At my sister’s emotional blackmail (” You always bake things you like to eat and not what I like!”) and challenge, she asked for Mushroom Quiche. In my busy month of October in which I fell sick, I took out the time to make this for her. The first time failed due to my lack of knowledge that BAKING BEANS ARE SO IMPORTANT and that ordinary beans can be used as baking beans. My second time during that challenge turned out so much better but it didn’t taste as good because I decided to use the machine to help me mix the dough which  is  highly NOT recommended. Somehow, using your hands to make the dough makes such a great difference.

After my pictures of the successful mushroom quiche came out, my friend J wanted to try at my house baking it with me.

So here it is!

MUSHROOM QUICHE (adapted from Julia Child, Vol.1 Pg 152)

*Using a 8-inch flan pan*

PASTRY

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour (scooped and levelled)
• 1 tsp of salt
• ¼ tsp of sugar
• 170g of chilled butter cut into ½ inch bits
• 4 Tbs chilled shortening
• A scant half cup of iced water, plus more droplets if needed 

1.)    Place flour, salt, sugar, butter and vegetable shortening in a big mixing bowl. Rub the flour and fat together rapidly between the tips of your fingers until the fat is broken into pieces of (slightly bigger) than oatmeal flakes. Do  not overdo this step as the fat will be blended one more time later.

2.)    Add  water and blend quickly with one hand, fingers held together slightly cupped and gather the dough into amass. Sprinkle some water accordingly to make it into a dough shaped ball. The texture of the dough hold together, not too sticky. Proceed to do the fraisage.

3.)   Fraisage: Place the dough on lightly floured pastry board. With the heel of one hand, not the palm  (because it is too warm), rapidly press the pastry down and away from you about 6 inches.  With scraper or spatula, gather the dough into a mass again and knead it  into a round ball. Sprinkle it with flour and refrigerate it for 1 hour until it is firm. Proceed to make the filling while waiting.

1.)   FILLING

Part A

• 2 Tbs of minced shallots/green onions
• 1.5 Tbs of butter
• 250g of sliced fresh mushrooms
• ½ tsp of salt
• ½ tsp of lemon juice
• 1 Tb of white wine (optional)

Cook the shallots/onions in a saucepan with the butter for a moment. Stir in mushrooms, slat, lemon juice and optional wine. Cover the pan and cook the ingredients at moderately low heat for 8 minutes. Uncover. Raise heat and boil for a few minutes until the liquid is evaporated.

Part B

• 2 eggs
• 180-200g of whipping cream
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1/8 of pepper
• 1/8 cup of Swiss cheese. (Put more if you like)
• ½ Tbs of butter cut into pea-sized dots

Beat the eggs, cream and seasonings a mixing bowl to blend. Then add in the cooked mushroom mix in Part A. Put it aside or into the fridge.

5.)    Rolling out the dough: Take the dough out from the freezer. Quickly roll out the dough as quickly as possible so that it will not soften due to its high butter content. Place the dough on a lightly floured board or marble. Lightly flour the top of the dough. Place the  rolling pin across CENTRE and roll the pin back and forth with firm but gentle pressure. Then, with a firm, even stroke and always rolling away from you, start just below the centre of the dough and roll to within of the far edge.

6.)    Lift the dough and turn it  at a slight angle. Give it another roll. Continue lifting, turning and rolling as necessary and sprinkle flour onto the dough to prevent it from sticking. Roll into a circle that can fit your pie  pan.

7.)    Once the pastry base is ready, lift up the dough and place it on the pan. Trim of any excess dough. Get a piece of baking paper or aluminium foil and place it onto the pastry base, then pour baking beans/soya beans/raw rice onto the aluminium foil. The layers should be (from the bottom to top: pie panàaluminium panàbeans.) Once done, put it into the oven for 10 minutes at 190 C.

8.)    Once the pastry is partially cooked, remove the aluminium foil of baking beans. Pour the filling that was prepared in part A and B. Put into the oven for 30 minutes at 190 C.

TADA!

Many people think that Ecclesiastes is a little odd because Solomon keeps saying that everything  is meaningless; which is true because all of us have a common destiny: death. Regardless of what you do on earth, whether you are evil or righteous, you end in death. So if everything is meaningless, then what do we do in our lives and why do we even bother being good people on earth? Or at least trying to be good people?

The answers about what we should do in our lives:

 ²⁴ A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? ²⁶ To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.~Ecc 2: 24-26

 ⁹ What does the worker gain from his toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on men. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. ¹³ That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. ~Ecc 3

²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?~Ecc 3

 ¹⁸ Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot. ¹⁹ Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. ²⁰ He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.~Ecc 5: 18-20

 ¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. ¹⁵ So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.~Ecc 8:14-15

—-You may wonder, if King Solomon tells us to enjoy our life, then you wonder, wouldn’t give you more incentive to be a bad person to take advantage of other people so as to enjoy more wealth  etc?

He answers: 

 ¹ So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. ² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, ^[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
       As it is with the good man,
       so with the sinner;
       as it is with those who take oaths,
       so with those who are afraid to take them.

 ³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.- Ecc 9

King Solomon’s conclusion?

 ⁷ Light is sweet,
       and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.

 ⁸ However many years a man may live,
       let him enjoy them all.
       But let him remember the days of darkness,
       for they will be many.
       Everything to come is meaningless.

 ⁹ Be happy, young man, while you are young,
       and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
       Follow the ways of your heart
       and whatever your eyes see,
       but know that for all these things
       God will bring you to judgment.

 ¹⁰ So then, banish anxiety from your heart
       and cast off the troubles of your body,
       for youth and vigor are meaningless.-Ecc 11

 ¹ Remember your Creator
       in the days of your youth,
       before the days of trouble come
       and the years approach when you will say,
       “I find no pleasure in them”

………

¹³ Now all has been heard;
       here is the conclusion of the matter:
       Fear God and keep his commandments,
       for this is the whole duty of man.

 ¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment,
       including every hidden thing,
       whether it is good or evil.-Ecc 12

_______________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy your life for God has given to you. Whatever gifts he has given to you; enjoy it. Remember that that as good times come, bad times  will also come. When the bad times come, remember that God gave you the good times as well. Because He gave you life, enjoy your lot. Work on something you LIKE, for that is your lot. Enjoy your life while always striving to do good because ultimately when you die, it is God who is going to judge your deeds on earth.

Beautiful piece  of work, Solomon.

It is like the story of the Englishman who was walking down a cobblestone path when he came upon a small cottage with a beautiful garden next to it. The Englishman paused in admiration and said to the gardener who was down on his hands and knees pulling weeds, ” Sir, what a beautiful garden God has blessed you with.” The gardener replied, ” You should have seen it when God  was taking care of it by himself.”

 Whatever gifts the Good Lord may have blessed us with, we are the ones who must get down on our hands and knees and do the work. It is up to us to make the garden beautiful. -John Wooden ” The Essential Wooden”

Today, it dawned upon me that baking won’t be  one of them.

Though it has it’s set of challenges, there is a science to baking (at some point  in time) but I personally find it not challenging for me.

I have a good friend who took off to go Le Cordon Bleu to study baking and up to this day, in my very heart, I would love to see her open her own shop and show our citizens that we are capable of creating beautiful things as well. Unfortunately, she  shelved her plans and has yet to open her own shop for fears of unsustainability.

To me, baking is my therapy. I don’t do retail therapy. I do bake-therapy.

Why? Because it is somewhat brainless (maybe that is too harsh a word to use), I think of someone that I love or like and when I pour my affections that translates into effort, the result never fails me.

Anyhow, anyway….I leave this recipie that I googled and altered to my whims and fancies of suddenly  wanting to eat apple muffins.

End of reflection.

APPLE MUFFINS (adapted from allrecipies.com)

Toppings mixture

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add in the oatmeal, cinnamon and nutmeg. mix
3. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth. Mix in vanilla. Stir in apples, and gradually blend in the flour mixture. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pan.
4. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture is like coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over tops of mixture in muffin pan.
5. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to sit 5 minutes before removing muffins from pan. Cool on a wire rack.

I couldn’t wait and chomped into it after 1 minute of cooling.

I find it extremely disturbing of course, like anyone on the street that an oil spill can cause disastrous consequences on human  life and animal life bringing one of the greatest imbalances in environmental life. As if we haven’t brought woe to the environment enough.

However, what struck me the most was that the BP CEO had to go through, being grilled and blamed for this environmental disaster. Being a CEO is certainly not easy at all. While I do not want to decide whether  he really knew about the mistakes that happened before the disaster, I would also like to point out that it is very hard to keep track of everything. Being on the top is a great disadvantage because once you are on top of the mountain, you can’t hear what is going  on below. You can only see from the top, but not necessary know what is going on until it starts to strike you.

This is where the philosophy of John Wooden reminded me where though he was the coach of the team, in that sense the CEO of the team, he made sure that once he gave instructions to the team as a CEO/leader, he would go down and BE part of the team.

Therefore, it is important that you realise that when you are on the top AS a CEO, your role is to lead your team towards the vision that your company is working towards through planned strategies, ensure that daily operations are running smoothly. Once you have fulfilled that, remember to come down to be PART of the team and  not hang out in front of your computer.

BP oil spill: Tony Hayward stonewalls Congress | Environment | The Guardian

As my friend Jo always reminds me to write down my blessings that God has given me.

I am reminded to share my blessing on finding this wonderful Almond Biscotti recipie.

I hardly bake my cakes and others 3 times in a row. But I baked this beautiful  biscotti 3 times in 2 weeks.

It’s beautiful with that cup of coffee,cocoa and even milo.

The recipie was written by an American and of course would be successful in America’s weather.

But where I live is Singapore, we have high levels of humidity. Temperatures here are much higher. And believe it or not, it all affects the end product.

 After much testing, this is the edited version for Singapore.

LENOX ALMOND BISCOTTI (adapted from Dorie Greenspan, *twisted here and there for Singapore weather)

1.5 cups of all purpose flour (plain flour)

1.5 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp of salt

½ cup of yellow cornmeal

8 tbs of unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup of sugar

2 large eggs

1.5 tsp of pure almond extract/essence

¾ cup of sliced almonds/ chopped almonds (which gives more crunch!)

Preheat the oven at 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicon mat.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt together. Add cornmeal and mix together again.

Using a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed for 3 minutes till very smooth. Add the eggs and continue to beat for another 2 minutes or until the  mixture is light and and creamy. Beat in the almond extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. Your dough should be soft and sticky. Toss in the almonds and mix it in.

Choose a flat and clean workspace (you can use a chopping board), pour a bit of flour  and spread it around. Using 1/3 or ½ of the dough  in your mixing bowl (depending how small your oven is),  pour it on floured workspace and mould the dough into a rectangular shape.

The height AND width of the rectangle is about the length of your thumb. The length of the rectangle can be up to 10 inches or whichever you prefer.

Transfer the moulded dough onto the baking sheet and put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until it is cooked (test it out with a toothpick). Once cooked, take it out to cool for 30 minutes (using Singapore weather as a gauge). You may mould another dough and put it to the oven while waiting for the first batch of biscotti to cool.

 Once the first batch of biscotti has cooled, use a serrated knife and slice it. Then, gather the sliced biscotti and bake it in the oven for another 15-20 minutes (it should look golden and firm), depending how crunchy you want your biscotti to be. Repeat the process for your next dough!

 My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practicing at home during conversations between her and me. On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable. Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument. Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you..

 The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning. You’ve probably been told the big lie that ‘Learning is a lifelong process’ and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers. The good news is that they’re wrong. The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy. I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people.

But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life. You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan , and tied with San Marino . It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap. Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom. So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy. I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy. After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average. Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family.

 You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much. That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

 What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armor against fate. Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows. What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over. Since your life is over, you are free.

Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free. The most important is this: do not work. Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable. Work kills. The Japanese have a term ‘Karoshi’, whic h means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust. There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are ‘making a living’. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful. People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan ‘Arbeit macht frei’ was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

 Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway. Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist. So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher. Find that pursuit that will energize you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working. Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication.

To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence. In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror. I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross. One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love. I didn’t say ‘be loved’. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone. Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable. Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul. Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm. You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart. You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you. Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

 Don’t work.. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy.