This dough contains vinegar. The smell is strong but only through the kneading and proofing process. Once the dough is baked, the smell dissipates. It's a tip I got from a Dan Lepard recipe for bagels. The dough is more pliable, but it can also be a little sticky. There's very little handling though so I don't add any extra flour. The bread is cooked in a hot pan on the stove and then grilled/broiled in the oven so the top browns. Little pockets of air form in the crust, which is lovely. This bread is based on a Turkish pide, which should be long and narrow ~ they should resemble a sampan or canoe. Mine is more like a Vietnamese round fishing boat.

In Turkey, they use uncooked but spiced minced meat as the filling. I've used cooked ingredients ~ caramelised onion, which Ivy gave me, grilled discs of zucchini and eggpkant, and grated emmental cheese. But just about anything works if it's good. Nothing with too much sauce or gravy though ~ a dry chicken curry would be quite nice.

To make the Pide dough, combine in a bowl: 2 cups bread flour, 1/2 tsp instant yeast, a large pinch of sugar, a large pinch of salt, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon neutral flavoured oil, and 3/4 cup water. Stir until the mixture clumps together, adding extra water if it is too dry. Form into a rough ball, cover the bowl and set aside for 10 minutes.

Knead the dough using the fold and stretch method (a 10-second knead three times every 10 minutes) until smooth and elastic. Cover the bowl again and leave until well-proofed and springy. Divide into three or four fairly equal portions. Form into balls. At this stage, the dough balls can be individually sealed in lightly oiled plastic bags and refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Assembly and cooking

Turn on the oven grill. Heat a heavy-based oven-proof pan on the stove over high heat. Add a little oil to the pan.

Flatten out a ball of dough into an oblong shape. Place cooked filling in the centre and cheese along the outside edge. Roll the edges in over the cheese and form into an oval with high sides and tapered ends. If desired, spoon a little beaten egg over the filling.

Carefully place the pide into the hot pan. Turn the heat down and cook the bottom until brown and the dough puffs up, about 1 minute. Transfer the pan to oven and cook until the cheese has melted and the edges of the bread are golden and done, 8-12 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice. Eat while the crust is crisp.

SIGARA BÖREĞI OR CIGARETTE BÖREK 

I didn't get the chance to try cigarette börek or sigara böreği in Istanbul. This pastry, shaped like a Turkish cigar, is made with a phyllo-like flaky dough called yufka and filled with ingredients like feta, parsley and sometimes potato or meat.

I saw other kinds of börek though – made in the larger pie-like shape and snail shell, but not the cigars.

Yufka pastry apparently comes in various thicknesses. The thicker ones are eaten like flatbread and used for wrapping meats and to scoop up dips (like the one in the picture below). The thinner ones are used for pastries like the börek. A lot of recipes say to use phyllo pastry if yufka is not available. Phyllo is thinner though, so about three leaves need to be layered together.

A thicker version of yufka is the flatbread seen in the background. Chicken doner with rice and (inset) pickled chillies. 

I decided to make my own pastry, based on the type you might use for a strudel. The dough is elastic so it can be stretched until quite thin. I've used this recipe for a strudel before, but this time, I left out the egg yolk.

The filling is a mixture of mashed potato, shredded cheddar, a Turkish hard cheese and snipped spring onions (green onions). I don't know what the Turkish cheese is called; it has the crumbly texture of parmigiano-reggiano and tastes like a sharp blue cheese – very sharp, in fact, which I only realised after the börek were cooked. 

I bought the cheese at a grocery shop in the northwest quarter of Istanbul where hardly any English is spoken, but it's where the locals shop. One of the delightful shopkeepers saw me looking at this variety and cut off a piece for me to taste. I liked it and chose a chunk that was already portioned. He weighed it and it cost 11 Turkish lira (about RM17.50), which is a really good price for organic, unprocessed cheese.

Turkish spice mix

The filling is seasoned with a spice mix that I got in Kadıköy, a town on the Asian side of Istanbul. This is one of the residential areas of the city but again, not much English is spoken. There are some shops catering to tourists but the prices are not inflated because it's also where the locals shop. 

According to the tube, the mix has eight type of spices. The names are all in Turkish, though, so I had to do some Googling to find out the English names. Except for one spice (poy), I found out (if I've correctly identified them) that the others are mint (nane), fenugreek (çemek), white pepper (toz biber), Greek oregano or wild thyme (kekik), sumak (no English name), coriander (kişniş) and red pepper flakes (pul biber). 

Make the sigara böreği in advance and store in the fridge or freezer.  

My börek are fried, but they can also be baked. I'm hopeless at frying but since I made only six this time, this was quicker and I got to eat them sooner!

Cigarette Börek (Sigara Böreği)

Makes 6

95g bread flour

Pinch of salt

50ml water, plus extra if needed

1 tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for brushing and frying

½ tsp apple cider vinegar

Filling*, about 1¼ cups

Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Combine the liquids and add to the bowl. Bring everything together to form a soft dough, adding more water if necessary. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Divide dough into six equal balls. Roll out the dough into an elongated oval until very thin. Then, using the back of your fists, slowly stretch out the oval into a rough triangle until you can see through it (a few small holes are okay).

Brush the surface with oil. Place a row of filling at the wider end, fold in the lower points of the triangle and roll up towards the upper point. Make the rest of the börek.

At this stage, the börek can be stored in the fridge or freezer.

Heat up a large frying pan and add about 2 tbsp of oil. Fry the börek until brown on all sides. Serve with a dip.

* The filling is a mixture of mashed potato, shredded cheddar, a Turkish hard cheese and snipped spring onions (green onions), and seasoned with a Turkish spice mix. 

SIMIT, A GREAT BREAD ROLL 

I could eat one simit a day every day for the rest of my life. This is one of the best bread rolls I have ever had. (Why only one? It's huge!)

Before visiting Istanbul, I did some research on the breads that I could get here, and the simit most interested me. I liked the twisted ring shape and heavy sesame seed coating.

I looked up some recipes and made what I imagined simit to be based on pictures I had seen. The dough is a simple one, quite firm, which is rolled out into snakes, twisted, formed into rings, dunked in date syrup and encrusted in sesame seeds before being baked.

What I made tasted all right, but they were not simit. Nothing close to the real thing as I found out when I got here and had my first bite.

So, now that I have fallen in love with authentic Turkish simit, what am I going to do when I get home? :-(

FRIED IKAN MASIN WITH ONION, CHILLI AND ASSAM

I was in the northeastern state of Terengganu last week. Besides a healthy tan, I brought back the not quite so healthy seafood snacks, crackers and salted whitebait.

My mother told me to prepare the salted fish or ikan masin by soaking and rinsing in water three times before using, which I did because I normally listen to my mother. I soaked the fish for about 15 minutes each time, but three dunkings in water seem to have rid the fish of all its salty flavour as well. Not quite what I look for in salted fish.

Ikan masin, soaked (left) and fried

Anyway, I went ahead and fried the little fish until crisp, then tossed them together with fried onion rings, red chillies, lemongrass and a tamarind sauce. 

Together with a quick cabbage stir-fry and rice, lunch was served. Simple, delicious kampung food.

Not quite so kampung food was what we had in the little riverside town of Chukai on our way to our destination – baked crabs at the famous Tong Juan restaurant.

They certainly weren't stingy with the filling in each crab – there was a lot of it and it was very fresh. We had two crab shells each, which was really filling, especially since we had the meal with rice.

Personally, I thought the crab meat needed a boost of something. Terengganu food leans towards the sweet side and I have chilli in my blood, so I added quite a lot of the accompanying chilli sauce to it.

SRI LANKAN PRAWN VARAI 

I got this recipe from Mr S. Siluvairasu, the proprietor of the Yarl Beach Inn in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, when I stayed there in August 2003. I haven't cooked it much, which is a shame since it isn't difficult to do at all and is really delicious.

Actually what Mr Silu cooked when I was there (on a press assignment) was shark varai  (pronounced vah-ray) – flaked shark meat cooked with grated coconut and spices. Prawns are an alternative, and the dish can be eaten with rice, thosai or stringhoppers.

One of Mr Silu's other specialities that I enjoyed was baked crabs, also a well-known dish in Jaffna and another recipe that he gave me. That one takes a bit more preparation but it's also a really wonderful dish.

Mr Silu’s Prawn Varai

500g prawns, shelled and cleaned

150g grated coconut

2 tsp chilli powder

Pinch of turmeric powder

¼ tsp black pepper

½ tsp cumin powder

Salt to taste

3 shallots, sliced

3 dried chillies, soaked and cut into 1cm lengths

Leaves from 1 sprig of curry leaves

2 tbsp cooking oil

Steam the prawns until tender. Cool and chop finely (do not mince; you want little chunks).

Mix prawns with grated coconut, chilli powder, turmeric powder, black pepper, cumin powder and salt. Set aside.

Heat oil in a wok and fry the sliced shallots, dried chillies and curry leaves over medium heat until shallots are golden.

Add prawn mixture and fry, stirring constantly, until dry and coconut turns lightly golden. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

SALTED TILAPIA DEEP-FRIED LONGHOUSE STYLE 

This was the saltiest dish I had tasted in a while. It was also one of the most delicious dishes I have had.

I have just come back from Sarawak (largest state in Malaysia; situated on the island of Borneo) after a three-night stay with my mother, aunt and sister. This was one of the dishes we had for lunch at the.Dyak café in Kuching (state capital; also the Malay word for "cat") on the day after we arrived.

Every state in Malaysia has its own kind of salted fish and Sarawak is no exception. While I am not unfamiliar with deep-fried salted fish, I only know it as a sort of side dish and smaller fish are often used for that. None of us – and my mum and aunt are expert cooks! – could even tell that what came to the table was salted fish until we took out first bite. No one expected it to be so salty though, but I enjoyed it. I ate most of the fish anyway!

Enjoying the beach (map, with my additions, from Damai Beach Resort)

The four of us stayed at Damai beach and swam (paddled about gracelessly, more like it!) in the South China Sea with Mount Santubong as a backdrop. I haven't had a dip in the ocean in years. The sea bed was a little rocky and the water wasn't very clear, but it was clean and warm. There weren't many people around so we had practically the whole beach to ourselves. I lost a toe-ring in the ocean – I can always get another one; a day at a nice beach is obviously more difficult to come by for me. 

the.Dyak dishes (clockwise from left): ulam raja; paku kubok gulai kechala; and jani tunu

We didn't just have the deep-fried salted Tilapia at the.Dyak, of course. 

There was also Jani Tunu, or grilled three-layer pork. To me, it looked and tasted like char siu with some belly pork still on the meat. It was served with a "special sauce", which I thought was a good blended chilli paste but again, nothing special. The dish was tasty, but not unusual.

What was truly delicious was the Ulam Raja. Translated as king's salad, it's also a plant with soft, pungent leaves. These leaves are minced and mixed with other greens, herbs and spices, and a sweet lime dressing. It was garnished with deep-fried ikan bilis (anchovies).

The other green we had was jungle ferns stir-fried with chillies. These ferns are called bilin or midin in Sarawak. In a raw salad with a similar lime dressing as the ulam raja, they make what is probably Sarawak's signature dish.

We were supposed to go to the Bako National Park the second day of our visit, but it rained heavily that night and into the morning, and our expedition had to be cancelled. We would have had a lovely boat ride through the jungle before arriving at the park, so we were pretty upset. And that's how we ended up driving the 35km to Kuching and having lunch at the.Dyak. Not to take anything away from the café and its good food, but both my sister and I would definitely have preferred spending the day in more natural surroundings.

Seduku (left) and offspring

But we did get to visit the Semanggoh Orang Utan Rehabilition Centre the next day, which was delightful. I have never seen orang utan in the wild so we were very lucky to see seven of them that morning. Visitors come at feeding times in the mornings and afternoons, but the apes don't always show themselves even when the rangers have left goodies for them. 

The oldest one at the centre is a grandmother named Seduku and we saw her first with her offspring (I didn't catch its name). Up next was a female named Delima with her baby. The rangers have nicknamed Delima "Hot Mama", not so much for her attractiveness but because of her temper. She's always the troublemaker and has even bitten off a finger of one of the rangers! Later, we saw a male and then another female carrying her two-day-old baby.

That visit was the best part of the trip for me.

THE BUDS ARE OUT IN ICHINOSEKI, NORTHEAST JAPAN  

One of my sisters just read that if you spit in temperatures well below zero degrees, it will freeze below it hits the ground. I was in a massive fish freezer at minus 60°C (–76°F) recently, but couldn't very well test that theory in such a hygienic location.

The picture above could be of buds on a plum, cherry or apricot tree in Japan. No one in the group could tell me for sure. No matter; it was pretty and brings me comfort after some of the things I saw on my trip to northeastern Japan.

The visit was quite an experience. As expected, the schedule was packed but it was colder than I thought it would be. Thankfully, it didn't snow as had been forecast. I can't give details here or post any pictures of the places I visited until after my report comes out in print (on March 11, the anniversary of the tsunami), but I can talk about the more light-hearted matter of food.

We get in at Narita in the early morning but it's an almost two-hour bus ride to the hotel in downtown Tokyo. Check-in isn't until the afternoon, so we leave out luggage and walk around the nearby shops to look for a place to eat. We come upon a little place, a working man's joint, where you order and pay through a vending machine, pass the ticket to the man behind the counter, tell him whether you want soba or udon and he prepares the bowl of soupy ramen for you.

Ramen soup for breakfast

I made my choice based solely on the picture in the window since everything was in Japanese. I couldn't tell what the garnish on top was but it sure looked good. Turned out it was some sort of omelette, actually more like a puffy pancake, with loads of chopped spring onion (green onion) mixed in. A sprinkling of Japanese chilli flakes on top and I set to it hungrily. It was absolutely delicious. There was no spoon, so I held the bowl in both hands and tipped the last bits of noodles and broth into my mouth.

The mall was already opened by then and I walked around alone while the others shopped. But then I came upon the floor at the Keio Department Store in Shinjuku where they sold all the kitchen stuff and was so amused by all the gadgets and cute kitschy stuff with its ironic appeal that the Japanese are so good at. I got myself a ceramic paring knife and a stove-top sandwich maker, which deserves a blog post all its own!

Yakitori for lunch

I wasn't exactly hungry at lunchtime, but since there was still time to kill and we were too tired to walk around some more, we decided to go into a narrow alley between the big shops where there was a row of little eateries offering grilled skewered chicken (yakitori) along with the kidney, liver, gizzard, skin, wing tips, cartilage and some "spare parts" we couldn't identify. We had the skewers in a sauce (top) and cooked with salt. The sides were grilled green beans (delicious), green peppers, pickled bamboo shoots and strips of lotus root and carrot. I wasn't sold on the offal but the actual flesh of the chicken was excellent.

The next morning, we took the bullet train to Sendai and then to Ichinoseki, and hopped on the organiser's bus to their field office. Since the schedule was so packed, we bought our lunches at a Lawson convenience store (love this chain and wished I had had more time so that I could do a whole story on it for my newspaper!) to eat on the bus, while we were given the briefing for the visit at the Kesennuma Fishery Co-operative (with the aforementioned freezer) 1½ hours away. I got a pork teriyaki bento but didn't remember to take pictures of it. It was very good.

Prawn tempura for dinner

That night, we had dinner the restaurant of Kura Hotel, where we stayed. We knelt before low tables and experienced Japanese-style dining. Rice is grown in this area and people eat a lot of it here. Although I was hungry, I just couldn't finish the huge portion of rice that came with the deep-fried breaded prawn set. Those were three of the biggest prawns I had seen in a while!

The next morning, we were off to Minami Sanriku by the sea. It's a week shy of seaweed harvesting season, but I was one of the few in the group who had the opportunity to go on a boat to where the seaweed is grown to see how the harvesting is done. Very cold, but what an experience! 

Taste-testing salads and a soup made with fresh seaweed; bottom right: the seaweed tips 

While we were gone, some of the ladies who work in the processing plant had been busy preparing fresh wakame dishes for us, and there were a couple of salads and hot soup waiting when we got back to shore. The salads were pretty simple, dressed with salt, sugar, fresh ginger and vinegar, but so, so delicious. The salad made with the tips of the seaweed (the lighter green one in the top picture) was slightly slimy (like okra), but not at all unpleasant.

Chicken katsu for lunch

The last sit-down meal was lunch that day. The meal was pre-ordered for us, but I was not disappointed with the breaded chicken cutlet, served with salad, mayonnaise and tofu soup.

I had my final "meal" in Japan the next morning at the airport – a Green Tea Kit Kat!

Healthy chocolate?

THE GOOD, THE MAD AND THE LOVELY 

Before I left to visit my sister and her family in San Jose, California, I thought about what food stories could come out of the Bay Area. Most of the time, I would be eating what Joyce prepared at home but I was sure we would go out and look for something special as well. I knew that there would be plenty of fresh, organic food and I could always find a farmers' market somewhere. Food trucks were also big in the San Area and that was something else I could focus on. And let's not forget Californian wine, San Francisco sourdough and amazing seafood.
    There's all that, and pleasantly, I found more.
    I am ashamed to say that, although I read everything I can about bread, I had never heard of Dutch Crunch, or Tiger bread, until I looked up the sandwich menu at Driftwood Deli & Market in Palo Alto. I had never tasted a pluot, a cross between a plum and an apricot, or Santa Maria tri-tip, or held a 35cm (14-inch) churro in my hand (every one of these items was excellent). And doughnuts with strange names and stranger toppings? Fuhgeddaboudit!
   And I'm going to be laughed right out of town for admitting this but I used Twitter for the first time to hunt down a food truck. Look, this social media stuff is not my thing, okay.
    So, yes, I did have plenty to write about for the newspaper column (and included a recipe for corn dogs), apart from several posts in this space on:

• visiting a farmers' market;
• preparing and eating artichoke;
• having a crab boil;
• the amount of meat I consumed; and
• wandering beyond San Jose.

    Of course, there's always room for more images by which to remember all the food and food-finding excursions.

Visit the Campbell Farmers' Market for fresh produce and freshly made food

Sam's ChowderMobile is well-known in the Bay Area. On the menu are clam chowder, lobster roll and Baja fish tacos

This no-name food truck sells cold drinks, packaged snacks and goodies like corn dogs and deep-fried burritos

    There's not been much baking in the past few weeks, and the most complicated thing I got around to when I got home was opening a packet of instant noodles and pouring water onto them. But as I write this, something I learned about in America – which I hope will turn out well – is proofing on my kitchen counter as the oven heats up.
    I think I might also try making a S'More doughnut , like the one from Psycho Donuts. This is how I plan to do it:

1. Buy a chocolate-covered doughnut.
2. Melt some marshmallows in the microwave oven.
3. Melt some chocolate in another bowl in the microwave oven.
4. Break up some graham crackers.
5. Spread the melted marshmallows on the purchased chocolate-covered doughnut.
6. Pile the graham cracker shards on the melted marshmallows, pressing them down lightly so they stick, and drizzle on the melted chocolate.

Now I just have to see if it actually works.

SAND,  SEA AND A SANDWICH 

* A post that is not about food.

The beach makes everything tastes better, doesn't it? On picnics, that first bite of nasi lemak after a swim, whether in the Straits of Malacca or the South China Sea, is glorious. Someone should come up with a gimmick/gadget to simulate that ambience. They would make money.
    On our visit to Monterey one Saturday, we stopped by the Point Pinos Lighthouse. We got there before it opened, so we headed down to the beach nearby to have an early lunch (I found out that when you have two small children, everything has to be early). We had made tortilla wraps with slices of honey smoked turkey, cheese and avocado. The avocado was still a little under-ripe, but when you have a vista like the one we did, everything tastes good.

Point Pinos Lighthouse

    The lighthouse is lovely. The cottage is so pretty and would be my perfect place to live: great view, close to the sea, and a little remote.
    I don't know if it was because of the weekend, but there were so many people in Monterey. We took a walk down Cannery Row although we didn't make it far enough to see John Steinbeck's bronze statue. We had some frozen yoghurt and stopped by the beach.

Monterey beach

    On the rocks, sea-lions were sunning themselves. They're actually on the left in the picture above, on that little rocky outlay in the centre and they're the ones I was focusing on but unfortunately, I didn't get a good shot.

Visiting two pumpkin patches

    Halfway to Monterey, we stopped at Earthbound Farm in Carmel. In the collage above, the two top pictures were taken at the farm. There's Mady on the left looking up at a sunflower that's bigger than her head, although with her mass of brown curls, she almost measured up. We had fun going through the corn maze and running around the stone labyrinth. And the herb garden was quite amazing. Just the mint varieties alone drove me crazy – if I were a pixie, I would live in just that one section of the garden.
    The two bottom pictures are from Uesugi Farms near Gilroy, which we visited another day. This pumpkin patch has a fairground atmosphere, with rides and games. Mady and I went on the big train ride (on rails), as well as the Cow Train which was pulled by a tractor. Any child shorter than 36 inches has to be accompanied by an adult, and me trying to get into one of those sawn-off barrels that was a "cow" was a comical sight. The barrel wasn't very big and it was a tight squeeze fitting my bum into it. But I got to ride it with my god-daughter so there's nothing to complain about.
    The last stop on the visit was to get pumpkins to carve for Halloween. Joyce got a Sugar Pie Pumpkin each for Mady and Sophie – there they are making their choices in the bottom left picture. In Malaysia, all the pumpkin varieties seem to be round, and I was fascinated with what you could find in America. I really liked the shape of that Turban Squash on the far right.
    But know something: there was pumpkin everywhere and I didn't eat any during my visit.

Stanford University: (clockwise from top left) a 'You Are Here' map; a delightful drinking fountain; the Memorial Church; the corridor of Building 40-70 facing the Main Quad; Hoover Tower; and a sculpture at the Rodin Sculpture Garden (Mady has her hands in the dirt. That girl!) 

    Now, one last place I have to include in this post that is not about food is Stanford University, although being in Palo Alto, it isn't exactly far away from San Jose. The last time I visited Joyce and Keith (before the girls were born) I had mentioned that I was interested in seeing Stanford. When I was thinking of doing a PhD some years ago, this was one of the universities I looked at because it had (and probably still does although I haven't checked since then) the perfect area of language studies for my research interest. I enjoyed the visit. Thanks Joyce!
    Actually, I have much to appreciate Joyce for. My sister is the ultimate multi-tasking mum. First of all, it amazes me how, when she is driving the minivan with the girls in it, she is able to comfort Sophie when she is fussing, answer Mady's constant questions, keep her eye on the road, follow the GPS thingy and listen to the radio all at the same time! And then she also has a guest to take care of for two and a half weeks. I am humbled. The next time I have another badly written story to edit at work, I shall remember that it is nothing compared to what Joyce does.
    I shall end this post with a picture of the amazing vista we passed as we made our way back to San Jose from the pumpkin patch in Gilroy.

HOWLING FOR A CORN DOG  

I am not a vegetarian but my diet is primarily meatless. Joyce and family eat meat at practically every meal. So by my calculations, I must have eaten four months' worth of meat in the two and a half weeks I was at her place. That's a lot of meat for me. Almost as much as I have mentioned meat in this one paragraph.
   My first dine-out meal out in California was at a sports bar called Smoke Eaters, which is known for its hot wings. Adam Richman of Man vs Food has been there for the restaurant's hell-fire challenge. Its seven levels of heat are mild, traditional, atomic, nuclear, traditional death, 4 alarm, and inferno.

Clockwise from top left: Braised beef short ribs; Smoke Eaters' fried chicken wings and tenders; St John's Bar and Grill tri-tip sandwich; and pork and beef meatballs (uncooked)

    With our fried chicken wings and tenders, we decided on atomic as our hottest hot sauce. Based on the name, I expected some level of explosion but there wasn't even a small one. Quite a dud, I must say.
     Another time, Keith met us for lunch at St John's Bar & Grill on Tri-Tip Tuesday. It was the first time I have tasted this cut of beef, which was grilled Santa Maria-style, and I thought the sandwich it came in was good, but Joyce says she has tasted better. The fries at the restaurant, however, deserve the right to be called "the best in the universe".
    As I said, meat features prominently on the menu at home. For dinner one night, Joyce made an excellent braised beef short rib, and although she portioned two hefty ribs for each of us, I could only eat one. It was just too much for me. Another night, Mady and I made meatballs for a spaghetti sauce. They look like little cannonballs in her little three-year-old hands.

Turkey, cheese and avocado sandwich

    On our way to Stanford University in Palo Alto, we stopped at Driftwood Deli & Market for one of its gourmet sandwiches. We were not disappointed. Sitting under a big tree in front of the students financial aid office in Stanford, Joyce and I shared a pastrami melt and a turkey, cheese and avocado. Both came in a Dutch crunch roll, a type of bread I encountered for the first time. It is something I am planning to try to make myself.

Crispy bacon and maple cream doughnut

    And then, when I thought I had had enough meat, we go to Psycho Donuts and even the confections are not meat-free. On the same day, we had some corn dogs, which we microwaved from frozen. They weren't bad, but frying them would have probably been better.
    Needless to say, there's a lot of extra meat on me now. It's going to take me longer than two and a half weeks to work it all off.

CRAB BOIL: SEAFOOD AT ITS BEST

What's not to like about a crab boil? Place seafood and a bunch of extras into a pot of seasoned poaching liquid, remove them when cooked, place on newspapers and get cracking.
    Well, there is one step in the process that isn't so pleasant: For the best flavour, the crabs have to be fresh and they must go into the pot alive. Put them to sleep in the freezer or iced water before cooking.
    There's really not much to do to enjoy a crab boil. The toughest part is probably putting down enough newspaper for all the cracked shells and discarded skin. The corn needs to be husked, but the seafood goes into the pot innards and all. Onions can be added to the poaching liquid for added flavour but since the broth isn't drunk, unless one wants to, the onions can go in with their skins on.

The brand of seasoning we used for the crab boil. The whole mesh bag of spices is put into a pot of water.

    We had the crab boil when Jer was over from Malaysia for a business meeting at his company's headquarters in Silicon Valley so it just happened that there were three Ragavans in San Jose at one time. We had just had a brunch of dim sum at home and then cousin Philip, who had driven over from his home five minutes away, decides that he wants to have a crab boil. So he goes out to get the blue crabs, prawns and crab boil seasoning and at 2pm, with the dim sum hardly digested, we sat down to another meal. Talk about eating too much!

Corn and red potatoes are traditional extras, but not the Vietnamese beef balls

    Spicy andouille sausages are the traditional addition to the mix of sides, but Philip is fond of Vietnamese beef balls so we used those instead. I didn't think they looked very appealing, but they tasted good.

Scoop out the seafood and sides from the poaching liquid

    My fingers smelled of seafood for hours after the crab boil. But with the fantastic frozen strawberry margarita that brother-in-law Keith had made in my hand, who could be bothered with smelly fingers.

A MORNING AT A FARMERS' MARKET

After three days in San Jose, I finally slept through the night and did not wake up at 2am as I have been since arriving in America. Insufficient sleep wasn't going to get in the way of my having a good time, but I could enjoy the Californian sights more if I didn't keep falling asleep in the car.
    On Sunday, we all piled into the family minivan and headed off to the Campbell Farmers' Market about 15 minutes from home. The market isn't very large, spreading over just three blocks and it sells fresh and cooked food. There are also a few stalls selling hand-crafted items like earrings and soap.
   I'll be writing about the farmers' market for the newspaper when I go back to work (boo hoo), so I have to keep some pictures for that.

Fresh from the market

    We got a lot of wonderful fresh produce: strawberries, potatoes, nectarines and a hybrid plum-apricot called pluots, artichokes, crimini mushrooms and a bunch of basil whose aroma lingered on my fingers now! There were a couple of girls selling Indian food, and we bought a couple of their samosas, but I have to say, they were not very good. The pastry was soggy and the filling rather meagre.
    I had to get a bag of kettle corn, of course. The one in the picture is the smallest bag for US$3. It's the size of my head but I still wanted to get the medium-size one. Joyce said it was too much, even though she knows how much I like popcorn.

Something you don't necessarily need but is always welcomed

    As we walked back to the minivan, we passed a restaurant with a sign on the window that beckoned. If only it wasn't 10 o'clock in the morning.