D'oh!

Sometimes I feel like the female equivalent of Homer J. Simpson. A walking idiot whose brain and tongue don't work in perfect harmony.

I'd been home three days when Susan invited me over for a dinner party yesterday. Despite the 5 hour advance notice, this is not something you turn down. Susan was cooking. 'nuf said.

Anyhow, lo and behold I'm there early and get to meet the Fuschia Dunlop. In those five minutes before someone else saved me from digging myself deeper into the pit of mortification, I have managed to a) insult London, where, unbeknownst to me, she was living; b) admit that I didn't really know who she was; and c) tell her that Londoners were unfriendly.

Upon coming home and googling her, I find out that I've had her books on my Amazon wishlist. D'OH!!!!

I'm an absolute idiot.

However, the dinner party was fabulous fun and Fuschia incredibly gracious. Although I didn't know many of the guests besides Susan and Sunday Driver, they were very nice and thankfully forgiving even after the sharing of embarrassing anecdotes. It wasn't upon coming home that I found out that some of these ladies were professional foodies... I'm actually glad I wasn't forewarned. I think that while I wouldn't have backed out (did I mention Susan was cooking?), I would have been very intimidated. As it was I think I was a little too loose with my tongue.

The food.... well... what can I say? It was delicious of course! My favorites being the pork neck and the desserts. Desserts consisted of Susan-made Meyer lemon sorbet, mango sorbet and the intoxicatingly addictive chocolate cherry ice cream. That's not all though... there were canneles.

Yes, you heard right, deliciously rich with a caramelized crunchy exterior giving way to a plush, chewy, pudding-like interior... painstakingly made with molds specially bought from France, beeswax ordered online to brush the molds with and an hour of baking of the thumb-sized treats.

And if you feel like learning to cook in Hong Kong, check out Corner Kitchen!

F-odd: Clothes make the Man

Recently, while browsing in some of the stores in Hong Kong, I came across a number of food themed useless items.

First of all was the incredibly life-like slab of braised pork belly phone decorator, then it was the stuffed chicken wing phone decorator (complete with "cleaning function"... a terry cloth side you can use to wipe down your phone after you made it greasy with your face apparently).

But this beats them all.

Yes, you saw that right. It's a bacon scented bacon print tuxedo.

If only I saw this before the boy and I got hitched.

The Good, the Bad and the Angry

I'm back and I'm Angry. More annoyed really but a high alert state of pissed off. Not at anyone in particular, you understand, just generally.

But really, let's start with the Good....the honeymoon...

- Seeing "O" and "Penn and Teller" in Las Vegas;

- sunset helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, evening view of the Las Vegas Strip (I got to ride in front!);

- seeing the Wholphin as well as swimming, kissing and getting a belly ride from a dolphin at Sea Life Park in Hawaii; and

- biking over the Golden Gate Bridge (despite the boy getting a flat).

Then moving onto the Bad ....

- lack of time meant not great food... although highlights will be shown in a future blog;

- my camera not working properly in the middle of our honeymoon (hence the lack of photos);

- our flat, the one we found, paid and rented in 3 days in London between our leaving Paris and going away, being held hostage by real estate agents from the far depths of hell despite us paying rent on it already; and

- arriving in London, after a 10 hour flight and more than 15 hours travel time, to find out we can't get into our flat, staging a sit-in at the real estate agents for 3 hours then travelling another 3.5 hours back to the boy's sister's house in Wales.

So to arrive to London feeling cold, wet, hungry with a home you can't get into and 60+kg of luggage between the two of you.

Hell yes I'm Angry.

I promise you all a more cheery food post next time. Happily I'm going home to my beloved family in Hong Kong this weekend so there's bound to be lots of good food to blog about soon enough.