Swiss Holidays Part 1 – Train Ride

I am now at Swiss on holidays with Em… 

The train ride from Milano to Luzern was like the most beautiful and most scenic ride I have ever taken! Its really funny how our gahmen can promise us the “Swiss way of life” when we DO NOT EVEN have the “Swiss kind of landscapes”!

Xmas 2007 with Em

All I want for Christmas is…

I really don’t care about the presents, the food, and the holidays.

All I want for Christmas is my high value ebay item camcorder to arrive safely, in perfect condition, and BEFORE 28th Dec 2007!

Dear God, please make my wish come true.

Jingle Bell in Italian

Wishing everyone (and more importantly myself)…. A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Quanto è bello andar
sulla slitta insieme a te
in quest’atmosfera dolce di Natal,
suonano così le campane
che ci fan cantare in coro:
Buona notte, buon Natal!

Tin tin tin,
tin tin tin,
tintinnate ancor,
campanelle della slitta
che sulla neve va!
Don don don,
don don don,
dondola lonta,
la campana della chiesa
la notte di Natal!

Xmas Dinner with Labmates

What kind of genius you want your child to be?

I was watching “My Brilliant Brain” on the National Geographic Channel and was seriously intrigued by the program.

The program talked about “genius hiding in us”, “a smarter us”, and “powers waiting to be unleashed”! In the program, there were 2 geniuses – a chess master and a young musician. Both were trained by their parents when they were very very young! Indeed, nurture is more powerful than nature…

Anyhow, I was brainstorming and I have decided to train my son to be a astrologist, geologist, or archaeologist! I am going to buy telescopes as his toys, bring him for nature landscapes tours as his holidays, and read ancient architecture as his bedtime stories!

So what kind of genius you want your child to be?

Madagascar Lychees

I didn’t know Madagascar produces lychees for exports till I saw some at the supermarket today! The quality sucks big time though, compared to the ones from China (especially the “Glutinous Rice Ball” type with thick fruit meats and super small seeds).

Nevertheless, I bought 3kg – some lousy lychees is always better no lychees!

Italian Gestures

The other day, my coursemates (from Italian lessons) and I went for a drink and started discussing about life in Italy. The lucky thing for me was that though there were 1 French, 1 Scotish, 1 Irish, 1 German, and 1 Dutch, they all spoke English which made conversation possible!

Anyhow, they were discussing on how Italy is so sooo different from the rest of Europe and one of the topics was that the Italians seriously have hand or body gestures for almost everything (which I previously talked about). It was such a fun topic because all of us were mimicking all the various gestures!

Check this website http://italian.about.com/library/handgestures/blgesturesindex.htm and this Youtube video from ItalyfromInside.com. They show mainly the most BASIC gestures. Some other complex ones not shown includes

• “Did you had s*x?”
• “Move away or f*ck off”
• “Suck my d*ck”
• “Screw my a*s”
• “He’ll kick your a*s off”
• “I don’t know or who knows?”

Failed “Egg Spa”

The other day I was watching some Ch8 show and one the chef did an “egg spa” dish (not too sure if I remember correctly or not). Basically, the egg white was beaten such that there is an increase in volume (just like baking I think) and then pan fried lightly to golden brown on the outside. The end effect is an outer crisp and an inner foamy spongy feeling (just like “spa-ing” the mouth as what the show mentioned)

Anyhow I decided to copy and hope to prepare for Em (cos em love spas!) when she is here. I did a pilot experiment and it failed pretty badly. Some problems I encountered (and tried to troubleshoot along the way)…

1. A freaking weak battery operated whisker (which I bought for 8 euros!). I change to manual with a fork and somehow its slightly better. I’m buying a freaking POWER operated high watt stirrer for next time since this is a super critical step.

2. Foam forms very slowly and is not stabilized in the army mass tin container. I switch to a plastic Tupperware and somehow its slightly better. I’m buying a glass bowl for next time!

3. The egg foam is a little fluffy but not STIFF! I tried added some coke (source of acid) to see if it can stabilised the foam and form “stiff peaks”. IT does help a little but still nothing near those beautiful white “stiff peaks” you see in baking.

4. I made a mistake by adding the fluffy egg white onto the pan first and then start the heating. The outer part needs to be pan-fried very quickly while the inner part needs to remain fluffy and I suppose slow heating reduces the foamy part inside?

Cooking is like science – I guess I need to read the literature (cooking sites) more before trying this dish again! I need complete equipments and complete detailed protocols!

(Too little foam inside! Geesed…)

Do you freeze your bread?

When I first came to Italy, I realised that the white fluffy “soft-soft” kind of sunshine bread is not so common here. Instead, the typical bread here are those “hard-hard” type or french loaf as we call them in Sg, which I usually use it for curry chicken or garlic bread (in Sg of course, really miss curry chicken man!). Anyhow, these kind of “hard-hard” bread are really good for making panino (sandwich) – my staple food here.

However, the problem is that they dry out and become “rock” after a day or so at room temp! So I was asking my labmates if people here buy bread on a daily basis because I usually buy 2 long ones on weekends and by monday I am eating “rock”! They then tell me to freeze the bread on the same day I bought it and that the bread can stay “status quo” for weeks. I find it pretty cool and it was really something new to me.

Anyhow, my family doesn’t freeze bread – when the bread is “old” my mum makes toast with them or sometimes I use it to feed fishes! What do you do with your old bread?