Eat up: sake oysters, snickerdoodles

and a cute collab with my fellow foodie

A slightly longer post today as I write from Granada, Spain, in a precious pocket of time. The sun beats down, smiles are generous, and the round of cobblestones massage my sneaker bottoms. Psyched for Miriam’s wedding (hi!), that will happen soon in Barcelona.

I was asked about today’s recipe recently, which I have put out on here before, but is reminiscent of my one-bowl coconut mochi in all its proper chew-goo glory. Check out the cinnamon treats below. Never sticky, petite, tender yet sturdy.

Food news of the week:

I’m excited to share the enticing mind of a fellow discerning palate. Maazin, unlike me, is a professor of food discourse and its intermingling with cultural trends surrounding it (and, may I add, men’s fashion..), which he delves into a little more in his post ‘Culinary-cultural Vulturism’. Eat it up before the world does.

I extract my favourite bit, but read the whole thing: “When visiting Mæne a few days ago, unsubtly influenced by a @topjaw video with Dom Fernando (founder of Paradise, Soho) where he incredulously claims to have been to the restaurant three times in one week, I was thinking about this (DF didn’t actually go 3x in a week as revealed by a confidante in the food-pr scene). At Mæne between a glass of blurred vines and reading a menu with words like ‘allotment vegetables’, ‘butter bean cassoulet’, and ‘hazelnut pesto’ - I thought about the five I speak with the most, and how much they care about what was said in the last How Long Gone (Lena Dunham lol); as I broke my Hario Cold Brew bottle this morning by knocking it over the kitchen counter while reaching for my white Stagg Fellow, I thought about when I would get the transparent aeropress. I thought about whether I should move the gahwa from the burnt caramel Hornsea I currently have it in (various colours/patterns collected at various MCM fairs from Dulwich College to Bussey Building - good store of value for about 10-15 squids each), to the matte black vacuum flask holding a few tablespoons of Tim Wendelboe. I thought about why I have menus from The Pelican up on my fridge and a first-edition hand-forged All Day Santoku in double-stacked HAY crate. Who is watching?”

Yeah, his stream-of-consciousness prose can make me laugh and cry at the same time. The menu bit made me realise– I’d like to pin myself as a food aficionado by way of keeping menus and typing descriptions of dishes that can be found elsewhere online. Is it manifestation, or delusion?

Next: If you’re keen to hear about tainted food of the highest calibre, stay tuned for a future review of Mugaritz, where foodies (dearest Charlie, who I met through foodie circles years ago, kindly made the reservation!) gather at 8pm on a Tuesday night to experience things like fresh-tasting meat, full-on mouldy tacos, raw lobster on broth-bound pasta cubes. I feel compelled to write about it properly, but all in due time, when the conflicting web of opinions in my head are untangled. Before that, find out where to get some sake-sodden oysters below.

Science of the week:

Starting a mini Med 3.0 series, a term coined by Peter Attia in his book Outlive, describing the peak of medical advancement, encapsulating a specific hope for medicine’s future. In essence, Med 1.0 hails from the Hippocratic era, where therapeutic conclusions were based off direct observation and guesswork more than anything (hello, bloodletting to balance the four humours??). Med 2.0 is more to do with tamping down symptoms of disease, after hypotheses are tested and treatments were developed using anecdotal evidence. This transition was a pivotal point in history and is where we still stand today: observing, treating, spending money to continue treating. The Covid vaccine is an example of this, without which immense suffering would’ve ensued. Now, Med 3.0, or personalised medicine. Though not a foreign concept to most, reading about it triggered memories of nutrition lectures during my Master’s, where I realised that it is useless to provide advice stemming from population-based studies, as these just don’t apply to the individual. It is sort of like painting a picture with broad brushstrokes without honing in on fine detail like shade gradients and linework. It may look appealing but is not a particularly meticulous approach. One example is trying to improve a person’s lipid profiles, or things like HDL (‘good’) and LDL (‘not as good’) cholesterol. Taking the Med 3.0 approach, you would ask what mix of lipids, and in what ratios, would be ideal to implement into a person’s diet, and monitor changes overtime, instead of bombarding someone with statins (drugs that lower cholesterol).

Insight of the week:

Netflix’s Maid (another show that made me weep- what a spectacle, a simple masterpiece!) made me re-appreciate my mother, with whom despite our fair share of ups and downs, has sacrificed a lot for me. It also made me think about accountability, or how we must hold responsibility for our actions, something the male protagonist in the show lacks. I’m curious to know whether any of you tell second or third parties before attempting a challenge, be it for flossing regularly, or promising to be a better-behaved partner. Perhaps you prefer going headstrong alone.

Recipe of the week:

Here I’m bringing in an alexcrumb favourite, the easy-peasy squidgy cookie choked with cinnamon.

Snickerdoodles (makes around 12 medium cookies, full post may be found here)

Ingredients

330g plain flour, or use half whole-wheat if desired

1/2 tsp each of baking powder and baking soda

pinch of salt

1 egg (vegan substitute: 1 flax egg– make it by mixing 1 tbsp ground flaxseed with 2 tbsp water and letting that gel in a small bowl for a few minutes before using)

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g butter at room temp (vegan substitute: vegan butter or margarine)

130g (around 3/4 cup) of white sugar

120g (around a packed 3/4 cup) of light brown sugar.

mixture to roll cookies in: 30g white sugar mixed with 1 tbsp ground cinnamon (you may realise you do not need all of it when rolling your dough in this mixture)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

Cream together the butter and sugar using a fork or whisk. I simply use a fork and spatula to cream it to save on some washing! Mix the butter and sugar until you get a smooth, fluffy consistency. Add the egg/flax egg and vanilla extract and mix until incorporated.

Next, add the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Mix everything by hand or with an electric whisk. The mixture will be quite dry and crumbly (don’t worry, they won’t turn out like this). Roll the mixture into 2-inch balls, then roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place the balls at least 1 inch apart as they will spread a little.

Bake them in the oven for 18 minutes. Once baked, take the cookies out and use the bottom of a glass to lightly tap on the tops of the cookies to flatten them just a little. This evens out the conduction of heat and makes the cookies incredibly chewy and less raw in the centre. The cookies will look slightly pale and perhaps a little raw once out of the oven, but leave them to cool on your counter and they will stiffen and cook a little more. Enjoy alone, and warm them up for 10 seconds on high in the microwave if consuming after the day of making, but preferably consume within 1-2 days.

Restaurant review of the week:

As well known as they are for their brunch, I was pleasantly surprised during a visit to try the dinner menu here. Walk straight into Australian suburbia and a man with draping curls bounces up with swinging hips and ‘come on down darling’s. It feels right, somehow. They’re excited to see you, which makes you excited to eat. Then, I drop my Gucci bag and one of the servers pretended not to notice and walked away hurriedly. Excuse me??