dinner.for.one

too much of dinner for one lately. you are not in the mood for cooking,  sometime you are not even in the mood for eating...

on a few occasions that you ate, they are either half processed food or something that really easy to put together without a fuzz.

 porcini ravioli with porcini cream sauce on a bed of rucola.

 a flan that overloaded with gruyere cheese and leek that you made on the weekend

another experiment with  apple, instead of the simple apple with caramel and butter, you wrap the apple with a layer of puff pastry, brushed with egg yolk and drizzle of cinnamon powder.  this was your dinner one of the night.

it's heavy to eat as dinner anyway.  you like this variation but you still prefer the simply apple version with its melting moment without the interference of the puff pastry.

tonight you just warm up some leftover, brown two slices of organic beef burger meat and that's it. no carbs. the weather is superb this week but it's ashamed that most of the time you are home alone in the day (and till late evenings) and are swamp by your work.

the good news is you had a rehearsal this morning, things went well...

it's going to be a warm weekend and you are looking forward for a ladies afternoon tea party.

happy friday.

{wordless}.tokyo.shinjuku.cocoon.tower

when.reina.sofia.meets.prado

all work no fun makes you a dull malaymui. yes, the sun is shining, the weather is very pleasant this week, but you just sit whole day behind your computer. what a shame, but that's life somehow.
you are tired, lack of quality sleep and working long hours.  you are counting down for next tuesday where you will put a full stop [.] to this serie of long hours and communicating with bucharest and california, you can't wait for next tuesday to come.

for now, you look back to august 2010 spain (madrid) to be exact because when you got over the hurdle of work, you will look ahead to another spainish city that awaits your arrival ^^, can't wait.
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museo reina sofia has the style of any modern art museum that you have visited in united states, turkey, uk and in japan.

the sculpture in the main square outside museum and the miniature piece inside the museum making the contrast.

you find the compound of the museum very charming and shady. a perfect place for an afternoon siesta like this couple cuddle together in sweet afternoon nap.

inside, there are a lot of exhibition with the most famous masterpiece of picasso - guernica. picasso's work is usually colorful, bold and striking and this masterpiece is rather gloomy and gray to depicts the 1930s era with depression of anything avant-garde...

there are however more of picasso in his normal spirit - bold, colorful and striking

and there are enough crowds in the museum for sure, especially when the sun is soaring forcefully and when the shops are closed for siesta, all tourists like you making full use of the time visiting museum...

the outlook of reina sofia museum.
and no, you didn't visit two museum in one day. that will be terribly insane.  you met prado in the next day.

after you took a stroll in the lovely park where you spent so much time lingering around the park before walking toward the connecting garden and you spent even more time at the garden because it's amazingly beautiful and finally you walk toward the exit...

passing the gate, you are in the prado museum area

museum del prado is a huge museum that one can easily spend the entire day here.  personally you love reina sofia more than prado because you are not really into the medieval arts.  
the museum is not well signed, so you got lost many time turning in the circle and not really able to catch all the work that you want to have a glimpse on.

at the end, you ended up sitting at the common area, resting your very tired feet and you know you have no more energy to chase after the masterpieces even if the masterpieces are not moving around, but you for that matter stop moving yourself.
what an experience with prado, but set asides the story, this place is worth a visit only when you allocate the entire day to make the museum experience more pleasant than you did.

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the.nutty.story

this is a nutty story.

it is also a fruity one.

you got to enjoy these super creamy almonds and seriously sweet dried figs home thanks to your girlfriend L whom you have paid a visit in the month of may and who insisted you carried kilos of fruity and nutty with you.  imagine it was just the beginning of your journey. 

you accept her offer but only insist to carry bits of a few nutty and fruity. a few being at least 500g of every sort that you finally brought back to lowland (some you left it in hong kong for your FIL).

there are tons of dried fruits and nuts, but you down selected just unsalted almonds, mini dried figs, fragrant raisin (not in the photo) and two other types of nuts. which you have been munching as snack, just a handful everyday is healthy and quick 'pick me up' to replenish sugar and energy.

 like most arabic countries, xinjiang is also famous for its dried fruits... back at the urumqi international bazaar, both of you spent hours here trying and deciding... and the choice is endless too, what you see here is really just a snapshot of just one mall of five floors selling nothing but all thing fruity and nutty...

xinjiang is a land of diverse, some parts can be very dry and like a dessert, other parts are green and lavish like oasis.  as a result, xinjiang is a fruity land. just the grape along it has more than 900 species in turufan area.

and you are glad that you dragged most of them back with you. these fruits and nuts have traveled from urumqi to beijing and was temporary stored at your FIL place in hong kong before dragging them to tokyo and finally back here.
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swap by work and long hours too. headache is back again but thanked God the situation at work starting to be in control today, hopefully all the prep work is done in the coming two days
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simply.apple

baked apple with butter and caramel.

simple and satisfying. 

nothing complicated then washing the apple and coring just enough to remove the seeds, add a teaspoon of butter and a generous tablespoon of caramel.

set it off to the oven 200c for half an hour.

 and you get this delicious baked apple, freshly baked from your oven. carefully plate and top it with a vanilla ice cream.

you never know ou can do so much wonder with apple besides the apple strudel, apple pie, apple crumble and apple compote.  you are so inspired by some of your friends who are the guru in baking/cooking and the forum where you all share the recipes, learn from one another and overdose with yummy inspirations that you can't wait to try them out.  excited!

when the butter and caramel oozing out and join the vanilla ice cream, just a perfect melting moment. a perfect autumn meal time dessert that you will surely do the next time you have guests over for dinner.

simply apple. simply the best.

happy saturday!

creme.brulee

autumn is in the air. can you see and feel it?

how about a creme brulee to pamper yourself on friday afternoon? non-baked version.

i have been working almost whole week from home, work has been very busy and i am primarily working with my colleagues in romania and in the east coast of united states.  the timezone is an issue, i spent quite a lot of late nights just because i have to make sure the person in the states understood what i want and get it done for me.  all in all a lot of conference calls, web sessions, internet but there is no need to be at the office which at one hand i don't have to be confronted with the traffic and waste my energy on driving, yet i am really missing the social contact with real people.

set that apart, i didn't do the normal baking on friday because i am pressed on time. this creme brulee was made yesterday and it serves a perfect afternoon break for me.  i put it in a smaller ramekins, so it is quite a decent, non guilty portion for me after a long day.

i added some blueberries to finish off the creme brulee ^^.

i hope to get to relax a bit this weekend...

colors.of.a.local.market

it's been awhile since i visited the local market. i don't do it while you are in the lowland, most fresh produces we need are purchased from the supermarket, i miss the atmosphere in the local market,  mostly the colors and the scents that come with it.  it's not something we can get in lowland. anyway, this is back dated to last year august. there is no new photo lately since i am overloaded with work...
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you decided to go to a local market on the last day in budapest, this is an indoor market that very near to where you stayed. it's also the day you decided to leave the dslr in the room and came out just with a mini point and shoot.

you were thorn by your decision, it's such a vibrant and lively market.  you regretted of not bring your dslr to capture the moment. yet you were relief because you don't want to disturb the rhythm of the true local community where prices are only signed in local currency and english has no way in this space.

you love all the fresh produces but there's no way you can bring them home with you...

so many of the vegetables species that are foreign to you, some familiar ones but you are more intrigue to the one that you have not seen before...

all are fresh, so fresh and so cheap (to western europe standard) and beautifully arrange.  perhaps is not as beautifully arrange as those markets in france but you only pay a fraction of the price for the things here...

something truly budapest or hungary, the wild honey, the meat...

and you can just stay here for the entire afternoon if you could, but no you have a flight to catch in the late afternoon, so you purchased your honey, some local delicacies and some food, and you walk back to your "home"

with the very last glimpse of budapest and the danube river and you say goodbye to buda and pest.

a.hotel.with.a.story

i am swamped with work. at this moment 24 hour a day is not enough and i am learning to cope with the situation without jeopardizing my health. but there are just so much to do, wisdom and miracle is all that i ask for, knowing that "i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" and keeping faith that i will be able to deliver with flying colors, let's see by end of this week where i stand with the preparation.
here is a really old post that never get published in my draft.  and looking at it i am reminded that i need to book for hotel for our october side trip.  can't wait for that but for the trip to come i have to overcome this work hurdle that is in front of me right now.
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this is about a hotel that we stayed way back in april 2010 when we visited the upper normandy. i booked this hotel because i want to be close to monet's garden but yet didn't want to stay at monet's village, so i checked into this hotel d' evreux

the entrance of the hotel upon our arrival

this is how the hotel looks like in the past

another old photo, both photos are taken from the hotel website

the hallway, very french, 'old fashion', smell of stuffy carpet

floral wall paper, rustic decoration,

there is a book on painting, thanks to the giverny and monet's garden that is just 5 min drive away from here...

and the cracking sound when one walking up or down the staircase.... this hotel is definitely aged but it has not lost it charm, not at least to me...

on the other side of the hallway, there is this rustic bar corner

and lounging area

beyond the bar, facing the square is the the breakfast area

and someone already started eating without me...
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