Foodie Reads: Tangerine by Colin Cheong

The last book I am choosing for Foodie Read is Colin Cheong's Tangerine. I chose to read this book because it  was the winner of the 1996 Singapore Literature Prize. In summary, it is about how Nick, a young Singaporean photojournalist, travels by himself from Saigon to Hanoi to meet up with his old friends. Throughout the week-long journey, he tries to mix in with the locals. He travels in crowded buses and lives in inexpensive hostels. He reflects on himself and his relationship with the whole world in general.

I had not been to Vietnam and had expected it to be a travelogue that would go into detail about the different places that Nick visited. However, the book focus more on the people he met along the way and reflects on the Vietnamese’s post-war sentiments. Some local dishes were mentioned too but not much.

I took 3 months to read the book. Partly because I find it boring and slightly confusing in the beginning. There were quite a number of flashbacks and many characters so I got confused and started to re-read the whole book again. Sad to say but it was only from the middle the of book, I started to enjoy reading. Nick was talking to Denise and Margaret, his fellow travellers whom he met on the bus, that why he remains as a single because of the 5C expectation of Singaporeans. This is something I could relate to.

And why the book was named Tangerine. I guessed probably Nick had tangerines with him every since he left the airport and he gave them to a Vietnamese who always ask for price but refused to buy tangerines from every tangerine girls they met.

At the end of the story whereby he finally united with his friends for a gathering, he realised he and his friends had the common frames of references, but he would never see things the way they do. Somewhat I feel Nick has more compassion and attentive than his friends. The ending left my heart feeling warm.

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Foodie Read: 轻松易学的手工面包 : 即使没有烤箱也能在家做的面包! 饭田顺子著 ; 左瑞瑤译

If you have been wondering why this blog had been so quiet . One of the reasons I had blogged lesser because I am committing myself to read more. Not only for myself but for Little One as well. Not just that I had also committed to learn new skills. I have been tatting, sewing and painting.

What have I been reading?
Voices under the Rising Sun - Fiona Hodgkins ( a review on it was written in the blog)
Alice's adventures in Wonderland ; &, Through the looking-glass

Finally, this 轻松易学的手工面包 : 即使没有烤箱也能在家做的面包!

My review:

Regarding the recipe book, it's a pity that they do not have English translation. I believe this book would be a hit! The Japanese author, Iida, Junko, is very creative. She had written a couple of recipe books for baked products including macaroons, bread, pastries, cakes, pies and desserts. This is her first cookbook that I have read. I say she is creative because in this particular book, she made bread using non-stick pan. She also had another book on making cakes and snacks using non stick pan. However, I am interested in another book which she wrote. It includes recipes for making cakes and pies in rice cooker. I had just bought a rice cooker which can bake. Hence, it will be great if I can lay my hands on this book.

This particular book teaches you mainly how to make bread, you can also learn to make simple thin crust pizza, naan, bagel and muffin. It also guide how to make your own cottage cheese , jam and butter.

The recipe book is split into various parts
1) making simple bread with low protein flour
2) making simple bread using pancake mix
3) making bread using yeast and high protein flour


All recipes requires low heat and covering of the pan while cooking. Total minimum cooking time is about 25 minutes. The resulting bread looked exactly like what you would have found in a bakery.

I tried make banana bread but I do not have a non -stick pan with a lid. Hence I used a normal pan instead, resulting a charred bottom bread even though I used baking paper. However, the bread still taste great (We discarded the bottom) !  Personally I think I can improve the next try out by making smaller bread instead of covering the whole pan.

My failed  "masterpiece" 

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Jade Rabbit and Mid Autumn Festival

When we talk stories about Mid Autumn Festival, we tend to tell the story of Chang 'e, goddess of the moon. Well, do you know about the Jade Rabbit? It is the companion of Chang'e and it makes immortality elixir. There were a few legends about the Jade Rabbit. One of which is that Chang'e brought the rabbit together to the moon.

Chang'e lantern in Chinatown this year

The other story involved a beggar begging for food. The monkey gathered fruits from the trees and the otter collected dead fish from the river bank, while the jackal wrongfully pilfered a lizard and a pot of milk-curd. The rabbit, who knew only how to gather grass, instead offered its own body, threw itself into a fire the beggar had built. The beggar was actually a deity in disguise. Touched by the rabbit's sincerity, he chose the rabbit to teach it to make immortality elixir and  brought it to the moon.

Mooncakes and an embroidery.

 Mooncakes is a must have during mid autumn festival. This year, we had chosen to buy from The Peninsula. We bought 8 mini mooncakes with 2 flavours - the traditional brown lotus seeds mooncake and the egg custard mooncakes. We love mini mooncakes as they are small enough to be consume by oneself.  If I were to buy the bigger ones, I would have to cut them into small pieces and slowly consume them because my family is not a great fan of mooncakes. And yes, I would gain plenty of weight during this period of time. Peninsula's egg custard mooncakes taste great. We were told that this particular flavour was out of stock in Hong Kong! The reason we bought duo flavour is because my mom still prefer to eat the traditional ones.

Rabbit admiring the moon

I was glad I managed to register for Susanna Lo's classes in the library. Personally, I love the things she created. She has a facebook page named "Stuff Susie Made" where she showcases the crafts she had made. I believe she was inspired by Jade rabbit to come out with the idea to sew an embroidery consisting of 3D rabbit viewing the moon with a lantern . She embroidered some flowers and grasses too. After sewing all the stuff, I decided to test my embroidery skills by sewing more flowers on it. I guess it went tad bit overbroad.

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Little One @ Gardener's Day Out

This was our first trip to Gardener's Day Out.  There were quite a number of things going on that day. Mainly Hort Clinic where you can ask questions regarding plant care. There were plant sales (mainly from the Pasir Panjang Nursery) and gardening talk too. Definitely a great event for gardeners!

I have no green fingers. Practically every plant I tried to grow died in my hands, so it took me quite a while to decide to attend the event. We attended mainly because of the Edible Garden Tour and Harvesting. Living in the city meant that most children do not get a chance to plant and harvest vegetables. The first time I get to know that we can actually harvest from the garden was during our last Hort Park and Pasir Panjang tour. We wrote in to Hort Park to register. NPARKS_HortPark@nparks.gov.sg The programme is about an hour long. The cost of the programme is $3/ parent child pair. The only mode of payment is by NETS at the Visitor Services Centre.

Plants on sale

Hort Clinic

There were free plants (2 leaves and a flower stalk ) and free fertilizer  given out on that day itself! Little One likes the flowers so we got some.

There were workshops and storytelling on that day too. Guided tours were available too.

Edible Garden Tour and Harvesting

Below is a photo essay of the harvesting part of the programme. We were brought to the Edible Garden and were shown which plants could be harvested. The children were quite excited to touch and harvest the plants. There were Spinach, Cai Xin, Radish, Long Bean, Basils, Corn, Brinjal , Lemongrass, Pandan leaves and Ladyfinger. We didn't harvest a lot as we tend to eat out during weekend and hate to put the food we harvested to a waste. Hence, we harvested what we thought could last us through Monday. From the programme, I also learnt how to keep the food fresher from one of the volunteers.

Both Little One and I enjoyed our events. We will definitely be back.

Pulling the radish!

Various Leafy plants

Left: Harvesting Corn
Right: These Garden shears are pretty sharp. Little One nearly snapped my fingers with it in her excitement!

Her bagful of vegetables

Cooking simply with the harvested goods. My creation: Soupy Udon with lemongrass, basil and Cai Xin with a dash of sesame oil for flavour. Little One likes it.

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Little One @ Pasir Panjang Nursery and Hort Park Tour

Did you know some of the roads/places  in Singapore are named after trees?  Did you know all the trees found on roads and parks actually comes from the one and only NParks nursery in Singapore? What to do if you have a space constraint to grow plants in Singapore? Why not visit the Hort Park for ideas? 

"Set up in the 1970s, the Pasir Panjang Nursery supplies close to 200,000 plants a year to green up Singapore’s roads and parks. Majority of the plants provided by the nursery are native to Singapore and not easily available in private nurseries. It is NParks’ major nursery and houses over 3,000 species of trees, palms, shrubs, groundcover, herbs, fruit trees and aquatic plants. Seeds, cuttings and saplings of native plants are collected weekly from across Singapore, including the forests. These are grown at the nursery until they are ready to be planted islandwide. The nursery also sources plants from the region such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to increase the variety of ornamental plants used in NParks’ planting programmes.

HortPark is a one-stop gardening resource centre that brings together gardening-related, recreational, educational, research and retail activities under one big canopy in a park setting. Popular with gardening enthusiasts, families, and community groups who wish to learn more about gardening or share tips with like-minded enthusiasts, HortPark is also frequently visited by visitors who enjoy taking nature walks along the Southern Ridges."

                                                                                                                            ~NParks

Recently, we signed up for a tour at SGfuture: Site Visit to Pasir Panjang Nursery and HortPark. This time I signed my hubby up as he had not been to the nursery (not open to public) before. 

The tour started from Hort Park and ends in Pasir Panjang Nursery. I must admit I had not been to Hort Park for almost 1 year! Quite a couple of things had changed. One of which is Community in Bloom Gardens which are actually 5 meaningful mini gardens/themes to commemorate SG 50. They are "Blk 50", "Play Mosaic", "Balik Kampung", "Talk Bird, Sing Song" and "2065". I particularly like Blk 50 and Balik Kampung. They contains a number of nostalgic items. We were also introduced to the various techniques on how Hort Park used various innovative ways to maintain their gardens. Examples are vertical gardening and Aquaponic garden. Although I have seen vertical gardens in various part of Singapore but I must admit, I do not know how these gardens were maintain. It was definitely an eye opener!

A pity the dragon head is not a replica of the dragon playground in Toa Payoh.

Blk 50 with its antique looking window grilles. There are some nostalgic furniture around too! 

Aquaponics Garden is a small scale aquaponic system in which vegetables and food fish are grown together whereby both organisms benefits mutually.

Aquaponics Garden

Sandpit in HortPark

Proceeding next to Pasir Panjang Nursery.
As mentioned earlier, many of the trees in our local parks, roadsides and even Istana were nurtured here before planted islandwide. One of the roles of the nursery is to propagate native plants. Some of these species are coming close to extinct on our island. Our group consists of many plant lovers who love to grow their own herbs and plants at home.They asked lots of questions on how to grow certain vegetables. The guides were patient to share with us their knowledge. We were also told how certain places got its name, such as Kranji, Sembawang and Kampong Glam.

Golden Papaya

Fruit of Signature Tree - ants are feeding on the seeds
This tree is also known as Signature tree because autographs can be scratched onto the stout, long-lasting leaves.

In case you wonder why there are plants in the canal : aquatic plants, including water lilies, help to purify water that runs through it. 

Purple Capsicum?

Brinjal

Purple chilli

Various salvage plants

Little One is particularly interested in the Asam Tree, Garcinia Atroviridis. Ever since she stepped in the nursery, she had been asking for it. The reason being she loves to eat the young leaves of this tree. She was introduced to this plant almost 1.5 years ago when she last visited and she still can remember how it tasted like. Only the orange young leaves can be eaten raw and it cannot be eaten with an empty stomach.

Garcinia Atroviridis

Although this trip to the nursery was shorter than the last, we still learnt quite a lot from the trip. Hopefully, next time NParks will open more slots for the public to go.

Street Scenes at Jurong Point

If you like to explore Asian Food, Jurong Point is probably your best bet. It has food from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. It has everything under 1 roof! I love to look at the street scenes from these places. I particularly love those at Shokutsu Ten.

Mongkok where you can find food from Hong Kong, particularly roasted meat and dim sum. The signage truly reminds me of Hong Kong

Ema @ Shokutsu Ten

Does these signage reminds you of Osaka?

Japanese kites and a flying ninja

This particular ninja gave me a fright

Malaysia Boleh! reminds me of food street in Malaysia

Wishing Ribbon at Korean Strret

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Foodie Read :Durians Are Not the Only Fruits (notes from the Tropics)

I do not usually read adult books except cookbooks or craft books. However, this book, Durians Are Not The Only Fruits by Woon Yoon Wah was recommended by a librarian. This book , I believe was written in Chinese by the author and is being translated to English by Jeremy Tiang.

Durians is a delightful read about the tropics. It is a mixture of memoir, essay and nature writing. Food related topics covered slightly more than half of the book. Beside durians, tropical fruits like mangosteen, rambutans and banana, and food like Lei Cha ( Thunder Rice Tea), Yusheng (a dish normally we ate during Chinese New Year), Nonya Dumpling, Nanyang Curry are mentioned too.

Yusheng (3 plates on the right), an auspicious dish in Singapore.

It offers insight how petty durian trees are and when they would be harvested. The king of fruits is often growing together with his queen (mangosteen) and concubine (rambutan). The mangosteen is cooling effect and is best eaten with durian to combat its heatiness. Rambutan, his heaty concubine, will turn bad after 5 to 6 days after plucking. An interesting rumour is that the rambutan tree will bear sour fruits if touched by a female.

Food evolution is being mentioned in Thunder in a Bowl, that refers to Leicha. It was originally a tea drink, now has become a meal complete with rice and finely chopped vegetable.  The dish is now associated with healthy eating. You may want to find out by reading how the food acquire this name.

Leicha is believed to  be a very healthy food choice

Immigrants evolves just the same as food. Those who come to this part of the world, brought over their food and culture. These food and culture changed over the years.

You will find yourselves getting bonus by reading because some recipes were also mentioned.

The rest of the book is dedicated to the trees and animals in the tropics.  Did you know rain tree can tell the time and the behaviour of ants can tell when a monsoon is about to arrive? I like the topic on Mosquito Mystery. As mention in the book, how is it possible that "the more we eradicate them, the faster they infect us?" It sets me thinking whether the constant spraying of pesticide had created some kind of "super mosquito". Probably the best way is still to use natural repellent.

After reading, I do agree this book is indeed an interesting read although it takes me a pretty long time to complete. I learnt more about the fruits and food we eat and also the trees and animals we live with. If you found this book, do give it a read to more about the tropics.

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