It’s easy to fall in love with the fine aesthetics + clean lines exuding from the collection of homewares by Harumi Kurihara.

I first read about her a long time ago from an article on Newsweek magazine, where she was referred to as Japan’s Martha Stewart. I remember some mention of a website shufufufu.com (now defunct) where she shared her tips and recipes. If you like to follow some of her recipes, you can try the ones featured on her English programme “Your Japanese Kitchen”, which are listed on this page at NHK.

Her homewares are available in several big department stores in Japan. I’m most happy to find bargains on a sale wagon when I shop in Japan.

If you’re still wondering who she is, perhaps you would have seen her English cookbooks in your local bookstore.

On Tuesday’s news on TV was a report that a couple in Taiwan was shocked to discover that their fish oil supplement could melt styrofoam. Then viewers were shown a patch of defaced foam. However the report didn’t offer conclusive details for this phenomenon.

And since I’m taking fish oil supplement (from Blackmore), I MUST see for myself if mine does the same thing or not! But before anything else I got online hoping to find some clarification, and I realised that this piece of news isn’t new. Many people were also puzzled by this and had already been posting their questions on the web since a few years ago.

One website explains that the majority of fish oils sold today are not natural triglycerides (TGs), but are made up of concentrates of ethyl esters (EEs), which are unnaturally derived by reacting free fatty acids with ethanol (eww!). The site suggested that a simple way to test if a fish oil is in TG or EE form is to put the oil in a polystyrene cup. EE fish oil will eat through in just a few minutes and then a significant leakage can be seen after 10 minutes. Natural TG fish oil may show leakage in very small amounts after 2-3 hours.

In my own experiment, the sides and bottom of the cup began to feel oily after about 3 hours. But no fierce meltdown.

As to why fish oil leaks through polystyrene, this and this helped to offer some explanation.

A beautiful potato garnish by Peggy Bucholz, author of Fine Dinings. She also has instructions on using lemon rid, lime rid, beets and turnips to make roses.

Other how-tos: Radish rose | Tomato rose | Orange rose | Strawberry rose | Citrus flower garnish

I’ve been diligently baking bread for the last 2 weeks and have always been faithful in using Dr. Moerman’s basic recipe from an out-of-print book. I used it for my maiden loaf (which tasted like rock) years ago and have sticked with it since. Now the bread’s more palatable and I like to dip it into curry or any gravy.

Ingredients:
5 cups 100% whole wheat flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp raw honey
1 1/2 cups lukewarm low fat milk (I use rice milk, about 2 cups or more)
3 tsp dry yeast or 6 tsp fresh yeast

Steps:
1. Mix flour and salt.
2. Dissolve honey in lukewarm milk.
3. Dissolve yeast in half of the milk mixture and leave it until a huge froth appears. Add it to the remaining milk and gradually to the flour.
4. Mix until a soft dough is formed. Knead for 5 minutes.
5. Leave it to rise for about 1-2 hours.
6. Knead again and place it in a pan. Butter the pan when necessary.
7. Leave to rise for about 1/2 an hour.
8. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 40 minutes. Be careful not to over-bake. Bread makes a hollow sound when knocked from the bottom.

More:
The best way to eat garlic
Chemist shed light on health benefits of garlic
How to store, clean and cook rice
Marinating meat found to remove carcinogens

If you were with me when I jotted these observations, you’ll understand why I’m at it again.

I have been alerted by a box of baking paper from Tesco (got it in Johor) which is missing its usual embeded metal blade. A zigzag edge-punched border has taken its place. This alternative works but offers humble results. Now every torn sheet appears more jagged, but well you know that it’s justified and part of the charm.

Nothing like this for a distraction on a Monday.

Strictly free of BPA (Bisphenol-A) and phthalates.

Left to right, top to bottom:
Collapsible Platypus (I use this when I travel.)
The glass Love Bottle + a pink carrier
48oz glass bottle
Evenflo glass nurser
Camelbak polypropylene bottle
Nalgene HDPE bottle

Glass is acknowledged as the SAFEST material for storing food and drinks. In the case of plastics, experts recommend polypropylene (#5 PP), high-density polyethylene (#2 HDPE) and low-density polyethylene (#4 LDPE), since none of them are known to leach harmful substances. However, recently questions have been raised over the safety of polypropylene after Canadian researchers reported that 2 compounds leaked from plastic tubes made of polypropylene ruined their experiment.

For further reading, do take a look at these.

Just finished watching another episode of Cooking in the Danger Zone on TV. I haven’t been checking the TV guide for a long time and so one night when I was in between switching channels, I caught the trailer for this BBC documentary series and since then I have been glued to the telly for every showing on Thursday night. It’s humbling and disturbing to learn how the scratchy political situations in Ethiopia, Haiti, Mexico and even Afghanistan have affected farming, food prices and food supplies, resulting in food scarcity. This means the poor has to suffer the most. In fact for the Afghan army, *3 meals provided* is an incentive to attract recruits .

Normal cooking shows are about what to cook, what ingredients to buy and how to choose the freshest…all in an environment of abundance, but this cooking series is the opposite; a gross lack of ingredients and the uncertainty of one’s next meal. And even when there’s some food available, the same meal is eaten every single day.

I’m excited when any of our local grocers begin stocking their shelves with products that are otherwise available online from stores overseas. One such example is Green & Black’s, a brand I came to know about when researching for an article on chocolates.

Their range of organic chocolate bars have been on a few shelves for some time now (3 years maybe? I’m not sure) and it’s great to see more of their products added along the way, like the hot chocolate and cocoa powders. Between these 2 powders, I bought the latter; I’ve never tasted pure cocoa…but now I know how unbearable the cocoa drink is when you don’t sweeten it. But at least I get to decide how much to sweeten.

The next item I want to dig in is Green & Black’s ice-cream.

This egg shaper, named the Dreamland, is yet another addition to bento-cheering accessories and it’s not the same as the ones that shape whole hard boiled eggs.

This one requires the separation of the yolk from the white as the first step. Then pour the white into the cavity and place the Dreamland into a pot of water to cook. Boil for 15 minutes if using cool water or 12 minutes if using hot water. When the white is ready, pour in the yolk and cook again in the pot for another 8 minutes. Here are more pictures on the procedure (but with Japanese text). Dreamland is also meant for making + shaping jelly.

It’s also available at Amazon jp for 1,680 Yen (about SGD 26/USD 17)

Thanks for your company this week, have a restful weekend!