Sybaritic Diversions

Practically everyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I can be an absolute sucker for chocolates.  I’m practically addicted to the stuff.  There was even a time not too long ago when I kept a jar of chocolates on my office desk.  (Said jar’s contents frequently offered to officemates but, more often than not, raided by my sweet-toothed seatmate Jenny by day’s end.)

The most flattering gift I’ve received thus far was a small box of Max Brenner truffles from Takafumi-sama last Valentine’s Day.  Lovely little box and even lovelier little truffles.  (The ones with cinnamon ganache and lavender ganache were the loveliest of the lot.)  But loveliest of all was the person who gave them to me.  (That, of course, is another story all together…)

Over the years, I’ve learned how to cook and bake.  My home oven has produced chocolate cakes and chocolate chip cookies.  I’ve even baked cocoa-and-cinnamon snickerdoodles that I shared with co-teachers and students in the six months I taught at the Mapua IT Center.  But all those treats pale in comparison to the darkest of all chocolate sins: French Silk Pie.

I found my recipe for this most decadent of treats in my mother’s battered paperback copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  The blurb at the beginning of the recipe refers to it as "chocolate fudge in a pie shell", but that is a serious understatement.  It is truly a demon among desserts, a dreadful temptation oozing with calories and bittersweet richness.  I recently made one for my kid brother who’s due back at the seminary tomorrow.  While it was three years since I made the pie, I have to admit that I haven’t lost my knack for making it.  Nor has the pie itself lost its sensual charms.

French Silk Pie

Cinnamon Pastry Shell

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cup margarine
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons cold water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees / Gas Mark 7.  Sift together flour and cinnamon.  Cut in margarine until it resembles coarse meal.  Sprinkle in water; fork together the mixture until it clumps together.  Knead the dough to form a ball.  Roll the dough out on a floured surface; press into an 8- or 9-inch pie dish.  Bake for 10 - 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Remove from dish and allow to cool on wire rack.  Transfer to a serving dish and set aside.

Chocolate Fudge Filling

• 3 squares (3 ounces) unsweetened chocolate, broken
• 3/4 cup cold butter
• 3 eggs, whisked
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

In a saucepan, melt together chocolate and butter.  Combine until completely melted and smooth.  Allow to cool, then add sugar, eggs, almond extract, and vanilla.  Mix until smooth and pour into the pastry shell.  Chill for five to twelve hours before serving.  Be sure to cut very small slices of the tart as it is dreadfully rich. But, sometimes you just have to indulge.  =^_^=

I seriously love cats.  Especially if they’re fat and furry and purry, there is no cuter sight in the world than a cat in repose.  (Well, that’s not counting Takafumi-chan, but that’s a matter of personal opinion.  Nandemo…)

At least, that’s what I thought until I saw Nyanko.

Nyanko is a product of San-X, Sanrio’s new line of characters and products.  Nyanko are little white kitty-cats who like putting on disguises and fooling people.  (Case in point: in the picture on the left, the kitties are posing as an assortment of teatime pastries and cakes!)  It must be a very disturbing - possibly even traumatic - experience for some, seeing how these ickle kitties like to pose as various foodstuffs. 

Gods, I shudder to think of biting into a hamburger and hearing an adorable little "meow" before I actually sink my choppers into the thing! They’re godawful cute, though. =^_-=

Lomi.   When I was a kid, it was a relatively rare treat that was never cooked at home.  For one thing, no one knew how to make it.  For another thing, anything that reeked of a fishy aroma was an absolute taboo at my house.  The only times I could have lomi were either on campus at the cafeteria or at my paternal grandmother’s house where no prohibitions were imposed on odiferous foodstuffs.  During those rare times, I could slurp those thick noodles and savor the thickened broth they’d been cooked in with absolute abandon.

Lomi is, essentially, thick yellow noodles called miki cooked in chicken broth with a variety of condiments and an egg.  Patis, the Philippine equivalent of nuoc mam, plays a key role in flavoring the dish as well as in giving it its characteristically fishy fragrance.  Best savored piping hot, the broth sipped slowly, and the noodles slurped with gusto.

These days, it’s a heck of a lot easier to get a lomi fix.  The Chinese fast food chain Chowking serves up a reasonably priced bowlful made interesting by the addition of vegetable-studded fishballs, chicken strips, pork liver, and celery.  But, for those who want to do the Nigella Lawson at home, local brand Lucky Me just came up with an instant version you can easily sex up with chopped crabsticks, quekiam, squid balls, and all manner of oden. 

Trust me: four minutes are but a short wait for absolute goodness.

As of Monday, I am now working for Trend Micro as a technical writer for the Product Support Services’ knowledge management team.  (KMT.  God, it makes it sound like I joined the Kuomintang or something…)

Everything’s still terribly new to me, seeing how I came from civil service and advertising prior to this stint.  But, seriously: I think I can hack this.  There is so much to learn and still so much to do.

Now, if only I can get my computer up and running and my corporate access account configured, I’d be very happy…

Incidentally, I was looking through our office intranet in order to learn more about this new company I’ve joined.  Trend’s biggest market in Asia just so happens to be the one in Japan.  Okay, no biggie.  I’m not paranoid or anything (not yet, anyway.) and Japan is the region’s biggest IT consumer base in terms of tech applications.  (While India and China are hugely into IT these days, they still don’t count as only a limited number of their populations can actually use these applications.)  But the Trend Micro office in Nihon is located on the 30th floor of the Shinjuku MAYNDS Tower.  That definitely rang a bell because JICA occupies the 6th up to the 13th floors of the Shinjuku MAYNDS!  ‘Maryosep! 

Given that Takafumi-chan is going back to Japan next month, I daresay he’ll be assigned to JICA-HQ and still under the care and tutelege of Takizawa Masahiko-kaichou.  Now, I understand that there is a great deal of travel involved in my new job at Trend and I shudder to think of what would happen if I got sent to Japan.  Takafumi will probably run screaming from the elevator if he sees me.  I don’t think I can blame him; I just might run out screaming, too.

Jenny Chang, our EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, wrote in her book History of the Global No. 1 Internet Security Company that she and her husband, Chairman Steve Chang, still had an unfinished destiny with the Land of the Rising Sun.  I have a very strong feeling that I probably do, too.

My arms positively ache from carrying my kid sister’s books from the school bookstore at San Beda College - Alabang.  (Formerly known as my alma mater Benedictine Abbey School.)  I’ll just add this post and then go home.  *sigh*  One more week to go before I’m gainfully employed again.  Ah, well; sucks to be me, I guess.

Times like these, I simply want to sit back, relax, and scarf down a whole plate-ful of purin - a.k.a. caramel flan or, colloquially, leche flan.  All that cold, syrupy-creamy sweetness is enough to soothe my nerves even on my worst days.  (I guess now you understand why I’m definitely on the plump side.  My comfort foods are so gosh-darned decadent!) 

Incidentally, they have kuro-goma (black sesame) flavored purin in Japan these days; it’s under the House brand best known for curry roux and cream stew cubes.  Now, I like both purin and the flavor of black sesame.  But if the end result of such a merger just so happens to be a dismal gray, never mind!  Some things should definitely not be mixed…

One other thing, since we’re still on the topic of Japanese sweets, we should mention those famous Sakuma Drops.  These little jawbreakers have been around for about a hundred years.  They are so iconic that they were included in a key sequence in Miyazaki Hayao’s masterpiece The Grave of the Fireflies.  Suhara-kun, one of my younger Japanese officemates, told me that Sakuma Drops were a popular snack during the difficult years following Japan’s defeat in the Second World War.  Kids would eat the candy and then fill the empty can with water to drink what sweetness remained therein.  Times were certainly hard, and perhaps these candies provided some level of comfort for Japanese children.