Chocolate
Which is the BEST way to eat Ferrero Rocher? =)
I think most of the time, girls like to eat it layer by layer, first, the nutty chocolate hard layer, then the softer wafer like shell will be revealed, then we will bite off one half of the wafer sphere and then we will eat the soft creamy ball of chocolate. Sometimes, we will just eat half of the creamy chocolate ball and the big nut will gleam at us, then we will proceed to devour the nut as if its not supposed to tempt us. Then we will lick out the remaining creamy chocolate from the half wafer sphere and then, there will be no more.
Of course, that is what I always tend to do. Haha. Then today I was wondering if that is the instinct of young kids, to slowly savour their little golden ball. Because when we are young, our parents will most likely say, "Girl ah! Don't eat so many chocolate! Heaty!", "Cause pimples", "You so fat already!". So every single golden ball is like a special treat.
I just found out another satisfying way to enjoy Ferrero Rocher. That is to take a small bite into the whole ball and all at once, you will taste the nutty hard layer, the wafer shell, the creamy layer and the nut. YUM! =) One ball can last about 3 bites. It's really not bad. Haha.
How do you like to have your Ferrero Rocher?
posted at [9:29 PM]
fi-ne
I think, the alcohol is getting to my head.
(Yeah!! At least it shows that the blood flow in my body is not retarded)
And Charlene is too nice.
And some people are too horrible, we should let them be.
And when we get older, a lot of things change.
What things?
You know, everything.
posted at [1:14 AM]
fi-ne
Top of the World
Going to other places in this world actually makes me feel dislike for this place I call home.
Firstly, the size and land area is something everyone scoffs at. From tourists to locals. Boo.
Secondly, as much as my body can't stand the cold, the weather here seems to shine down on you relentlessly. Like how when you watch tv and those police officers will shine the spotlight up the criminals' nostrils. Only that we sweat like a pig and those criminals sweat lesser than us (I think).
Thirdly, how much fucking shopping can one do when one has not enough money? And that is all to this country. Shopping. Or Sweating. Or eating and sweating over not exercising because you ate too much good, delicious sin inducing food.
Ok, I am lazy to think of others. There ARE still more but I can't be bothered right now.
Anyway, in a =) - er mode, Alaska and Canada were both great.
In Alaska, most of the time, the weather is cloudy. And it rains alot. Haha. The comedian on the cruise made a joke about how the next time someone makes a comment about "sticking it where the sun don't shine", they are talking about Alaska. The sun only starts to set at 10pm and at midnight, the sky is still not dark. At 3/4am, the sun rises again for a brand new day. Well, I guess if I live there I will be eager to wake up so early too. The place is beautiful. For every places we've been in Alaska (Ketchikan, Juneau, Icy Strait) there are snow mountains everywhere. The air is amazingly fresh and if you stare at the ocean long enough, you'll see a humpback whale showing off its tail before diving into the waters. Or you'll see sea lions and lots of eagles. The crows there are damn fat. They look like black hens until you realise they can fly. Wild black bears are supposedly common too but they were hiding when I went. Another thing great about Alaska? They have the freshest Alaskan King Crabs. And they were delicious too. Not to forget, the glaciers. They are simply amazing.
You know how in "Supermassive Black Hole" Muse will sing about how "Glaciers melting in the dead of night" and now I can say I truly understand that line for I've seen glaciers and I've seen them melting. But not in the dead of the night but you still know it will still melt a little in your mind. haha.
Canada, the land of maple trees and honey, was great too. Nice weather, nice Subway (the fast food joint) and nice Canadian Rockies. There's so many Asians there. And so many of these Asians call Canada their home. Somehow in the back of my head I can't help thinking those Asians are deluding themselves. Home is where they came from. They seem to be forcing themselves to believe that Canada is now their home and its so weird. When they still speak in heavily accented Hong Kong English. When I was there, and I had to speak to an angmoh, I almost feel as if I have to use Hong Kong accented English to speak to them because that is what they expect of me - an Asian. I'm glad to say that after the tour I didn't speak like my tour guide. Haha. Though I could imitate him with his accent quite well by the end.
At the canadian rockies, I got to walk on the glacier. It was out of this world. Walking on one big chunk of ice which is older than you, me and your grandparents put together. And its so huge too. I love the glacier, because I got to lie on it, to touch it, to drink off the melting parts. It almost feel so unreal now. Especially when all these memories of the glacier will only exist in my memory in a few decades when everything is gone. They showed us where the glacier was and how far it has receded. And its really scary. I love Canada because they make an effort to be environmentally friendly. They enforce high taxes on every good we buy because they will try to dispose them properly. They use Toyota Prius as their cabs. Their paper hand towels in the toilets are brown because it is made of recycled products. No smoking in a lot of places. They really take care of their country. We should all learn from them.
And I always think its nice to go for runs in cold weathers. Haha. And their hills or mountains actually have wild deers on them. Its so cool. Of course the mountains will have even more animals. Like brown/black bears or the moose (which is the national animal for canada). They have lots of squirrels or chipmunks look-a-like running around too. And they are usually quite tame. But that isn't a good sign for me because it means they are too reliant on humans for food. They are so tame they even dare to jump onto your jeans and smell you. But they are cute la. And then you will have an urge to feed them food. The vicious cycle never ends.
Well, now you see why Singapore pales so much in comparism. While admiring the glaciers on board the cruise, I suddenly thought of the city landscape and I got a sore feeling in my eyes. Its as if the city landscape became too crude to even think about. And I think that's true. I don't see the greatness in those cold steel buildings.
posted at [12:01 AM]
fi-ne
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The Tenth is Lying
Because I am lazy to read this article now, but I think it is very important... ...
MILAN, April 4 (Reuters) - "Nine out of ten people say they love chocolate. The tenth is lying," said Guido Gobino, 47, in his lab in Turin, northwestern Italy, as automated machinery stamped and wrapped his Tourinot chocolates in silver foil.
Made only with cocoa, sugar, vanilla and hazelnuts, they melt on the tongue, releasing a bouquet of chocolate velvet.
High-end chocolatiers like Gobino are making the most of mounting global appetites for gourmet chocolate, and leading a rise in demand for Italian-made brands.
Not widely associated with chocolate, the Italians nonetheless have won top prizes and claim a long history in the indulgence, saying they even taught the Swiss some core skills.
Worldwide gourmet chocolate sales should reach $1.62 billion in 2008, consultant Judith Ganes-Chase said last month. And Italian consumption has doubled in the last decade to 4.5 kg per head, though it still lags the European average of 7.5 kg.
"Chocolate exploded in the last year," said Davide Pogliani, who has added a room just to sell chocolates in his fine wine and food store in Milan. "We sell mostly Amedei -- considered the best in the world -- and Gobino."
Based in Pontedera, near Pisa, Amedei won a gold medal for best in the world in 2005 and 2006 from London's Academy of Chocolate.
Cecilia Tessieri, 39, and her brother Alessio, 42, who founded Amedei in 1989, took their search for the best ingredients to the ultimate conclusion and are the only Italian chocolatiers who run their own cocoa plantation in Venezuela.
"A good chocolate, like a good wine, starts from the vine," Cecilia Tessieri said.
CHOCOLATE SUPERTUSCANS
Italian chocolatiers have seen their exports rise 500 percent in the last five years as they added clients like chef Ferran Adria of famed El Bullin restaurant in Spain, and Fortnum and Masons, London's 300-year-old fine food emporium.
Gobino and Amedei are emerging because they meet demand for high-quality, organic products.
Gobino does not use any preservatives or artificial colours. For example, he makes white chocolate by removing the fibre from the cocoa, which is what gives it its dark colour, and adding only cocoa butter, milk and sugar.
Also, he uses only Piedmont hazelnuts -- far costlier than the more common Turkish ones -- because they are 60 percent fat, which makes them creamier.
Choosing the best ingredients is not cheap. A 55 gram/1.92 ounce Amedei bar sells for 13 euros ($17), or 236 euros a kg, about 10 times the cost of industrial chocolates. Gobino chocolates cost about 50 euros a kg.
"They're expensive, but when it comes to spending for quality, high prices are not an issue for our clients," Pogliani said.
Around the world, prices for gourmet chocolates can reach stratospheric heights. In Connecticut, chef Fritz Knipschildt charges $250 for a single dark chocolate with a French black truffle inside -- $2,600 per pound.
Turin, Gobino's hometown in northwestern Italy, is the birthplace of Italy's $4 billion-a-year chocolate industry and now accounts for more than one-third of the country's production, which ranks fourth in Europe behind Germany, Britain and France.
FIRST WRAPPED IN TURIN
Yet Turin's claims go deeper than that.
Brought from America to Europe by the Spanish, cocoa became the drink of kings. The Spanish royals passed on the fashion to the French, who in turn initiated the Savoy family of Turin.
But it was Turin's chocolatiers who first wrapped chocolate to prevent oxidation, making lasting chocolates.
And, they say, they even taught the Swiss.
Turin's own Pier Paul Caffarel in 1826 taught the trade to Francois Callier, the pioneer of Switzerland's chocolate industry.
Today Turin's rich and powerful still turn to the city's chocolatiers for special occasions.
Gobino created the centrepiece for the wedding reception of John Elkann, vice-chairman of carmaker Fiat and heir to the Agnelli family empire.
At the reception, 350 chocolate replicas of Fiat's iconic Cinquecento car "drove" down a chocolate ramp to a base of white chocolate and raspberry, two metres wide and four metres long, all of it weighing 160 kg.
Marina Cutelle, who two years ago opened Chococult, a three-storey chocolate bar in Milan, said champagne would have been a good choice to wash down that dessert.
Cutelle, who says she eats a pound of hazelnut chocolate in one sitting and offers a variety of wines and liqueurs to match the selection in her bar, said, "A flute of champagne after a milk chocolate gives maximum pleasure."
posted at [9:26 PM]
fi-ne
I have been slowly and dangerously simmering with this for the whole day.
WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IS LOUSIER THAN OTHER FACULTIES IN UNIVERSITY?
WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK.
Bloody hell... I'm sure there are plenty of arts students who can enter other stupid shitty faculty that only use math or sci to talk. Hey, even if you can ace your stupid engineering paper, doesnt mean you can even pass a literature paper. WTF.
Tell me, so what if you know all the formula to calculate some stupid minute particle in the air that is invisble? Yes, you will know about that particle, but do you know yourself?
At least in arts, you learn about emotions and feelings of people. You study about feelings and you'll get an idea that there is more depth to how someone seems to be showing outwardly. And within this probe, you realise that you can understand yourself better. Why sometimes you do the things you do. ALL this, allows you to find your own humanity inside you. If not, you're just a formula, theory gulping machine and you are seriously de-humanised.
It's really no use grasping all those stupid concepts and not finding out more about yourself. Yes, it will probably get you a job but is this all there is to life? You're just gonna be a worker ant to your country? Happy toiling and working aimlessly, unknowingly then.
But seriously, screw this country. They want to promote arts, but the stigma of doing arts is so widespread. Even those who have an interest in arty courses are running off to business or science. Where at least they know they can have a more secure job after uni.
Seriously, I applaud those majoring in lit or theatre studies. Because I'd like to do that, but I ask myself everyday, if I have the balls to do it. And because I should stop being such an idealistic and be more realist, I fucking dunno. Its a matter of survival vs interest.
I want a secure job, so that I can earn a certain amount of money, to look after my loved ones, and to give myself a good life. At the expense of my true interest? Is it worth it? Is it a good gamble to follow your interest and not get any money and then regretting? I don't think so.
So often, the cruel, unblinking, relentless capitalism crushes us flat. And all of us have dollar signs for eyes.
This is a hellish world we are living in.
posted at [11:02 PM]
fi-ne
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
*Clicks "New Post"
Everything unfolds.
I REALLY don't feel like going to school tmr. Sigh. I need help. It's been six freaking weeks. I think I am getting lousier with this thing called "school" as I get older. I have no more stamina to do the same old shit every week and sit in the lecture halls and breaking up into groups to discuss tutorial questions. Sometimes I just want to go to school and not open my mouth.
One and a half semester in uni, I realised I can talk to just about anyone who's within my speaking distance. I mean its not that I can't do that in the past. I could. But its just that only now, I can just open my mouth and talk to a stranger about philosophy, about harms of globalisation and laugh about theatrical elements. In the past, it was more of, why should I open my mouth to discuss about those issues? Now it's more about, hey, open your stupid mouth, brainstorm, present and get your participation points in tutorials. I really prefer JC. Whereby I could just sit in class, cross my arms and just talk when I feel like it.
SIGH.
Why don't I wanna go to school tmr? Erm, I'm not really sure, since all my modules are interesting this semester. Ok well fine, I don't wanna go to school because I am tired. Yes. That's it. I A.M. T.I.R.E.D. What? Never heard of someone being tired to go to school before?
I think it is bad to think that I am too tired to go to school tmr. I only have a 3 day week school. And I know of quite a number of people who will kill to have my time table. But hey. Please. I've been a good girl since school started (this current sem anyway). I've not skip a single lecture or tutorial, unless u count the lectures on Muse day, but fuck. That IS Muse day. And my birthday when I had to miss one New Media tutorial. The New Media tutor is quite good looking. Dresses nicely and all. And my philosophy tutor, a young guy, is quite hot too. HEHE.
I know. I sound as if I have nothing better to blog about. SIGH. CNY coming! I don't really care. Other than the hong baos. HAHA. You know, we chinese are quite a disgusting race. Other races like Malays or Indians will specially go to the tailor or buy their traditional costumes to wear on their festival. But we? What is cheong sam? We all wear ang moh clothings and think we are so hip. Ok what the fuck am I talking about, since Im a potato. But hey, I do love CNY ok. Hong baos what. Oops. I am missing the point.
Is it me? Or is it that time is moving very fast? I mean I'm still suffering from pineapple tarts hangover from last year. I seem not to have interest in them now. Or any cny goodies for that matter. But please do give me one whole abalone on the reunion dinner :D I like that a lot.
I think I can't really sleep now. I keep thinking about tmr. And how much I really don't wanna go to school. =(
I mean, we all have days when we don't wanna go to school right?
Its ok not to go school for one day right?
Please empathise with me when I say I have to drag myself out of bed at 6am every school morning and feel like a dead cat.
Happy CNY in advance!! Wear Cheong sams!
Ending: Empty vessels make the most noise.
posted at [11:54 PM]
fi-ne
I miss my life,
exactly one year ago,
from now.
posted at [10:08 PM]
fi-ne
