It's the Norm

10 days on South Island, New Zealand

2012-01-23T09:56:00.000Z

As promised, here's a travelogue of our recent trip to New Zealand. We were actually there for 2 weeks altogether, but the last few days were spent relaxing with our friends who live in Auckland. The weather in the North Island was appalling, but we really didn't mind, it was just great to spend time with friends, drinking lots of cups of tea, sleeping in a 'real' bed and enjoying hot showers!

So this is our journey around the South Island. To put the trip into context, we were in a camper-car (as you'll see from the photos) and we were there from December 18th to 28th. 10 days was simply not enough to see everything, but we think we chose a pretty amazing route, covering loads of incredible scenery, so you could definitely do worse than to use this as a basis for a trip. I've included details such as the route numbers, in case you want to read this whilst looking at a map. Information is easy to find about accommodation and sights in New Zealand. Both Auckland and Christchurch airports had loads of free leaflets, booklets, maps, etc, that you could pick up as you walked through, and indeed these are what we used to find campsites most nights.

We began the trip by flying into Christchurch (via Auckland). We had looked at other options such as flying to Queenstown, but Christchurch was the cheapest option. It was on our planned route anyway, so made no difference to us. We didn't venture into the city when we arrived, just picked up the car and drove. At this point the weather was unseasonably cold and drizzly, and we were beginning to feel rather depressed about 10 days on the road... We took the 'Inland Scenic Highway' (Route 73, then Route 77) for an hour or so until we reached a village called Methven. Apparently Methven is buzzing in the Winter, being a centre for snow-related-sports, but on a drizzly Summer evening it really didn't have a huge amount to recommend it... aside from 2 very cosy-looking pubs! We popped into both (imaginatively named 'The Blue Pub' and 'The Brown Pub') settling eventually on the Brown, due to its roaring fire. Here is the only shot from day 1 - a rather grainy 'phone photo, but one that includes the essential elements of the evening, the fire and a beer (Rob's of course - a 'dry' holiday for me).

The food was great, the fire blazing, the atmosphere convivial, and after supper we crawled into the van (wrapped in fleece blankets) at the local campsite for a much-needed night's sleep.

The next day dawned... damp and drizzly yet again. This was NOT what we had had in mind! However, we hit the road, crossing fingers and sending up prayers for an improvement in the weather. Well, something must have worked, because by the time we reached the pretty village of Geraldine a mere hour from Methven, the clouds were beginning to part, and we headed off on the road up into the hills (Route 79, leading to Route 8).

We had a quick lunch-stop by the side of the road. We ate out several evenings, but lunches were picked up in supermarkets - raw veg, hummus, crisps, etc, and always large amount of L&P, the iconic Kiwi soft drink!

It was at this point in the journey that we began to notice the lupins. Now in the UK I had only ever seen lupins growing politely in people's garden, but here they were everywhere, rampaging through the countryside. We later found out that they are an invasive 'pest' and stifle the growth of many native plants, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to mind about that too much, they're just so stunning. This was the perfect time of year to see them.

The scenery up until now had been pleasant, but from here on it it was quite simply incredible. Of course the wonderful weather helped, but driving round a bend to be faced with our first view of Lake Tekapo was a real "WOW!" moment...

The lake really is that blue. An effect caused by the 'rock flour' in the water brought down by the glaciers which feed the lake.

We popped into the Lake Tekapo chapel, which boasts an incredible view through the altar window:

We spent a happy hour or so wandering around with our cameras before driving on to Lake Pukaki, another turquoise lake but one without a village attached, hence most people drive straight past. We quickly popped into the nearby town of Twizel to stock up on provisions, then drove back to Lake Pukaki for our first 'wild camp'. OK, we were parked in the lakeside carpark, so it wasn't exactly 'wild' - only in the sense that there were no showers (there were public toilets though!) and we didn't have to pay (extra bonus). Amazing really, I'd pay a fortune to wake up to a view like this:

Pondering the view...

Cooking supper in the van.

6:30am the following day, pyjama-clad gazing at the view across the lake, the snowy peaks of Mount Cook in the distance.

From here we did a day's detour up Route 80 (Mount Cook Road) which runs along the West side of Lake Pukaki and ends up in Mount Cook village. It's a dead-end road so we came back down it that afternoon, but we could easily have spent a few days doing some of the walks from the village. As it was, we settled on a 3-hour walk up the Hooker Valley, for which we were rewarded with some beautiful mountain-scape views.

That afternoon we drove 2.5 hours from Mount Cook Village, to Wanaka (Route 8/8A all the way). We stopped off again in Twizel to use the free wifi in their library, and met someone there who was a good friend of a colleague of mine here in Brunei, who used to teach in Twizel school! Small world. Anyway, we decided against stopping for the night in Omarama as it looked to be rather a one-horse-town, so pushed on through consistently lovely scenery until we reached Wanaka.

Wanaka was pretty much our favourite town in NZ. We stayed at a 'Top Ten' campsite (a chain of campsites all over NZ) and enjoyed an evening stroll along the lakeside before heading into town for the most awesome burgers ever, at a small independent place recommended in the Lonely Planet called Red Star.

Amazing burgers, and Kumara fries. (Kumara are like sweet potatoes).

Wanaka lakeside, the snow-capped mountains of Mount Aspiring National Park in the distance.

We had a relaxing start to the next day, going for a beautiful walk around the West side of the lake. Rob had a 'bracing' morning dip, and then late morning, we set off towards Queenstown. There are 2 routes to Queenstown from Wanaka, the faster main road (although this is a slightly longer route), and the more direct, but slower and more scenic Cardrona Valley Road. We took the scenic option of course, but there are times of year when this would be inaccessible due to snow and ice, and perhaps we wouldn't have been so keen to take it had we been in an enormous RV-style camper van?

Cardrona itself is a small settlement, although one that I suspect is busy with skiers in the Winter. However, it's worth a quick photo-stop for the historic Cardrona Hotel.

The views along the entire road were stunning and we picked an excellent picnic-spot where we were able to look down over acres of vineyards, Queenstown and the lake in the distance.

As we descended into the valley we took a quick detour to visit Arrowtown, a historic gold-mining settlement which has been preserved and restored in a very picturesque way. It's very touristy of course, but with good reason.

We knew that we wanted to spend some time in Queenstown, but we also knew that we would be coming back that way in a couple of days, after we had driven round to Te Anau and Milford Sound - a must-do trip, we had heard. We hadn't booked anything on advance for this trip (apart from the car) so we were free to drive where we wanted, as the fancy took us. We tended to choose where we spent the night purely on where we were when it was about 5pm each day. We reckoned that we still had time to drive many more miles, so bypassed Queenstown at this point. We drove down the Eastern edge of Lake Wakatipu (Route 6) stopping for photos pretty often - a feature of the entire trip really!

We turned off onto Route 94 which took us to Te Anau (driving time between Queenstown and Te Anau - approx 2 1/4 hours). Te Anau was a nice little town perched on the edge of Lake Te Anau, but fortified by our previous night in a 'posh' campsite (with, you know, hot showers and flush toilets - luxury, eh?) we decided that we'd drive a little further on to a more rustic 'Conservation Campsite' about half an hour's drive up the lakeshore.

The site was beautiful, although spookily deserted. The sites were in woodland, but right beside the lake. We had a lovely evening relaxing on the shore, reading our books and enjoying another gourmet campsite meal:

However, it was late evening, when the breeze had died down, that we had our first introduction to a very irritating native of New Zealand... the sandfly. We have sandflies in Brunei, but this was a different creature altogether - what we used to refer to as 'blackfly' in Canada. They seem sluggish and slow-moving so are easy to kill when you feel one biting into your leg, but faced with several thousand of them you're fighting a losing battle! We retreated to the van, then spent an amusing 20 minutes trying to kill all the flies that had flown in with us. Before long the roof of the van was covered in bloody spatters! The flies were still surrounding the van when we woke up the next morning, so after a speedy trip to the 'composting toilet' (inhabited by some of the largest mosquitos I had ever seen) we decided to get an early start and drive to a breezier spot to eat breakfast...

The road from Te Anau to Milford Sound (Route 94) is said to be one of the most beautiful in New Zealand. You could drive it in just over an hour, but I'd definitely recommend allowing at least twice that time as there are many places to stop and take a short (or even long) walk, and take photographs - you won't be able to resist! Unfortunately this area of New Zealand gets an astonishing 7 METRES of rain every year, so the weather conditions are bound to be a bit of a gamble. We were incredibly fortunate that it was blue skies and sunshine all the way for us.

Mirror Lakes, just one of the scenic stop-offs.

Kea (native parrots) on the snow.

The road is winding and narrow in parts, and you need to bear in mind that most of the tour-buses from Te Anau (or even Queenstown) arrive in time for the 1pm sailings on the Sound, so it's best/quieter to tackle this road in the early morning.

We arrived at Milford Sound late morning and were pleasantly surprised to find it practically deserted.

There's not much at Milford Sound itself apart from public toilets, a cafe and a huge ticket-centre for the many boats that do daily sailings around the Sound, but not much else is needed - the stunning views just speak for themselves:

View across the Sound. It's hard to convey how vast it is, the huge boats are simply dwarfed by the surrounding scenery.

The trip round the Sound (out as far as the Tasman Sea, then back) takes just under an hour, and all the boats pause to see the seals basking on the rocks, and also nose the boat into one of the waterfalls, just so you get drenched!

We were in a 'Jucy' car, so got a hefty discount (50%) on the 'Jucy' cruise ship - it was smaller than most of the others, but they all do exactly the same route, in exactly the same time, so there's really very little to choose between the different companies. Ours offered free tea and coffee, so we were happy! Be warned, whatever the weather it is windy and COLD on the water. We were wrapped up in fleeces and waterproofs and still needed the free coffee to keep warm. Many people were shivering inside the cabins in their shorts and t-shirts, not able to go on deck to appreciate the trip properly.

We spent another couple of hours driving in a leisurely manner back to Te Anau, enjoying more photo-stops and more short walks. We stayed that night in a 'Holiday Park' in Te Anau, enjoying a very breezy meal of 'fush and chups' (sorry Kiwis, can't help but laugh at that!) on the lakeshore. The local seagulls were most interested...

The next day we drove back to Queenstown. As ever, we took our time and relished the journey - this is what a road-trip is all about. The roads were consistently pretty quiet throughout the entire trip, despite the fact that this was meant to be 'peak season'. I think it may have got busier from Boxing Day onwards as I guess many New Zealanders stay at home for Christmas itself and then head out on holiday afterwards, but it was just perfect for us. No trouble getting spots on campsites, no queues of traffic.

As we drove towards Queenstown we passed a beautifully restored railway station, and then saw a sign for the 'Kingston Flyer' steam train. We took a short detour off our route and were delighted to find it sitting in the station in the village of Kingston.

We arrived in Queenstown soon after lunch so were able to spend a pleasant few hours wandering around this lively town. I liked it a lot, it had a real 'buzz' to it, but it was more a place for the teenage adrenalin-junkie than the pregnant woman - mind you, pregnant or not, there's no way I'd be taking advantage of the many ways to have 'fun' in Queenstown, most famously bungy-jumping. Bungy-jumping was invented in Queenstown and of course thrill-seekers have pushed the boundaries ever since, so now you can bungy-jump in every imaginable way - in a chair, on a huge bungy-swing across a canyon, at night, the run-and-jump, etc, etc. No thanks! We didn't even bother with the famous (and very sedate) gondola (cable-car) up the hill in the middle of town. I'm sure the views would have been spectacular, but we weren't short on spectacular views on this trip, and several friends had described it to me as 'a rip-off'. Instead we had a great meal in one of the many eateries in town and enjoyed the atmosphere of wandering round a lively bar-filled town in a beautiful setting.

After a night in Queenstown (in a new site, Q Box, reasonably-priced, v nice toilets and showers!) we headed back across the Cardrona Valley Road, and stopped again in Wanaka for a lakeside lunch of a McGregor's Pie. We can smell a good pie from a mile off, and these were superb. I had steak and cheese, while Rob had a Mutton Pie that made him wax lyrical about the joys of the Scotch Pies of his childhood - and this was proclaimed to be just as good.

From Wanaka we drove north on Route 6, over Haast Pass, and through Mount Aspiring National Park...

until we reached the West Coast.

The van meets the Tasman Sea.

We actually enjoyed this section of the trip the least - although it was still amazing, it's all relative! Don't get me wrong, the West Coast is beautiful, but it's not as stunning as, for example, the Pacific Coast Highway in California (ooh, get us, seasoned travellers!) as a lot of the route (Route 6, heading north) is slightly inland so you don't get to enjoy driving along the coast. Still, there were some good viewpoints, but nothing provoked a "wow!" from us like, for example, Lake Tekapo, or Mount Cook.

It was Christmas Eve by this point, and we camped that night in a Conservation Campsite next to Lake Paringa. The evening began well with the site fairly quiet, but before long we realised that this was going to be another insect-infested night... added to that we discovered that there was no running water in the only sink on the site, and that there were no lights in the toilet block. Then, as night fell, a car screeched up and out poured the campsite-neighbours-family-from-hell - screeching mother, yelling father and FIVE children, all crying and whinging. They proceded to erect their tent in the dark, didn't put any money in the campsite honesty-box, and the yelling and whinging went on all night! I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them - they were clearly not having a relaxing holiday - but I'd rather they'd not been camped right next to us! Thank heavens we had packed our earplugs...

The blackflies were surrounding the car when we woke, so we didn't even open the doors, just clambered over into the front seats and drove off in our pyjamas to find a more peaceful breakfast spot where we weren't so likely to be eaten alive... Happy Christmas!

Christmas Day improved dramatically from here on. We spent the day in 'Glacier Country' exploring both Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Fox is the smaller and slightly less imposing, but you can get fairly close to it, and it's amazing nonetheless.

We initially thought that the warning signs were a little melodramatic, but then read that in 2009 2 tourists had climbed over the fence to 'get a better view of the glacier', and been crushed by chunks of falling ice as big as cars that had sheared off the face of the glacier.

Later that morning, a short detour off Route 6 near Fox Glacier took us to Lake Matheson where there is a well-known walk around the lake which can give you incredible reflections of Mount Cook. Unfortunately this walk is best done in the early morning or later afternoon before the breeze causes ripples on the lake, so we missed the reflections. However, it was still a lovely hour + long walk along a beautiful path round the lake. And of course there were still some amazing views.

Views of Mount Cook; enjoying the walk.

Christmas Lunch (a picnic) outside the (closed) Lake Matheson cafe.

After lunch we drove on to Franz Josef. FJ Village is lovely with several nice shops, cafes and restaurants, plus a supermarket (although of course they were all closed on Christmas Day). We found an excellent campsite, the Rainforest Retreat, that offered a wide variety of accommodation in a beautiful setting, right in the centre of the village. The clouds had by this time descended on the mountains so we didn't bother going to see FJ Glacier at this point, just spent a pleasant few hours reading our books and relaxing by the van. The clouds did lift in the evening so we took a quick drive up to the glacier before supper, but didn't stay long as we thought we'd return the following morning.

Boxing day dawned bright and sunny (again!) so we packed up the van and headed straight back to Franz Josef Glacier. We walked as far as we could up to the glacier's face and were wowed by the views. Several glacier-walk groups passed us, heading up onto the glacier itself (with well-trained guides!) and had we been able to book this (the office was closed on Christmas Day), we would have been tempted. Friends of ours did it last year and it sounded like an amazing experience.

From Franz Josef we did possibly our longest day's drive of the trip - about 3.5 hours. We continued up the coast highway, stopping briefly in the town of Hokitika.

Then, at Kumara Junction we turned east, inland on Route 73 towards Arthur's Pass, and ultimately Christchurch. We dithered at Kumara Junction, wondering whether to continue up the coast to Punakaiki Rocks, but eventually decided that we didn't have time (something to see next time we come to NZ perhaps?).

The road over Arthur's Pass is dramatic (aren't they all?!) and we continued our pattern of photo-stops (once for some very tame Keas!)

Just past the village of Arthur's Pass we found another Conservation Campsite (we had picked up a leaflet detailing all of these) called Klondyke Corner. This one was free (yippee!) and by far the nicest we had seen. We drove along a track away from the main campground and parked up by a gorgeous clear river, surrounded by lupins.

The following day - our last full one in South Island - we took a leisurely drive straight along Route 73 to Christchurch. We only had one stop-off en route, at a place called Castle Hill Rocks; we saw them and just couldn't resist pulling in for a short walk.

These stunning rock formations are sacred to the Maori people, and in more recent years have featured in various films.

Our final destination was Christchurch itself. Already devastated by the earthquakes of 2010 and early 2011, Christchurch was once again hit by some major quakes just before Christmas while we were on South Island - indeed, Rob even felt some tremors while we were in Queenstown nearly 500km away. We weren't sure what we would find when we ventured into the city, but hoped we weren't being too 'ghoulish' in wanting to see the place, and hoped there would be some local businesses to support.

What we found was upsetting, and yet uplifting too. The city centre is a mess, many streets fenced off and inaccessible. The historic buildings have suffered the most, and inevitably some have either been pulled down, or will be. There were some almost Pompeii-like scenes in some shops and restaurants as shoppers and diners had clearly simply run out of the buildings as the quake struck.

So what was uplifting about it? The sight of life going on despite the destruction of Mother Nature; people in town shopping, chatting, socialising; the torn-down shopping mall replaced with a 'pop-up mall' of funky portacabin-style shop-units; the hopeful and positive attitude of the people to whom we talked - excited by the future regeneration of Christchurch as a city even more beautiful than before. There's a huge job ahead, but I wish them all the best; Christchurch deserves to rise again.

We spent our final night in a holiday park a mere 5 minutes' drive from the airport. Our flight up to Auckland was mid-morning so we were able to drop off the van and be at the airport in good time.

Our South Island Adventure was over, and what a fantastic trip it was. Although we were incredibly lucky with the weather, and I think did it at a perfect time of year, I'm sure you could follow the same route at any time and still have a wonderful tour. However, if tackled in the Winter be aware that some of the roads we travelled could be closed due to snow - the road to Mount Cook from Lake Pukaki for example, and the Cardrona Valley Road, plus possibly the Te Anau/Milford Sound highway. We spotted many signs pronouncing the roads to be 'Open' - indicating that there are times of year when they are not! We were in a small van, but I think we would have chosen something slightly bigger had we not been so naively confident that it was Summer therefore the weather would be great (wow, we were fortunate on that front!). I also think that I would have considered hotels/motels/B&Bs in the colder months - there was plenty of accommodation around and most of the campsites have cabins and motels on site too - as the fact that there was snow around in the height of Summer suggests there's a heck of a LOT of snow around in the Winter!

I trust that this lengthy blog-post might be some help if you're planning a trip to South Island - and if you're not planning one I suggest you think about it, you won't regret it!

Here's to 2012!

2012-01-15T02:50:00.000Z

So many blogs that I follow seem to have started their most recent posts with apologies for neglecting their blogs recently. Well, I'm not going to apologise, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging, and of course that's exactly how it should be - at least it gives me something to blog ABOUT!

So since my last blog-post we've been very busy... partying at the Loan Service Bollywood Ball:

Meeting new babies:

Hello Esther!

Spending a day in Singapore...

en route to our most amazing holiday ever, 2 weeks in New Zealand:

Much more to come about New Zealand (I'll write a more detailed post about our itinerary soon, I'm positive evangelical about the place!). We spent Christmas there, arriving back in Brunei on New Year's Eve.

All this, and announcing an impending new arrival to the world...

I'm already 2 weeks into the new term at school and so far 2012 is flying by. This is the year when we'll be saying goodbye to Brunei and returning to the UK for good (although we're still not quite sure when...) so one thing's for sure, 2012 is going to be a busy year.

I hope yours too is full of wonderful things.

Favourite Christmas Songs - The Kitch Collection

2011-12-15T06:45:00.000Z

Our Christmas CD collection used to be almost exclusively classical as both Rob and I have spent years singing in Church Choirs in the UK. However, we then moved to Canada, and in close proximity to Walmart we soon found our Christmas repertoire expanding rapidly... the Elvis Christmas Album, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers 'Once Upon a Christmas', the Beach Boys sing Christmas, you name it, we bought it!

We're now both total converts to 'Kitchmas' in all its glory and really enjoy listening to such a mixture of religious and secular music at the time of year.

So here, again in no particular order, are my favourite Kitch Christmas songs:

Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton

"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap". It looks worryingly like she's not wearing a top in this video...

Marshmallow World - Bing Crosby

I couldn't find a nice video to this one, but this is the version of the song that I love.

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Forget You Santa - Cee Lo Green and Michael Jackson

We don't have this on CD, I just stumbled across it on youtube - and loved it! I think it's so clever when songs are 'fused' together and these are two absolute classics.

Blue Christmas - Elvis

The King sings Christmas in his own inimitable style. Neither Rob nor I can resist singing along to this one, complete with melodramatic swoops up to all the notes!

Last Christmas - Wham!

One from my childhood, and I still love it now. Here's George and Andrew in all their bouffant-haired glory in the original 1984 video:

Stay a Little Longer Santa - Shemekia Copeland

One of my favourite tracks from a fabulous album that we picked up in Las Vegas, a charity CD sold by 'Bath and Body Works'. It has all kinds of obscure festive tracks, either little-known songs, or well-known songs such by different people (e.g. Rascal Flatts singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen!). I love it.

So whether your Christmas is a classic one or a kitch one - I hope it's very merry for you all! We'll be celebrating in our camper-car somewhere on South Island, New Zealand, but I'll be back on the blog in the New Year.

Favourite Christmas Songs - The Classical Collection

2011-12-15T05:56:00.000Z

December is here (NB it was 'just here' when I started writing this - it's half over now!), so we are allowed to listen to Christmas music! I say 'allowed', but this is a self-imposed rule in our household. We both adore Christmas music and have a large selection of seasonal CDs, but if we start listening too soon (and when we start we have them on every day) we get tired of them before Christmas itself even arrives. So December the 1st it is.

We have had several 'Desert Island Discs' discussions about our favourite Christmas music, and although the list seems to change every time I think about it, I thought it would be fun to post some of my top picks here.

Our CDs are pretty evenly split between the classical and the kitch, and it's pretty hard to compare the two, hence the separate posts.

Here, in no particular order, are my favourite 'classic' Christmas carols. And huge thanks to whoever is responsible for posting King's College, Cambridge, contributions onto youtube - this post would not have been possible without you!

In the Bleak Midwinter - Harold Darke

A beautiful, simple version of this classic carol. I've sung the first verse of this as a solo before now, and I like it because it's nicely in the range of my voice.

Bethlehem Down - Peter Warlock

A little-known modern carol - well, little-known to non-singers I suspect. Hauntingly gorgeous, makes shivers run down my spine every time I hear it.

Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day - John Gardner

A beautifully lively and catchy version of this classic carol. I first sang this many years ago with a choir called 'Iscavoces', a group of singing friends from Exeter University. It's been a favourite of mine ever since, even though I haven't sung it for over 10 years now.

Nativity Carol - John Rutter

Many people might say that this carol, indeed anything by John Rutter, should properly belong in the 'kitch' post that will follow this one, but I think Rutter has become a Christmas classic! I can't imagine a Christmas without some Rutter carols. I wanted some other Rutter carols (Shepherd's Pipe Carol, Angel Carol), but many are not available for 'embedding' from you tube, so I've gone with this lovely one instead.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - EH Sears

I must confess to getting a bit tired of singing some of the traditional congregational carols (Once in Royal... yawn!) but this is one I never tire of. The words are just so poetic. They can be found here if you want to remind yourself of them.

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Food Bloggers Unplugged

2011-11-30T04:31:00.001Z

I've been tagged by Snowy of Cookbooks Galore to join in with 'Food Bloggers Unplugged'. I'm always happy to indulge in some musings about my blogging, so here goes...

1. What, or who, inspired you to start a blog?

I was living in Canada at the time and feeling rather detached from my life at 'home' in the UK. This was before I'd even joined Facebook (I can barely remember what my pre-FB life was like..!) Living in North America I was also surrounded by a wealth of culinary excitements, and as several of my foodie friends already had blogs which I enjoyed reading, I thought I'd give it a try too.

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

I think I have several. I grew up enjoying food so would have to give my parents credit for that! We always ate well, and I have strong memories of coming home from church to the regular 'Sunday Roast'. Many of my Mum's puddings also stick in my mind (Norwegian Cream, Pavlova, Floating Islands... mmmmm!). More recently I'd have to add my husband Rob to my list of inspirations. When we met we were both living alone, and I was subsisting mainly on pasta. Rob however didn't let his single-status stop him eating fabulously and would often cook himself an entire roast dinner. I remember being very impressed by this! In fact he taught me a lot about cooking, and likes to remind me of this quite regularly... My final foodie inspiration has to be my best mate Sarah, who in the last few years has moved out to Canada and set up an extremely successful baking business, Roseberry Farm. She's so dedicated and talented, I'd hate her if she wasn't so nice!

3. Your greasiest, batter-spattered food/drink book is?

How to be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson. I managed to get it signed when I went to the launch of 'Feast' in Toronto several years ago. Nigella commented on how lovely it was to see a cookbook that was so well-used, and I think she was impressed with the post-it notes all over it! It's now even more grease-spattered.

4. Tell us about the best thing you've ever eaten in another country; where was it, what was it?

I'm struggling with this one... some awesome burgers and steaks in North America spring to mind, but I think I'd come down to the food we ate when on honeymoon in Tuscany. We were in a self-catering apartment and although we intended to eat out regularly, we actually ended up just cooking very simple pasta and pizza dishes for ourselves every night, just because the fresh produce was so wonderful. I've never had more 'tomatoey' tomatoes, or such lovely huge bunches of fresh basil. Oh yes, and some pretty fabulous Chianti Classico too!

5. Another food-blogger's table you'd like to eat at?

Can I go to several?! I'd go for drinks with Esther at Recipe Rifle. She swears and makes me laugh, and her husband Giles Coren is very funny too. I like the way she even writes about recipes that are crap! I'd move on to Sarah in Melbourne, over at Sarah Cooks. She's the legend who cooked every recipe in Nigella's epic How to Eat in a year. Then for dessert I think it would be over to Maya's at Foodiva's Kitchen. She's a self-confessed dessert-lover so I know we'd eat very well! I know Maya already of course, so she's a very safe choice as I know that the conversation is easy and that the laughs come often. Plus it's not far to drive home afterwards as she lives in Brunei too!

6. What's the kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I'm not sure if this really counts as a 'gadget' but I'd really like a new cooker. After nearly 6 years of living in military quarters I'm sick of the standard-issue rubbish ovens we get given. I hate ceramic hobs, and the oven we have here in Brunei is appalling - far too small to cook anything in, and anything placed too near the bottom just burns. Mind you, our own oven at home in the UK isn't much better. It was in the house when we bought it (in the newly-refitted kitchen) but I think that replacing it will be a top priority when we finally return. I'd like a 6-ring gas hob, and a double-oven please Santa.

7. Who taught you to cook?

When I was a child, my Mum. At school, my cookery teacher Mrs Roberts. In adult life, Rob, although I taught myself to bake (OK, with the help of Nigella!).

8. I'm coming to you for dinner. What's your signature dish?

Usually a roast chicken with all the trimmings.

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Olives, gherkins, cheese. Anything tapas-style really; I love to nibble!

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn.

I'll stick to a foodie theme... There's not many things that I won't eat, but I can't stand parsley. YUK!

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you have a blog and would like to take part in this, then please consider this your official invitation! Thanks Snowy.

Stir-Fried Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken

2011-11-22T10:56:00.000Z

Long long ago we owned a granite pestle and mortar, but it's one of those things that has mysteriously disappeared in one of our regular house-moves. I sometimes have visions of all the 'lost' items turning up one day, perhaps in a forgotten packing-box in the attic? Anyway, because I know we already own one, I've never bought another. Daft really, they're so cheap here, but there you go.

Well, I've never bought another... until I was seduced by this recipe that has been winking at me from the pages of Bill's Everyday Asian ever since I purchased it. The thing is, a pestle and mortar is pretty much essential for this recipe, requiring as it does the pounding up of lemongrass stalks. Fine chopping just won't do it here. So I succumbed, and a mere $8 later in Soon Lee I have a new stone pestle and mortar.

The following photo was the only one I managed to take during the preparation of this dish, as when I went to take another shot the camera batteries died so that was that until I could recharge them (I think my multiple spare sets of rechargeable batteries are hiding with the old pestle and mortar...) so you'll have to take my word for it, this dish was great.

I was about to type out the recipe for you (the book is open at my side as I write) but a quick google search reveals that the recipe was reproduced in The Telegraph last month (along with an appetising photograph) so HERE it is.

As ever the odd adjustment was made - I was unable to find any non-rotting asparagus so used a packet of sugar-snap peas instead. They worked fabulously well, but I'm keen to try the asparagus option too so I'll try to use that next time.

Soup to cheer up an Invalid

2011-11-22T10:34:00.000Z

I have an ill husband - and despite my teasing, it's definitely not man-flu! He has a 48-hour feverish thing going on; he had it once before, and it will most likely be gone by tomorrow, but I suspect he's in for an uncomfortable night (I am debating whether the ill or the well partner should move to the spare room in situations such as these...). Anyway, he says he's not hungry and is feeling a bit queasy, but I couldn't very well not feed him at all, so I've just made what I hope is a cheerful soup.

It's cheered me up anyway as I have saved myself from feeling too daft for having accidentally bought another bag of carrots this afternoon, completely forgetting that I already had a bag in the fridge (a hazard, I have discovered, of having a gigantic fridge!). And I've also used up 2 half-empty things that were lurking in the back of the aforementioned gigantic fridge.

The colour's pretty darn cheery too!

Full of vitamins, soothingly smooth and rich, with a slight kick of chilli heat. Perfect (I hope) for anyone in need of a little restorative sustenance. I'll be enjoying it too.

'Thai' Carrot Soup

Chop 3 large carrots into rough chunks and simmer until tender in a pan of chicken stock (about 500ml I guess). Stir in a heaped tablespoon of Tom Yum Paste (or however much you can scrape out of the jar), and about 100ml of coconut cream (made up with half a packet of coconut cream powder).

Blend until smooth, taste and season as desired. Mine was extra thick (it also had several chunks of chicken meat in it from the homemade stock), so I thinned it with a little extra water. I'm sure some chopped coriander on top wouldn't go amiss, as well as complementing the vibrant orange colour.

Remembrance Sunday 2011

2011-11-21T11:18:00.000Z

Last year I blogged about our trip to Labuan, the Malaysian island off the coast of Brunei, to celebrate Remembrance Sunday. I included some history to the island in that post. I'm slightly late in blogging about it, but we attended the ceremony again this year.

Once again a beautiful and moving occasion.

This year we were fortunate enough to meet 3 lovely chaps who were all veterans of the confrontation in Borneo in the 1960s. They were on a tour of Singapore and North Borneo, revisiting sights from their days on active service. We sat on a table with them at the dinner on Saturday night and they were fantastic company - plus they put us to shame by staying out partying into the early hours, long after we had retired to bed!

Another interesting addition to this year's service was the sale of the Malaysian poppy-equivalent, the hibiscus. It seemed fitting to wear both.

Nigella's Korean Keema

2011-11-01T08:54:00.000Z

I've written before about my nagging feelings of guilt about not making enough use of all the amazing Asian ingredients around me... I'm doing better now (thanks to Bill! Awesome Thai-style pumpkin last night, from Bill's Everyday Asian) but I've had a recipe from Nigella's latest book, Kitchen, bookmarked to try for ages: Korean Keema.

Nigella writes how she has discovered a new ingredient, a Korean chilli paste called Gochujang. I suspect that this means that all UK supermarkets will now be stocking this, such is the merchandising power of Nigella! Anyway, I managed to lay my hands on a tub in a little Japanese shop here (the shop underneath the Gadong branch of Excapade for any readers in Brunei) and thought I'd give it a try.

This is indeed a quick and easy meal. It took about 10 minutes from start to finish once the ingredients were assembled:

For the sauce - Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, honey and Gochujang.

Aside from this, all that was needed was minced turkey (although I used chicken), frozen peas, and fresh coriander. Brunei seems to be all sold out of coriander this week so I didn't bother, but next time I'll make sure to use some.

My blog-friend Anna has very kindly typed out the recipe which can be found here, on her lovely blog. I completely agree with Anna that I think I'd use a touch more of the Gochujang if I made it again, although what I felt was lacking was any kind of chilli heat. The paste is described as 'Hot Pepper Paste' but despite its unusual smoky flavour (almost liquorice-like as Nigella describes it), it packs very little punch. This would make it great for the chilli-haters, but as we certainly don't fall into that category next time I'll be adding plenty of chopped fresh chilli to the dish.

Served with plain Jasmine rice and a side of garlicky kailan, this made a speedy and healthy supper.

Ginseng Salad and Stuffed Pumpkin

2011-10-25T09:55:00.000+01:00

After our fun afternoon spent picking vegetables at the weekend, we've spent the last couple of days deciding what to do with them all!

Inspired by Maya's Ginseng Leaf Salad I decided to create my own version... This turned into an exercise in rummaging-around-the-fridge to see what might work in a salad, so the finished dish bore very little resemblance to Maya's salad, apart from the ginseng leaves of course!

It lacks the colour provided by the pomegranate seeds, orange slices and torch ginger in Maya's, but I used fresh pineapple to provide sweetness, cashew nuts for some texture and thinly sliced chives and preserved garlic for some bite. It was dressed with lime juice and toasted sesame oil, which is one of my favourite Asian flavours. These leaves are amazing - they don't wilt at all, so I you can leave it for ages before serving. I enjoyed the unusual flavour and texture of the ginseng leaves - a new experience for me. A lovely light supper or side dish.

Almost as soon as I had got home from veg picking, Maya had e.mailed me a recipe for pumpkin. Maya participates in a weekly recipe challenge called French Fridays with Dorie run by chef Dorie Greenspan, where bloggers around the world all cook the same recipe each Friday and post about it on their blogs. This week the recipe is the temptingly titled 'Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good'. Maya sent me the link to the recipe (which can be found here, on Epicurious) and wondered if I might be interested in trying it too?

Interested? How could I not be?! This recipe looks wonderful, and infinitely adaptable too. I made it for supper last night.

There's something very satisfying about hollowing out a pumpkin... took me right back to my Hallowe'ens in Canada. These pumpkins have lots of flesh, so this one didn't have a huge cavity once I had removed the seeds and stringy stuff (I'm sure that's the technical term for it...).

I used the Epicurious recipe as a basis, but freestyled for much of the way, just choosing what felt right - and what was in the fridge/larder!

Here it is, stuffed and ready to cook. The filling ended up consisting of the following:

a slice of granary bread torn up into chunks
a handful of chives, chopped
a large red chilli, chopped
2 'bockwurst' sausages, chopped
a handful of grated mature cheddar
a large 'squidge' of creme fraiche (it comes in squishy packets here!)
a splash of milk to loosen the mix
garlic pepper to season

As the recipe states, it's hard to give a cooking time as all pumpkins are different, and I suspect different fillings might cause it to cook at different speeds too. Anyway, mine was done in under 2 hours, and looked and smelled incredible.

The sausages imparted a wonderful smoky flavour, and the cheese and creme fraiche were deliciously melted and gooey. I cut the pumpkin into large wedges and the filling oozed out into the baking tray as I did so - satisfyingly messy!

There is no question that I'll be making this dish again (and again and again I suspect). Minus the sausage it would make an excellent vegetarian meal, and it could be adapted in hundreds of different ways to suit different palates. I'm looking forward to seeing what the French Fridays with Dorie group do with it - I'm sure it will give me lots more ideas.

Vegetable Picking

2011-10-24T13:56:00.000+01:00

I feel very blessed to have met Maya... not only is she great fun, a fabulous cook and excellent company - but her mum is the most amazing gardener, with an incredible plot full of beautiful organic produce! This weekend Maya invited Rob and me round to her parents' house with a couple of her other friends to pick some of the vegetables that were ripening. Her parents were actually away, and I was a little worried that they'd come back to find the garden pillaged of all the veg - but when I saw the fabulous (huge!) plot, I could see why they were happy to let people harvest a little... Maya's mum clearly loves gardening and delights in growing all the produce that the wonderful Brunei climate allows.

Gorgeous orchids.

Rambutan on the trees and vegetable beds everywhere.

Maya introduced us to lots of exciting new plants - in this picture I'm sniffing some garlicky-scented leaves. Other plants were more familar, and Maya soon had us snipping away with the secateurs:

Lovely fat ears of sweetcorn.

And my favourite - pumpkins (or squash - we couldn't quite decide on which they were!)

Moving round to the OTHER vegetable garden (I said it was huge!) we then found long beans (still teeny!), Australian spinach and ginseng. There were also aubergines too, but not yet quite ripe for the picking.

Oh yes, and chillies - LOTS of chillies! We picked the red ones (birdseye?) and a few of the fiendishly hot orange Scotch Bonnets.

Not edible, but beautiful - Papyrus from Egypt. I took a stalk to show my class as we've been studying Ancient Egypt!

After a sweaty hour or so in the garden, we all went inside for tea. In true Maya form it wasn't just a cup of tea of course, but beautiful purple sweet potato pie and delicious dark chocolate and caramelised orange tarts - drool!

Maya has more photos of the day on her blog here, along with a recipe for a ginseng-leaf salad. I made something similar last night... but that's for the next blog-post! We're having such fun using our haul of veg.

We started simply, stir-frying the spinach with garlic and oyster sauce as a side-dish, but have plenty more excitements on the way this week...

Thanks Maya!

Chocolate Potato Chips

2011-10-21T09:26:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a newly opened shop here in Brunei, Royce' Chocolates. (No, I have no idea what that apostophe is for either...). Of course I had to pop and and have a browse and was so amused by the following product that I took a photo on my phone and immediately uploaded it to Facebook:

I pondered whether this was a good idea or not and received many many comments on the photo, veering from 'Try them, they look interesting' to 'Yeuk, they sound horrible' and just 'no no no'!

Well, amongst the Facebook comments was one from Maya who told me that she had several boxes of these from Hari Raya so would bring me one to try! We were meeting that week for a sushi lunch, and sure enough, Maya very kindly brought along a box of milk chocolate ones for me (they also come in white chocolate and caramel flavours!).

We opened them almost as soon as I got home with them... and they really are crisps/potato chips (depending on where you come from!) covered in chocolate!

And the verdict? This was the plate about 30 seconds later:

Despite the bizarreness of the concept, they were actually extremely nice, and fiendishly addictive! I'm a great fan of the combination of sweet and salty (salted caramel? Yes please!) and these contained a hint of salty tang which married beautifully with the milk chocolate (which, by the way, was delicious - yes, I know, Asian chocolate that tastes nice? It does exist!). I'll be honest, the potato-ness of them is just a little odd, potato isn't usually found in sweet products, but we managed to get over that pretty quickly.

I think I may just have to purchase some of these at some point... after all, there are 2 other flavours to try!

Bill's Everyday Asian

2011-10-09T03:07:00.000+01:00

Bill's Everyday Asian is Australian chef Bill Granger's ninth book, but the first one of his books that I've ever bought. I'd heard good things about him, that his recipes were light and fresh, that he wrote in a personable and chatty way... and yes, that he was easy on the eye too! Living in South-East Asia as I do, I love to cook and eat Asian food, but sometimes feel that I'm not doing enough of it. I worry that I'm not taking full advantage of the local ingredients so easily accessible here. So when a friend recommended this book, I felt it was one that I needed to purchase to provide me with some inspiration that I felt was lacking.

And my verdict? I'm glad I did! I've had the book for a couple of weeks now and it's a real pleasure to read. It's beautifully laid-out with plenty of mouth-watering pictures. I spent the first week simply browsing through it, filling the pages with post-it notes to indicate my must-try recipes, and in the last week or so I've made no less than 4 meals from it.

The first dish was cooked for pudding on the last night of my parents' visit to Brunei - Banana Batter Cake. We don't often made desserts any more (it's just not the climate for ribsticking hot puds) but Bill described this as an Asian take on Sticky-Toffee Pudding so I knew I'd have to try it.

It was one of those self-saucing puddings that seem vaguely sinister when you are preparing it, as the batter is topped with lots of brown sugar and then a cup of water. It looks as though it will never work, but when it emerges from the oven it has created an amazing caramel sauce.

The pudding is almost clafoutis-like in texture, a dense batter but topped with sliced bananas instead of cherries. Bill recommends serving it with coconut milk, but we took the easy option and used vanilla ice-cream.

It was delicious, and I'll definitely be making it again. Apparently it serves 4, but they must be 4 very greedy people as we got at least 6 portions out of it.

My next meal was made - no cooking involved - as I was feeling the need for a detox. This may or may not have been related to the Banana Batter Pudding! The Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Carrot and Mint had immediately struck me as one of the most appealing recipes in the book. I love Vietnamese food, even more than Thai food I think. This was almost like a coleslaw, made as it was from sliced chinese leaves, beansprouts and carrot, but pepped up with a zingy Vietnamese dressing of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, chili, ginger and garlic. Extra crunch was added with toasted peanuts, and some protein courtesy of shredded chicken breast. Another important addition is fresh herbs - mint and basil leaves.

This was a mild faff to prepare as it involved lots of chopping, plus the carrot had to be 'pickled' for 20 minutes, but I will definitely be making this again, it was gorgeous. It wasn't difficult, just a little time-consuming. Next time I'd be tempted to make a larger amount as it makes a great lunch-dish the following day.

Another salady dish followed later in the week - Chargrilled Chicken Salad with Pineapple and Basil. I had bought a whole chicken for the previous dish and just used the breasts, so for this dish I used the legs, thighs and wings. Bill suggests using thigh fillets, but mine seemed the easier option given what I had. The meat was marinated in fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, oil and turmeric. Bill said to leave it for 15 minutes, but I left mine for 48 hours! Instead of grilling it as he did with the thigh fillets, I roasted the meat which gave a great crispiness to the skin, and left a fabulous sticky residue in the pan, rich with the flavours of the marinade.

The meat was served on top of a basil salad garnished with fresh pineapple wedges, and with a chunky cashew nut relish on the side.

Again, this was fresh and zingy, and felt very virtuous! The pineapple didn't really do it for me I have to say, perhaps because my pineapple wasn't perfectly ripe? But the chicken was beautiful, tender and very flavoursome.

I'd make it again, but perhaps play with the salad combination a little. The basil was a great addition.

My final dish was an attempt to use up half a pumpkin that had been languishing in the fridge for several days, so I tried Bill's Butternut Squash with a Sesame Glaze. This involved boiling the squash/pumpkin in a small amount of water, soy sauce and brown sugar until the squash was tender and the liquid evaporated to a sticky sweet-salty glaze. It was then sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. This was super-easy and tasty, but far too sweet for our liking. I'd do it again, but with about 1/4 of the sugar in the recipe. It didn't look beautiful (so no photo!), rather a brown sludge actually as the pumpkin doesn't hold its shape well, but it was a simple supper served with plain rice and some stir-fried, soy-sauce-doused pak choi.

I still have plenty more post-it notes throughout this book, so I know I'll be cooking from it a lot more in the future.

A Weekend of Meeting Important People!

2011-09-25T10:33:00.000+01:00

Over 3 weeks after Ramadan ended, and the celebratory month of Hari Raya Aidilfitri continues - these Bruneians sure know how to party! Last year we had only just arrived in Brunei when Hari Raya was upon us, so we went to relatively few Open Houses, but this year we know lots more people and have therefore had lots more invites to various Open House parties. It's such a nice tradition.

This weekend we had 2 particularly important ones...

On Friday night we went to an Open House at the Officers' Mess on Bolkiah Camp. This was hosted by the female officers who 'live in' at the mess. It was spectacularly decorated with thousands of fairy lights, and the food was superb - stalls outside serving lamb, satay, kebabs, murtabak, etc, and a selection of curries and sweets inside. Of course everyone was excited about the special guest, the Sultan himself, who attended with one of his sons. Here they are, chatting with the hostesses:

After they had done this, the Sultan was invited to sign the guest-book for the evening... which just happened to be right next to where I was standing!

After this he stood up and started doing the rounds of the room, shaking hands and chatting with the other guests. He came straight up to the group that I was standing with... it's amazing how tongue-tied one can suddenly become when the Sultan of Brunei is shaking your hand!! Thankfully my friends picked up the conversation so I didn't feel too daft. Now this all happened rather fast, and Rob had wandered off to chat to someone else, so of course he missed the opportunity to take a photo of me and His Majesty. I was quite cross as I'm always the one who takes photos of other people with the Sultan and no one ever gets a shot of ME (case in point, here's one of Rob on Friday night:)

So just as the Sultan was finishing greeting people, I thrust my camera at Rob and rejoined the hand-shaking line...

Rob redeemed himself - Success!! I'm laughing because the Sultan shook my hand then looked at me and said "You again!" - and then did exactly the same to the girl next to me who had also lined up for a second hand-shake! We told him he had a good memory, and he laughed. I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to meet one of the British Royal Family face-to-face, but the Royals are much more accessible here in Brunei. It's a much much smaller country of course, but they are very 'visible', often seen driving around (complete with hoards of motorcycle outriders), and attending public events.

On Saturday we attended another Open House that I was no less excited about - Maya's! I first met my fellow Brunei food-blogger Maya a couple of weeks ago when she invited me to an Open House at her parents', but this was at her own house. I was so pleased that Rob could meet Maya, and of course for us both to meet her lovely family (so welcoming!), and of course we were very excited to see her famous new RED kitchen - fabulous, lah? (NB, 'lah' is the Bruneian equivalent of the Canadian 'eh'! I'm such a cultural chameleon...!)

Oops, we appear to have adopted our signature 'kawai' pose again!

The food was - need I say it? - fantastic. Maya's mother-in-law had cooked the savoury dishes which included Soto (a local chicken noodle broth with lots of condiments) and satay.

Rob helping himself to the Soto.

The desserts were Maya's creations - strawberry-topped chocolate cupcake, mini cheesecakes and tiramisu. *Yum*

Another sociable and food-filled Brunei weekend!

A Busy Few Weeks

2011-09-19T08:52:00.000+01:00

Oops, 19 days since I last wrote on this blog! I've been ~~chivvied along~~ reminded by Maya that I need to re-enter the 'blog-cave' again, so here I am.

So, what have I been doing in the last 2 and a bit weeks...?

1) Working. New class, new Principal, new role (Year Leader), lots of work. The children are delightful, and just beginning to get into their new classroom routines. Me too. But I know that a good start to the year is invaluable so I don't mind spending time on this.

2) Cleaning. Because when you're temporarily without an Amah, if you don't clean the kitchen you get ants! Who knew?!

3) Taking photos of babies. Our 1-month-old neighbour for a start (and wow, babies are tricky to take photos of - they keep MOVING - hence the sleeping shot!):

But also this baby kingfisher we found in our street last week:

Poor little thing, we think its mother had been killed. It was looking very lost, and sat here for ages (which at least allowed me to take a photo).

4) Meeting the local wildlife. I continue to be delighted and amazed by the wildlife here in Brunei (OK, not the ants. I could do without wildlife in my kitchen). This little fellow was lurking outside our door at the weekend:

5) Pinning. Have you found Pinterest yet? It's a website where you can create virtual pinboards of all your favourite things. Check it out - although be warned, it's totally addictive!

6) Reading. I've become mildly obsessed with the Mitford sisters, the eccentric aristocratic family who became notorious in their lifetimes for political reasons, but whose memories live on through their prolific writings - autobiographies, novels and letters. They're a truly fascinating bunch. I've been engrossed in this excellent biography, and felt quite miserable when I finally finished it... so immediately went onto Amazon and ordered a book of letters between Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh - My next Mitford-fix!

7) Cooking. This weekend we had a pretty typical Brunei-shopping experience - carefully planning some meals and then discovering that crucial ingredients were nowhere to be found in the shops! I had decided to make a chilli-con-carne, but there was no mince and no tins of kidney beans. Correction, there was mince, but it was so fatty as to be almost white (ick!) and there were kidney beans, but they were in syrup (another ick!). So I ended up making a chilli with diced steak and tins of lima beans instead. I'm nothing if not adaptable!

I'm looking forward to a bowl of this for supper tonight (with chips and some grated cheddar - naughty but nice!) and then we'll fill the freezer with portions of it. Over the last couple of weeks we've almost emptied the freezer of the 'ready meals' that we make andkeep for busy weeks, so it's satisfying to restock it.

This isn't actually the recipe I used (I don't usually use a recipe for chilli), but a friend posted it on our forum recently and I have been meaning to give it a try, if only for the name!

Cowboy Chilli

olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 or 2 red chilies, finely diced
salt
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 lb (1 kg) ground beef
6 strips (300 g) bacon, diced
1 x 14 oz (400 g) can of kidney beans, black beans or pinto beans
1 cup (250 ml) barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional if you don’t want it too spicy)
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 x 12 oz (350 ml) beer
grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, diced scallions, tortilla chips, etc., to serve

Heat a splash of olive oil in a large pot over a medium-high heat. Add the onion, chilies and a pinch of salt (to stop the onions from browning) and cook for 10 minutes, or until the onions have softened. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add the ground beef and bacon and cook until it’s nearly cooked through and browned, stirring occasionally.

Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, then lower the heat to keep at a gentle simmer. Cook for 30 minutes to 1 hour – the longer you cook it, the more the flavors will develop – adding more beer or water if the chili starts to look too dry. Serve the chili warm with toppings of your choice.

Meeting Maya

2011-09-01T08:02:00.000+01:00

I've mentioned my blog-friend Maya before - she's the one who invented that divine Red Dragonfruit Ice-Cream. I can't quite remember how I stumbled upon her blog, but I was immediately captivated by her creativity in the kitchen, her intelligent and witty writing and her luscious photographs... and then I discovered that she actually lives in Brunei! It's a small place so this was really exciting, and I hoped that one day we might meet.

Well, we just have!

I e.mailed Maya yesterday asking her a couple of foodie questions (where she bought her flower-shaped Polvoron moulds, and where I could purchase Black Sesame Powder in Brunei) and she e.mailed straight back with the answers, and inviting me to a Hari Raya Open House!

The Open House was actually at her parents' beautiful house on Jalan Muara. There were hundreds of people there (including a couple that I knew from school - I told you Brunei was a small country!) and there was lots and lots of excellent food.

Everything was delicious - even the Beef Lung dish... I'll try most things once, and I'd even eat that again. There was also Soto, a lovely chicken noodle soup, plus some very tasty homemade biscuits for dessert

Everyone is always so friendly at these events and I chatted to Maya of course, but also some of her lovely friends and family. One of her relations is the Bruneian Ambassador to Belgium, and he had been to school in Salisbury, my home town. Small country, small world!

Anyway, Maya was of course a delight, just as fun and friendly as I had known she would be. We asked her lovely daughter to take a couple of photographs of us together. "Do a friendly pose!" she said:

And then we just got a bit silly!

Thank you Maya for the invitation - I know we'll meet again soon!

Mango Bread and Butter Pudding

2011-09-01T06:00:00.001+01:00

We recently discovered that we have 2 mango trees in our garden! Now this might seem as though we've been rather unobservant - we've lived here for a year after all - but to be fair to us, it's very hard to actually spot any mangoes on them. We only noticed when we saw a that the trees were full of monkeys, and small green fruits were raining down into our garden. On closer inspection we saw that they were unripe mangoes... with lots of monkey teethmarks in them!

However, as soon as we had noted what a mango tree looks like we began seeing them everywhere! A quick cycle-ride around the Camp just picking up windfalls (plus a few that we managed to pick that weren't too high up) yielded a bowl full of fruit which has been slowly ripening in our kitchen for over a week.

A couple of days ago we got to the point where we really needed to use those which were softening fast. Coincidentally I had just found 4 slices of sweet sliced bread in our freezer which had clearly been there for most of the year that we have been here, so I devised a recipe that could solve both problems in one delicious stroke.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, the bread really was a near-luminous yellow colour! Much of the bread you can buy here is quite sweet (hence my own breadmaking habit) but it's perfect for puddings.

Mango Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients

4 slices of bread, buttered liberally on both sides
Flesh of 1 large mango, chopped
1 3/4 cups of milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Cut the slices of bread in half diagonally and lay into a buttered dish, overlapping slightly. Place slivers of mango flesh in between and around them, also tipping in any juice.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. If your mango is not terribly sweet then you may wish to increase the sugar to 1/2 a cup, but my mango was intoxicatingly, pungently sweet - on the verge of unpleasantness really - so I didn't feel that much sugar was necessary.

Pour the egg mixture over the bread and mango and leave it to soak in for at least an hour. I left mine in the fridge for several hours until I was ready to cook it.

About an hour before you want to eat the pudding, place the dish into a large baking tray and fill the tray with boiling water (this is called a bain marie). Carefully place the whole lot into a preheated oven - 160 degrees C.

Bake for 45 mins - 1 hour. The pudding is ready when the custard is set to a gentle wobble and the edges of the bread are browned and ever so slightly crisp.

I like my B&B Pudding to be very custardy, but if you don't then just reduce the egg mixture to 2 eggs and 1 1/4 cups of milk.

I also sprinkled a little cinnamon on top of the pudding before I cooked it, but I also thought about using some slivered almonds. I think it's a very adaptable pud.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri - 2011

2011-08-31T12:47:00.000+01:00

The fasting month of Ramadan is now over and the Muslim celebration of Hari Raya is here. For those of us living in Brunei the start of Hari Raya is always a little uncertain as it's dependent on the moon being sighted on one particular evening. If it's seen then Hari Raya begins, if it's not then Hari Raya will begin the following evening.

We were in a restaurant in town last night when the announcement was made - the moon had been spotted, so the parties could begin. We may not be Muslim, but we were celebrating too... we get 2 days off work! We'll go back to work on Friday, but as it's an early finish at school every Friday (11:45am) I don't mind at all.

One of the lovely aspects of Hari Raya, public holidays aside, is the custom of hosting an 'Open House' (about which I blogged last year). This afternoon we went to our first Open House of the season, held at the house of the grandparents of one of the girls in my new class. We were greeted with open arms, fed some wonderful food, and left my lovely pupil with a big smile on her face, delighted that her teacher had come to her party! I'm glad we went.

I wish I could say I'd made these cute cupcakes, but the image is courtesy of this site.

Homemade Ginger Beer

2011-08-30T09:46:00.000+01:00

Living in a hot climate has lots of benefits, many of them culinary. Bread-making for example is a breeze! Our non-air-conditioned kitchen is usually hovering about the 30-degree mark so you won't often find me in there slaving over a roast-beef dinner, but it's just about perfect for getting a good rise from yeasted dough. I make at least 2 loaves a week meaning that we rarely, if ever, buy bread here.

Another thing for which the climate is perfect is brewing... No, we don't have any 'real' beer on the go, but we have made Ginger Beer, and it's delicious.

I'm happy to go to great effort to make something delicious, but this requires barely any effort at all - it's ridiculously simple.

The recipe, plus photos of the process, can be found here, and many thanks to David Fankhauser who posted this. I'd urge you to take careful note of his advice about the bottles you use - this very fizzy, and we found ourselves releasing some fizz from the bottles several times a day as the plastic began to bulge. I shudder to think of what might happen if you used glass bottles.

The only slight change I made to the recipe was to use half a cup of white sugar and half a cup of brown sugar, instead of the whole cup of white sugar listed. I imagined this would give it a nicer flavour, but I don't know if it made any difference really.

I love the fact this uses ginger root as opposed to powdered ginger. Ginger root is cheap and plentiful here and we always have peeled chunks of it in the freezer. I sieved mine before I drank it, but Rob happily ate the bits of ginger too. It's not too sweet, and so refreshing.

We made 2 litre bottles of this, but unfortunately our Amah tipped one of them away... Granted, it did look a little sinister, but it's very annoying nonetheless! Thank heavens the other bottle was in the fridge - and we'll just have to get another batch brewing very soon.

An A-Z of India Part 5

2011-08-26T07:47:00.000+01:00

U is for Udaipur.

Mentioned earlier in the 'L is for Lakes' section of this A-Z, Udaipur was a town that we really enjoyed. Udaipur is famous for being the setting for the James Bond film Octopussy, and indeed many of the restaurants there screen the film every night. I found this snippet on youtube - unfortunately the dialogue isn't in English, but as it's 95% action it doesn't really seem to matter. It's a fairly accurate representation of the city traffic too..!

It is also a lovely relaxed place (despite the auto-rickshaws), with many great shops - aimed at tourists of course, but some good haggling to be done, and nice souvenirs to be picked up.

V is for Views.

Take your pick - there were plenty of stunning ones, and sometimes it was good just to take a quiet moment to appreciate them.

It's hard to choose favourites, but here are a couple of mine: the Taj Mahal from across the river, and Jaisalmur city and fort from our hotel rooftop.

W is for Wells.

We were travelling along quite happily one day, on our journey between Fatephur Sikri and Jaipur, when suddenly our driver Ram veered off down what was almost a dirt road. "I show you something!" he announced, but wouldn't explain what. Baffled, but realising that we had no choice other than to trust him, we sat back and waited... a good 20 minutes later we pulled up outside what looked like quite a small and rather dull temple in a village. We were mentally rolling our eyes, thinking that we'd quickly pop in and look, just to be polite, but when we walked inside... wow!

This was Chand Baori in Abaneri, a famous stepped well. I realised that I had actually seen photographs of this place before, but hadn't realised that it was on our route. I hadn't even realised it was in India actually.

Stunning (thanks Ram!).

X is for...

I could have gone with the wincingly awful eXtraordinary, or eXtremely interesting, but couldn't quite bring myself to do so. Perhaps the best attempt might be eXtreme, for India is certainly a land of extremes... extreme wealth, and extreme poverty; extreme beauty and extreme squalor.

Happy as a pig in...

It's a country that puzzles and confuses me. I loved some things about it, but detested others. It's so hard to see where you would start when it comes to making changes. Yes, it's becoming ever wealthier, a new super-economy, but driving around you really wouldn't know it. So much needs to change in order for the vast majority of people there to have an improved quality of life. It needs better roads, better sanitation, better housing, a system of rubbish collection, the list goes on and on. In many ways I found it terribly depressing, and yet we had some amazing moments there too.

Y is for Yellow.

Z is for Zooming home (crap I know, but cut me some slack)

We had a great flight back. We got an upgrade from Delhi to KL as we had signed up to 'Optiontown', meaning we were top of the list to take any spare first class seats. It only cost us $50 each, but on a 5-hour overnight flight it was worth every cent to have a flat-bed seat and a pillow. A 7-hour wait at KL airport then followed, but our flight back to Brunei was in beautiful conditions - bright sunshine and perfect white clouds.

And it was certainly good to be home. We vowed we'd never again complain about the traffic or driving here in Brunei ever again - it could be much worse!

An A-Z of India Part 4

2011-08-25T08:52:00.000+01:00

P is for Parasols.

These beautifully embroidered parasols were popular souvenirs, particularly in Jaipur. I was very tempted to buy one, but didn't quite know what I would actually do with it, lovely though they are, so contented myself with taking photographs instead.

Q is for Qur'anic Script.

The Taj Mahal is influenced heavily by Islamic architecture, and around many of the arches you can see Qur'anic script. This is all created using inlaid stones, and it has been incredibly cleverly done - the script gradually gets larger the higher up the building it is, and this cancels out the natural perspective so to the observer standing at ground-level the script all looks to be the same size.

R is for Ranakpur.

Our drive from Jodhpur to Udaipur took us on a dramatically winding road that rose higher and higher into the hills. As we drove higher the land became greener and we found ourselves feeling strangely as though we had entered the tropics. Hidden away in a wooded valley, we found the Jain temples of Ranakpur. This area had a completely different feel to it to anywhere else on the rest of the journey. Damp and humid, it felt just like home!

The main temple (above) was built in 1439 according to a strict system of measurement based on the number 72 (the age at which the founder of the Jain religion achieved nirvana). The temple pedestal is 72 ft square, and it is held up by 1440 (72x20) individually carved pillars. There are 72 shrines and a 72 inch tall statue of the main deity, Adinath. I didn't worry about counting though, I was just blown away by the sheer beauty of the place.

The pale stone, the coolness and peace inside the temple, the soft natural light, the intricate carvings... a few moments of tranquility in this hectic country.

Ranakpur was also where we photographed these beautiful black-faced monkeys, who posed most obligingly for us.

S is for Saris.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here's the equivalent of a small novel!

S is also for squirrels. Well, they're what're called chipmunks in Canada, but the Indians call them squirrels and they're everywhere! Legend has it that Lord Rama stroked the back of a squirrel, and his fingers left the stripes in its fur, explaining why squirrels are sacred in India.

T is for TATA Trucks.

TATA is a company that dominates India. They seem to have a hand in everything from mobile phones to coffee, insurance to hotels; but the most visible TATA presence is on the roads. Everywhere we went the main roads were filled with TATA trucks, but far from being the ugly brutes that you find on the roads of Europe, these were all brightly painted and highly individual. Despite the noise, pollution and traffic hold-ups, I began to feel quite fondly towards these vehicles.

I wish I'd taken more photos of them as they became quite an iconic symbol of our trip, but a quick internet search revealed that plenty of people have snapped them, and I'm cheekily borrowing this wonderful montage by Nancy Allen, found here, because I think it's just beautiful. Thanks Nancy.

All the trucks invite you to blow your horn - horns in India are not used in anger, simply to tell other road users that you're there. The noise, as you might imagine, is constant!

T is also for thali, the cheap and cheerful 'sampler' dish that can be found in restaurants and cafes everywhere. I had this one in a cheery diner in Jaisalmur. There were free refills too!

And T is also for Trains. We pondered doing part of our journey by train, but once we'd arranged a driver it seemed a bit unnecessary. Not sure I'd have fancied travelling like this...

If that's second class, where is third class?!

An A-Z of India Part 3

2011-08-24T10:22:00.000+01:00

K is for Kheer and Kulfi.

We saw many Indian sweets being made and sold as we travelled around, but the dessert options on restaurant menus seemed pretty limited. I was however keen to try both Kheer, an Indian rice-pudding, and Kulfi, a cardamom-scented ice-cream. But fate seemed never to be on my side - I was either too full of curry and naan bread to even consider a dessert, or on a couple of occasions I ordered, only to be told that they had none left. Gutted. I'll have to try making them myself...

Here is a recipe for Kheer.
This Kulfi recipe sounds intriguing.

Boiling up a huge pan of milk for sweets.

L is for Lakes.

Two of the later stops on our route were Udaipur and Pushkar, both settlements built around lakes. In Udaipur our hotel was set up on a hill just outside the city centre which gave us wonderful views over the city, City Palace and Lake Pichola; but we also spent a memorable evening eating at a lakeside restaurant named Ambrai which had beautiful views of the very exclusive Lake Palace Hotel. The accommodation prices there are eye-watering, and sadly you can't even just take a boat over to the hotel for a meal, due to worries about terrorism, but Ambrai was an excellent place from which to see it as the sun set.

Pushkar is a smaller town, but a much holier one according to the Hindu religion. The lake is surrounded by 500 temples, from which 52 'ghats' lead down to the water. Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were scattered on this lake. Our Rough Guide informed us that in days past the lake was infested with man-eating crocodiles that would regularly pick off bathing pilgrims, but eventually the British intervened during the Raj, transporting the crocs to a nearby reservoir. You'd have to be dedicated to bathe in the holy waters if you were sharing them with crocodiles!

No reptiles in evidence today, only pilgrims and a few sacred cows! We only spent one evening here, but enjoyed wandering down the bustling main street, doing some shopping and going for a lovely meal (pizza... *blush* - we were a bit sick of curry by then, and we found a restaurant that cooked their pizzas in their tandoor oven!)

M is for Monsoon.

As I mentioned earlier, we had some rain in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, but none so heavy as the monsoon rains we encountered in Pushkar...! Our driver had dropped us at one end of town and we had arranged to meet him back there a few hours later. We found the above-mentioned pizza restaurant at the opposite end of town, and as we sat there enjoying our meal there was a crash of thunder and the heavens opened! Now we're used to torrential rain - we live in Brunei, it happens fairly regularly - but this Pushkar rain was every bit as dramatic, and showed no sign of easing off. We had no choice other than to set off through town once we had finished eating... the water was literally around our shins, and it really didn't bear thinking too hard about what it was that was swilling about around our legs! Soaked to the skin, we got back to the car to find our driver chortling heartily at the state we were in!

Slightly damp (and taking it in turns with the umbrella!) at Nagda, near Udaipur.

A more positive aspect to the monsoon is the amazing blossoming of greenness that suddenly covers the country. We drove through parts of the Thar Desert, and many other places that our driver told us were usually parched and dry throughout the year, except during the monsoon season. It was hard for us to imagine, as these places were looking so lush and beautiful. What a harsh life it must be to live in such a climate. Indeed, our driver informed us that one year in recent times the monsoon rains never arrived, leaving many animals, and I suspect their human owners, to starve.

Not quite lush greenery, but plenty of trees here growing in the desert dunes as we drove away from Jaisalmur.

N is for Naan.

When you think of an accompaniment to curry, I'd imagine most people choose rice, Basmati perhaps. But in Rajasthan we hardly saw anyone eating rice. Instead they ate breads with their curries, perhaps fried breads such as poori, or more often grilled breads such as naan. We quickly found ourselves judging a restaurant by the quality and price of their Garlic Naan! 40 rupees was what we thought was acceptable, but we saw them priced at 3 times that amount too. We became connoisseurs of the naan, preferring those that were soft and puffy rather than drier and crispy as some were.

Pictured here are the good and the bad:

Good - very good in fact - in the 'Kwality' restaurant in Delhi (naff name, great food).

Bad, dry naan at a restaurant in Jodhpur. Good mini-bucket of dhal though!

O is for Orange.

Orange? The colour of pilgrimage. Our driver told us that we were in India during a month of pilgrimage, and indeed everywhere we went we saw orange-clad, barefoot men carrying containers of water from the River Ganges. They might be walking for any length of time, sometimes many hundreds of miles, depending on their fitness and the challenge they had chosen for themselves. The water was eventually to be poured onto a shrine to the god Shiva.

We saw many pilgrims at the Taj Mahal, but also many hundreds on the roads. Their journeys looked like quite sociable events, as they would often be followed by a brightly-painted truck with music and horn blaring - and generally causing huge hold-ups on the road!

An A-Z of India Part 2

2011-08-23T09:38:00.000+01:00

F is for Forts.

Pretty much every town or city we went to had a stunning fort. Either perched on a hilltop above the town, or in some cases right in the centre of the town, these stunning buildings dominate the landscape. Most can be visited, and are popular with tourists and locals alike.

Clockwise from top left: Jaigarh Fort near Jaipur, Amber Fort near Jaipur, Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer Fort, with Jaisalmer town all around.

Within the heavy fortifications you find lavishly decorated palaces where the Maharajas lived, in most cases right up until the Independence of India in 1947. All the forts were incredible, although I have to admit that after 10 days or so, some of them began to seem remarkably similar (I remember the same feeling in Thailand, but of being 'templed out'!)

One of the quietest forts we visited, at Bikaner. Quiet but beautiful.

Clearly these forts are an important source of revenue for the Rajasthani tourist board, but we began to get a little annoyed with the dramatically different pricing systems for Indian residents and tourists... At Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur for example, we paid 300 rupees each to enter, plus 100 rupees per camera. Indian residents paid 30 rupees.

F is also for Fatephur Sikri, the 'ghost city' built by the Mughal Emperor Akbar but suddenly abandoned around 1585. We visited on our journey between Agra and Jaipur and it proved a very atmospheric and interesting way to break the drive.

G is for Golden Triangle.

The archetypal Indian experience, the 'Golden Triangle' covers the 3 major cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, and these were the first 3 places that we visited as part of our wider Rajasthani tour.

Ironically, this was the least enjoyable section of the trip. As I mentioned previously, Delhi didn't endear itself to us and Agra - Taj Mahal aside - was grotty. Jaipur, the legendary 'Pink City' was also pretty grim, and not nearly as picturesque as we had imagined. Perhaps the weather didn't help our impressions? It was monsoon season and it rained in all 3 of these places while we were there. Once we got further West into the desert areas it was sunnier and less humid, so generally more pleasant, plus the towns and cities were nicer. If you're thinking of a trip to India, don't just settle on the Golden Triangle, head West.

H is for Hotels.

Hotels proved rather a headache for us on this trip... We had arranged the trip through a travel company based in Delhi and asked them to provide a car and driver, plus book the hotels that we had carefully researched. The car and driver part was fine, but despite telling us that he had definitely booked all of our hotels, at every place we arrived it became clear that Deepak (the agent at Truly India - name and shame!!!) had either booked us into totally different hotels than the ones we had requested, or not bothered to book at all! Many was the time that we had to ask our poor driver to 'phone him, and tell him to ring the hotel and make the booking as we were standing in the lobby!

Sigh. Despite this (which almost became amusing by the end of the trip, in a 'laugh or you'll cry' kind of way) we did end up staying in some beautiful properties. Rajasthan is full of lovely historic havelis and palaces that have been converted into hotels, and also new-build hotels in a historic characterful style. These were some of our best:

The Hari Mahal in Jaipur (we were in the historic part, not the modern block attached).

The Hotel Pleasant Haveli in Jaisalmer, a new hotel in an old style with an incredible roof-terrace/view!

The Pal Haveli in Jodhpur, a historic hotel in the centre of the city.

The Kurabar Kothi in Udaipur. We had one of the best rooms in the place with a lovely window-seat overlooking a stunning view of the city and lake below.

H is also for Hindustans, the wonderful antique-style cars that are still built in India today, a throwback to colonnial times.

I is for Inlay.

The Taj Mahal is beautifully decorated, inlaid with all manner of precious stones. This is clearly a great skill, and we were taken by our Agra guide to an Inlay workshop to see the craft in action. Of course the guide was on a huge commission, and whilst we were interested in seeing the artisans in action, we had no interest at all in purchasing anything... We soon learnt that if you have a guide for a morning or day, this is all part of the package. This was one of the reasons that we decided against taking guides after the first 3 cities, preferring to guide ourselves with our increasingly battered edition of The Rough Guide to Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra.

J is for Jaipur, Jaisalmur and Jodhpur.

Or the Pink City, the Golden City and the Blue City. Although Jaipur wasn't nearly as lovely as I had imagined, it did have some gorgeous buildings, and the vast majority are painted a distinctive pinky colour. We didn't spend a huge amount of time in the city itself as our day there was mainly taken up with an excursion to Amber Fort, 13km away, but we did spend an hour or so wandering around soaking up the atmosphere.

Good to see someone keeping the Pink City pink!

The Palace of the Winds was particularly stunning in the morning sunshine.

Jaisalmur on the other hand was stunning, our favourite place on the entire route. In the far west of Rajasthan, a mere 100km from the Pakistani border, I think it's a place that many tourists might miss, but it is well worth the effort to get there. The town has been built up around the incredible fort in the centre, a walled ancient city where about 2000 people still live, but which encloses a lavish palace along with hotels, shops, etc. The fort is in danger of collapse due to the increased demands for water so tourists are urged to stay in the town outside - something we were happy to do as it meant that we got to look at the fort from our hotel! Built entirely from the local gold-coloured stone this is a beautiful place, but we also found the people most friendly, the shopkeepers less aggressive in their hassling you as you walked by, and the atmosphere generally more pleasant. It felt like I hoped India would feel.

Honey-coloured havelis, covered in amazing carvings.

The view across Jaisalmur from the top of the fort.

Jodhpur fell somewhere between the previous two in our affections - it was certainly a more pleasant place than Jaipur in our eyes, but didn't quite live up to Jaisalmur. In the oldest part of the city most of the houses are painted a distinctive blue colour - the colour blue originally indicated a high-class Brahmin residence, but later people thought that the indigo in the paint helped to repel insects and keep them cool in Summer. Whatever the reason, it lends a very attractive feel to the city. We also enjoyed spending time people-watching in the large market that surrounds the clock tower in the centre of town.

And of course - how could I fail to mention this?! - Jodhpur was where Rob had a pair of Jodhpurs tailor-made! Not quite sure when he'll be wearing them... but if anyone ever invites us to a Raj-themed fancy-dress party we'll be well prepared.

Part 3 coming soon...

An A-Z of India Part 1

2011-08-21T12:43:00.000+01:00

We've been back for a week and a half now, and it's taken me that long to it down and write this post. There have been the practical issues of sorting through about 1000 photos, and putting many loads of clothes through the washing machine - oh yes, and starting a new term at school - but it's also been a time to mentally assess the trip. I say trip as opposed to holiday as this really wasn't your usual relaxing break. It was quite frankly exhausting, sometimes gruelling. However, there were also many high points, and many amazing sights that I am thrilled to have seen.

I've pondered writing several posts on different aspects of the trip, but I've gone instead for an A-Z, which will hopefully cover it all! Here goes...

A is for Agra

More specifically its most famous building, the Taj Mahal. The rest of Agra was pretty grim!

This was one of those rare places that actually lives up to its reputation. I was expecting to be a bit disappointed by it as it's such a well-known sight, but the opposite was true, I was bowled over by it. It was vast, majestic, beautiful and awe-inspiring.

The Taj Mahal is closed to non-Muslims on Friday, which was the day that we arrived in Agra, but our driver took us to the gardens opposite the Taj, just across the river. There were very few other people there but we had the most stunning sunset views. The next morning we set off early to visit the Taj itself, and even at 7.30am it was busy - but due to the sheer size of the place it never felt crowded. In fact all the people there just seemed rather tiny and insignificant. After marvelling at the building however, it was lovely to focus on the other visitors, particularly the ladies in their colourful saris.

A is also for Amber Fort.

B is for Baksheesh.

Although India is a 'cheap' destination by Western standards, you could be forgiven for thinking that you have a hole in your wallet as you travel around as almost everything you do seems to require 'baksheesh' in the form of a tip. I don't object to tipping after a meal - I'm perfectly used to that in the UK and Canada/USA - and I'll happily tip someone for carrying my bags to my hotel room (although quite frankly I'd often rather just do it myself), but I do object to giving someone a tip simply for handing me a paper towel at the bathroom sink when I've been to the toilet and washed my hands! This happened in almost every restaurant we ate at. It wasn't so bad for me (as these 'assistants' were always male and therefore less intrusive in the women's toilets), but poor Rob had people scurrying around practically following him into toilet cubicles in the desperate desire to earn a tip, turning on the tap for him at the sink, and even dispensing soap for him! It really did get very irritating.

B is also for blue - specifically Jodhpur, the 'Blue City'.

C is for Curry.

We ate some great food in India... but I have to admit that it did become slightly monotonous. Perhaps it was just that we were mainly offered Rajasthani food, but pretty much every menu began to look alike after a while. Don't get me wrong, it was all lovely stuff, but 2 weeks of curry became a bit much.

I was however hugely impressed by the vegetarian food on offer. I'm not vegetarian, but decided to eschew meat for the duration of the trip in an attempt to stave off Delhi-Belly. I ate lots of wonderful dishes that used Paneer, the gorgeous mild white curd cheese, and we had plenty of dhal, many different types. Unfortunately I don't think it was very healthy. All the dishes were swimming in ghee, and we avoided all salad in case of illness.

Here's a typical curry breakfast:

Poori bhaji and parathas with curd (yoghurt) and lime pickle.

I'm looking forward to making some curries soon, but might be leaving it a little while!

C is also for chai (the spiced tea we drank at least 3 times a day), colours, cows and camels (regular features of the traffic in India).

D is for Delhi

Delhi is most people's introduction to India, and I have to say it's not a great one. Vast and crowded, with nightmare traffic, it's a city I found hard to love, not helped by the fact that we were put in very seedy hotels there (we stayed there for our first 2 nights, and then the final night of our trip). However, we did have an excellent guide for our full day in Delhi, and saw some wonderful sights.

Our favourite thing was wandering around the narrow streets in Old Delhi, just watching people going about their business.

It was chaotic and hot, but full of life and colour - and lots of smiling faces (the children in particular always waved and shouted hello).

D is also for driver - the lovely Ram, a Nepalese chap who drove us throughout our 2-week trip (see photo below) - and desert - the Thar Desert in Western Rajasthan.

E is for Elephants.

As mentioned previously (see letter C) animals are an integral part of Indian traffic. Cows are sacred and seem to know it, wandering round with the clear belief that they are invincible. They certainly lack any road-sense. Camels are beasts of burden, and could often be spotted pulling carts laden down with bricks or stone. But elephants? I wasn't expecting that! We passed a few being used to pull carts, but sadly I didn't manage to get a photo as we were being driven at the time. However, we did see a huge number of elephants at Amber Fort, just outside Jaipur. They were being used to carry tourists up to the fort - what a way to arrive. We didn't take the elephant ride option (been there, done that!) but did take the opportunity to take some photos.

Shortly after I took this photo the mahout demanded 'baksheesh' (see letter B) for the privilege...

We saw the elephants again as we drove back into Jaipur from Amber. The road was steep and winding, but the mahouts were 'driving' their elephants down the road at a very leisurely pace, causing miles of tailbacks!

Part 2 coming soon...

Off to India

2011-07-25T11:44:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted at all in the last week, and won't be for the next fortnight either, as we're off to India. We're flying to Delhi, and then doing a tour of Rajasthan.

I'm excited, but a little nervous too. I have never been to India, but have visions of it being crazy and bustling (quite a change from sleepy Brunei!), and of course very hot - it's monsoon season. Probably why the flights were so cheap...

Anyway, we're packing right now. Plenty of medicines for the hopefully-not-inevitable tummy bug. After my illness in Chiang Mai earlier this year I'm anxious to avoid Delhi-Belly.

I'm sure there will be millions of photo-opportunities (camera batteries charged, spare memory cards packed!) and of course I'm eagerly anticipating the food...

See you soon!

Lemon Macarons

2011-07-21T04:52:00.000+01:00

Like all teachers, I've been looking forward to this long Summer break for months. Time seems elastic at this time of year, stretching out for far longer than it should over the last bittersweet few weeks of the school year, but then racing away at top speed as soon as the holiday starts. Consequently my long to-do-list for the Summer holidays is still... long.

One thing that I have managed to achieve though is making macarons. I've been planning to make these again ever since being inspired by Ben, but it's the kind of thing that takes some planning - aging the egg whites for a few days, leaving the macarons to dry out slightly before cooking, etc. It definitely helps to be around all day when you're making them.

The recipe I used is the one I've used before, and can be found here. As I'm still on my lemon-kick I decided to go with that flavour for the macarons.

My Meri White is a little (*cough* 2 years...) out of date, but it smelled and tasted OK so I used it anyway... 'Best Before, not Poisonous After' is my motto! I wanted to flavour the macarons themselves as well as the filling, so added half a tsp of Boyajian Lemon Oil to the batter, as well as some yellow colouring.

I might have gone a little over the top with the yellow colouring actually, it's certainly very 'sunny'. But I like it.

I did use the food processor to get rid of the lumps in my icing sugar and ground almonds, but even so my macaron shells still weren't perfectly smooth. I very lazily didn't pipe them either, but just used a teaspoon. Pierre Herme would not be impressed.

They cooked beautifully at 120 degrees C, for 15 minutes. They didn't brown at all, and did develop the macaron 'foot' as they rose.

I filled them with a white chocolate ganache (simply melted white chocolate with a spoonful of mascarpone stirred in to loosen it) and my home-made lemon curd. I put a ring of the ganache onto the shell, and then a blob of the curd in the centre. The tartness of the lemon curd is a lovely contrast with the sweetness of the chocolate.

As you can see, they don't look nearly as professional as Ben's macarons, they're distinctly lumpy and rather more rustic-looking (they're also about twice the size due to my inept teaspooning). However, when they're just for home consumption it's the taste that counts, and these taste great. A crispy outer encloses a chewy inner, and they just seem to get better, chewier, the longer you keep them in the fridge.

I know Ben will want to know this - yes, a few of the macaron shells were almost hollow, while others weren't. I wonder why this happens?

At least that's one holiday project successfully accomplished!

The White Ball

2011-07-18T10:42:00.000+01:00

After the excitement of the Sultan's Birthday Parade that I blogged about on Friday, last night we had the 'White Ball' at the Palace. This is somewhat of a misnomer because it is not really a ball; there's no ballgowns and no dancing - not even any music - but what it is is a huge sit-down dinner for thousands of uniformed people (mainly military and police) in celebration of the Sultan's birthday. It's called the White Ball because everyone wears white. Those in uniform wear their smart white jackets (or 'ice-cream suits' as we cheekily call them!) and the 'other halves' wear anything that's a) white and b) appropriately modest.

The Istana Nurul Iman is the Sultan's huge palace overlooking the river in central Bandar. We have visited once before, last year for Hari Raya, when the palace is opened to the public for 3 days, but this was an altogether smarter and more exciting affair. Unfortunately not all of the Loan Service got their invitations to the Ball, but we were lucky enough to do so, and excited to spend an evening at the Istana.

As we drove through town towards the palace we were wowed by all the fairy-lights that were strung up everywhere, on lamp-posts, roundabouts, in trees, etc. It gave the place a really festive feel. This theme continued as we entered the palace gates, and went into the palace itself.

We proceded through the entrance hall where we went through airport-style security scanners, and then - very amusingly - were stickered with little labels that said 'Normal Body Temperature'!! The White Ball was cancelled 2 years ago due to the H1N1 outbreak, so I suppose they were just being super-cautious.

There were no allocated seats so we found some more Loan Service friends and sat with them. I just loved all the royal crockery and cutlery, and the huge silver dishes in which the food was being kept warm.

Having come through a metal-detector on the way in, there was definitely not going to be any cutlery-pinching this evening (as if we would!) but I did keep the menu as a souvenir.

Chatting with LS friends who had been to this event last year, we realised that it was going to be a long evening, so we took the opportunity to wander around and take some photos. We were rather tickled when we followed the red carpet back through the palace along the route that the Royal party would no doubt be taking, and came upon this little escalator!

We made sure of course to get plenty of photos of the two of us on the red carpet too.

We sneaked a peek into the Sultan's dining room which was incredibly lavishly decorated. We had queued through this room at Hari Raya, but it was lovely to see it all set out for dinner, complete with gold chairs. The main attraction however was the air-conditioning! We spent a few minutes standing outside the open doors, just enjoying the cool breeze. Unfortunately we didn't qualify as VIP-enough to warrant a seat in here... never mind!

At about 9pm there was a definite buzz in the air and we all stood up as the Sultan and his family entered. As soon as they were seated it was time for macan - food!

The burners underneath the food dish had obviously stayed alight as the food was nicely hot, and really tasty. There was a lamb dish, a beef dish with cashew nute, a chicken curry, a prawn Thai curry, chili fish and mixed vegetables, along with 2 types of rice. We all got stuck in. The amazing multi-coloured dessert was layered pistachio, raspberry and passion-fruit, and was delicious.

An intimate meal for thousands...!

Just as we were finishing dessert we all had to leap to our feet as the Sultan and his entourage were starting their rounds. They shook hands with every single one of the guests, literally thousands of people. It took over 2 hours. I can only imagine the potential for repetitive-strain-injury for the poor man!

Not surprisingly they worked their way along the lines at quite a pace, so the opportunity for photos was limited. They were also surrounded by official photographers and cameramen, so we weren't able to get our own photos of us shaking the Royal hand. I did catch them on their approach though:

His Majesty the Sultan, followed by the Crown Prince.

One of our party shook the Sultan's hand and then, desperate for a better photo opportunity, ducked into the next line, and managed to do the same again (while another friend with a great camera managed to get the most fabulous picture of him shaking hands with His Majesty). The Sultan, to his credit, did a subtle but noticeable double-take at shaking the same hand twice - he was obviously paying attention!

The Loan Service working the white theme!

Excitement over, we then had to wait for the Sultan to work his way through our dining area, and then on to the other one. We finally left at nearly midnight, tired but happy to have had such a fun evening - what a great experience!

Happy Birthday to the Sultan of Brunei!

2011-07-15T08:33:00.000+01:00

Today is the Sultan of Brunei's 65th birthday. It would be tricky to forget this date as there are signs and banners all over the country to remind us - plus it's a public holiday in celebration!

I have to say, I'm a big fan of the Sultan. He seems like a genuinely nice chap - and I say that having met him a couple of times over the last year. Brunei is a small country, and he's often 'out and about' meeting and greeting the locals (who adore him). And of course, he often attends military events, such as the Hari Raya Open House at the Officers' Mess.

I also like the way that there are so many photos of him smiling, as well as more formal ones. I think he's a very handsome man.

This morning we were up super-early as Rob had had an invitation to the birthday parade in the centre of Bandar. Unfortunately it was only an invitation for him, so he dressed up smartly in his uniform and got a comfortable and shaded seat in the stands, while I was looking distinctly scruffy and had to watch the parade over the fence. However, I still had a great time and really enjoyed wandering around taking photos of the spectacle.

Local TV cameras out in force.

So many important-looking people in their finery. I think this headgear is wonderful.

The mosque was a stunning backdrop to the proceedings.

The Crown Prince arrives.

Huge motorcade, lots of cheering and flag-waving...

It's the Sultan!

What could these be for?

BOOM!!!! Oh yes, the 21-gun salute! Wow, that was LOUD.

The Sultan walks out to inspect the troops.

And returns in his fabulous gold landrover!

The flypast, which included 2 of my neighbours (1 in a helicopter, the other in a plane).

The Sultan gives me a wave as he leaves..!

The Sultan's brother leaves in an amazing purple Rolls Royce.

Who doesn't love a man in uniform? Rob looking very dashing.

I really enjoy events such as this in Brunei; after all it's what living here is all about in my mind, appreciating the history and culture of a different country. I'll never get this experience again, so am trying so hard to make the most of it. Next excitement - the Sultan's birthday 'White Ball' at the Istana (Palace) on Sunday night!

But until then, Happy Birthday Your Majesty!

Red Dragonfruit Ice Cream

2011-07-14T08:38:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have been obsessing about Maya's Red Dragonfruit ice-cream for a few days now... It's not just the colour - but what an incredible colour it is - it's the ice-cream recipe itself. We used to make ice-cream a lot in the UK, but ironically now we live in the tropics, we've hardly made it at all here in Brunei. We have our ice-cream maker here, but just couldn't manage to recreate the recipe without 'proper' British double cream. We've tried a few variations - using condensed milk (OK if you like condensed-milk-flavour ice-cream), making a custard base (OK, but took an age to make and resulted in rock-solid ice-cream), using tinned cream (yuk!) and thickening milk with cornstarch (foul). So we'd just about given up.

So when I read Maya's recipe that used mascarpone and coconut cream, I decided this was a combination that just had to be attempted.

And I am SO glad that I did! Mascarpone is relatively easy to find here, and coconut cream? Well, we always have coconut milk in the larder, as well as sachets of coconut cream powder, so that was a simple ingredient. I see that Maya has used this same base with other ice-cream flavours - must try the black sesame some time - so I too will experiment further with it.

Red dragonfruit is in season right now so is cheap and plentiful. Visually this dragonfruit is definitely an extrovert with its showy skin and vibrant hot-pink flesh, but its taste is definitely more introverted - quiet and subtle.

Although its flavour definitely comes through in this ice-cream, it needed the coconut taste to complement it, and I followed Maya's suggestion of adding some basil leaves to give it an extra lift. We had some growing so it was a simple (and very tasty) addition.

It was so simple, and so satisfying to make. I followed Maya's recipe to the letter and it was perfect. It took mere minutes to transform this:

into this:

I have yet to attempt making mochi in which to wrap this ice-cream. Hey, before I read Maya's post I had never even heard of mochi! It looks exciting and I'd like to try it. But for now I'm enjoying this ice-cream as it is. Beautiful and delicious!

Lemon Curd

2011-07-12T12:51:00.000+01:00

It's time to make more lemon curd. The last jar disappeared within days, mainly eaten by me for breakfast on toast (and a fair bit was transported straight into my mouth on a teaspoon, dispensing with the toast as a vehicle...).

The recipe I use is simply an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Lime Curd (in How to be a Domestic Goddess), and makes 350ml, or one largish jar.

Lemon Curd

75g unsalted butter - I use salted, I think it tastes nicer, but I'm a big fan of the salty/sweet combo
3 large eggs
75g caster sugar
125ml lemon juice

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan, add all the other ingredients and whisk to a custard over a gentle heat. Let cool before filling a sterilised jar (or a cake!) with it. Keep in the fridge.

And that's all there is to it. Nigella also suggests adding the zest, but personally I don't like my curd to have 'bits' in it. But if you do, then go ahead. Just don't expect me to eat it!

I feel like I need to make tons of this stuff as I keep seeing recipes in which to use it. My lovely friend Anna keeps tantalising me with lemony recipes such as this Lemon Curd Cheesecake, and Little Lemon Puddings. I'm salivating just thinking about these!

My new Brunei-blog-friend Maya of the fabulous Foodiva's Kitchen mentioned that you could also make curd with other fruits, namely mango... I have made cranberry curd in the past (Maya would adore it, it's so pink!) but I had never thought of using other fruits. As mangos are in season right now in Brunei I may have to look into this, in which case I'd guess you just use fruit puree instead of juice. What a delicious thought!

Do check out Maya's beautiful blog. Her food always looks like a work of art, not to mention tasting incredible I'm sure. This post is on my mind at the moment... you'll see what I mean about her love of pink! I'm definitely thinking of dusting off my ice-cream maker and taking the plunge.

A Lemony Day

2011-06-30T13:28:00.000+01:00

I love lemons and always like to have some in the house. However, I have had a bargain-bag of TEN lemons in the fridge for the last week and not got round to using them... With a bonus Public Holiday yesterday (for Israk Mikraj don't you know?!) in the middle of the last week of term, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get cooking.

Whilst still in my pyjamas I set about cooking lemon curd. I hadn't made this for years, and had forgotten just how quick and simple it was. I love how beautiful it looks; it came out a delicate primrose-yellow.

This recipe used whole eggs, hence the pale colour; to get a richer yellow you'd need to use a recipe that just used yolks; but I thought this was gorgeous - and it tasted wonderful too.

On a roll, I decided to continue the lemony theme and make a lemon cake. Recently I've become a huge fan of Nigella's Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake (which I don't make in a loaf pan, but as a square tray-bake) but yesterday I wanted to try something a bit different.

After a convoluted saga involving having one-too-few eggs to follow the recipe properly, I ended up adapting the recipe to make just one cake instead of the 2 sandwiched together that it is meant to be. It looked a little disastrous as it came out of the oven (a large section of meringue collapsed off the side, as you can see).

However, with some careful slicing, and a dollop of lemon curd on the side, it made a very respectable pudding!

The recipe can be found here, on Nigella's website, or in her wonderful 'Feast' book. As I only had 3 eggs rather than the 4 required I made 3/4 of the recipe amount, and piled it all into 1 tin instead of 2. It therefore took a bit longer to cook than specified, perhaps 10 minutes more than the recipe says, but that required a bit of a juggling act with the oven temperatures to ensure that the meringue didn't over-brown. It all got a bit complex, and I wasn't taking notes!

However, it's a cake I'd definitely try again... and I don't think that jar of lemon curd is going to last too long either!

Impossible Coconut Pie

2011-06-27T11:55:00.000+01:00

I suppose it's the mark of a successful recipe when you dig into the dish so quickly that you don't have time to take a photograph of it first!

That was certainly the case with this pudding, the 'Impossible' Coconut Pie, taken from the 'Food and Wine' magazine and passed on to me by my Canadian friend Jody. Having finally managed to source desiccated coconut here in Brunei (in Le Apple Bakery, for any readers in Brunei who may be interested) I ended up making this dish twice in one week, once for personal consumption (well, I did share it with Rob!) and then once as a contribution to a pot-luck supper with my colleagues.

Two huge pies, and this was the point at which I finally managed to point my camera towards it:

The 'Impossible' in the name of this pie is down to the fact that it seems to miraculously form its own crust when baking - in fact it forms 2 crusts: a soft and slightly chewy bottom layer, and a cakey top layer. In the middle is a delicious coconutty-egg-custard.

The recipe can be found here, on the Food and Wine website, but I made a couple of adaptations so 'my' recipe for it follows:

Impossible Coconut Pie

½ cup melted butter, plus more for greasing
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
½ cup self-raising flour
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
2 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter two 9 inch glass pie plates, or 1 large pyrex dish.

In a large bowl whisk the melted butter and sugar.

Add eggs and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour, coconut and milk.

Divide mixture between the two pie plates - or pour it all into the large pyrex (the mixture is very liquid) - and bake in the lower third of the oven (unsure if this is necessary when you have a fan-oven as I do...) for about 1 hour until pies are firm to the touch and golden.

My large pie was ready in an hour (when the middle stops wobbling!) but I covered it with foil after about 40 minutes as I thought it was browning rather too fast.

This is most definitely a 'pudding' - not as glamorous as a 'dessert' - but homely and comforting. It doesn't look beautiful (in fact it looks rather plain) but tastes divine. We ate it warmed on its own, cold on its own, and hot or cold with ice-cream, but it would certainly be great with cream or custard too.

A Three-Cake Birthday

2011-06-26T12:52:00.000+01:00

Last week it was my birthday. Not a particularly 'special' number, but it turned into a pretty special day.

I never used to tell the children in my class when it was my birthday, but then a colleague once told me that she thought we should - after all, kids get so excited about birthdays, and it also helps them to appreciate the fact that you're a 'real person' too (not just someone who lives in school!). I thought this was a good argument, so ever since then I've not been shy about mentioning it to the kids - not making a huge thing of it of course, and making sure to emphasise that gifts are not expected (I always give them the 'homemade is best' yarn, and I do love the cards that they make!).

This year it was easy to drop into the conversation as my birthday co-incided with our year-group's Chocolate Day, officially the culmination of our book-study of Roald Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but unofficially just an excuse to eat lots of chocolate and watch a film!

Not only was the classroom filled with chocolate (we had a chocolate fountain!) but at snack time the cake appeared... not just one, but TWO birthday cakes.

The first was a cheesecake, from my year-group colleagues. We have a very nice tradition of getting eachother a cake on our birthdays, and getting all 3 classes to come in and sing. Which made me almost cry (in the nicest possible way!).

And next came an amazing Red Velvet Cake, made my one of the delightful girls in my class, with the help of her Auntie who is a professional baker.

It even came with little Red Velvet cupcakes - so adorable!

The cheesecake was gorgeous - not too sickly-sweet, and with lots of fruit. The Year 3 staff polished it off fairly fast.

Helped by 19 children, the Red Velvet cake didn't last too long either, but was really delicious. Dense and with a hint of chocolate, topped with cream-cheese icing. And made with love so very special.

Luckily we managed to leave a piece for our special visitor...

Yes, I am currently hosting my 3rd Flat Stanley from Lewknor School. This one comes courtesy of Poppy, following the example of Polly and Hayden who sent theirs earlier this year.

After the monkey disaster with Polly's, this is as close as Poppy's Stanley has got to our neighbourhood macaques:

Once I got home I started on birthday cake number THREE - one of Ben's legendary Ferrero Rocher cakes. I had been dying to have another one of these since Rob's birthday in May, so this was the perfect excuse.

I don't think I've ever managed that many cakes on any birthday before. What a treat - and huge thanks to all who gave them. I had a wonderful day.

Macarons from Ben

2011-06-25T02:55:00.000+01:00

I'm so pleased to have met Ben - and even more so that I am now on his 'list' who receive updates about what he's baking and opportunities to buy the results. A few weeks back (I'm a bit behind on my blogging...) he posted that he was going to make lemon tarts, and macarons. Now I've always been a macaron fan, so I just knew I had to try some.

The lemon tart was wonderful - crisp buttery pastry, filled with a layer of dark chocolate, then a layer of pistachio sponge, and topped with the most gorgeous tart-but-creamy lemon cream (a Pierre Herme recipe no less)... but of course we ate it before I thought of taking a photo, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

But the macarons... how could I resist taking pictures?! They are such things of beauty.

I ended up with a box that contained 4 flavours - pictured above (from top to bottom) are Chilli-Chocolate, Nutella and Coconut-Lime. There was also a gorgeous pale lilac Cassis flavour one, but it got a little crushed so I ate it sans photo!

These macarons were as good as they looked. I loved the chocolate ganache that Ben had used as the fillings. I might have added a little more chili to the Chili-Choc one, but that's a personal thing and I'm a bit of a chili-fiend.

I think my favourite was the Coconut-Lime. I asked Ben how he had made it, and he told me that he had used the juice of limau kapas, or key limes, mixed with coconut cream and white chocolate. It was a great combination.

The shells just looked so professional, I was really impressed as I know how temperamental they can be to make. I'm inspired to have another try myself - roll on July and my long Summer holiday! I'm already pondering different flavour possiblities...

Basil Cookery School, Chiang Mai

2011-06-06T13:10:00.000+01:00

Nowhere is 'cookery tourism' more popular than in Thailand. I was quite simply astonished by the number of cookery schools just in Chiang Mai offering courses varying from a half-day to a full week. Thai food is generally pretty simple to make if you have the right ingredients, and it's become very popular around the world. The sheer variety of schools made making a choice quite tricky... but I think I chose well!

Quite simply I picked the one with the nicest leaflet. It was also written in good English, and gave clear menu choices with great photos. I've since found out that it has a great website, and lots of 'likes' on its Facebook page, so it appears I'm not alone in being a fan.

I struck lucky in that it was quiet season, so I was the only student for the morning. 1-to-1 tuition! Boom, the ever-smiling teacher, picked me up from my guesthouse in the cookery-school van and we went straight to a local fresh market to pick up some ingredients for the morning.

I took the opportunity to quiz Boom over what the many and varied vegetables are. I often find myself standing gormlessly in front of the fresh produce in Bruneian supermarkets, wondering what on earth the various greenery. It's hard to tell when it's only labelled in Malay. I think there are a few new vegetables that I can try now.

I also saw some things that I had never seen fresh before. These are bamboo shoots. I buy mine in tins!

After our shopping trip it was back to Basil to start cooking. The school has been open since 2009, and Boom has clearly learnt well from her years teaching at the famous Baan Thai cookery school. Basil is well laid-out and seems to run incredibly smoothly.

Inside was a kitchen with a large central 'island' for food preparation, plus a row of 6 gas-rings for cooking. Class-sizes are set to a maximum of 6 so that even when full, everyone can have attention from the teacher. There is also an adjoining dining room where you can take your dishes to eat fresh as soon as you have cooked them.

Straight onto the cooking for us: Dish 1 - Drunken Noodles.

I felt that Rob and I were a little short on nice noodle dishes in our cooking repertoire, so it was great to learn this easy dish. No alcohol involved though!

Dish 2 -Tom Yum hot and sour soup. This was made with prawns and oyster mushrooms.

When we've made this at home we sometimes add a splash of coconut milk too, to make it slightly less astringent, but this was great as it was. You end up with a lot of detritus in the bowl at the end though - kaffir lime leaves, chillis, lemongrass and galangal.

Dish 3 - Laab. An old favourite. I guess I shouldn't really have chosen it as I make it pretty well at home, I just didn't think. Never mind, it was still delicious, and good to see that I've been doing it 'right'!

Before we started on dish 4, Boom showed me how to make fresh coconut milk. At the market she had bought a bag full of fresh grated coconut. She put 100g into a muslim bag, then we poured on a cup of boiling water, let it cool and then kneaded the bag in the water.

A few minutes later the bowl was filled with coconut milk, and my hands were beautifully soft thanks to the coconut oil! This coconut milk was used in the curry I was about to make, and the dessert.

Dish 4 - Red Curry with Bamboo Shoots.

This began with making the red curry paste from scratch. Red and green curry pastes are made in exactly the same way, the only difference being the colour of the chillies used. There was a lot of chopping before we got onto the grinding...

And then an awful lot of grinding! "Just another 5 minutes" said Boom chirpily as I showed her what I thought looked like a very respectable mortar-full of curry paste...

Still, the aching biceps were worth it when I tasted the finished curry. Excellent, though I say it myself!

Dish 5 - Chicken with Cashew Nuts.

This is a favourite of mine at our local Thai restaurant, but we've never quite managed to recreate it perfectly at home. I realised that one of the main things we were neglecting to do was fry the dried chillies in order to get that lovely 'toasted' flavour.

This is definitely one I'll be trying again at home.

Dish 6 - Black Sticky Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk.

I'm a big rice pudding fan, but this was probably my least favourite dish of the day. However, this may have been because it was the 6th and last dish I had cooked and eaten during the morning; I'm not sure I could even have squeezed in a wafer-thin-mint at this point!

At the end of the course I received a certificate and - most usefully - a recipe book containing all of the recipes I had cooked, plus many more.

I'll type up some of the recipes at some point, perhaps as I try recreating them here in Brunei. I'm looking forward to trying!

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Lemon Parmesan Vinaigrette

2011-06-06T11:25:00.000+01:00

Saturday afternoon, back in Brunei, and desperately craving something somehow 'cleansing' to eat after my bout of illness in Thailand. I eat Asian food all the time here, but at this point I just wanted something somehow different, although I couldn't quite decide what that was. My forum-friends came to the rescue of course, with Megan happening to post this fresh and delicious salad recipe from Bon Appétit which I just had to make straight away.

Shaved Asparagus with Parmesan Vinaigrette

Bon Appétit | May 2011

yield: Makes 4 servings

Shaving asparagus with a vegetable peeler transforms the texture of a raw stalk into silky strips. This revelatory technique works well with all kinds of vegetables, from carrots to zucchini.

Ingredients

• 12 large asparagus spears (about 1 pound), trimmed and peeled
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan plus a piece for shaving
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Working with 1 asparagus spear at a time, use a vegetable peeler to shave spears into long, thin shavings. Transfer to a medium bowl (the tips will snap off as spears get thinner; add to bowl). Combine grated Parmesan and lemon juice in a small bowl and slowly whisk in oil until well blended. Season vinaigrette generously with salt and pepper. Drizzle vinaigrette over shaved asparagus and toss to coat. Divide asparagus salad among plates. Use peeler to shave more Parmesan over salad.

I could only find one decent package of (baby) asparagus - annoying because usually there's plenty around. However, this produced enough for 2 portions despite being rather a hassle to 'shave' - but worth every second of that hassle I assure you.

I didn't worry too much about the quantities for the dressing, as they had to be dictated by the fact that I only had a walnut-sized piece of parmesan left in the fridge (we use it so rarely I had completely forgotten we were nearly out). The dressing was fresh, astringent and lemony, very lemony, but as a lemon-fiend that suits me fine. Others might want to add the juice judiciously and taste as they go along. I ended up with half the dressing left over, but stirred it into some shredded cabbage the following evening and enjoyed it again. I think it would work with any veg.

We served this asparagus saled with a simply-roasted chicken (rubbed with lemon juice and olive-oil, then sprinkled generously with ground pepper) and some roasted cherry tomatoes and baby corn. Rob also had cous cous, but I fancied a carb-free meal. It was simple and delicious; simply delicious in fact. Definitely a 'keeper'.

Thanks Megan!

Update from Chiang Mai

2011-06-01T15:00:00.000+01:00

Well, it's certainly been a trip of contrasts so far... Lots of great bits, but a but of a disaster too as I currently find myself lying in bed in my hotel room after a particularly grim bout of illness. I now understand why people tell you not to buy street-food in Asia... But I've always done so, and never suffered before, so just bad luck I think.

And those Chiang Mai sausages were just SO delicious!

So, aside from the last 24 hours - a waste in so many ways, and so utterly miserable I even considered coming home early - it's been a good trip. My Thai cookery course was excellent and I'm really looking forward to trying out some of my new-found recipes when I get back. I was the only person on the course, so got 1 to 1 tuition! Lots of details and photos to follow.

I also went to see the Giant Pandas at Chiang Mai Zoo this morning. I saw them when I visited in 2005 - there were 2 then, but now there are 3. Thanks to a rather overly-informative display board I now know more than anyone should ever know about panda sex! (Or rather, lack of it - Lin Ping was conceived through artificial insemination, fully documented photographically for all to see!) But what gorgeous creatures they are.

I arrived as they were eating breakfast and stood for ages, watching them enjoying their bamboo. I was very jealous as I wasn't able to enjoy any food at that point - all too risky!

I'm writing this on my iPhone so please excuse any errors, and the lack of pictures - I can't seem to get them to upload from the phone.

Going Solo

2011-05-28T05:06:00.000+01:00

I'm off on holiday. Alone. Not particularly out of choice, but because it's my half-term holiday and Rob couldn't get time off this week.

I've been surprised by the fact that many people have said I'm 'brave' for doing this - but people holiday on their own all the time, don't they? I don't think it's too big a deal...

I'm going to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It's a city I've been to before (my brother lived there for a few years and I went to visit him there in 2005), so I know it's a lovely place. I'll be there for 5 days, and my guesthouse has free wifi, so 'virtual contact' with home should be easy (how ever did we manage before Skype and Facebook?!)

I'm hoping to spend a day doing a Thai cookery course, and am looking forward to browsing the markets and doing lots of shopping. I'm also taking plenty of things to read so am planning to spend time sipping watermelon juice (or cold beer...) in cafes, immersed in a good book.

But I'll be honest, despite my excitement I am a little nervous. I have 4 flights and 3 airports to negotiate on my own, and I arrive back in Brunei next Friday a mere hour and a half before a dinner we're attending, so I'm worried about delays.

Hopefully I'll have plenty to blog about on my return, but in the meantime - wish me luck!

Card Production

2011-05-24T12:05:00.000+01:00

Pendlenton Industries in in production!

I've long had a little ambition, to see some of my photos printed onto greetings cards. This had been on my mind for a while now, and earlier this year I made some enquiries to see whether this little ambition might perhaps become a reality...

What seems like months ago now, I posted an album of 42 photos onto facebook and asked my friends to comment on the pictures that they thought would look good on cards. The response was amazing, with a flattering amount of people taking the time to look through them and 'like' or comment on them. I found it a fascinating process, to see which images were most popular (incidentally, not always the ones I had thought!)

Since then I've selected images and had many many visits to a printer here in Brunei. Much discussion ensued about the style of the cards, whether they should be matt or glossy, what should go on the reverse, etc, etc, and finally - when I was beginning to think it might never happen, a couple of weeks ago I saw the proofs:

They looked great; I was so pleased.

Since then I have sourced envelopes, and plastic sleeves in which to protect them. And today I collected my cards from the printer... 450 cards in total - 50 cards each of 9 different designs. This is what the dining room table looks like tonight; a production line fuelled by large mugs of tea (soon to be moving on to mojitos I feel!).

So now I am pleased to announce that tomorrow I will be putting my cards on sale. Just at my school first of course, closely followed by the LS Office on Base, but I hope to be able to persuade a local craft gallery to take some too.

I'm not going to make my millions but the satisfaction of undertaking this project should, I hope, make it all worthwhile. Exciting stuff!

Back to the production line now...

Ferrero Rocher Cake - Happy Birthday Rob!

2011-05-16T11:09:00.000+01:00

Having given my new blog-friend Ben a glowing review recently, I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and give one of his cakes a try. And what better occasion to do so than Rob's birthday last week.

Looking through Ben's list of cakes, one immediately leapt out at me - the Ferrero Rocher Cake. Rob is a big fan of Ferrero Rocher, and they're one of the few chocolates we can buy here that are the same as the ones you buy in the UK (all the bars of Cadbury's chocolate you buy here for example are either made in Malaysia or Australia, and are most definitely not up to UK standards!).

A quick Facebook message to Ben was all it took to place the order, and we arranged a rendezvous in a local supermarket carpark to exchange money-for-cake on the day itself. It was great to meet Ben in person after chatting on our blogs and Facebook; good to put a face to the name of this talented local baker.

I could hardly wait to try this cake so rushed home with it to wait for Rob... annoyingly (for him even more than me!) he was about an hour late home as he had got stuck in a meeting, so we didn't have time to try the cake before heading out for his birthday supper. Luckily we refused offers of dessert in the restaurant so we could have birthday cake instead. And wow, I'm glad we did! This was better than any dessert we could have bought while eating out, and definitely more pudding than cake.

The cake was made from layers of sponge, brushed with vanilla syrup and sandwiched together with a chocolate mousse. The mousse was studded with chunks of crushed Ferrero Rocher, giving it a lovely nutty crunch. The whole thing was smothered in a rich chocolate hazelnut ganache... rather like Nutella (and that is of course a good thing, not a criticism!)

I e.mailed Ben to ask how he had made this amazing creation, and this was his reply: I used a regular oil-based sponge cake so it stays nice and soft even when chilled though you can use a chiffon cake too. For the chocolate mousse, I used an egg-yolk based mousse as I found it to be richer than the egg white one. The other layers are hazelnut dacquoise which is basically a meringue where ground nuts are folded in and then piped in a spiral to form a flat disk, it is hard and crunchy upon baking but softens wonderfully upon chilling.

This is the kind of cake I dream of making, but I'm self-aware enough to know that it's just something I couldn't do. Not couldn't perhaps, but just wouldn't manage to do without inordinate amounts of stress and quite probably bad language. Thankfully there are people like Ben in this world who make complex layered cakes such as this as a form of stress-relief, and for that I'm definitely willing to pay! This cake was $50, but provided us with 12 good-sized portions - and this cake was rich enough that you didn't need any more than a 'good-sized portion' to feel thoroughly satisfied.

Incidentally - and shhh, don't tell Rob (thank heavens he neglects to read this blog, eh?!) - I also purchased a single-portioned Salted Caramel Tart from Ben. He had sent out a message to some of his Facebook friends saying that he was baking them, and would we be interested in buying one? Would I ever?! I adore salted caramel. I picked this up on the same day as the cake, although Ben had made them a few days earlier. I was expecting the pastry to have softened somewhat over those few days, but it hadn't suffered in the least. It was still as crisp as ever.

The filling was layers of deliciousness, involving salted caramel and chocolatey yumminess (can you tell I forgot to ask Ben for details of this one?) and Oh. My. Word. it was incredible. I snuck it into school to eat for my mid-morning snack... and made it until I shooed my class upstairs to the ICT room at 7.30am before sneaking a bite... which then of course turned into several more bites until, oops, it had all gone. I think that having a friend like Ben might be dangerous to my waistline!

So Happy Birthday to Rob - and thanks to Ben!

Packaging Style in Brunei

2011-04-28T09:11:00.000+01:00

I'm an advertiser's dream. I'm so easily swayed into making purchases based almost solely on the attractiveness of the item's packaging. Brunei - indeed, most of Asia - is great for retro-styled supermarket items, and I can occasionally be found roaming the aisles of local supermarkets with my camera in order to capture them!

Here's some Andy-Warhol-style displays of tins. It amuses me that the Sardines are 'Ayam' brand... Ayam means chicken in Malay!

Tinned mushrooms always seem to have lovely labels here. There are often some strange-looking mushrooms inside the tins too.

Rose syrup - love it or hate it, it's found everywhere here. It tastes like liquid Turkish Delight. I'm solidly in the 'love it' camp, and particularly enjoy it mixed with crushed ice and condensed milk (known for some reason as an 'ABC'). This is the only brand I'll buy... obviously because of the sheer beauty of its label!

And then there are the items bought so that I could keep the fabulous tins. These Lucky Spot crackers are OK to eat (if a little bland and uninteresting), but the tin is now used for storing home-made biscuits.

My lovely Shake Hand Brand curry powder tin is now a pencil tin on the computer desk. Look at the fabulous retro-font that they've used for 'Curry Powder'. This is actually very tasty too and we use it a lot.

This tape tin is from school. I asked for some more sellotape for my classroom and it was brought down from the office in this marvellous tin! Again, superb retro-styling - and just the right size for a kitchen utensils holder.

I'm not quite alone in this fascination for packaging... An author and cookbook write who shares the love is Jake Tilson. I first heard of him when I picked up a copy of his book Twelve Kitchens in TK Maxx, at some ridiculously cheap price. The book is beautifully written with some lovely recipes, but more to the point is beautifully presented in a collage style, and includes many photographs of gorgeous packaging. Some pages can be seen here on Jake's website.

Hot Cross Buns

2011-04-23T06:17:00.000+01:00

Easter is proving to be a strange time here in Brunei. In the UK the shops are no doubt filled with the secular signs of the season - chicks and rabbits and chocolate eggs - and churches across the country will be preparing for the most important event in the Christian calendar (and oh how I miss my church-choir days at this time of year). But here... nothing. Not even a day off work on Good Friday or Easter Monday.

My only Easter egg has been a lone Cadbury's mini-egg which was perched atop a chocolate-crispy-cake nest at Book Club last week (thanks Lis!). Still, I suppose I should just take the view that it's much healthier not to be stuffing my face with chocolate this year, and virtuously nibble on some fresh papaya instead...

But I couldn't let the season pass without some culinary celebration. We've planned a roast for Sunday (chicken, because the only joints of lamb we could find were vast frozen legs of it which would never fit into our tiny oven) and I'm making a fresh lemony drizzle cake, which always puts me in mind of Spring.

In previous years I've made a Simnel Cake, but somehow didn't fancy that this year. The recipe I like to use includes a lot of dried fruit, notably pears, and I just haven't seen them in the shops here. So last night - on Good Friday itself - I decided to have my first ever attempt at Hot Cross Buns and I turned straight to Nigella for inspiration, 'Feast' to be exact.

The recipe can be found here, on Nigella's own website.

You begin by heating milk and butter with cardamom pods and cloves. I threw in several extra cardamom pods as I love them and I was worried mine might be losing their flavour (although they are a relatively 'new' purchase, being only 18 months out of date!) The recipe also calls for the zest of an orange, but I didn't have any so added a tsp each of Boyajian Orange oil and Lemon oil. The smells wafting from this pan were incredible!

This recipe proved an excellent way of using up some of the things lurking in the cupboards: My Canadian friends will recognise these 'Club House' brand spices, which dates them to our time living in Ontario from 2006-2008... but they have no use-by dates, and still smell fragrant and delicious, so I will just keep using them.

I used Pumpkin Pie Spice (which is a heady mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves), plus some extra cinnamon.

I also grated in plenty of extra nutmeg - my favourite spice I think.

The sultanas were looking a little dry and unappetising, so I had the brainwave of putting them into the warm buttery milk to rehydrate. This was an excellent idea, apart from 2 fatal flaws... it meant that I could no longer see the cloves which I was meant to take out once the milk had cooled a little, and it also meant that the fruit became very squidgy, making kneading the resulting dough rather a messy affair!

Anyway, I think I managed to locate and remove all the cloves - after a traumatic childhood incident where I bit into a whole clove which was lurking in my bread-sauce I have a horror of doing the same thing again. Well, I put 3 in and after much searching got 2 and a half out, so there'll be a certain Russian Roulette element to eating the finished buns...

I used to think I was very bad at making bread products, I felt that yeast and I just didn't get on, but since moving to Brunei I now feel myself to be quite the expert! I'd love to claim that it was my superior culinary skills, but sadly that would be wrong. It's just that it's really warm here, perfect for proving bread.

Unfortunately, as the dough had its second rise, my previously round buns splurged out into weird shapes. I didn't think there was much point trying to force them back into the correct shape so just drizzled the crosses on as best I could and chucked them into the oven.

When cooked they had a quick sugary glaze which I hope goes a little way to disguising the fact that the bun pictured above was the only vaguely circular one of the 12...

Today, Easter Eve morning, I enjoyed a Hot Cross Bun with a hot strong coffee. The bun was warmed in the oven and slathered with salted butter. I'm really pleased with these - they taste amazing, full of spices and moist fruits. They're heavier, more doughy than the buns you'd buy in a supermarket, but I think that's always the way with home-made breads. I'm looking forward to trying them toasted as well.

A very Happy Easter to you all, wherever you may be and however you may be celebrating.

Myanmar Salads

2011-04-18T12:52:00.000+01:00

Salads in Myanmar aren't quite like salads I've ever eaten anywhere else. For a start, the main ingredient of perhaps their most famous salad dish is pickled tea-leaves! I had heard about this dish, known as laphet, and was determined to search it out. However, it was nowhere to be found in Yangon - or perhaps it was on the menu but it was written in Burmese script?!

Anyway, the first we saw of it was when we reached Bagan, and stopped to grab a drink at a roadside stall. Hanging from the side of the stall were these little sachets... yes, labelled only in Burmese, but I felt sure that this was it. We bought a packet and decided to sample it with our pre-dinner lager that night.

As you can see, it looked slightly sinister... The tea-leaf paste was mixed with crispy fried peanuts, sesame seeds and broad beans.

But if there was ever a case of something tasting a LOT better than it looks, this was it!

In fact, we went straight out to supper at a vegetarian restaurant we had found in Old Bagan (The Moon) and I ordered a large plate of the same salad (Rob had pumpkin curry).

This salad was even better than the stuff in the packet. It had lots of extra ingredients - I had a chat with the restaurant owner and took notes while he told me what was in it: pickled tea-leaves (of course), peanuts, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds (both toasted), fresh chillies, crispy fried garlic, raw garlic, fresh tomato and fresh lime juice. It was the garlic that really elevated it to new heights I think - fried garlic has such a distinctive taste, and paired with the raw garlic (in vampire-scaring amounts) gave the salad a real lift.

I've been trying to research more detailed recipes for this salad, but they seem fairly few and far between. However, I have noticed that in many restaurants the salad is served in its constituent parts and either assembled by the diner, or tossed together at the table (see video below).

I see from the video that dried shrimp can also be added, but I think I'd prefer it without; those shrimp can be very pungent. We bought several more small sachets of the salad, but also a larger bag of the pickled tea, along with a bag of the crispy nuts and seeds, so we'll definitely be having a go at it now we're back at home. Of course sourcing the pickled tea-leaves might be somewhat of an issue in the future, but I'm sure there are ways and means... and perhaps I might even try making some myself?

However, in the absence of a ready supply, the Myanmar salad can be created without the addition of tea. We also ate it in several other versions, notably made with lemon.

This was a base of shredded white cabbage, mixed with ground peanuts, peanut oil, toasted peanuts, fried and raw garlic, and large chunks of fresh lemon. Wow, this was zingy - a perfect refreshing lunch on a hot day. Another variation was made with a local leaf called Pennywort. We saw this in a supermarket and didn't recognise it as anything we'd seen either in the UK or Brunei, but the salad was made with similar ingredients and had a delicious savoury flavour.

I've always been someone who would rarely think of having a salad as a main meal, but these salads in Myanmar went a long way towards changing my mind!

Myanmar Curries

2011-04-14T11:44:00.000+01:00

Considering that tourism isn't a big thing in Myanmar (yet) I was surprised to see lots of restaurants, particularly around Inle Lake, advertising pasta and pizza, clearly in an attempt to appeal to visiting Westerners. Now I didn't go to Myanmar to eat Italian food, but after nearly 2 weeks there I was almost beginning to see the appeal... as most Myanmar food seems to consist either of curry or salad.

Salad? Don't pre-judge, these salads were some of the most amazing foods I've ever eaten... but that's for my next blog-post!

When you hear the word 'curry' you probably immediately think of spices, and heat... but the curries in Myanmar don't really fit this description. They're more tomatoey (tomatoes are grown a lot in Myanmar, notably in the floating gardens on Inle Lake) and, whilst I think they are subtly seasoned with spices, they lack any chili heat.

Harvesting tomatoes by canoe on Inle Lake (shot taken about a second too late, but never mind!)

We ordered curries several time and in various restaurants. They always had the same sauce, and we always had to ask for extra chili!

I'm aware that this is a bit of a luke-warm write-up, but don't get me wrong, I liked them. They were tasty and often made with interesting alternatives to meat, but they were just all a bit same-y.

Here's my tofu curry. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say! I didn't intentionally go vegetarian on this holiday, I just ended up eating lots of vegetarian food - partly because we found 2 excellent veggie restaurants whilst in Bagan, but partly because there was a lot of nice vegetarian food available. The tofu here was local to Inle Lake and was made with yellow split peas, giving it an unusual texture more akin to polenta. You can see the little dish of dried chili in the background.

Here's Rob the following day, eating the same dish while I sampled Egg Curry (same sauce, different protein!). He's not looking that impressed is he, but to be fair he was on the road to recovery after a nasty bout of D&V (hence me eating alone the previous day) and was still a bit nervous about eating anything at all.

I can't find any kind of 'Burmese Curry' recipe that looks anything like the curries we ate, but I suspect it's something that could be relatively easily recreated at home. I think I'd make a paste of garlic, ginger and turmeric, and fry it with some diced onion before adding diced tomatoes and dried chillies. A lovely addition to many of these curries was chopped spring onion, added just before serving. Much as I enjoyed the tofu curry, and the hard-boiled-egg option, my favourite variation on the theme was pumpkin - cubes of pumpkin or squash simmered in the sauce until meltingly tender.

I think I'll give it a try.

Let Them Have Cake - Baking in Brunei

2011-04-14T08:28:00.000+01:00

I love blog-world. Most of the people who read this blog are people who I know in 'real life' - it feeds to my Facebook profile, so my FB friends can see it, various family members in the UK read it, and several of my cooking-forum friends also pop in and say hello. However, occasionally a 'stranger' happens upon my blog, and sometimes you get to chatting...

This has happened with my new blog-friend Ben. Ben found this blog whilst looking for information on macarons (this post to be specific), and was surprised to find that I lived in Brunei - because he is Bruneian! He's a teacher, like me, but to escape the stresses of his job (teaching secondary - I couldn't do it!) he bakes. He plans to enroll in pastry school one day, but in the mean time he makes - and sells - the most amazing looking cakes, cookies and macarons.

I've been really impressed to read that he always uses the best and freshest ingredients. These things don't come cheap, and so often it's all too obvious that commercial bakeries here just don't use good quality products. That incredible-looking cake that you bite into to find bland over-aerated sponge, sickly-sweet shaving-foam-style icing, and nasty fake chocolate - sadly a common disappointment.

But Ben's cakes? I think they're the 'real deal'! For any of my friends here in Brunei who might be interested in ordering that special celebration cake, or just treating yourself to something hand-made and delicious, here is a link to what's available. Ben's phone number is also on the blog so you could make contact via text to place an order. I'd guess he'd need some notice - he's a teacher as well as a baker.

Ben's Products and Prices.

I wish Ben all the best with this. Good cake is hard to find here, so it's great to find someone making and selling great quality baked goods.

Myanmar Breakfasts

2011-04-11T13:24:00.000+01:00

I always find 'Western' breakfasts in Asian hotels a bit depressing. Actually no, the 'Western' breakfasts in Asian hotels make me want to throw myself off a tall building, or perhaps under the nearest passing bus, they really are that bad. I think it's worst in Muslim countries, where pork is clearly not going to be on the menu - imagine processed chicken sausages and beef bacon (apologies for any dry-heaving that may result from imagining that) and you'll get the idea.

I'm securely planted in the 'when in Rome...' camp, so when we go abroad we make a point of opting for the local option; and in Myanmar there were plenty of exciting local options to be had!

Exhibit 1 - and possibly the most exciting of all: sticky rice with coconut cream and assorted condiments.

There was both black and white sticky rice, identical taste, but the black one looks somewhat more interesting on the plate. The rice is rather bland, but a vehicle for the tastes that you add to it. The coconut cream loosens it up, and on top of that I sprinkled a sesame seed mix that was somehow both sweet and salty. The other additions were all sweet, the one on the rear of the plate being a kind of almondy egg-custard (divine), and the one at the front being caramelised coconut. Perhaps the most exciting was the orangey coloured one which was toasted coconut with finely sliced kaffir lime leaves, which was delicious (providing you ignored the lurid colour!).

Our first hotel was excellent as the breakfast was extensive - and was a buffet! It meant that we never needed to have lunch - breakfast saw us through until pre-dinner beer and nibbles at 6pm!

Exhibit 2 - Rice Porridge. An Asian favourite, about which I've blogged before.

I liked the oily peanuts that came as a condiment here, although was less impressed by the sweet pickled vegetables that I also mistakenly threw onto it... Oh well, you can't win them all!

Exhibit 3 - Fried Rice with extras.

Fried Rice (or Nasi Goreng here in Brunei) is always a winner for breakfast, especially if it's topped with a freshly fried egg. The best hotels have an egg-chef manning a small burner at all times so you can have a fresh omelette or fried egg at a minute's notice. The accompaniments to this fried rice were pandan-wrapped chicken (the leafy thing at the front of the photo!), brasied kailan (a local leafy vegetable) and a vaguely Chinese-y pork dish where the pork was melt-in-the-mouth tender.

Wow, I've just realised that all 3 of those dishes were from the first breakfast that we ate in Yangon (in the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel). The first breakfast that I ate in Yangon to be embarrassingly specific... Can you see why it filled me up for the whole day?!

Exhibit 4 - Mohinga, or Burmese Noodle Soup.

This was served in all 3 of the hotels in which we stayed, but I think the best we had was in the Bagan Thande. The rest of the breakfast wasn't that great, I have to admit, but this was lovely - a mildly spicy chicken soup (sometimes with a hint of coconut), served over noodles, and made exciting by the array of toppings. I added fresh coriander, dried chilli flakes and a generous squirt of fresh lime juice.

Here's Rob with his Mohinga at the Hotel Amazing in Nyaung Shwe (Inle Lake). This came with deep-fried gourd and sticky rice with chickpeas, as well as condiments of coriander, sliced raw shallots, dried chilli flakes and fresh lime.

Exhibit 5 -The 'Roadhouse'.

In our third and final hotel, there was no breakfast buffet (boo!) but there was an exciting menu of 5 breakfasts for which you could place your order the previous night. If you forgot to place your order you'd end up with the 'American Breakfast'... which seemed like a good incentive to get your act together and decide on an alternative option. On the first day I ordered the above - representative of the selection of foods you might get at a roadside stall in Myanmar. It was all nice, but it was all also deep-fried, which lay rather heavily in my stomach for several hours. Luckily there was also watermelon juice and a plate of fresh fruit, but even that barely lightened the overall effect. Nice, but too much.

Exhibit 6 - 'Simply Shan'.

The Shan are one of the largest tribes who live in Myanmar, and this was a typically Shan selection of dishes which I ordered another morning. This proved - again - slightly stodgy and carb-heavy, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it! The splodge in the centre of the plate was a mix of potato and rice... the crisp things were like poppadums, and the purple and white things on the right of the picture were crispy rice-cakes. All could be dipped into ketchup (perhaps not that authentically Shan?!) or chili sauce.

For the other 2 breakfasts there (we stayed 4 nights) I chose the Mohinga option, which I came to realise was by far the nicest.

What a great way to start the day!

Mingalabar Myanmar!

2011-04-05T11:01:00.000+01:00

We're back, and have just been catching our breath after an amazing trip. I'll try to organise my thoughts more on the matter over the coming days (I'm definitely planning a blog post about the food for example) but I'll start with my overwhelming impression of the place - that of smiling faces.

At first I was a bit nervous - everyone in Yangon seemed to be staring at us. However, I soon realised that if I simply smiled everyone would break into beaming grins! The staring was simply curiosity; Myanmar gets so few tourists that they were just fascinated to see us.

Our one word of Burmese - "Mingalabar" (hello) - served us well as we could greet people and prepare for the inevitable follow-up question "Where you from?" Most Burmese speak a smattering of English as it is taught in schools, but the words that followed our answer ("England") were inevitably "Football!", "Premier League!" or "Rooney!" Sigh... They did love to chat though. And smile!

The 'face-paint' is a kind of sunblock/cosmetic made from tree bark. Most people wear it, sometimes painted on in patterns.

For a country with not much to smile about - grinding poverty, a dictatorial military government, many people struggling to earn $1 a day - it was beautiful to see such an attitude of positivity and happiness. I have never felt so welcomed in any other country.

March Memories Photographic Challenge - The Results

2011-03-31T08:18:00.157+01:00

I'm writing this two thirds of the way through March because I have realised that I won't be able to post at the end of the month. In fact I can't post at all during the last 10 days of March because I'll be on holiday in Myanmar... We booked this trip ages ago, well before I even thought of this challenge, but I didn't put the proverbial two-and-two together and set the challenge anyway. Idiot!

Anyway, despite inadvertently giving myself 10 days less that I should have had, I have managed to complete my own challenge (phew!) and have, through the magic of Blogger, set this to post on March 31st.

So here we go, my 16 things for March 2011:

1. Celebration. We've had lots of birthdays in my class over recent weeks, and the children seem to have started a very nice habit of bringing a birthday cake in to share with their classmates (and teachers). This was a particularly tasty one - a dense chocolate brownie cake with crunchy praline on the bottom... yum!

2. Stripy. I thought this one would be simple, but wasn't struck with much inspiration for stripes this month... still, here's a slightly unusual take on the theme. As part of our Eco-Week in school our year group visited a local recycling centre. The kids were fascinated by the place, and so was I. This is a close-up of a huge bundle of cardboard which has just come out of the compressor.

3. Empty. All out of Sauvignon Blanc...

4. A Game. I'm a total Scrabble-on-Facebook addict and am usually playing about 7 games at a time, with various people from family members to friends from primary school. I took a shot of this particular game because I'm winning it!

5. New. My new toy - an iPhone 4. Buying this was a big event for me - I'm not really a 'gadgety' kind of person, and I've always just had the cheapest possible pay-as-you-go phones, but I'd been hankering over an internet phone for about a year. I finally made the leap into the world of the smartphone at the beginning of March. Unfortunately within a week the stupid thing had gone wrong... so this is my second iPhone of the month.

6. Work. This term Year 3 have been focusing on environmental issues, culminating with an extravaganza entitled 'Trash to Panache'. This was a catwalk-themed assembly where the children modelled their 'wearable art' - inspired by some aspect of Brunei - that they had created from rubbish as a homework project. Never one to miss out on the opportunity to dress up and make myself look ridiculous, I couldn't resist joining in with a floral-inspired tunic-top, created from carrier bags. Chic. Sometimes I can't believe I actually get paid to do this job.

7. Growing. I had SO many potential shots for this one, Brunei being a pretty verdant country! However, I was most excited by this one. Earlier this month we went for a walk in an area called Bukit Markuching, a new area for us to explore. As we climbed up the first hill we found ourselves walking through a little plantation of various fruit - lime, banana, papaya... and pineapple! I had never actually seen a pineapple growing before, and in case you haven't either, they don't grow on trees (as I had previously assumed) but on small spiky bushes.

8. Home-made. It's hard to find 'nice' bread here; much of it is full of sugar, which really isn't to 'Western' tastes, so I've taken to making my own. That probably makes me sound really smug, but it's very simple and I only make one loaf a week, which is plenty for us.

9. Favourite. One of my favourite things about being in Brunei is the amazing wildlife, and this is one of my favourite creatures so far. He was spotted on a walk at Tasek Lama, and I spent a good 10 minutes photographing him - he barely moved, no matter how close I crept. What a poser!

10. Blue. A particularly gorgeous day in Brunei with clear blue skies. This is the palm tree in our garden (yes, I know, don't hate me). The sky was bluer than this really so I'm not 100% happy with this one, but it was the best blue photo I managed this month.

11. Evening. Egrets at the Saddle Club as we cycled back from the beach one evening. I used to get very excited whenever I saw an egret in the UK, but here they're common as pigeons (only much more beautiful).

12. Pattern. This was another one I assumed would be easy. I thought I'd just pop into a mosque and snap some of the tiled patterns... but it just didn't happen, what with the busyness of the end of term. So here's a beachy one instead. Our beach is covered with these starburst patterns; they're made by little crabs who excavate burrows by rolling up little balls of sand and pushing them out of the holes. Amazing.

13. Flight. We live fairly close to the airport here. Actually this is Brunei, which is about the same size as Dorset - we're fairly close to everything here! The flight-paths seem to vary but there are days when every plane that takes off or lands goes right over our house (that's our roof and palm tree in the picture) and there are times when it sounds rather as though they are about to land in the garden.

14. Yesterday. I'm so tired today (17th March - when I'm writing this particular entry) because yesterday was the day of our year-group trip. After the recycling centre (see photo 2.) we went to Muara Beach to do a beach-clean-up. It was boiling hot and we were eaten alive by the sandflies, but despite all this it was fantastic. In a mere 15 minutes we filled loads of bin-bags with various detritus found on the sand - and best of all it really brought home to the children this very real environmental problem.

15. Fabric. Some beautiful Robert Kaufman fabric from Hokko. I couldn't resist it. Despite thinking it's slightly too silly to actually wear, I'm having it made into a simple skirt.

16. Loud. Small but VERY loud, these geckos aren't known as 'Chit Chats' for nothing! This one is - thankfully - outside the window, but there are plenty who reside in our bedroom and act as spookily accurate alarm clocks, generally shouting to us at about 5.30am...

I'm looking forward to seeing other people's March Memories soon!

Off on Holiday again...

2011-03-20T11:05:00.000Z

We're off to Myanmar (Burma) tomorrow. Exciting.

Photo courtesy of my friend Jo... hope she didn't mind me borrowing it...

Back in a couple of weeks with news, views and food to report!

Pantai Jerudong Fish Market

2011-03-15T10:01:00.000Z

Brunei has a long coastline, and there are many public beaches (pantai in Malay) along this coast. We are fortunate to live a mere 5 minutes' walk from a beach here, so we don't often bother going to any of the other beaches as they're all pretty similar (and 'ours' is always deserted!)

However, we have recently discovered that Pantai Jerudong - about 15 minutes' drive west of us - is the base for many of the small fishing boats that ply their trade off the Brunei coastline, and it also has an excellent fish market.

I suspect the place is very busy first thing every morning as the local restaurants come to stock up, but we went at about midday on a public holiday so it was pleasantly quiet. There were several fishermen around mending their nets...

and drying their washing on their boats!

Inside the market itself we enjoyed wandering around marvelling at the variety and beauty of the fish on display. Well, I think they're beautiful, although I can see that many people might think otherwise!

I was more than a little surprised to see sharks for sale... look at these baby Hammerheads:

Perhaps these are used for the controversial shark-fin soup? I certainly didn't purchase any.

We don't often cook fish, and I didn't have a clue what ~~most~~ any of these fish were. I suspect I need to find a friendly English-speaking stall-holder to talk to one of these days.

Or perhaps I'll just come another time and buy some of the fish that were cooking on this barbecue. They smelled very tempting!

And I wasn't the only one who thought so...

Even if I didn't come back for the fish, the adjoining fruit and veg market would be enough to tempt me back. Lots of stalls selling fresh local produce at good prices - what's not to like?

Bananas (pisang), as you can see, were plentiful!

As usual there were many things on the fruit and veg stalls that I simply couldn't identify - all of the above for example!

Several stalls were also selling these hanging decorations. On closer inspection I saw that they were made from phone-cards - clever!

Brunei doesn't have quite the number of size of markets that you might find in other south-east Asian countries (Thailand and Vietnam for example) but it's exciting to find one that's used by locals and sells fresh local food.

Brunei Critters

2011-03-14T09:59:00.000Z

Whenever I visit a new country (or even go to live in one!) it's often the wildlife that interests me most. In Canada we would regularly cycle up to the pond to see the beavers swimming around, and never got over the excitement of seeing hummingbirds in our garden. Seeing a black bear in the wild was also an amazing experience - although I still regret not managing to see a wild moose.

Here in Brunei there are countless exciting creatures... many of them living in and around our house! However, last weekend we spotted a new critter. We noticed a movement in the undergrowth near the path whilst walking at Tasek Lama, and a closer look revealed this curious chap:

He didn't seem bothered by me creeping ever-closer with my camera so I managed to get some quite detailed shots.

I love the blue flecks on his back, and his amazingly long tail.

We had never seen one of these before - I have no idea what it is... any suggestions much appreciated! I couldn't help but wonder if it was some kind of chameleon as it was so well camouflaged amongst the leaves, and it had those incredible 'swivelly' eyes.

Bizarrely enough, the following day - whilst at the Empire Hotel - we spotted a near-identical critter on the rocks by the beach. Identical apart from the colour (lending weight to my chameleon theory perhaps?)

He had exactly the same loooooong tail:

And the same row of spines down his neck. He's looking at me wearily and saying 'Bugger off!' here - I think he was getting heartily sick of me crawling across the rocks towards him, forcing him to keep scuttling away.

After our tea we came back out to sit and watch the sunset over the sea and were massively excited to see HUGE turtles swimming just off the coast! No pictures I'm afraid - they bobbed up and down pretty fast, I'd never have managed to get a photo, and also the light was fading fast - but take it from me, it was a fantastic sight.

Macaron Afternoon Tea

2011-03-13T11:40:00.000Z

Tipped off by a fellow Brunei Blogger (thanks Boel!), we headed off to the Empire Hotel for afternoon tea today. They were having a macaron-themed weekend, and as I love macarons it seemed like a must-try event. I have made macarons a couple of times before, once with a blackberry theme, and once with rhubarb and orange flavours, but I haven't attempted making them in ages. They're great fun to do and delicious to eat, but pretty time-consuming.

The idea of an entire meal made from macarons was too enticing to miss. We arrived at 3pm, only to find that it was fully booked. However, we put ourselves down for the 'second sitting' and went and sat in the hotel grounds with our books. Fortunately when we returned at 4pm there was a table free.

The table of macarons looked incredible, such amazing colours.

If you look closely at the bottom picture you can see that there were both sweet and savoury options available...

We decided to start with the savoury ones. I have to admit I was expecting the macarons themselves to be savoury, but no... they were all sweet. Was I naive to hope for savoury macarons, or is that impossible as their ingredients are simply egg white, ground almonds and sugar?

Anyway, it was certainly a 'taste sensation' eating prawns, pate, egg, cheese, smoked salmon and roast beef with horseradish atop a sugary macaron... and perhaps not a taste sensation I'd be that keen to repeat!

The sweeter versions were much more appealing.

I started with a 'modest' (cough) plateful with a mere 5 macarons (Rob went the whole hog with 7!) and all 5 were tasty. Perhaps the nicest was the blueberry jelly one in the foreground as it wasn't too sweet; the jelly was pleasantly acidic. The two pink ones had a strawberry filling, the orange one was peachy, and the white one at the back of the plate was vanilla.

Rob's plate also included a chocolatey one, and a vaguely violet-flavoured one. As you can see they were beautifully presented, but I felt that the chefs had missed a trick by not flavouring the macarons themselves. They were all 'plain' (apart from the vivid colouring of course!) with only the fillings providing the different flavours.

Of course we had to return to the buffet table several times, just to make sure we had sampled everything on offer! Oh dear, all-you-can-eat deals are very dangerous. We both left with extremely full stomachs and sugar-rush headaches... a very exciting tea, but maybe just a 'once in a lifetime' experience?!

Parents' Evening

2011-03-08T11:50:00.000Z

I love most things about being a teacher, but one of the worst things is parents' evenings. Actually, scrub that, one of the worst things is the anticipation of parents' evenings. I always absolutely dread them, but once they get going the vast majority of parents are lovely - and appreciative - and I end up really enjoying the opportunity to chat with them.

I've now in my 13th year of teaching and I can count the number of parents who've been rude or aggressive at these meetings on the fingers of one hand... but I guess those few mentally scar you for life! (Although at least now I can look back and simply roll my eyes at the excruciatingly embarrassing 10 minutes I spent with the newly-divorced couple who swore constantly at eachother... and the husband of one of my then-colleagues who rudely told me I was teaching PE 'wrong'. Awkward!)

Anyway, it's struck me before, and did again this evening, that some of the parents clearly dread the whole experience as much as I do! Some come in nervously and sit up very straight on the tiny chairs, looking petrified that I'm going to tell them their child is some kind of behavioural nightmare without 2 braincells to rub together... but luckily I didn't have reason to say much that was negative about any of the children in my class this year!

Thanks to my ex-colleague Chris for introducing me to the following poem by the great Allan Ahlberg. Chris used to stick a copy of it onto his classroom door at every parents' evening, and I like to think it cheered up a good few parents - it certainly always makes me smile!

Parents' Evening

We're waiting in the corridor,
My dad, my mum and me.
They're sitting there and talking;
I'm nervous as can be.
I wonder what she'll tell 'em.
I'll say I've got a pain!
I wish I'd got my spellings right.
I wish I had a brain.

We're waiting in the corridor,
My husband, son and me.
My son just stands there smiling;
I'm smiling nervously.
I wonder what she'll tell us.
I hope it's not all bad.
He's such a good boy, really;
But dozy - like his dad.

We're waiting in the corridor.
My wife, my boy and me.
My wife's as cool as cucumber;
I'm nervous as can be.
I hate these parents' evenings.
The waiting makes me sick.
I feel just like a kid again
Who's gonna get the stick.

I'm waiting in the classroom.
It's nearly time to start.
I wish there was a way to stop
The pounding in my heart.
The parents in the corridor
Are chatting cheerfully;
And now I've got to face them,
And I'm nervous as can be.

(From Heard it in the Playground by Allan Ahlberg)

Thai Food - Chicken with Basil

2011-03-03T09:50:00.002Z

On our very first trip to Hua Ho supermarket in Brunei we found, in the vegetable and herbs section, a huge bunch of Thai Basil. We were SO excited - it's difficult to find in the UK, but it's quite an important flavour in Thai cuisine. It doesn't taste much like its near-namesake - it has a very distinctive aniseed-like flavour, and I wouldn't use Basil and Thai Basil interchangeably, they're just too different.

Anyway, we bought the Thai Basil and went away merrily convinced that we would have a ready supply of it whenever we fancied... But of course we hadn't seen it since! We've now realised that this is often the case when shopping here in Brunei. The supply-lines from various other countries seem a little erratic and often you can go looking for a particular ingredient which you know is always in stock... and it's nowhere to be found. Ah well, it's all part of the excitement!

This was a preamble to the huge excitement of finding Thai Basil for the second time in our 6 months here! Yes, it was back in Hua Ho last Saturday so we bought a large bunch and then set about creating a week's worth of meals around it.

We have recently discovered a great Thai restaurant in Delima, thanks to our friends Chris and Yvonne. It doesn't have a vast menu, but is seriously cheap and cheerful. One of the dishes that either Rob or I often order there is Chicken and Basil with rice, which costs all of $3 - a perfect lunch!

We ate this dish often whilst in Thailand in December and have been keen to recreate it ever since. However, the lack of Thai Basil was obviously an issue, but also the lack of a suitable recipe. Our Thai recipe book gives fish sauce as the main ingredient in the sauce, but we felt that that wasn't right - the dishes we'd had in Thailand, and in our local Thai restaurant, definitely didn't include the distinctive taste of fish sauce... so I set about creating my own version.

We decided that Oyster Sauce and Soy Sauce should be the basis, plus a generous spoonful of grated Palm Sugar.

I fried 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, along with a small onion, sliced into half-moons. Then I added a finely chopped chicken breast (not quite minced, but chopped into little pieces). The green beans and mild chillies followed once the chicken was almost cooked through.

Then the sauce - Oyster Sauce, a little chicken stock (from concentrate), then a slosh of Soy. The sugar was stirred in now too. I tasted it and remarkably it was perfect! Exactly as we have eaten it so many times in restaurants!

I stirred a handful of Thai Basil leaves through at the last minute, just giving them time to wilt, and served with a mound of rice.

We also made a huge batch of Green Curry as Thai Basil is a great addition to this, and we have frozen any leftover Thai Basil leaves... just in case it's another 6 months until we find it again!

Thai Food - Pad Thai

2011-03-02T10:40:00.001Z

The archetypal Thai street-food, we ate plenty of this on our last trip to Thailand, particularly in Bangkok.

Cheap and cheerful and always freshly cooked in front of you, it's a guaranteed tasty supper.

Back at home in Brunei we decided to try it ourselves... and let me tell you, it's not quite as effortless as the ladies on the stalls make it look, even when you lazily use a sachet of paste! However, it's not difficult and we'll certainly make it again.

We wanted a vegetarian meal, so used firm tofu instead of meat. This was delicious, and something I'll definitely use next time I make this dish.

Thick rice noodles soaking in cold water before boiling:

Lots of vegetables; this is a healthy dish! Several chillies went in too, plus a beaten egg.

The finished Pad Thai - made entirely according to the instructions on the back of the packet!

We seasoned it at the table with a splash of fish sauce and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Brunei Breakfast

2011-03-01T10:35:00.001Z

Our love of roti is well-documented, but we have discovered that we can easily eat it at home too... using packets of frozen roti! These come uncooked, sandwiched between layers of plastic which you just peel off, and throw the roti into a hot frying pan (no oil needed).

Pretty soon it begins to puff up and crisp slightly, turning mottled brown as it does so.

We've eaten these for supper, with curry and dhal, but this weekend we thought we'd have a breakfast treat...

Roti with sliced local bananas, and a generous drizzle of condensed milk.

Naughty, but ever so nice.

National Day 2011 - Part 2

2011-02-28T10:35:00.000Z

So we missed the big parade in town last Wednesday... but I still got to celebrate!

Here are some shots from our National Day Assembly at school last Friday.

The school hall, decorated for the occasion.

Waving the flag. This photo makes me smile because the girl behind the flag saw me pointing the camera in her direction and gave me a beautiful grin... only for her neighbour's flag to flap right in front of her face! (She and I had a good laugh about it in the classroom when we looked through the photos!)

The Year 3 Malay group marching.

A hall full of people dressed in yellow!

Me with my lovely class.

We were told to dress in yellow and black as they are the main colours on the national flag. This proved rather a problem as I don't own a single item of yellow clothing (apart from one vest-top, but sleeveless = inappropriate here). However, I went for black and red (there's a little bit of red on the flag!) and also wore a yellow Brunei baseball cap for the assembly. Tragically there's no photographic evidence of me in said baseball cap...

On my way home I was waiting in traffic at the roundabout and snapped a couple of photos of the billboards that had been erected for National Day:

The Sultan certainly has an impressive range of uniforms - almost as many as Rob!

March Memories - A Photographic Challenge

2011-02-27T06:00:00.001Z

I've not been using my camera much recently. I'm not sure why. It's partly the fact that we've had lots of very rainy days recently, but also I suppose that after 6 months here in Brunei I don't often go anywhere new. It's a small country and we've seen quite a lot of it already.

However, I am missing photography - maybe not missing the aching shoulder from carrying my DSLR around with me for hours! - but I have decided that I want to rekindle my usual enthusiasm for taking photos.

Therefore I am setting myself another Photographic Scavenger Hunt, to be completed by the end of March. I so enjoyed taking part in the last one, I can feel myself getting excited about doing it again.

I'm doing it for me, because I want to do it, but I can't pretend that I wouldn't be absolutely delighted if anyone else wanted to take part too! You could post the results on your blog, if you have one, or on Facebook or Flickr. Just let me know if you do, I'd love to see them. I have a 'good' camera, but you know what, I don't think it matters what kind of camera you have for this kind of thing. It's all about how you interpret the words, and snapping something that catches your imagination. The quality of the picture isn't really relevant. So if you're interested then give it a try!

I found 26 things manageable, but slightly time-consuming (in a nice way, but I'm happy for this one to take less time), so I've chosen 16. That's 4 per week. Easy, eh? I tried not to over-think them; I didn't want to have shots ready-planned for each word as that takes the fun out of the challenge.

So here we are; 16 things to look out for in March:

1. Celebration
2. Stripy
3. Empty
4. A game
5. New
6. Work
7. Growing
8. Home-made
9. Favourite
10. Blue
11. Evening
12. Pattern
13. Flight
14. Yesterday
15. Fabric
16. Loud

National Day 2011

2011-02-23T07:05:00.000Z

Today is Brunei's 27th National Day - a celebration of the country's independence from Britain in 1984. Brunei was never a British colony, but was a 'protectorate', and despite its independence, still maintains relatively close links with the UK today (hence the 'Loan Service' arrangement with the UK Armed Forces). I can't help pondering the fact that Brunei, as an independent country, is younger than me...!?!

Bruneians are massively patriotic, which I like. I often wish that English people were more vociferously proud of their country and heritage, instead of equating flag-flying with football! Still, we're guilty of not flying the George Cross either - which seems a little strange seeing that we're currently flying the Bruneian flag:

I'm more than happy to do it... although it wasn't really a choice! We were told that we must fly it between the 6th and 26th of this month in celebration of National Day. We'll be flying it again in July, for the Sultan's birthday. I must say, the base does look great, with flags flying from every house and street-light.

Of course the main impact of today on us expats is that it's a Public Holiday. Yay for February - we've had FOUR holidays this month (2 for Chinese New Year, 1 for the Prophet Muhammed's Birthday last week, and 1 today). It almost makes up for the lack of a half-term break!

This morning there was a huge parade in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. We were all set to head down there, despite the early start - it began at 7.30am - and as the roads were all closed we were intending to drive down as far as we could (probably to Tasek Lama) and cycle in from there. However, we woke at 6am to torrential rain. Usually rain showers pass quickly, but this one seemed to go on and on, well past the time that we would have had to leave to get to the parade on time. Of course it had stopped by about 9, but by then it was too late. Disappointing; but there's always next year. We'll make a big effort to go then.

In the meantime there are some great photos on the National Day website to show us what we missed.

Happy Birthday Brunei!