, add sugar and salt, then stir in the basil just until it wilts. Serve hot. (Left-overs are great at room temperature for lunch the next day.)

And the Rain it Raineth

2008-02-27T08:59:00.000+08:00

I suppose rain in all its variants, from drizzle to lashing downpours, is to be expected during the northeast monsoon season, but weeks of the stuff gets boring. I wanted to visit the local tamu in Kudat — a market where tribal Rungus folk sell heart of palm, fern tips, pea-sized aubergines (great for Thai sambals), roselles (wonderful Jamaican sorrel flowers) and other exciting goodies. But the sheets of rain are a total deterrent, so I'm going to spend good shopping time trying to create a blog. Lots of recipes, photos and news to come.