ten minutes to myself

the life counterfeit: now with doughnuts

It's probably not surprising to anyone that there are a lot of fake things in Asia. The fake Apple stores in China got a lot of headline attention in the summer of 2011, so that's a good example (and there was also a fake Ikea, which I would have been more interested in). I've never seen a fake Apple store in either Bangkok or here in Saigon, but that's not to say that my life has been devoid of fake items. We've watched our share of fake DVDs during our nearly five-and-a-half years in Asia, bought Sadie fake Adidas when she needed new sneakers, and I'm currently very enamoured with the fake Cartier tank watch that my husband brought me back from his trip to Beijing. 

So, perhaps it's not very unexpected this week found me schilling these fakes things for the Canadian booth at the international food fair at Madeline's school. 

They're Timbits, but not real ones because they're homemade instead of being purchased at a Tim Horton's.  I've never made doughnuts before, and tested out two different recipes for these. The first was a cake doughnut recipe that I think I found over at Dinner with Julie, but I had trouble getting the size of the doughnut holes under control and the final product was a little too crumbly to be eaten in a school gymnasium. I ended up going with a yeast doughnut, and found this tutorial at Crepes of Wrath really helpful. The actual recipe is Alton Brown's.

The fun part of this exercise was that my Canadian neighbour's mother's neighbour actually owns a bunch of Tim Horton's franchises back in Canada, and donated a bunch of Timbit boxes and other swag to decorate our booth (there's no denying that it's still "bake-sale" chic, though). 

 

canadian fusion

Anyone who knew me in Canada probably knows that my favourite way to enjoy the Calgary Stampede is from a distance. This distance - between Calgary and Saigon - is pretty effective. The Stampede might seem harmless on the surface: carnival rides, free concerts, and a rodeo. Indeed, the pancake breakfasts are pretty awesome.  I just never understood why the entire city seemed to need to abandon all sense of reason for the ten-odd days of the Stampede and become a quasi-frat-house of drunk fake cowboys/girls. Specifically, at noon in the middle of the work-week.

So, imagine my delight when my husband announces how much he's looking forward to this year's Canada Day celebration, organized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce:

Um, yee-haw?

So, Canada Day in HCMC is interesting. There's obviously a time-zone difference, but did you know that Canada Day actually happens on June 23 here, instead of July 1? We totally live in the future! 

Kids were invited to play that most Canadian of athletic pursuits, Miniature Golf:

I'm aware that ice hockey and curling were probably impractical, given it's like 35 degrees celcius outdoors, but I was sort of wondering if lacross was ever considered. Or even basketball. 

But some of elements of this patriotic bash were successful. Many, many litres of Clamato juice were flown in for the caesar bar (though I prefered to mix beer into my Clamato juice). The music playing at a polite volume over the speakers in the beer tent was a good mix of Bachman Turner Overdrive, KD Lang, and Blue Rodeo. The steaks were imported from Alberta (and they actually did taste like I remembered). 

The organizers obviously knew what the best airline is to fly back to Canada:

(Everyone gets the irony there, right?)

And they had the right attractions to groom the country bar-stars of the future, even if they are currently too little to do more than pose for a photo on a mechanical bull:

well, we Canadians do like multiculturalism

This morning, after sweating through a yoga class that I was 95% certain was going to be air-conditioned (it wasn't - gah!), making an unplanned trip to the grocery store to buy a carton of eggs, and then having to shower again (see: sweaty yoga), I found myself standing before my second-hand waffle iron. I was madly trying to churn out waffles for a preschool class of twelve. 

You see, this week my three year-old's preschool decided that it would be fun to celebrate "Internationalism". Apparently, the wee little kids talked about how their families are all from different countries, they looked at maps, and scribbled on flags. I'm not entirely sure what Sadie had to say about Canada. She's only been there for about nine weeks in total! In fact, I'm not sure that she really even understands what Canada is. But I digress ... 

Back to the waffles. Sadie's teacher asked if I could come for lunch on Friday and bring a Canadian food item to share with the class. My first thought was to make Kraft Dinner, but then I realized that every single one of my Kraft Dinner cartons in my pantry were mis-labeled as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I absolutely could not bring American-pedigreed mac 'n artificial-cheese to Sadie's international luncheon! My second thought was to bring in a pan of Rice Krispie squares because they're easy, delicious, and I doubted that any of her classmates or their parents would even suspect that Rice Krispie squares aren't particularly a Canadian thing, being from other parts of the world themselves. This plan was too sneaky for my dear husband's comfort level, though, and it was he who first suggested maple syrup. (Maple syrup is apparently the gold standard for culinary proof of Canadian-ness at interational schools, by the way. There isn't one my kids have attended where this Lexus of condiments hasn't been brought out by the Canadians). It wouldn't have been proper just to serve a class of preschoolers cups of maple syrup, though. I needed something for it go on, hence the waffles. 

As I ascended the steps of Sadie's little school this morning at a quarter past eleven, a plate of waffles in my hands and a heroic bottle of maple syrup (with "product of Canada" emblazoned on it's label) ensconced in a bag on my shoulder, I suddenly realized that the waffles might have been a big mistake, or at the very least, misleading. 

Aren't they the national food of Belgium?

 

 

and the big day is over

I'd be remiss if I didn't post a photo of Madeline's finished birthday cake pops! I was happy with them, for the most part. Substituting popsicle sticks for the lollipop sticks (which was the best I could find in Saigon) was not a problem at all. Using melted chocolate, thinned with a bit of shortening, worked fine as well, so I was not wishing that I could have bought Wilton's Candy Melts (like I could have - ha!) instead. One thing that I wish had gone better was that the pops were a bit more spherical. Once I'd dipped them, it was rather apparent that some of them looked kind of lumpy!

The biggest challenge I had was finding some way to hold them upright - I have no clue where I'd find a big block of styrofoam, so I ended up sticking the cake pops into a huge ball of playdough! Madeline's party guests were very amused!

 

UPDATE, July 8 - I was out shopping at Phuong Ha in D1 today, and cannot adequately express how shocked I was to see a few packages of Wilton's Candy Melts in their freezer, near the chocolate chips. I guess I spoke too soon the other day!

 

 

 

caving to the pressure: cake pop edition

About three years ago, I paid three thousand baht (roughly $100) for a second-hand blender/food processor combo. I had a mini food processor and a blender with us in Bangkok, but they were 110V and needed to be plugged into a transformer every time I used them. I must have been making a lot of smoothies back in June 2007, because I jumped on the chance to upgrade to a 220V appliance when my friend put her small electricals up for sale before she moved back to the United States. Every so often, though, I wondered if I really used the blender/food processor enough to have warranted spending $100 on it. 

I think that I am going to vanquish those doubts as I was delighted with the food processor today, when I set about Step 2 in my "Make Cake Pops for Madeline's Birthday Adventure" - crumble the cake up. I had started to crumble the crazy pink strawberry cake by hand, but standing at the kitchen counter with two round slabs of cake proved to be too much of a temptation for my toddler. She kept sneaking up on me (note: my kitchen counters are a few inches shorter than what is the norm in Canada and the US, so ) and pilfering chunks of cake that she'd stuff into her cheeks like a chipmunk.

The food processor seemed like a good solution to save the cake from further snatching. Of course, I hadn't used it in over a year, since we'd moved here, so I had to rummage around my storage area to find the blade. But once I did, it was a grand experience. So much better than standing around for twenty minutes, fending off hungry pillaging child with my sticky cake-crumb-covered hands. The blades whizzed through the two 8-inch cakes a in about a minute. It took me longer to hand-wash all of the parts afterward!

My next step (optional) was to pick out some music to listen to from my iTunes library (somewhat embarrassingly, Glee the Musis Presents the Warblers) because I figured that I'd be on my feet for a good amount of time. Then I went onto mixing a small amount of frosting and strawberry preserves to the big bowl of pink crumbs. The last step today was scooping and pressing the gooey crumb mixture into smallish balls. I've stuck them into the fridge for now; I'll work on coating them with chocolate tomorrow morning when I have one less kid around to try to steal my work-in-progress.

The website that I found very helpful in terms of figuring out what exactly I need to do for cake pops is this one - Veronica's Cornucopia. I've had to make some substitutions from the traditional ingredients and supplies - there is no big distributor of Wilton products here in HCMC, so no candy melts or lollipop sticks. I'm hoping that they'll work out fine with popsicle sticks (which were hard to find) and regular chocolate ...