Behind the simplicity

I have returned from two bookshops after an intensive search of cook books, dessert recipe books in particular. I was swallowed by all photos of desserts prepared and photographed just to make people get mouth watered. Being drown in that ocean of exotic food, I have just asked myself where I am. The question may be answered with my zero baking ability, and also with my culture. The former answer is evident, and that's the reason of my search of dessert recipe books. The latter answer is taking me a lot of time indeed.

It is quite understandable why this kind of photo is never found in any cook books in bookshops (at least which I have been to).

That is a kind of dessert in my home country, exactly in my home town. Chè bông cau, roughly translated as areca flower sweet soup is found both rustic and royal in Hue, my home town. Materials are only steamed mung bean in light sweet boiled water, but the dessert has a firm position both in everyday rustic life and solemn occasions. I have no idea of the origin of this dessert, but am very able to feel and create the connection of its simplicity and the aroma of areca flowers, which smells soft and enchanting. Those who have sensed areca flowers would agree with me the flower is a quiet beauty. It's like a girl one comes to know and decides to live with in one's whole life. Yes, it is the simplicity that earns the dessert's position in solemn occasions.
When I delve into the thought about what simplicity is, like when I sense chè bông cau with all my senses, there arises in me a connection between this food and people and their land behind. That I am not a foreigner to this food makes the meaning of simplicity held by me grows a distinct way.

Colour of the heart

I can't help falling in love with bright coloured veggies. I bought a bunch of beetroot so fresh and beautiful at the farmer market one weekend and found my mood going wild with the colours of this proud creature. Why on earth is there such a creature fully endowed with good qualities and beauty like beetroot? Look at its juice:

Only one ridiculous thing about this heavy colour is it is  very hard to wash it away from your hand after you play hard with it :) I'm kidding ain't me?
Evidently it is a dye robust enough to induce a new hue and to transform your taste of colour:

There was a long way from its original colour to where it became to in my dyed rice, which taught me the lesson of heat, proportion and cooking time in cooking.

I also learnt about "reaction" colours when making the cupcakes. The juice and icing sugar plus butter became more pinkish at first than after being put on the cupcake.

 
It is this hue and the process it transforms that is keeping inspiring me.

They fly me high

A non-recipe home cook often finds her own cooking moments of flying out of details extraordinary to her eyes and known knowledge. It is when she makes a cake out of a wrong recipe, arranges the dish in a never-seen-before way, and sees her piece of works from various angles through the lens of a child painter.

But it's not often the case she has to wait to see the final product, which after that ignites the engine of the hot air balloon in her. At times, the beautiful process of the dish coming into being in its own way is just overwhelming. She just stands still and witnesses subtle magical moments life shines on food and gives it a unique meaning, the meaning that emerges out of a now-or-never moment that teaches her the lesson of staying open staying fresh. There is nothing absolutely right or wrong, and imperfection is just perfect enough, that's what she double confirms through her cooking.

Things shine from their own standpoints, and let imagination drive you to locate your own standpoint. The joy of cooking then is not only the joy of making things out of love. It's also a huge release of emotions, an imaginary travel through a new land, and a full reflection of life in tranquillity. She has at that time found herself nicely singing John Lennon "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky". And imagination goes on and on, beyond the square and drives her crazy until her kid pulls her down to earth.


Kids come into being to raise up a mum. And a mum cook would need her kid to reshape her outworn view of food and food making: simplicity, purity and originality. Wear a child mind and look at things with a child lens, you would agree with her cooking is to transform your heart and your soul.

What baking means more to me

I have deserted this blog for a pretty long time. The more reading I do (my most occupied job) the more I find myself nothing, or less than nothing. A negative feeling has been overwhelming me, and I wonder if i should go on with blogging, something I am both passionate about and nerve wracked due to a blog's publicity. It's somehow embarrassing you know when you are so immature and would like to do things beyond your ability.

Anyway, munching on the sorrow would not drive me to anywhere and yet munching on my first time home baked cakes would hopefully capsize the situation.

(Savoury gateau)
(Chocolate buttery gateau)
(Broccoli bread)

These days, I find myself the kind of person who would like to do something different to drive me out of the status of weak capability, and when I am hungry and thirsty for that kind of food-for-well being, I turn to mixing and dough kneading, which is good to burn out all excessive energy ran for negative thinking. I put any materials I find in my home for experimental recipes, things like chicken shred, carrots, broccoli, onions, and my son's chocolate leftover, which turn out to be resourceful for creativity, the luxury of a psychologically tired person. Baking this way is not really a way to act out an art or that kind of thing but a truly way of stress busting. That is another meaning I find in baking. At least, my baking can however bring a great pleasure to my big boy and my little boy.

The negative feeling in me is getting over...