Blueberry Muffins

Friends of ours invited us to their home for an American-style brunch: waffles, bagels, and omelets. Since I didn't want to go empty-handed, I baked a dozen blueberry muffins.

Muffins are quite easy and fast to make. I typically use the recipe in the Gourmet Cookbook: mix egg, egg yolk, melted butter, and milk with flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and blueberries; distribute equally in muffin pan; top with a mixture of butter, flour, and sugar; and bake in the oven at 375F for around 20 minutes.

Home baked muffins are far superior to the industrially produced ones in stores. Not only do they taste better you also get a kitchen full of wonderful baking smells.

Salon

This morning I took the kids out for a trip to Eslite bookstore in the Hsin Yi district of Taipei. On our way back Vera wanted a snack. Since it was close to lunch time, I didn't want to get her anything substantial and definitely no ice cream. While I was struggling to come up with a solution and almost ready to tell her to tough it out till lunch, I reminded myself Salon de thé de Joël Robuchon is open for business. The Salon is located on the third floor at Bellavita, a short walk from Eslite.

The Salon has all sorts of my favorite things: pain au chocolate, brioche, paris brest, macarons, millefeuille...etc. For this first trip we asked for six macarons to go: rose, chocolate, raspberry, mango, orange, and lemon. Vera finished one before we even got out of the store and thoroughly enjoyed it.

On our way back from Bellavita, we passed by a McDonald's. I couldn't help but ask Vera since she liked the macarons so much, does she now like Robu more than McDo? She said she still likes McDo more. I was slightly disappointed but not surprised. I tried my case again by telling her, the macaron (NT$80) she ate costs about the same as a Happy Meal (NT$89). She thought about it for a slightly longer moment, but still likes McDo more.

Lemon Cream Pops

It's November but the temperature is still in the 80's. Since it feels like the late summer, I decided to make some pops to cool me down.

Early in the summer, Maria bought some popsicle molds for Vera to make pops from fruit juice. Frozen fruit juice on a stick is too simple for me, so I decided to "kick it up a notch" by making the lemon cream pops from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot.

The recipe is not difficult: combine a cup of heavy cream, a cup of milk, 2/3 cup of sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, heat, cool, add the the juice and zest of 4 lemons, and pour into popsicle molds to freeze.

NT$90 for the cream, NT$20 for the milk, NT$130 for 4 lemons. Eating a pop on a warm November day: NT$24, not priceless.

27 to 2

The Yankees won, again, number 27. It's annoying, since I am a Mets fan. At least it is New York rather than Philadelphia. Furthermore, my wife's a Yankees fan, so she's happy. I am also glad for Chien Ming Wang. Even though he didn't contribute much to the team this year, he is still the first player from Taiwan to get a championship ring.

The more important question now is how can the Mets do better next year. I suggest signing both Chien Ming Wang and Roy Halladay. Maybe Jerry Manuel needs to change his jersey number from 53 to 3.

Grandpa

Today we held the funeral for my grandfather 趙諒公. He was a hundred years old, counted in the Chinese manner. He was a 才子, a renaissance man, who excelled in a variety of subjects including poetry, calligraphy, Chinese opera, and 圍棋. While his accomplishments in the cultural fields and his work are well known, what has not been mentioned much is his cooking skills.

He was an extremely talented and skilled home cook. While he only cooked occasionally, he enjoyed making dishes that required good techniques. He also liked experimenting with classical dishes and inventing new combinations. It is so unfortunate that none of us was able to convince him to write a cookbook, which would have been fascinating.

My grandfather also has a very good palette with very high standards. Family legend has it that he once threw a plate of food prepared by the maid out the window into the garden when he thought the food was not up to his standards. There are also stories about him pouring bowls of noodle soup onto the floor to show his displeasure with the quality of cooking. While his actions are a bit extreme, it was hard to argue with him when he was most likely correct and could show you how to do it.

My grandfather was a unique talent who not only lived a long life, but really enjoyed himself.

Fan

Dyson has re-invented the fan, which has no blades. He is just too cool.

6 Billion

The economic slowdown has claimed another fashion victim; one of my favorite designers, Yohji Yamamoto, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Anyone out there with 6 billion yen to help?

Primo, Where's the Heat?

Recently Maria and I met some friends for lunch at Trattoria di Primo located at 台北市復興南路一段107巷14號1樓. Primo is actually more than just a restaurant, it has an area that sells cheese and wine. Since I was there to eat, I didn't really look too closely at the market. Base on a quick glance, the cheese selection seemed pretty good.

The space of the restaurant is quite pleasant, mostly white walls and table cloths with brown leather chairs. Primo is quite popular and the tables are spaced tightly, but not comfortably.

Primo's menu consists mainly of antipasti, pasta, pizza, and dolci, however, pizza seems to best thing to order. This is because near the entrance of the restaurant is an oven by a Japanese company that claims to be able to heat up to 600C. Primo's menu also emphasizes this hot oven and claims to bake Neapolitan-style pizza in around 90 seconds.

We ordered four different pizzas and the prices range around NT$300 to 400. While we waited for the pizzas to arrive I was busy drinking Pellegrino. The restaurant offers unlimited Pellegrino or Acqua Panna for NT$50 per person. This level of generosity was surprising since typically restaurants pad the bills with the mark-up on beverages.

When the pizzas arrived I was slightly disappointed. The pizzas' ingredients were good and the flavors were fine. The problem was the dough. The bottom was not crisp and charred enough.

When we left the restaurant we passed by the Japanese oven again. This time I noticed the temperature reading on the oven was around 298C. I suspect this was the root of the problem. Typically in order to produce a good Neapolitan-style pizza the oven needs to be much hotter. The oven at Lombardi's in New York City has a temperature of around 450C. The ovens at La Notizia and Da Michele in Napoli both exceed 500C. It seems Primo should know the importance of high heat since it is one of the first to use the Japanese oven capable of reaching 600C. What I don't understand is why Primo doesn't turn up the heat and make some better pizzas.

Back to School

I am back in school again, this time not as a student but as a teacher. Early this summer I was offered a part-time position at the School of Architecture in Shih Chien University to teach third year design studio. Yesterday was actually the first day of class. Classes started late for the third-year students because they were involved in a workshop with students and professors from Germany at the beginning of the semester. Now things are back to normal and I am at the school two afternoons a week.

I have twelve students in the studio. This semester we are exploring ideas about movement in architecture with a community athletic center. The project seeks to explore the relationship between the movements in the program and the space that contains them. Instead of an architecture that is about attractive appearance and structural stability, can a building’s form and space imply movements of its use and the dynamic qualities of the site?