The Sugar Bar

3rd March, is Hinamatsuri 雛祭り or Girls’ Day in Japan. This is a day when families wish for the healthy growth and happiness of their girls. Hina dolls (of the emperor, his court officials and ladies), dressed in imperial Heian costume on a red-carpeted doll altar, are displayed from end of February to 3rd March. They must be taken down after the festival due to a superstition regarding the marriageability of the girls if left displayed. These dolls absorb the ill luck or bad fortune from the girls and it seems (probably influenced by an ancient Chinese tradition) some dolls are set loose down rivers to send away that ill fortune. Because it is also the Japanese Peach Blossom Festival (Momo-no Sekku 桃の節句), peach blossoms are often displayed with the dolls and offerings like shiro-sake and wagashi are placed together with the dolls on the carpeted stand. These offerings are later enjoyed by everyone.

Wagashi meant for this occasion, hishi-mochi, come in three colours of pink, white and green representing the pink of the peach blossoms, snow and new growth respectively. Not only is this symbolic for the blossoming of youthful girls, it marks the advent of Spring. Can’t help thinking about my favourite Hanami Dango, which also comes in those three colours, eaten at the Hanami Festival or cherry blossom viewing festival.

Hikichigiri is a traditional wagashi eaten on the day of Hinamatsuri (you can see what it looks like here). It reminds me a bit of a sea anemone! Although I don’t celebrate the festival and I very surely could not find hikichigiri in London, I was determined not to be left out of an excuse to eat wagashi anyway. A stop-on-impulse visit at Minamoto Kitchoan, previously blogged about here, meant four little wagashi treats to take home. I‘ve the oribenishiki to chase away autumn/winter, hinamonogatari just for Hinamatsuri, sakuradaifuku to welcome spring and the mitarashi dango to represent my eagerness for summer. Yes, each chosen wagashi has a season in mind!

Hinamonogatari 雛物語 - ‘Doll Story’ - A spring wagashi known as hina-arare ひなあられ for Hinamatsuri, or popped rice.

Seems these are only available during the festival so they are extra special, especially when you’ve got the picture of a hina doll on the packet! These rice crackers are made by frying dry steamed rice in hot oil before colouring them. They are so pretty to look at and like sugar puffs, are crispy and delicate. I dropped a few in some of my dango sauce (mitarashi dango below) and they even made the same crackling noise as rice krispies.

Flowers, tea, nature, paintings and the appreciation of all four are an important part of tea ceremony. This next one really got me thinking…

Oribenishiki 織部錦 - Adzuki and Chestnut Paste Kurimanjyu Cake dusted with fine sugar

I read up a little that the five-lobed compound leaf on the cake’s brown top is an indicator of the adzuki bean and chestnut inside. But I wasn’t convinced and thought the leaf and subsequent three leaves beneath it represented something else. In terms of the name, I discovered a few interesting things:

Oribe is a reference to Furuta Oribe (1544-1615), a famous 16th century tea master who was a favourite student of Sen no Rikyū, both of whom were important contributors to the Japanese tea ceremony chado. Oribe founded the Oribe school of tea ceremony which is still in practise today in Japan. He became famous as a tea master after the death of Sen Rikyū, and became the tea ceremony instructor for the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada. He changed the tea ceremony from a style suited to merchants to one adapted to the samurai. He also developed the Oribe gonomi (Oribe taste) with novel designs of pottery (all a little out of shape, wonky-looking or chipped with shades of green and yellow), stone lanterns, and so on with a style that stressed utility and a beauty simple, humble and unassuming.

Nishiki in the name might refer to the richly coloured brocade of Japanese kimono or the Higo Yamato Nishiki (a type of camellia flower often seen on kimono and its name meaning ‘Old Brocade of Japan’). Camellia is symbolic of the advent of spring and is also largely associated with chabana - a branch of flower arrangement during tea ceremony championed by Rikyū. The cake definitely doesn’t show a camellia flower and its pattern of a 5 compound leaf rather than say a maple leaf really confused me and how it had any relation to brocade, kimono or tea ceremony but part of me thinks it might refer to the tranquility and simplistic beauty (reminder: Oribe philosophy) which even leaves must and also do deliver. Correct me if I’m wrong or share with me your thoughts on this. I’d greatly appreciate it.

So there was my rather Zen and intellectual moment with a cake and a cup of tea. Bet you guys don’t often do that with sweets, now do you? I admit if you put a cupcake in front of me or a good fruit slice or scone, there’ll be no pondering and appreciation of the seasons/nature. Just gobble gobble and swallow.

Moving away from that autumn/winter treat though, come end of March, it’s all about sakura in Japan. Joy to spring and the blossoming of flowers. That would surely put a smile on my face once this awful grey just goes away (even if only for a little while).

Sakuradaifuku 櫻大福 - Mochi with Sakura Shiro-an Filling coated in taro starch - another spring wagashi

A strong perfume of sakura is unleashed once you open the packet and as you bite into this, the perfume is always there gently wafting about you, making it such a delightful sweet to enjoy which tantalizes all the senses as wagashi is supposed to do. Although this is different from sakuramochi whether in ball form or East Japan’s crepe rolled-form then wrapped in a sakura leaf, I believe the flavours are quite similar. Sakura leaves are pickled in salt water before use in this and there is a strong combination of sweet savouryness in the shiro-an or white-bean paste filling. I think this has got to be a new favourite daifuku of mine because I’ve never actually managed to taste sakura as pure and strong as in this shiro-anko filling.

Shiro-an is made from navy beans or lima beans. I was very pleased to see a variation from the usual anko or red adzuki bean filling. The mochi surrounding the filling was coloured a very light pale pink with bits of crushed sakura kneaded into it. What a pretty sight and of course with daifuku, it’s name literally meaning ‘big or great luck’, I can’t help thinking that a lot of luck and fortune might be coming my way now that most of this has been consumed!

Mitarashi Dango 御手洗 団子 - Japanese mochiko dumpling with a soy sauce and sugar syrup

Although my favourite kind of dango is the hanami dango, I do love the caramel-ish coloured soy sugar syrup in this. With my penchant for sweet and savoury together, it’s hard to say no to this. This variation of dango is often eaten at the summer Mitarashi Festival - a purification festival - and traditionally offered to the gods at Shimogamo shrine. Hence, the name 御手洗: ‘honourable washing of hands’.

To celebrate, I made my own mitarashi dango too according to this recipe here which is so simple to follow with clear photographed instructions. I loved the mitarashi sauce but found I had to add a bit more potato starch. I like my sauce not so drippy but real thick and gooey. Also, as you can see from the difference in colour between Minamoto Kitchoan’s and mine, mine’s a lot ‘thinner’ and less caramel brown. That’s because that photograph was taken after the first dipping/coating of the sauce.

Leaving the dango on the skewers to cool a little more to room temperature after cooking, drizzling and coating with mitarashi sauce at intervals lets the sauce set better around the dango. You’ll get a darker colour than the initial thin light-coloured appearance. I didn’t grill them as the recipe called for and although it is actually a lot tastier when grilled, as you would normally find them if you bought them from the store, again my kitchen fails me. Or rather my kitchen utensil-poverty limited me. But it’s actually fine to leave them as it is up to the boiled stage. It lacks that extra grilled x-factor but together with the sauce, and left for a bit to cool and set, these dango sticks are just amazing treats for everyone.

These were consumed without any more cracking of the head and name deconstruction, thankfully. Might stay off informative posts for a while as this one really sapped me dry. Off to nom on a few more dango bits.

My room’s being consumed by a tsunami of clutter. How has it happened again? The rate at which things accumulate (along with the dust bunnies) astounds me and I can never see or understand how that happens. What, do these things just appear whilst I sleep?! Who dreams ‘em up and then just chucks it in my room, on top of my bed, next to my make-up counter which serves as a study desk when the need arises. Where did all these computer/phone wires come from? Crap, was my wardrobe always that stuffed, threatening to spill out in waves and eat up the room completely? Or shall we just go back to square one and blame it on the room being the size of a miniature igloo (or worse). The collage I created through food photographs, magazine pages, a map of my uni campus, random shots from Gradball 09, a Vivienne Westwood postcard from a friend and some A/W 09 catwalk shots - beautiful and quite breathtakingly so since it’s the backdrop of my work desk - seeks to increase the confusion and ‘noise’ of the room. You can say my collection of things is a real eclectic mix - something I’ve always hoped to achieve in any room I live in and out of. Boudoir-ish, roccoco elements, bits of random vintage jewellery hanging about, interesting Indian fabrics draped from one corner to the other whilst candles melted into twisted monstrous shapes and sizes dot the room. I think this year I’ve quite achieved that with a purple/navy theme going on, quite different from my room last year in Birmingham which was full of Venetian masks and greens and blacks. Sometimes I just sit back, nod approvingly and give myself a pat on the back for managing to make my room almost homey and as eccentricly artsy as the area I live in. On bad days, I feel like burning it down.

On lazy days, I just hide under the covers and wish away all that clutter. Of course it never happens. And ranting about it doesn’t help either. The fact that I try to blitz my room almost twice a week makes me think I’m quite the independent and fairly neat 22-year old. The fact that the kitchen is so small and almost always cluttered with food and splashes of grease gives me a bit of headache. But blame it on London being too expensive to live in!

A change of perspective helps sort me out though. A bit of sunshine, which we had loads today (THREE CHEERS FOR THE FLIPPIN’ SUN!), also injects a bit of optimism into anything. If London’s that great, why the heck am I sitting in my room complaining about the clutter when I should be out there soaking up some good ol’ sun and exploring the fantastic eats in this gorgeous city?

And so I did. After a strong coffee. And some furious bbm-ing (if you don’t already know, Blackberry speak for our version of phone messaging) with Su-yin. A Lantana breakfast was so the right way to celebrate TGIF and wind down to our weekend. Su-yin totally deserved it after all her night shifts and although I haven’t done much to deserve it, I did score a 1st class for one of the essays I handed in after Christmas. So that’s probably something to be happy about. Anyway here’s what we ate. Delicious beyond delicious. And glad we didn’t even have to queue!

Corn fritters stacked with crispy bacon, avocado and roast tomato salsa, rocket and lime aioli

Bubble and squeak with fried egg, chorizo, rocket, tomato chutney and buttered sourdough

Happiness is breakfast.

Full up and very pleased with our meal and service, we strolled to Heal’s for a quick gander about the kitchenware and a gift for my dear sister. Couldn’t have had a better start to my Friday morning.

Lantana Cafe
13 Charlotte Place
London
W1T 1SN
http://www.lantanacafe.co.uk

I promised a big red velvet feature after a previous Cupcake von Tease post. And I had meant for this feature to be quite a big one but the week’s kinda got a little busier, a little more hectic with deadlines and other exciting posts that clamoured to the top and pushed this red velvet feature down to the bottom.

And when a friend and I finally made it to the bakery - we trekked all across London just for these babies, it was a horribly dreary, wet, windy day and our cupcakes and cakes nearly got squished and ruined on the journey back. We would’ve liked to sit in and enjoy these, savour the glorious moment but the Portobello shop isn’t as big as the one in Kensington. Expect to be trampled upon by other cupcake fanatics and tourists visiting the area. It ain’t very pleasant but I’m not complaining now that I have red velvet in the fridge, good for a few days of sugar cravings and cream cheese daydreams.

The red velvet once again didn’t let me down. It’s still pretty much one of the best I’ve tasted - the frosting is great but I particularly love the cake bit as it’s hard to get this taste right!

•••

So what’s this about Diva Talks?

Some of you may have noticed that my blog’s gradually changing and I’m talking a little more about myself. I’ve tried to give the blog more of a personality. It’s less about just putting up recipes that I’ve experimented with or tried. And as I now have no oven to work with, I’m venturing more into the cooking arena and will be, I hope with much diligence, attempting sweets and chocolates those sorta things that have no need for a convection oven. I’m more of a baker than a cook - I think being a little OCD means using the right measurements down to 1/4 tsp gives me a great sense of security and achievement at the same time unlike the free-and-easy ways of general cooking. But that means I get to have more fun this year. So bear with me, those who know that my blog prefers to experiment more with the sweet rather than savoury - hence the name: The Sugar Bar.

Nevertheless, that’s not really what I’ve been wanting to share. The past summer went by quite painfully for me. I’m not one to really talk about personal issues publicly (nor with anyone else really except with my very close girlfriends) but I went through a heartbreak that totally caught me by surprise. I mean boy, it was tough. Like the boys I meet, they can never bring themselves to spit out what exactly they’re thinking so I took hold of the reigns, grabbed him by his balls and said it like it was. They always say that women are stronger but I find sometimes that’s a real contentious thought. I think we’re just cleverer and to-the-point when needs be. So I broke it off. But somehow it felt worse that I’d done it because that wasn’t what I wanted. It was something he couldn’t deal with because he was afraid and wanted to crawl back into his shell and find comfort in his own little hole. Fair enough. I liked him enough, adored him to pieces in fact, to let him go. Said ‘goodbye and go’. Cried myself to sleep. Woke up the next day and continued to pretend like it hadn’t affected me at all.

We parted ways. And the friendship now is pretty shaky I believe. Give it time and I know things will be alright. But a couple of months before now, and when I first returned to England to settle down in my new pad in London, you can imagine how dead I was inside. Everything about London screamed at me : you were meant to be here with him, enjoying your favourite season of the year, watching spring turn to fall and anticipating an amazing Christmas together. Obviously, that was me being sulky and I had a hard time trying to enjoy myself here. Although I did in time to come. And believe me, I really do now! I didn’t really let it out of me proper. Even when I met up with him to get my stuff back, I couldn’t sob about it like I wanted to and that’s just me I know.

At the bus station, we said goodbye with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. But the whole 30 minutes that I saw him, I knew every second was just a second I wanted to disappear. Although disappearing wouldn’t have made anything better, or made any difference to the status quo, it was just that - it wouldn’t matter, as he was treating me like our relationship had never existed. Non-acknowledgement of my existence in his life. And that was the most cruel stab I could endure I believe. No one has ever done that to me before. Even the term ‘friendship’ suddenly became a joke to me. Our friendship, our great banter, the laughs and cheeky grins in that 30 minutes reminded me of the real stuff we used to have before the shit hit the ceiling and now it was all quite ridiculous. Like a charade, like something we had to perform.

It’s taken a while and a good, a real good, let-it-all-out cry at my bestfriend’s for me to realize I hadn’t really let go, or gotten over it as I’d kid myself into believing. And now, even though I’m still hurting, I feel like I can dust off my bum, smudge some rouge on my cheeks and offer a fresh face to the world. I can brave it out there again.

And why this has anything at all to do with my foodblog and hence, gain a right to be on this page at all, is because I was finding it hard to write like I normally did. I used to sing (pretend) I was a rockstar in my bedroom. I did it regularly for a laugh and because I really enjoyed it. I used to write all the time, because I found a great pleasure in giving birth to my little literary works. But the summer killed me a little and I found no inspiration for anything. It was like someone pulled the carpet from beneath me and put the stops to everything. Nothing came from me, I offered nothing to the world. Part of me felt like I had to completely deny myself of the normal outlets of release, of anything I took joy in. And it seemed part of me wanted to deny myself food which was a truly bad way of attempting to take control of one’s life. I went shopping, I indulged and milked my heartbreak for whatever it was worth. Even fashion and the usual quirky photography I took so much joy in couldn’t fire me up. Couldn’t feel satisfied, however much I tried. But I remembered my blog and it gave me a breather, a different avenue to unleash.

The girls on Twitter who I met and started to communicate with on a daily basis made it a lot easier as well. And getting to know fellow so Spiffy, whom I adore for her courage and ballsy attitude, told me to pull my socks up, get a grip and snap out of this dream-state that was slowly eating me away and robbing me of my usual creativity and vivaciousness. The girls, whom I call the Twitter Breakfast Club, were chirpy and lively every morning. They chatted about anything and everything - from food, to shoes, to love handles, to children, to being happy. And before I knew it, I started to realize I was looking forward to getting up in the mornings. My wake-up alarm got shifted from a disgusting 10.30am to an 8am just so I could get a quick chat in with the girls. They’re mothers (and fathers, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten you boys!)and a little older than me, but wiser and still as cool and quick as a whiplash. How could I not enjoy the wicked banter and intellectual conversations I have with them? I’ll be meeting some of them at the first ever UK Food Blogger Connect conference and I’m so excited about it! We’ll be sure to have such fun.

The close few girls I keep in touch with, if anything, have un-deadified me. They inspire me and always make me feel like I had so much to offer. A lot of love shared on Twitter.

And so yes, I have taken a step out of my coffin and found my mojo back.

These girls are amazing and so Spiffy is like my light at the end of the tunnel. My bestfriends from uni have also been real troopers listening to me rant, offering me a shoulder to cry on and giving me time to deal with things. I don’t like talking about it but now that I’ve changed my phone to leave the past in the old, I now find that this post must be something I have to do to wash it all away. I don’t need to start again as I love everything of my past and everything that has happen. God plans it all according to his greater plan and I do not regret nor hold grudges against anyone for anything. I am just thankful that I have now opened my eyes and said goodbye to some unhappiness at least.

I have always been thought of as the strongest girl out of the lot. The half-girl half-boy for being so nonchalant and a little cold, if you dare. But I know I’m not. If anything I’m the fieriest of the lot because I have passion that’s brimming (a little too hot to handle, LOL) and I have to hold that back a little so I don’t go mental. And I can now feel that passion in me again. I’ve started writing and I’ve definitely found it in me to start singing and screeching like a mad git in my own bedroom to AC/DC, Lady Gaga, System of a Down, Stereophonics, etc. Booyah. I’m back.

And I intend to make sure everyone knows it. Even if he can’t see me, that’s fine. We got to take charge of our own lives and get up when we fall down. Blame no one for your mistakes, for your upsetting times, and definitely not for your broken hearts. Grab the reigns of your life, look the bull in the eye, get ballsy and face the music. Get mending.

Oh yea.

Cupcakes healed me too.