Christmas Day dinner and Adieu to 2013...

My friends came over for a final binge on some culinary delights before the end of 2013 and to welcome the arrival (very soon) of 2014. So, here's the pictorial...

The setting...

 Foie gras in block served with tangerine and 3 different confits: red onions, tomatoes and ginger-apricots. Loved it with a glass of sweet bubbling Asti.

Tomato soup with a dollop of creme fraîche to lighten the taste buds after the heavy foie gras.

 Pan-fried local fish (no idea what it is called because the fishmonger couldn't explain to me in English but it looks like a big Senangin, has a very nice firm texture and apparently its maw is highly priced in Chinese cooking (the dried maw costs RM20K a kilo!). Surprisingly, this fish took to searing extremely well on a hot pan and retained its firm texture though a bit bland in taste. The salad is blanched pea shoots in garlic oil on a pomegranate fish sauce made by distilling fish stock, red wine and fresh pomegranate juice.

 Quiche Lorraine with a salad to lighten its tasting.

Star of the show: roasted stuffed goose with watercress salad, pea purée and its own cooking jus.

 Composed cheese: Brie and parmiggiano (don't ask why), balsamic reduction and a salade in lemon honey vinaigrette.

To end it all - carrot cake napped in chocolate ganache and decorated with toasted pine nuts and gold foil.

At the Beaubourg (3)

Featured the works of Geneviève Asse (from 26 June till 9 September 2013).

I liked her works because of the subtle permutations of all shades of grays and blues featured in her quiet interiors and abstracts...I was strolling along the corridors of the Beaubourg during my last trip and in the quiet corner of the galleries are her beautiful and unassuming retrospective waiting to be discovered.

 La cuisine, vers 1946-47

 Composition à la fenêtre, vers 1952

 Nature morte bleue, 1955 (Blue still-life)

 Composition, 1960

Cercle paysage, 1966 (Round Landscape)

 La porte, 1967 (The Door)

 Peinture, 1969 (Painting)

 Horizontale XIII (collage), 1978

 Triptyque lumière 1970-71

 Ouverture verticale collage, 1983

Read about Genieve Asse in http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/943278/at-90-painter-genevieve-asse-gets-her-due-with-centre-pompidou

Rhythm of the forest

The fair weather for the past week was good news because I get to do some activities that are reserved for dryer times. The jungle is much greener and the streams are flowing with fresh and clean water...

In the blurred center is the beautiful and rare Leaf Butterfly, Kallima limborgii. It was attracted to oozing sap of a freshly cut torch ginger stem near a bamboo grove...

Not far away, another bamboo grove was dug for hunting purpose - someone had surely hunted either porcupine or bamboo rats...not that it is unusual as this path snakes through miles of prime Orang Asli territory...

A translucent fruit in the shades by the stream...

A small pool where tiny snakeheads, barbs and Bettas live...

A group of Graphiums came puddling under the hot sun...

The mid day sun filters through the canopy onto the clear water stream...

A denizen of the shades by the stream...

Another guarding its watery sentry spot...

An aquatic plant, Crytocoryne affinis by the stream's edge...

A burst of colour from a Spotted Jay, caught in mid-flight...

At the Beaubourg (2)

Here's the second part of the pictorial visit of Beaubourg (with many more to come)...

Eduardo Arroyo, El Caballero Espanol (1970)

Peter Saul, Bewtiful & Stwong (1971)

Erro, Watercolour in San Marco/ Watercolour in Moscow (1971)

Helmut Batzner, Chaises BA 1171 (1966)

Robert Ryman, Untitled (1974)

Cy Twombly, Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus (1962)

Breakfast at Bukit Beruang

Melaka may not be the best place to eat Dim Sum but if you do have the desire to have dim sum for breakfast, the most unlikely place to eat in Melaka would be at Bukit Beruang. It used to be a two-shoplot space but now, they have extended to three. It is relatively the cleanest dim sum restaurant in Melaka to date, service is prompt with a fair variety of offering. taste wise, well, it is mostly run-of-the-mill type of dim sum but the price is really attractive copmared to those in KL...

 The lotus leaf-wrapped glutinous rice was good with a cup of pu-err tea...

 Stuffed chilli and brinjal...

The large pork bun was however, a let down because the skin was a tad too thick for me. However, the filling was fresh and well seasoned...

The fried radish cake, a staple favourite in dim sum shops. We were four and had our fill for just a little over RM30, something unheard of in KL...

Break in the weather

Today'a a special day because morning was blue sky and so, I hurried to my usual spot for some outdoor activities - photographing. The recent heavy downpours had cleaned the river bed of its year-long sediments and the water was extremely fresh and pristine...

 Wonderful to see blue sky during the monsoon period...

 Some denizens of the forest took advantage of the sun to warm up...