It’s the Australian wine dinner, tomorrow, see!
Planning a menu like the one we’re cooking tomorrow is an interesting process. Normally I write the menu quite early. I sit at the bar with a glass of wine and plot how the flavours will move from course to course. Most of our special monthly dinners are wine paired affairs, so of course you need to take the type of wine into consideration. Ah, you think, how pleasant! Sitting there, in front of four or five bottles, slowly sipping and imagining what would best go with each wine. Well, THINK AGAIN! Hardly any of the suppliers will sacrifice even three bottles just for the chef to figure out what he wants to cook, so I mostly have to make do with tasting notes ( I mean TASTING notes, not tasting NOTES). I must say that if the wine is a known entity, such as the Leeuwin Estate we will be pouring tomorrow, then it’s not too much of a problem.
So I sit, read, mull and write. The thing I hardly ever do is actually experiment, or try the dish. That will only happen when we cook the dinner, on the day. We will basically cook something we have never cooked before.

Only when we order do we think about exact quantities for ingredients. It may sound suicidal to you, but unless the combination is completely mad, there will be no need to try it, the individual flavours are in your mind and you can actually imagine how they will blend together. In fact, you an taste them in your mind. Try it: Imagine chocolate. Now add orange to that. Got it? Imagine this with a raspberry sauce. Now add vanilla ice cream. If you can’t do that, you are the culinary equivalent of tone deaf. There’s no shame in that, but please, just leave the cooking to me.

Oh, and I almost forgot. If you haven’t booked your table for the Aussie Dinner, better hurry. Check the menu on the What’s On page.

That’s what came to my mind this morning as I looked into the mirror, though more likely sank than launched, I must say. Time for introspection comes once a year, on the 21 May, as I move immutably closer towards humanity’s one common destiny. 44 and one is officially a middle aged man (is it the same for women? I must say that most of the women I know look much better at an advancing age than their male counterparts). Middle age would of course suggest that one still has another 44 to look forward to and I must say that I do not find that very likely. Given my unrelentingly self destructive lifestyle, I am amazed that I even made it as far as this. Most of the machinery even seems to be still in reasonably good working order, if the doctors are to be believed. The most stunningly surprising thing is that my liver is healthy. Well, I mean it does get a lot of exercise!

I started writing with the intention of being funny, but it isn’t working at all. There really is nothing even remotely funny about getting old. I was talking to a friend only yesterday and he said: “Don’t you just hate getting old?” I was going to agree wholeheartedly, but then I remembered what Michael Caine (those of you who are under 35 can google him) said when they asked him: “How do you like turning seventy, Sir Michael?” Said the old actor: “I like it fine enough, considering the alternative.”

What is it with Malaysian drivers (or maybe I should say drivers in Malaysia)? I mean, I know the rule. You see a gap in the lane next to you, the one that you want to change to and you move into it while at the same time turning on the indicator. It takes dexterity and coordination, but it is necessary, otherwise the gap that was there before is likely to close, cos, believe me, NO ONE wants to let you in, even if the space could accomodate two trucks. That’s just the way it works and I’m not arguing with it. But when it comes to turning at a crossing or pulling over to the side, a little communication of the general direction in which my fellow drivers is contemplating of moving would be welcome. Especially if the driver in front has the despicable habit of veering to the right before turning left, or vice versa.

I know I’m not the most patient of drivers (stop laughing!), but sometimes driving in KL just takes the cake. Today I almost (unfortunately only almost) killed some git on a motorbike who came shooting out of a side road. I horned him and he promptly gave me the finger. Obviously,  I had to chase him down the road, he tried to escape by driving up onto the pavement. That didn’t phase me at all. I drive a Proton, you see. Re-sale value zero, so what have I got to loose! Two wheels up on the pavement, the Lotus engineered power steering giving all it got, I mowed down a couple of minor street signs that no one observes anyway, unfortunately rolled over some of these city beautifying flower pots displayed behind miniature picket fences, but I was too close on his heels to care. At the traffic lights, the bastard thought he could shake me off. He stopped dead, turned the bike around and was about to speed off full throttle, front wheel off the pavement, when I had the presence of mind to open the back door. You should have seen him go flying! It was a sight for the Gods that he would soon be facing in person. I was about to quickly reverse over him before continuing on my way to breakfast when I noticed it was actually a woman. How do they get so angry?

мебелимебели

This is an official announcement: Ash has won the DeKuyper best bartender in Malaysia contest. We’ve always known that his cocktails were good, but now it’s official. In September he will represent Malaysia (and of course Frangipani) at the International finals in Amsterdam and if he’s not too stoned, he might even have half a chance of making it into the finals of the finals. We don’t want to think about him winning, it would probably mean that we’d have to pay him more.

And what’s the winning concoction, you ask? It’s called Stubborn Blonde and no, Ash is not thinking of bleaching his tresses, the cocktail honours a particularly obdurate customer of the female persuasion. The cocktail is a ginger and lemongrass flavoured tequila brew with an addition of white peach and peach liqueur and it is really quite good, so come and try it. We’ll add it to the list and hopefully the guys behind bars will remember to order enough lemongrass.