bb and mm took a short break at Singapore at the weekend just passed. It was fun. Very hot, but quite breezy and of course, we were smart to stay in shopping malls most of the times to enjoy the air-conditioning. : )

I'm told that the weather was awful locally whilst we were away. We were lucky.

We went to nearly all shopping malls that we could possibly get something for ourselves, but ended up getting nothing. The "Great Sale" was on, but we noticed that the stuff there were pretty old-fashioned and we haven't qutie got to that stage/age yet :P Ah yes, we bought food eg the very nice Pandan cake and mult-layer cake at the airport, and I bought 2 elephants from Jim Thompson.

We had wonderful food, from chicken rice, satay etc from hawker centres, to chilli crab at East Coast - yum yum! I was tempted to buy the chilli sauce and make chilli crab when I get back, but I stopped myself knowing that I may not get to that before the sauce expires ... ! :P

Met some of bb's mates - nice bunch.

Deadline fell on 1st day of our holiday - 7 June 2007 - Sigh.

mm had an ok busy weekend. After work on Saturday, mm went to one of the shops that sells baking ingredients, utensils, apparatus etc and City Super. Both were good. Had lunch at one of the local tea house at Wanchai close to the shop mentioned above - tasted great!

Was gonna attend a Yoga class, but mm had had pain on the upper back so she'd left it until next week.

mm had apple crumble in mind - bb no here to make for mm lah! She downloaded Delia Smith's recipe. The recipe was to serve 6 to 8 and mm intended to cut everything by half, hopefully the end result would serve 3 to 4. Sat was too tired and so mm made it yesterday evening, after having been to churches in Central and Kln (ceremony for her Goddaughters). It's pretty bad, kind of a disaster! Firstly, taking bb's advice, mm only measured one-quarter of the sugar in the recipe for the crumble but she forgot to put it - when she remembered that, the crumble was already baking in the oven! The crumble had medium sized lumps and it was difficult for mm to make them into nice little crumbles, like those bb made. mm guessed that's probably because she didn't do it quick enough - the butter was already soft, too soft to make them into nice crumbles.

The recipe suggested a bit of ground cloves. mm tried several places but couldn't get any.

There's no Bramley apples here, so mm used Granny Smith.

Then the custard. mm bought vanilla extract - which Delia recommended as an excellent substitute to vanilla pods; she said vanilla essence was no good. The recipe didn't say how much vanilla extract should be added so mm added several drops to start with. She could only smell milk and egg. She added another 1 or 2 teaspoons; didn't help much either. The custard wasn't thick enough too. You see, this time, mm did the entire measurement so no half-ing, although she used whole milk, as suppose to double cream, which Delia said should be ok. The end product was pretty runny and a bit cuddled as mm brought it to boil (!) in her desperation to get it thickened - unfortunately.

All sounded pretty disasterous, right? mm was disappointed too. Surprisingly, it tasted ok! mm guess : u can't go far wrong with baked apples! :p

mm will give another try to making apple crumble - her favourite dessert ! It was good fun too !

bb will be back tomorrow - yeah! : D

Perhaps she would give some tips to mm?

*******************************************

Bruce called last week - we'll attend a seminar by a Franchisor of creative memory (or thinking or what not??! :P ) tomorrow evening (Monday). Objective is really as part of market research for a possible business, something to do with kid. will see lah.

We found a nice vineyard in Central Otago when we were in NZ last December 2005. It's called Olssens. We tried samples of their wines, b.s. a bit and bought 2 bottles of Jackson Barry 2002 or 2003 (I can't remember) (NZ 37.50 each), 2 bottles of Riesling (or was it Gurtzetraminer?) and 2 bottles of Verjuice (about NZ 10). The Jackson Barry were so nice that even a non-alcholic like me enjoyed it very much and would pour for myself ! The Verjuice is basically vinegar for salads or as marinades.

The lady who served us was very nice too. The lady told us they also export their wines including here. I just tried the number she gave me for the local wine seller but was told that they don't have it. They might have it before but not anymore. So I dropped the vineyard an email to ask about $$$ to buy from them directly e.g. shipping cost, tax, etc. Hope the price is tempting enough for me/us to go ahead. If so, I may get a few boxes. They are nice to drink ourselves and are good as gifts when visiting friends. :)

There were scrulptures in their garden and we spent some time there, taking pictures.