Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Martha Has Arrived

Sorry for the long hiatus. I haven't been experimenting on anything new in the last few weeks, and all the dessert orders have been stuff that has already been featured, so nothing to blog about. Lately the lemon meringue pie has been getting a lot of exposure, and is becoming increasingly popular. As I predicted, people's SOURNESS TOLERANCE LEVEL varies, so I get comments like, Ah, just right, not sour enough, or EEUGHHHH, tooo sour. I shall incorporate a lemon scale for future orders.

Last birthday, late 2005, dear friend Jays from NY gave me a USD50 Amazon gift voucher. Recently I realised I should use it before it expires. After numerous attempts, at ordering 2nd hand books, baking utensils, all which can't be delivered to out of America, I finally settled for new books, and of course, what kinda books, but cookbooks. For all the variety you can get here, there are surprisingly few Martha Stewart books available locally. Maybe she's a convicted felon, and our censorship board does not allow works by authors like that. Then again, you can buy Jeffrey Archer's stuff quite readily.

Anyway, the problem with ordering from Amazon is the exorbitant postage cost, and basically, you need to buy more than one book to get some sort of economy of scale for postage. So, I ended up buying 4 books, way exceeding the USD50 gift voucher. Today, 3 out of the 4 books arrived!!!!

To my delight, one of the recipes had what looks like something VERY close to Alexis' Pear and Ginger Upside Down Pudding.



My quest for that recipe (apart from the one Boolicious of Masak Masak gave me a few months back) has been like the quest for the holy grail. The other thing that is almost impossible to find is a SQUARE pie tin with a removable base and corrugated pie sides. Unfortunately, the pear ginger cake calls for golden molasses, which I think is quite expensive. I just gonna hantam golden syrup.

The Sachertorte recipe in the Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipes looks to die for. Oh well, lots of new things to try, so keep your eyes peeled in the future.

For a semi food related tale and friend's 40th, do check out the story at limiteditions.

5 comments:

boo_licious said...

u can get her bks at Kinokuniya - lots of them. My sis has the handbk, been meaning to try something from it. I found Green and Blacks yesterday - not the choc but the hot choc powder.

fatboybakes said...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, you mean i just paid USD20 for postage!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEE!!!!

boo_licious said...

OOOOPS! Nahhh, I'm sure it's all sold out by now - maybe it's cheaper if you buy from Amazon?

If you want cookbooks, shop at Kinokuniya and Borders for a good selection. Recently Times has a new shipment so books are good there too - I like getting bks there with my Times card. The worst is MPH in terms of selection. If Kino and Borders do not have something, you can order it so d/chk with them on the price to compare with Amazon. Hope that helps. The baking handbk is nice though - I kinda like the wedding cake idea, maybe you can make that the nxt time?

boo_licious said...

Just chked - baking handbk is marked RM158.31 from Kino, is it cheaper from Amazon?

fatboybakes said...

oh, it was USD26.40 from amazon, and about USD6 for postage, (divided amongst the 4 books i ordered), so roughly USD33. yalar, still cheaper than kino. assuming exchange rate of 3.6, its 118.80. phew.