Dinner with friends chez moi

Earlier this month, I had some friends over so I cooked dinner. It was also a pretext to try my new fruit cake recipe...

Starters: hybrid melon (between musk and yellow-skinned) with a crisp and subtle flavour goes well with smoked salmon, a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil, plus a sprinkle of fleur de sel.

 Entrée: Baked lemon-herb chicken with its jus, served on a bed of celery gratin.

 Salad of cherry tomatoes with mustard vinaigrette and lemon basil.

Fruit cake served with strawberry jam.

For the cake:

4 eggs

250 g butter (unsalted) at room temperature

assortement of dried fruits and citrus peel (I used cranberries, dark raisins, pineapple, appricot, ginger confit and orange peel soaked overnight in white wine or any liqueur)

dash of liqueur

2 1/2 cups of flour

Sugar to preference ( I used a cup)

pinch of salt

1 tsp baking flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp Orange flower water

Cream the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs, liqueur, orange flower water. Sift in the flour with the baking powder and baking soda. If the mixture is too thick, it can be slightly thinned with milk or fruit juice. Add the fruit mixture, stir well and pour onto a buttered baking can. Put the cake batter into a preheat oven and bake for 40 minutes under medium heat until done.

3 days at Jakarta

I was in Jakarta from 21 till 24 November attending a regional French Language Conference, spending 3 nights in Harris Hotel in North Jakarta, I think. From the air nearing touchdown, there are quite some marked differences between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur the fact that numero uno: no glaring patches of red earth screaming at you from the windows of the plane. Secondly, the adjacent residentials are surrounded by rice fields and have an "ancient" feel to it, especially the tiled roofs aged by the sun. Even the earth seemed to have been tilled and worked for a millenia...well, things ancient however, did not seem so pleasant upon touchdown as the airport didn't have very good signages and the lines could be confusing as to what and where to go next...felt like I was transported back to the seventies somewhere in Asia...Because the organisers told us not to heed any solicitations by taximen and to head straight for the designated companies (Bluebird being one of them reputated to be "safe"), I ended up lining up for almost forty minutes under immensely humid and hot weather for a cab. The fare was fair - around Rp120 thousand for an hour's ride to Kelapa Gading where the hotel was.  From high up, Jakarta is an immense city with tree-lined boulevards spreading in all directions, giving it a calm cover. This almost flat horizon is only broken here and there by some tall buildings far in between but once you're in a taxi on her roads, the view is completely different: chaos reigns supreme! Cars, taxis, buses, lorries, motorbikes and everything else with wheels seem to be locked in perpetual traffic jams, making travelling anywhere in the city needing at least an hour. For these reasons, I had to forgo my rendez-vous for a cocktail at the French Embassy as I arrived with an hour an a half to the cocktail...didn't want to rush. Besides, it was at the other end of the city!

 View of Jakarta from outside my room at 11th floor...the hotel was practically linked to a mile-long mall and that kinda served me well as I had no intention of visiting anywhere in Jakarta on foot with the humid, chaotic and possibly rainy weather outside...the mall however, was disappointing as it sold everything that more or less ressemble those in Malaysia, maybe a tad bit more expensive and less choice...

 The next day, after the last round table session, we were invited for a dinner at a Balinese restaurant called Jimbaran at the seaside. As luck would have it, we were greeted with a heavy thunderstorm just before departure on bus. As the buses couldn't come up to the driveway due to constricted access, we were required to brave the thunderstorm to get to the bus. The journey took more than an hour, locked in traffic jams and inundated roads everywhere. There just seemed to be no end to it all...

Happily, we were greeted by welcoming musicians and dancers just as the rain stopped upon our arrival.

 The deserted platform for performing in the open air...

 Dinner was a buffet: grilled seafood, spicy vegetables, flavoured peanut rice, sambals...

 A spicy fish-vegetables soup (very peppery...)

 The exit gate has a rather melancholic light after the rain, a waiter waiting patiently under its shadow for customers...

Lights of Jakarta far away...

 We were treated to some performances later that night: a "Tarian Orang Tua", the dancer was very apt portraying the movements of an old man...actually kinda freaked me out at the beginning.

 Nicer things - two dancing Garudas or peacocks

 Then the antics of an idiot on a motorbike - definitely not traditional dancing!

 Everyone was invited to take photos with the dancers at the end - well, why not...

 Something interesting on the last dinner -  a fragrant mutton curry called Tongseng Kambing...

The return trip was a breeze but ended up paying quite some ringgit for last minutes souvenirs at the airport. And yes, every person leaving the Indonesian soil needs to pay Rp150 thousand tax or else no boarding pass - so be warned. Not sure I'll ever be stepping back here anytime soon in the future...

Chestnut-breasted Malkoha from Lata Jarum

These photos were taken some time back last year on a quiet morning trip to Lata Jarum. I originally wanted to take pictures of butterflies but this imposing bird just kept leaping from branch to branch on the same tree, playing hide-and-seek with me...

Promenade at Fraser's Hills

Today I was having wandering feet so I ended up going for a drive up the mountains at Fraser's Hills. We took a leisurely drive with a pit stop at Bukit Telaga for some photos and off from then on to Fraser's Hills we went. The thing about Fraser's Hills is that it is the nearest hill station to Raub at 30 plus kilometers away. Also, I had fond memories of the place as a child - its misty air, the flower beds, the mock tudor bungalows with their English air, the Hainanese coffee shops...but that would not be Fraser's Hills today. Gone are the well planted English flower beds, now replaced with unkept grassy plastic stuff, gaudily painted buildings, closed old-fashioned eateries only to be replaced with dirty street food that pollute the hill station with plastic wrappers and styrofoam boxes and yeah, everyone wanted to drive their big cars up there...great sadness of our time.

The Archduke, a common butterfly in lowland and mid elevation forests and planted land.

 A true jungle butterfly, the Malayan Owl, Neorina lowii - sunning itself on a leaf at Bukit Telaga.

 A cricket...

 The noisy Spider Hunter. You'll never miss it with its crackling cry around flowering shrubs. A common lower montane forest bird.

Unfolding whorl of a hill fern...

View of the valley where Jeriau is...

 The tree fern must be the poster boy for hill stations in the tropics. They are the fail proof sign of one reaching the montane forest level...

 The changeable Rose Hibiscus: pink indicate afternoon to evening. If you chance upon it in the early morning, you would have seen a pure white blossom, almost like a peony in spring.

 A few Silver-eared Meesias congregating under some shades on the way to Jeriau. Jeriau is currently closed to traffic.

 a pepper-like berry

a velvety nut...

 A lone Manau Rattan palm against the bakdrop of the Titiwangsa or Main Range...

 Memoires from a fluorescent-lit night - cicadas are attracted to light and in the evening, they will fly towards lighted building.

 The last original Hainanese Coffee shop unfortunately closed.

 A jungle tree laden with red pepper-like berries on the way down...

The Bamboo orchid.

Dinner at Barthod

Back in July this summer, I was invited to dinner by my friend Josette and her husband François  to a nice restaurant in Besançon. Well we took the last available garden table because it was summer and because we wanted to dine al fresco. Barthod started as a wine merchant in Besançon and now also as a posh restaurant serving food with paired wine.

 Our table by the garden's edge...

 A sneek peek at the menu...this page is the specialities of the restaurant.

 and this one is their "coup de coeur" - something you would chose on impulse or on first sight...

something to nible on before the meal...

 I was given two different types of wines for the foie gras dish that I ordered: I ordered the chef's suggestion - foie gras dans tous ses états: ravioles, escalopes poêlées, crème brûlée et foie gras de canard entier, served with a glass of Tariquet (sweet wine) 1er Grives 2011 and Barthod Bordeaux 2009. 

Josette and her husband...

 Here's my dinner: Translation of the chosen dish from the menu: foie gras in all its states - ravioli, pan seared,  in creme brulee and processed

 Finished with an infusion

 The walls at the entrance was panelled with wine cartons...