I did the following during the past one month of absence from this blog:
Holidayed in HK (14-16 May 2011)
Visited Sai Kung, sampled the cheap and fresh seafood, took the green mini bus at long last. Had a long walk along the waterfront, saw dragon boat training, floating seafood/fish market.
Re-visited Tai O Fishing Village which has changed substantially. Had a really long walk through the stilted houses in the waters, saw the backdrop of mountains and graves, browsed through all the shops that were opened for the Sunday crowd and bought some dried squid for cooking soup, fresh prawn paste and dried sea cucumber
Walking tour of HK Island (Central & Sheung Wan) through the famed Mid Levels Escalator, Hollywood Road, the antiques and bird nest streets, Cat Street, passed by Man Mo Temple, went into the Western Market before taking the tram down to Admiralty
All these are places which I have never been in my many past numerous trips to HK. Wonderful experience although I missed the chance to visit Lamma Island and the Geoparks off Sai Kung.
The entire month of June was of course spent planning activities and supervising my niece - it's her school hols after all. We did a series of nature walks together.
Nature Walks (June 2011)
- Dairy Farm Nature Park - Wallace Trail, Singapore Quarry
- Bukit Timah Nature Reserve - Summit and Hindhede Nature Park
- Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve
Found that the niece has an excellent memory, keen observation powers and a flair for the natural sciences. She helped me to spot many interesting stuff during our walks - bracket fungi, dancing spider/worms, squirrels, monkeys, pond skaters, mud skippers, birds, butterflies, etc etc.
Bread-making (May 2011)
In between I had my very first bread-making course at Creative Culinaire, Eng Hoon Road. Chef Judy is really good and very informative. She is a true educator and baker. Learnt a great deal from her.
Baking is definitely an art but also a very very precise science.
Surprisingly, bread-making is very sensual or tactile - you really must learn to feel and sense the bread in order to create the most flavourful product. Also learnt that bread-making is very culture-centric, as with all other foods and cuisine. The different flour used in different countries and the different taste buds and preferences influence the kind of flavours that one can produce in the breads made and hence the type of methods used.
Best of all, bread-making is an art of living - the product is a live organism - alive and growing before your very eyes. It does not require lots of sugar, butter or eggs (which is something I like very much).
But because the Family is not into bread and my autistic nephew is unable to take too much gluten, I think my bread-making opportunities will be severely limited.
