Nobody quite knew what had happened. A couple of months later, the shop re-opened selling durians, but it was not Four Seasons! Durians were not of good quality and we felt that the prices were being raised, so walked out without getting anything.

Fastforward to June 09. Had family dinner at Fei Fei Wanton Mee. Mother’s sharp eyes caught a bright sign that said “Four Seasons Durians Cafe” even before we parked the car properly. Yes it was! Magically revived, deeper in Joo Chiat Place (at the junction of Joo Chiat Place and Tembling Lane), and still with the same great durians. Family immediately dug in, durians were great tasting, creamy and fragrant. The mystery of why they had closed the original shop was also solved – they got summoned / fined as the government did not allow them to use the space facing the main Still Road for displaying durians. However, I think their new location is easier for customers as there’s ample parking in the vicinity, provided that they can find their way there in the first place!

Felt like having a little bit of sunshine in my life, had nothing much to do at that point, and on a bit of a fender-bender about natural foods. Definitely not because I felt Martha Stewart-ish. So, whiled the time away by making orange marmalade! It really is awfully easy, but requires a bit of time and patience. Even the premium jams consist of at most 40% fruit (the rest is sugar and gelling agents!) whereas if you make it yourself, your own jam will consist of at least 60% fruit. And the end result tastes so much vastly superior to store bought jams. A good use of 2 hours of time.

The substance which gives jam its semi-solid consistency is pectin, which occurs naturally in fruits (and eggs too!) to different levels. You can use fruits other than oranges, but the pectin levels differ so additives may have to be used to make other types of jam. Citrus fruits (their rinds to be technically correct), blackberries, redcurrents have very high levels of pectin so no additives required while strawberries are low pectin fruits so you do need to use additional pectin to make strawberry jam, either by using commercially derived pectin (available in baking stores) or lemon juice.

Scrub the oranges and lemon well, and cut into quarters, leaving the rind on. Soak in 2 cups (480 ml) of water overnight. The next day, cut the fruit into fine shreds or dice them finely if it is easier. Reserve the soaking water.

[If you do not like the slightly bitter taste of the rind, remove the rind from 1 orange, do not chop it up, but reserve it for cooking since the rind has very high pectin levels which facilitates the jam to coagulate and become gel like. Otherwise you will end up with runny orange syrup.]

Cook the diced fruit together with the soaking water at a simmer for 1 hour, taste to ensure that the chopped up rind has softened. Measure out the cooked mixture at this point and add about 60 – 70% of the volume as sugar (i.e. if you have 1 bowl of cooked mixture, add 0.6 of a bowl of sugar into your saucepan). Continue cooking the mixture together with the sugar, over a very low heat. Stir regularly as high sugar mixtures tend to caramelise and burn easily. After about 20 minutes or so, test to see if the jam is ready. Scoop up a teaspoon of the jam and place in the fridge to cool down. The jam is ready when it does not flow back when you part it in the centre using your finger.

Scoop your lovely jam into pre-sterilized jam jars. You can do this while the jam is cooking by simply pouring boiling water over clean jam jars and then heating them in the oven at 200 deg C for 15 min. Use tongs to handle the jars and their covers, do not contaminate them once they have been sterilized.

My test run of about 6 km was pretty good – I felt a lot less breathless and could run faster and longer with a lot less effort. Shoes were extremely light which helped too. The not so good – the shoes weren’t that stable since I pronate a lot when running, so I can imagine that there might be risk of injury on long runs. Will try out the stability trainer next time, so I can compare with my current Nike Triax to see how the motion control fares.

Finally, hit pay dirt at Cold Storage Jelita last night (maybe there’s high demand from all the rich people living in the vicinity). All the different types of Adam’s PB!! Quickly grabbed one bottle of 100% natural chunky, $6.95 but never mind….it’s not that much more expensive than Skippy’s or Peter Pan PB.

And promptly had it for breakfast this morning (on hindsight, it’s good that I managed to get in a 5 km run before 8am). Wah, PB heaven! It is so rich and nutty…. can taste peanut crunch in every single bite. (Relatively) good for your body too, with no nasty hydrogenated oils – the oil separates but who cares, just stir it back in. E was staring very hard all over the jar trying to look for the ingredients list (doctors can be sooooo anal about health matters) until I pointed out to him that the only ingredient was “peanuts”. Hahahaha.

After 40 minutes we arrived at the head of the queue …. although there were only about 12 people ahead of us (some ordered 4 or 5 packets). The stack of dirty plates waiting to be washed outside his stall towered high , I estimated about 100 plates as of 8pm? At $3 a plate and assuming he serves up 200 plates by 10 pm, that’s $600 in revenue each day! Wow! Uncle fries each order of char kway teow individually, with a generous helping of see hum.

In my opinion, a steak should be eaten medium-rare. If you are eating out, obviously not a problem, just tell the chef the level of doneness. If cooking at home, how would you determine when it’s perfectly cooked, since the thickness and size of the cut, the pan you use, and even the ambient temperature of the steak all affect cooking times?

A) Use a meat thermometer, stick it right into the middle of your steak. When the temperature reads about 55 deg C (for beef), remove from the heat and allow to rest for about 10 minutes in a warm place, it will continue to cook and the core temperature will rise to about 62 deg C which gives you medium rare. Problem – the meat thermometer really works well only for huge cuts like roasts, and can give quite erratic readings for thin cuts of meat like steaks. Also, by poking the meat, you “damage” it and lose some of the beautiful juices.

B) Cut it open and look at the inside. Obviously accurate but all the juices will be lost!

C) Use the finger test. This is quite fail-safe with some experience, and I have been using it for some time. Gently touch your third finger to the thumb of the same hand, and with another finger, press the fleshy part of the palm below the thumb. That is how a medium rare steak should feel. Touching other fingers to the thumb will give you the level of springness for rare, medium, and well done. See this very clear set of illustrated instructions here: http://www.ehow.com/how_4915279_check-steak-doneness.html

Behold my perfectly grilled steak! The beautiful cross marks were made with the aid of my lovely lovely Le Creuset cast iron sunflower-yellow grill pan. Remember that it is very important not to attack your steak immediately after removing it from the heat, MUST rest it for 5 to 10 minutes. Resting allows the meat to relax and the juices which have escaped into the inter-cellular spaces during the cooking process to return into the cells, so that the meat stays beautifully juicy and you don’t end up having a pile of meat juice on your plate instead of in the meat.