Wow

The Husband and I only recently discovered Baked in Red Hook. We are a little late to the party, of course - I think they have already been featured on the Cooking Channel. Yesterday, we tried their Sweet & Salty Brownie - this is what they featured on television. It's the best brownie I've ever tasted in my life. It was so good, I wanted to light up a cigarette after we finished eating it.

Baked

359 Van Brunt Street

Brooklyn, New York 11231

(718) 222 0345

bakednyc.com

More Mud

One of the pleasures of living around Union Square is the fantastic farmers' market. Yesterday, I bought some heirloom grape tomatoes from said market. The seller suggested that I put the tomatoes on a plate to separate them when I go home. So I decided to have fun with some of the Mud pieces.

Did I mention how amazing food looks on those gorgeous dishes?

Wedding China

When I was much younger and still believed in fairytales, I fantasised that I would have a big, white meringue of a wedding - the dress, the cake, the dessert... I even had my wedding china picked out. After many hours, over many summers, meandering through the china halls in Harrods, I decided that it had to be Wedgwood Florentine in black and white, though Turquoise was also lovely.

Cut to many, many years later. The Boyfriend and I eloped - Blue, black, gold dress with black shearling coat and black boots; romantic lunch at Il Buco. Needless to say, we don't lead a Wedgwood china life, though we went to a dinner at some friends' house and it was served on inherited Wedgwood Florentine plates in turquoise. But we have our wedding china.

It still amuses me no end to think of the dishes as our wedding china - it didn't occur to us to have a registry but our friends asked; I am most grateful and thrilled that they did. We registered for Mud Australia at Global Table. I love that no two pieces of Mud Australia china are the same. The china is perfect in its individual imperfection. The core collection began with sale pieces I found out and about years ago. It was great fun to go to the store and work out what we needed. We have expanded the collection to be able to have a dinner party - now we just have to tidy the house around the dishes.

The last pieces we got were pink dessert plates. Nathalie, who owns Global Table, was absolutely right when she told me they would be beautiful and whimsical at the end of a meal.

Global Table

107-109 Sullivan Street

New York, NY 10012

USA

(212) 431 5839

(Full disclosure: The pink Mud Australia salad / dessert plates were bought at ABC Carpet. Also, when an item we registered for was discontinued and the only available one was the slightly damaged store display unit, we were given a store credit. Then Natalie very generously gifted us the item when I indicated to her that I would buy the item if it was going on sale.)

Tropical Fruits

This past weekend, I was told that mangosteens were in season and in Chinatown. I dragged the Husband on a fruit shopping spree after our dim sum brunch.

We got some lychees.

I was beyond excited to see rambutans. There was a rambutan tree in the garden next to the first house I remember living in. The lovely neighbours would send over a bag of the delicious red fruits when they were in season.

The main reason for the Mulberry Street excursion, of course, was the mangosteens. I had not had mangosteens in over five years.

We also got some Thai mangoes and three small tubs of jackfruit. The fruit shopping turned out to be a bit of a splurge. Sometimes, nothing can substitute for the taste of home.

Slightly Undone

A couple of weeks ago, I went to get my hair cut. (It is really more of a trim.) At the end of the cut, my brilliant hair stylist, Coby, decided to braid my hair. I noticed a section of the salon stop and watch her do it. She said that if I slept on it, the braid would get wispy. So I skipped yoga class for a day - I did not want to sweat - and this is what it looked like at the end of the second day. I loved it.

Whittemore House

45 Grove Street

New York, NY 10014

(212) 242 8880

Meepok

I just finished reading Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan's memoir, "A Tiger In The Kitchen," and it made me think longingly of the trip The Husband and I took to Singapore last autumn. Really, a few days are not enough to get through all the childhood dishes I love. And the list does not include the famous Fish Head Curry nor Chili Crab, dishes we did not eat often during my childhood. I think it would take a few weeks to cover it all. I know I would need a few repeat meals. We gave all a good try, though.

The things I used to take for granted when I was growing up... Bright, warm, sunny days... Amazing food (almost anywhere I went)... Sigh...

Towards the end of the book, Tan writes about the Teochew noodle dish, Meepok. She even goes and eats the dish in Shantou, China - it is not the same as the one you eat in Singapore. On the last day of our trip, we were taken to have Meepok for brunch. It was one of those dishes I had not yet managed during the trip and really, really craved. Not having lived in Singapore for a lot of years, I had no idea where to go. Our friends D and P came to the rescue and took us to the MacPherson Mince Meat Noodle Stand. The Husband was thrilled - this was really not a part of Singapore a tourist would normally go to. He was the only Caucasian. My sister, and all the other people in the hawker centre, found great amusement watching him gamely order all our noodle dishes, mimicking as best as he could my sister's Chinese. He did well. The dishes arrived as asked for.

I opted for the flat thin noodles, not too spicy. What can I say, other than that it was perfection? Light, springy noodles, a salty, sour and mildly spicy sauce, topped with minced pork, tender liver slices, earthy mushroom slices and springy (again) fishcake slices. All the tastes and textures were calibrated flawlessly. The dish is really much, much greater than the sum of its parts. I would have been tempted to eat another bowl, but we had to go eat another dish at another hawker centre down the street.

Hello Again

Wow. I really didn't expect the little lull in blogging to go on this long. Four months went by very quickly. The Boyfriend and I eloped to City Hall. Then the Christmas / New Year's Holidays were upon us. Then I had a very bad case of the flu, which set the tone for the winter - a very, very cold winter - and I hibernated until spring. (Even having lived more than half of my life in New York City, I am still a girl from the tropics whose body cannot really process temperatures below 75 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Now that the nicer weather is finally here, I've emerged and more regular blogging will resume.

I'm signing off for now with a photo of the Andy Warhol sculpture currently next to The Factory in Union Square - I really love that he has his Polaroid camera and his Bloomingdale's shopping bag with him: