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Last Saturday I finally started to sell my hot chocolate again now that the weather is proper cold! The basic recipe is 1 part cream, 1 part chocolate, 4 parts milk. – I pour it in a simple white paper cup & then sprinkle dark chocolate shavings on top for the lux effect!
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And here is a picture of the wooden hare (not rabbit! The ears are long!) that I have been selling since the beginning of Summer. It is hand-carved, imported from Germany & the arms n’ legs are dangly. I’m glad to say that it’s going down really well & my stock is running out fast…
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Right now it’s 1:30am on Friday night, & I ought to be in bed, ready for tomorrow’s market! (The weather forecast says it’s 90% rain… oh joy…) I’ll add more to this write-up next week when I get a chance! Good night!!
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xxx

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Hi! Does anyone know where I can purchase The Irish Times newspaper in London?
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I think there might be a mention about me & this blog in this Saturday’s The Irish Times Magazine (that comes along with the newspaper)! And I want to get my hands on a copy or two…

I managed to hurt my ankle pretty bad…
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It actually first started to hurt about 2 months ago.
At the time I decided enough’s enough, I didn’t like the Chubsy-Ubsy in the mirror, so I went on a diet. – I jogged everyday & ate low calorie & healthy foods. I would read every food label for calorific content, & do a bit of maths to make sure I am within the daily set limit. (by the way, did you know that baby biscuits make a really tasty low calorie snack?)
And every time I jogged, I could push myself a little further than the previous day & I loved that feeling of accomplishment. But being an obsessive character that I am, when I decide on something, I have a tendency of doing it excessively.
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Two weeks of that went by. But one morning, when I woke up, my left foot hurt. I thought that I sprained it perhaps, so I put jogging on hold (& subsequently the low-cal healthy eating too…!) but never saw a doctor about it. Besides, I am so busy with the children & then the stall work, I didn’t give it much thought despite it hurting.
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I know I know, now I feel pretty silly about leaving it unattended like that. Because last Sunday morning, as I got out of my warm bed & ran to the toilets, I pulled on the sore muscle big-time. Like, BIG-time that I couldn’t walk… This finally made me go to the doctors though. I was told it’s Achilles Tendonitis, a sports injury. – I never thought I’d be suffering a SPORTS injury of all things!
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So guys, no Market this week, I’ve gotta rest my feet. But hopefully next week okay?
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I seem to be having a string of bad luck this year.
– Two weeks ago my iPhone got nicked in the bus which made me very upset. Like, why steal? Did they look through the family pictures on it? Don’t they have any guilty conscience? It was an invasion of my privacy & I felt uncomfortable & insecure for a while. It was also new, after having the last mobile for 8 years.
– Just before the Summer my laptop got broken by my son spilling a mug full of tea… I had that laptop for 5 years & I was proud of it.
– Our Dvd player got broken by our little one.
– Earlier this year I was pretty ill too.
– And now this.
Maybe I read too much in to this, but in terms of yin and yang, this year feels rather yin. I can only hope next year is yang.
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(Children’s story book: “ノンタンのたんじょうび”) 

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I love this book. 

In this 1980 Japanese children’s book titled ‘Nontan’s Birthday’, a white cat called Nontan receives a surprise birthday party organized by his friends.

“I wonder what they are doing?”

Sensing something is up, Nontan tries to get a sneak peek at what his friends are up to but fails to see anything as they shut the curtain!

At the end, he is invited in to the house to find the table full of cookies shaped like him!

“Woow! Amazing! Me as cookies! Thank you!” 

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((Lucky cat. I wish somebody did a surprise for me like that too!))

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The inside front & back pages has a really good cookie recipe that I want to share with you. It is ultra simple to make & its taste takes you back to sweet memory of childhood.

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Nontan Cookie Recipe (with my extra notes): 

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Ingredients:

> 80g of room temperature unsalted butter   
> 80g of castor sugar   
> 1 egg   
> 200g of flour   
> 5g of baking powder
> extra flour for dusting the surface

> raisins/ nuts/ etc for decoration optional

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Method:

• 1. Cream the room temperature butter in the mixing bowl (cream it to the extent of it being as soft like mayonnaise).
• 2. Add the sugar & thoroughly mix until very airy & very creamy.
• 3. Mix in an egg.
• 4. Sift in the flour & baking powder to the mixture & fold it in. (Here, don’t be tempted to over-mix. Stop soon as you can’t see the flour. The flour will form gluten & the cookies will not rise as much & turn out tough!)  
• 5. Wrap the cookie dough in cling-film & refrigerate for more than 30 minutes. (It loosens the gluten & the butter within will get solid again. If you don’t rest it the texture & the flavour will be sacrificed. Also, top tip for wrapping it in cling-film is to flatten it so that it cools quicker.)
  
• 6. Flour your work surface. Take â…“ of the dough at a time & roll to 5mm thickness. (You wouldn’t want to roll it out all in one go because it’ll take up space & the dough won’t keep cold.)
• 7. Now have fun & make Nontan shapes. The book has the following suggestions;
  … Cut 5cm squares & use a toothpick to dot a face pattern on it.
  … Shape the dough like a face & use nuts/ raisins as the eyes & the mouth.
  … Cut a cardboard contour of the face & using a knife, cut around it on the dough.
  … Take some of the dough & add cocoa powder. Shape a big Nontan face & then use the cocoa dough for facial features.
• 8. Place on a baking sheet & bake in a pre-heated oven of 180 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes. (Half way through, you might want to change the direction of your tray in the oven so that it is evenly baked.)
• 9. Once baked, take the baking sheet off the tray & cool on a rack.

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My son loves to make Nontan cookies. And I love that he enjoys baking, even if he’s handling the dough ’til it’s melting, or patting it so hard that it is too thin… not forgetting to mention the flour-y mess EVERYWHERE…

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Normally my cookie baking rules are: 

• to measure the ingredients precisely to the gram.
• to handle it less as possible. For example, never roll the same dough out more than twice because the extra flour from the work surface would muck up the delicate ratio of flour. it will also deteriorate the dough.
• to work quickly as possible, so that the butter in the dough doesn’t melt & deteriorate texture & flavour.

But for home-baking with my son, I’ll throw all those rules out of the window any day…!

(Glass of milk, a must.) 

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It was an eye-opener of an idea that he stuck the sprinkles in the holes to create rainbow-coloured facial features. He also gently pressed half of the fluted cutter to emboss a smile!(bottom left)

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In many occasions I feel blessed that I run a Market stall. It is because, not only is it a special time when I get to do a “me-thing” away from the house chores, it is also a time when I get to meet all sorts of people. Come Saturdays, I get to meet fellow stall-holders to whom I love chatting to, meet dear friends that come visit me, & then there are customers who drop by my stall who I love engaging in a bit of chat with.
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One such lovable customer I love talking to is E who is a regular face at my stall. After several visits & chats, we found out more about each other. She is a doctor, & bless her she would ask about how my children are doing every time, & if I tell her that ‘oh, baby S has a cold’ or something, she would always give me proper advice.
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Two weeks ago, on another of those across-the-table chats, she mentioned that her friend is the Chef Patissier of Browns Hotel. Browns Hotel?! Isn’t that where the reaaally famous Tea Room is?! When I expressed “Ooooh!” sounds amongst other words of excitement, E promised to get me in contact with the Chef.

Cut the fore-story short, Chef Patissier F kindly allowed me to visit him at the hotel. So last Monday off I went to Mayfair London, donning on nice pair of heeled shoes so that I don’t look out of place in the posh hotel.
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(Browns Hotel is London’s first ever hotel) 

(A blurry picture of the tea room that I took extra quick because I didn’t want to disturb any of their customers! It was 1pm, 2 hours before the tea service so it wasn’t crowded yet. On the left there’s a baby grand piano.)
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As I briefly wait in the reception for F, I see how grand the place is aswell as their clientele affluent & feel glad that I wore nice shoes. As I thumb through their leaflet I read that Queen Victoria & Winston Churchill often took tea here, Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The Jungle Book’, & Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful UK telephone call from the hotel.

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(F is on the right)

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F turned out to be very friendly, & very generous. And we clicked right away. As we talked ingredients, merits of Italian meringue over French meringue for macarons, shelf-life of handmade truffles, he would hand out things for me to taste. Truffles made with single origin Varlhona & Amedei was truly divine. I couldn’t remember when I last ate a Criollo. I learnt that truffles shouldn’t be stored in a fridge as it’ll change the texture of the ganache.

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As he explains the ratio of fruit to sugar for jams (100 fruit: 80 sugar), I got given a table-spoon of homemade strawberry jam that was delightlful. Then on to tasting a chocolate macaron which had whipped ganache middle & I listen intently as possible to his recipe whilst I gorge on it. Hmm. I love chocolate macarons…
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This year Browns Hotel English Tea Room won The Tea Guild’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award & I can easily see why. F’s pastries are all made expertly, with the best ingredients & it tastes amazing. The tea room decor has original wood paneling, cosy fire places & it oozes sophistication & history. The location of the hotel is a stone’s throw away from Piccadilly Circus & it’s perfect for stopping by after shopping. Now, I don’t think I’ll ever get to stay there since it costs something like half-a-grand per night, but on hearing that F had already made the Christmas fruit cakes earlier this Spring & has been topping it up with brandy regularly ever since, well, my curiosity will likely take me back to the hotel this Christmas just for that…!

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It was super nice of F to meet me just before he gets very busy with the tea service. What also made me happy about all of this is how my stall customer have cared for me enough to think better for me & connect me to him. I feel blessed. And what’s more, now I have F to telephone when I have pastry questions!
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(Mass amount of plain & fruit scones)

(More pastries that I tried in the kitchen)

(Here’s even more that I took home! And yes, I skipped dinner that night.)

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