honey dewrian

is there such a word as 'unfavourite'? this is it, my monitor is really down.

i finally found the flours that i wanted, that i was running out of. it took me about two months because so many supermarkets didn't have them, and i finally found them at causeway point.

i'm not going to be old this time.

hugging machine

turns out, the strong gusts on wednesday night, after i saw the mango-lanterns, were part of some sumatran squall. my computer isn't working now (so i'm using my sister's laptop), so i was baking the america's test kitchen croissants. no photos until i can get my computer up again.

i finished reading the time traveller's wife. it's so sweet, yet so painful at the same time. i suppose claire understood, understood that she had to wait for henry; and somehow or rather henry's life is just so intertwined with claire's that he would even travel so far forward into her future.

i was also making some sandwich cookies - again, no photos yet. i finished baking the martha chocolate cut-out cookie dough, and then i made a white creamy filling according to some whoopie pie recipe. the sandwich cookies were like litle home-made oreos. when you sit down and lay out the cookies, spread some filling on them, sandwich the cookies, you'll feel like a machine at nabisco, which - by the way - was originally named 'national biscuit company'.

i also happen to have a lot of (nigella) starter now. anyone wants?

relentless narcissistic drone

two projects: real croissants, sandwich cookies.

everything stopped so suddenly.

you can save us all

have you seen trees full of mangoes? it's almost magical. of course, the atmosphere must be right: it must be at night, and there must be some form of isolated light sources shining down in random spots.

then, the mangoes will look like little glowing lanterns hanging off the branches. and there are many.
cookies?

pick up the gun

last night there were some works going on downstairs. it sparked and sparked. and became lightning in my room at midnight. and then i had the most unusual interview ever.

cuba libre

they say the yeast in a sourdough culture that is removed from its original location and brought to another locale will be eventually replaced by yeast found in that new locale. i suppose by now - after almost five months of growing, the yeast in my nigella starter should have changed from commercial yeast to the strains found in my home...

for the same reason that only 'local' yeast will grow in any starter, sourdough breads are often named after the place they are made, like 'san francisco sourdough', or 'vermont sourdough'.

today i finished making a bread using only my nigella starter as leavening. the recipe calls is 'vermont sourdough', but it should be more correctly called 'tiong bahru sourdough'. previously when i made nigella sourdough loaves, her recipe called for additional commercial yeast to be added into the final dough. this helps it rise faster, but at the same time imparts that commercial yeast smell.

this time, i'm using a jeffrey hamelman recipe. it uses the leavening action of solely the starter that goes into the dough. of course, i don't have a starter made based on hamelman's recipe, but i took a chance and used nigella's starter, since i thought the hydration wouldn't be affected by that much. (anyway, only a tiny amount of starter is used to make a levain build first, then incorporated into the final dough.)
this is the liquid levain build, which involves a little of the starter mixed with water and flour. the idea is to make it 12 hours before making the final dough, and just let the yeast inside grow and multiply until bubbly and capable of leavening an entire loaf.
this is the final dough, made after an autolyse phase. it was just slightly sticky, but i left it to rise and gave it a few folds.
because there's no commercial yeast involved, it took a longer time for the pure sourdough loaf to rise and proof before baking. normal straight doughs take at most four hours from mixing to baking, but this one took about 18 hours in total.
the bread came out very nice. it's similar to the sourdough bread bowl from swensen's: the crust is somewhat chewy, and the crumb is stretchy. the colour isn't quite right, though, because for sourdough breads, the surface crust should be lighter than the crust in the scoring, like thus. and there's no yeasty smell in the bread! my nose is a bit blocked though, so i can't smell if there is that sour tang in the bread.

and the big bang theory is quite funny to watch.

doppler effect

interestingly, when i was drinking some chocolate milk tea, my shuffle was playing 朱古力万岁. tonight's joey's concert, but i won't get to go.

红豆冰

sometimes when you know some things are coming to an end, you just get so emotionally charged.

one night we were doing night driving, we were all looking at the fireflies going in and out of the trees, their lights going on and off too.

i've passed the course, and now i'm licensed to drive the BX. i've touched the oiliest, dirtiest, greasiest, sandiest things ever. but i guess washing the vehicle today - and getting totally soaked under the vehicle - signifies the end of everything. and i did like all the rainbows that formed, and the butterfly that rested on my helmet.

the past few days have been very hot, and in the night it gets quite warm too. maybe that's why the past few nights i've been having very intense dreams, dreams that involve love and separation, murder and missions, death and chances.

every night i look at the stars, which are many, in the sky over the ulu camp. it's so clear that the small (M43, M42) cluster in orion is actually quite visible, but after half an hour the whole constellation disappears.

if i could, i would like to look at the vast expanse of sky that i get to see everyday in the ulu camp, one more time. and then wave goodbye, wave.

沉迷一睡不醒的白晝
寧願一切散失後　至少可內疚
然後是嘆息　是記憶
總算在華麗裡浮　能沉睡到永久

美麗在驟眼間會沒有
變出一千扎鏡花的今後
我相信蜃樓　相信荒謬
從來憧憬的都不永久　總好過沒有

'pseudo' play with 木头人 and tear silently, carefully. there are still a lot of mangoes on the trees back in camp.

scratch

some days i feel a bit aimless. this weekend is a little like that. i get through making breads like it's routine already - and it actually is quite - but i don't feel anything. it's as though i need a 分身术.

so here's a multigrain hearth bread.
this is the multigrain mix, which has cornmeal, oat bran, rolled oats and flaxseeds.
i scored the loaf 5 times, radiating out from the same point, to make it look like a cute leaf, which i somehow associate with the words 'paw paw'.
so the paw paw turns from a light whitish dough into a dark golden brown crusty loaf. i think it's very similar in structure and texture as the honey and walnut loaf from le bon marche; the crust is firm and the crumb is tightly woven.

and here is the power bread.
it is called 'power' because of the great amount of ready-to-release-energy sugars in the loaf. there is a background of pureed raisins in the soaker, and then there are the ground sunflower seeds which taste so very delicious by themselves.
the loaf is also full of fibre, from both the whole grains and the flaxseeds.
pullman-style. these came out a little gummy inside; i suppose i need to bake them a bit longer. but the bread was tasty. it was subtly sweet, and very nutty, taste- and texture-wise.

nothing that connects

i realised that my home-washed uniforms have a smell so familiar which reminds me of BMT. i think i've been washing clothes in camp for too long already. and it also means i'm moving closer to ORD. the driving course, too, is moving quite quickly to its end, and i think i'll miss it for a while (somehow).

men can read maps better than women. 'cause only the male mind can conceive of one inch equalling a hundred miles.

-roseanne

flat

made an impulsive bake yesterday - the focaccia from my american book.
the problem was that the dough was very extremely wet; it was a batter. it took me a long time adding more and more flour to get it to become a dough, by which time i may have changed the hydration from 100% to 75%.
after the intial rest, the dough is spread onto a highly-oiled baking sheet. and with subsequent rests, the dough is slowly prodded to spread and fill the sheet. i sprinkled the top with rosemary, and then after the final rest dimpled the surface of the dough.
baked the focaccia. i thought i had used a great excess of olive oil (undesirably), but in the end the oil seemed to get all absorbed into the bread. the bread was not dripping with oil.
i didn't wait too long before cutting into the bread. it was good when it was warm, though when cold it became a little dry, like bread made from lean dough. i'm going to have to try the recipe again and add as little flour as possible, maybe using less water and more oil.

柠檬最

made some lemon gems last sunday. they were so very cute.
the lemony dough which tasted quite tasteless before baking, but had an incredible lightness in texture and taste after.
the dough is chilled, and small blobs are pinched off and shaped into balls. then i pressed into their centres to make deep dents which baked up just flat enough.
dropping teaspoons of the wonderful lemon curd onto the flat tops of the biscuits. the curd would promptly turn slightly translucent as it gets hot, and then spread a little, but firm up again.
so the lemon gems do look like fried eggs.

i am so on course now, and i think i do like the toilet in the ulu camp. (and the cookhouse too. and the muah chee at the canteen~) there's also the corridor where you get a wide and clear view of the evening sun and clouds. i saw so many people from my BMT.

basically, it's like back to BMT again, just that now i'm closer to ORD than to enlistment. (i don't bathe after a run, but just change to uniform and immediately go for the next lesson. and the uniform is used to the maximum before going into the washing machine.) but when it rains there, it does pour.

i think by the time i finish the course, the mangoes would be all gone. just what are the chances that the person beside you on the train is listening to the same song on his ipod?

sometimes you get off the bus and then you become stranded.