Month: October 2008

How to use up bananas

For the past few weeks, S has been testing banana cake recipes for two reasons. The first was part of our quest, mentioned in my previous post, for the perfect house cake. The second was because she had been recently asked to contribute a recipe that reminded her of home to a new cookbook and she had chosen the banana cake. Now, while I love her banana cake, there are sometimes when too much of a good thing can make you go, well, a little bananas.

In order to have enough ripe fruit (key word here being ripe) for her cakes, S had been stockpiling bananas like a gorrila about to face a harsh winter. And after tasting the sixth or seventh version of her cake, and having determined that, yes, she had indeed improved upon the original recipe, I had to say something. Well, actually, it was more of a cross between a whimper and whine. I asked her, as gently as possible, since she had now perfected her cake recipe, if perhaps there was something else we could do to the bananas because I really couldn’t look at another banana cake, let alone have a slice for breakfast.

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Recipes18 October

The house cake

Over the past few years, as S and I have been travelling, visiting and sometimes staying with friends, we’ve noticed a very interesting shift. Not too long ago, we would have been offered a foldaway couch, or some uncomfortable cot in a friend’s living room. Most recently, though, friends have pleasantly surprised us with very well-appointed guest rooms. Not only have they been clean, comfy and functional, there has also been ample closet space and fine linens. Some have even come stocked with a wide range of toiletries to choose from. Obviously, we’ve all been getting older — which is something we usually complain about. But one of the nice by-products of getting older (and hopefully more successful) is we all eventually move into larger and nicer homes.

One of the things that S wanted to do when we built our new home was create a really nice guest room. Ours is on the ground floor of the house. It’s done up in neutral colors and planned very much the way a hotel room would be set up. In addition to the comfy queen-size bed, there’s a nice wood desk, two vintage chairs, a small flatscreen TV, and loads of closet space. S has also kitted out the bathroom with a full range of… well, whatever someone might need, be it toothbrushes, band-aids, even contact lens solution. Overall, we felt that the room was pretty darned stylish and we’ve been eagerly awaiting our first house guests.

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Style5 October

Dream kitchen

I had a small spot of free time this weekend (which is not normal) and finally got around to taking a few pictures of our new place. And since I promised to post one of our new kitchen, here it is. The kitchen is approximately 4 metres wide by 6 metres long. As you can see, it is all white with black and white hexagonal floor tiles and an island in the middle.

Some of you emailed and left comments asking what S and I consider essential in a well-equipped kitchen. Honestly, all a good kitchen really needs is counter space, pretty good storage space, a hob (gas or induction) with at least 4 zones, good exhaust, an oven, a fridge, and sufficient power points to run a variety of tools and appliances. With these, a good cook should be able to whip up any number of delicious meals.

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Recipes2 October

Simple fare and a great peach cake

As I mentioned in my previous post, S and I have just moved into a new house. You can’t imagine just how happy we are with our new place. The house itself is a project that was two years in the making — starting with purchasing a small one-story intermediate terrace house; tearing it down; working with a brilliant but fussy architect to design a New York inspired redbrick townhouse in Singapore; months spent negotiating with contractors to work within the tiny budget that we had set aside for the build; and then finally, patiently waiting and watching over the actual build for the last 13 months.

As you might imagine, we allocated a pretty healthy space for our kitchen. I’ll devote a future post to photographing the kitchen and telling you guys and gals all about it but suffice it to say, it’s pretty darned impressive. S was in charge of both space planning and choosing our appliances. She did an amazing job… well, to be accurate, she put us in some serious debt, but it looks amazing. And since moving in last month, we’ve been having a ball entertaining again.

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