I Wanna Go to France...

... and taste Ratatouille, tee-hee ;D

For your lil' info, Ratatouille originally is a French cuisine and according to Wikipedia.com, French ratatouille may be served as a meal on its own (accompanied by rice, potatoes, or simple French bread), or as a side dish. Tomatoes are a key ingredient, with garlic, onions, zucchini (courgettes), eggplant (aubergine), bell peppers (capsicum), some herbes de Provence, and sometimes basil. All the ingredients are sautéed in olive oil. Also, Ratatouille is sometimes used as a filling for savoury crepes.

Mmm... sounds delicious ain't it...? Just imagine this - beautiful candles and music playing in the background while my Special and I are having Ratatouille, savouring and enjoying every moment of it, and being just with each other... Ahh, would be simply lovely... ;P *looks dreamy*

And before I forget, here's my rating for Ratatouille (the movie) - 8 1/2 out of 10. :)

Spicy Pepper

I used to dislike having pepper sprinkled on my food but lately, I'm beginning to get hooked on it as I think it taste really good (And currently, I'm hooked on white pepper, tee-hee). I know pepper is just a spice to enhance the aroma and flavour of food, and although it can be very spicy at times and could cause some throat irritation, still I find it pretty nice. Some health experts even claimed that pepper has its own goodness and several health benefits, such as to improve digestion and promote intestinal health, and not forgetting zero calories. :) Meanwhile, I did a little research on pepper and here's what I found.

According to 'Black Pepper' from Wikipedia.com, black pepper is produced from the still-green unripe berries of the pepper plant. The berries are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures cell walls in the fruit, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The berries are dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the fruit around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer. Once dried, the fruits are called black peppercorns.

White pepper consists of the seed only, with the fruit removed. This is usually accomplished by allowing fully ripe berries to soak in water for about a week, during which the flesh of the fruit softens and decomposes. Rubbing then removes what remains of the fruit, and the naked seed is dried. Alternative processes are used for removing the outer fruit from the seed, including removal of the outer layer from black pepper produced from unripe berries.

And how do pepper gets its spiciness?

Pepper gets its spicy heat mostly from the piperine compound, which is found both in the outer fruit and in the seed. Refined piperine, milligram-for-milligram, is about one per cent as hot as the capsaicin in chile peppers. The outer fruit layer, left on black pepper, also contains important odour-contributing terpenes including pinene, sabinene, limonene, caryophyllene, and linalool, which give citrusy, woody, and floral notes. These scents are mostly missing in white pepper, which is stripped of the fruit layer. White pepper can gain some different odours (including musty notes) from its longer fermentation stage.[McGee p. 428.]


Ahh... pretty interesting, ain't it? Hmm, I think I shall sprinkle more pepper instead of salt next time I have my meal... and since pepper is spicy, does it have anything to do with slimming? Tee-hee ;P

Simply Artistic III : Entrees

Came across some of the appetizers pictures from veer.com and thought of posting them on my blog. They look delicious and gee, I'm feelin' very hungry already. :P

For more entrees, just go to Veer.com :)

N I C E

If I were to choose between ice-cream and chocolates, definitely I'd choose the latter. Heck, ice-cream still give us a reason to indulge, ain't it? :)

Buffet = Buf-fat?

When comes to buffet, a good buffet is always nice. It's interesting and tempting to see a variety of food and not forgetting an 'all-you-can-eat' kinda style. Well, I'm not a big eater or a glutton. But sometimes or on special occasions, I tend to eat quite a lot (at least, more than my usual meal). Perhaps, I should confess that I love to eat, and after all, haven't you guys heard of 'Eat, Drink and Be Merry?' ;)

On the other hand, buffet can make you eat non-stop and go on and on and on. As a result, too much or over-eating "makes you feel fat". Well, a couple of days ago, my Special and I had chicken buffet for dinner and oh my, we were darn full. Psychology began to hit me as I felt much heavier than my usual weight, and it hit me once again when I looked at chicken meat the next day as I felt "sick". I guess not only buffet "makes you fat", but it also plays with your mind, and in a more precise way, term of food psychology. And not forgetting double amount of workout sessions to burn unwanted calories.

Well, buffet certainly has its pros and cons. But I guess what most important is moderation and patience in order to lead to a good and healthy meal. By the way, don't ya think it's a great idea to change 'Eat, Drink & Be Merry' into 'Eat, Drink, Workout & Be Merry'? :P

*To my Special, I had a great time with ya on Saturday - the arcade games that we played, the buffet that we had and every moment that we spent together. And how could I forget about the chocolate chips walnut cookies. It looks so tempting and yummy, so delicious too!