The Cocoanut

I’ve always believed that if the devil was edible, he’d be an Oreo. Sadly, culinary religious education wasn’t seen as important to parents, so children grew up without the fear of cookie instilled in them. Now look what happened.

Of course it would be unfair for me to put the blame squarely on my parents. As an adult, I should be able to distinguish between right and wrong, between saturated fat and unsaturated fat, what has sugar and what hasn’t.

But life is a little more complicated than that. Some of us are greedier than others. And the devil is kindest to those who are greediest. I can easily resist candy, and with lots of willpower I can defeat the temptation of ice cream, even on a sweltering summer day. But show me a cookie and I surrender.

I find that when I’m totally jobless, I nurse my sorrows of unemployment by continuously munching on biscuits and cookies. Now before you start calling me dirty names like ‘emotional eater’ or ‘cookie monster’, let me just make it clear that I’m not an emotional eater, OK? I just happen to enjoy eating Oreos because they make me happy. The only beef I have with Oreos is that they get stuck in the crevices of my teeth and leave a long-lasting stain that makes it look like I’ve just eaten soil.

Some people, who have more time than me, have invented myriad ways to consume an Oreo. They twist and separate the two chocolate biscuit disks, and scrape the white crème filling with their front teeth. I prefer my Oreo as a duo of black disks and white crème, and I don’t think I’d enjoy the sugary white paste on its own. That’s a bit like eating mayo without chips. Decadent and indulgent yes, but disgustingly so. Call me a cookie conservative, a ‘Reo Republican if you must, but that’s how I feel these cookies should be eaten.

Since I’m currently in Australia, I like to follow the local customs. As they say, when in Czechoslovakia, do as the Czechoslovakians do. When in Oz, eat Tim Tams. A Tim Tam is a biscuit composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate filling and coated with a thin layer of chocolate. A bit of chocolate overkill if you ask me, but that’s how they like it Down Under. The malted biscuit gives the illusion of lightness in these Tim Tams. This can be a good thing, because you can eat a lot of it without feeling full. This can also be a bad thing, because you can eat a lot of it without feeling full.

Some “creative” types have developed an imaginative (read:devious) way of enjoying a Tim Tam by biting the ends off and sucking a beverage through the biscuits. Called the Tim Tam Slam, it’s like having a drink through a straw, except that the straw is edible. Again, you can call me an old fashioned conservative, but I prefer my Tim Tam as is, by biting it from front to back, the way its Manufacturer intended it to be eaten.

However, my all-time favourite cookie would have to be the Famous Amos. These are a relative new-comer to the Australian cookie landscape, but have been a longstanding junk food icon in Malaysia. Famous Amos is perhaps unique among its cookie compadres in that, at least in both Australia and Malaysia, it is sold through stand-alone cookie boutiques rather than at the supermarket.

I nursed my self-imposed consumption deprivation by looking out for discounts at the local supermarket. Less glamorous perhaps, but definitely more affordable. As luck would have it, the traditional Italian Christmas cakes, panettone, were reduced to half-price, and I was more than happy to pick one up. The panettone cakes are packed in cardboard boxes and come in typical dessert flavours such as hazelnut, tiramisu and baci. Panettone, although used as Christmas cakes, are actually a type of rich, sweet bread that is naturally leavened so that it develops a spongy, soft texture. Imagine, if you will, a bread version of chiffon cake, and you get an idea of how panettone tastes like in texture.

I’m a big fan of rich bread (who isn’t?) such as the French brioche and Jewish challah, so I was excited at the prospect of trying out my Tiramisu creme-filled Christmas panettone. The panettone is shaped into a cupola and covered in dark chocolate icing. The bread itself was delicately rich, not overwhelming, just comfortably so. The tiramisu creme filling was superb, its richness deceived by its meager, thin layering. I only wish that the makers would be more generous with the filling, because it left me wanting for more, yet at the same time cautious not to ’steal’ from the other sections of the cake, lest I dismember the entire panettone into unrecognizable, creme-less pieces.

For the sake of being unpredictable I chose to forgo the hot cocoa and instead opt for gelato, that classically summertime treat that is somehow absolutely appropriate even in the harshest of winters.

Melbourne is without a doubt the gelato capital of Australia. So enthusiastically have Melburnians licked their gelati that it is now part and parcel of the city, in much the same way curry is now the national dish of Great Britain.

I admit to being one of those unadventurous, conservative customers who are so content with just one or two flavours that I end up eating the same thing at every visit to the gelato bar. At Lygon Street’s Il Dolce Freddo, the generous selection of mango, tiramisu, Snickers, strawberry and cookies n creme are gone to waste as I tread the safe path and choose my all-time favourite gelato combo : hazelnut roche, pandan coconut and frutti di bosco. The hazelnut roche is as indulgent as its namesake, with massive chunks of roche bits scattered throughout the gelato. The pandan coconut exudes the subtle, fragrant aroma of pandan that marries well with coconut, while the frutti di bosco combines the sweetness of berries with the rich comforting tang of yoghurt.

Melbourne’s gelato scene reflects the diverse make-up of its citizens. The gelato here is not confined to traditional Italian flavours like baci and lemon sorbet, treating eager lickers with quintessentially Aussie concoctions like Violet Rumble, Ice Vovo and sesame caramel, made famous by the Trampoline chain of gelato bars. Asian flavours get a resounding nod, with green tea, durian and lychee & lime sorbet famous with both locals and international residents alike. Whoever says multiculturalism is not good for Australia obviously hasn’t had a lick of her best-tasting gelati.

It opened its first Australian outlets in Sydney, and for a time, one of the most common sights on the Sydney-Melbourne flight are boxes upon boxes of Krispy Kremes, smuggled to satisfy the cravings of the donut-deprived populace of Melbourne.

I have heard testimonials by many Kremers who swear these donuts smell like heaven and taste better than sex, and not surprisingly, my expectations were high. When a friend offered a donut specially flown in from Sydney, I could not refuse, even though it would not be fresh. I found the ritual of heating the donuts in the microwave a bit perplexing, but I guess all the best foods need to be microwaved.

My first bite of an Original Sugar Glazed was not one of orgasmic pleasure, but of mild indifference. It’s sweet. It’s soft. The same effect could be duplicated by pouring an obscene pile of icing on really soft bun.

Personally I like my doughnuts to be a bit sour, which would then be perfectly complemented by icing or creamy custard filling. In our highly-stimulated, ADD world, sugar is valued as the elixir to kick-start the day. Cookies, beverages and so many other food products are excessively sweetened so much so that we have come to regard the painful, brain-numbing sweetness as perfectly normal.

Krispy Kreme to me is like the culinary equivalent of crystal meth. I realise the sensation of getting high is not exactly unpleasurable, but I would rather be stimulated by something more natural. To be fair, I have only tasted the original sugar glazed, despite the donuts now being easily available in Melbourne, with two outlets in the CBD alone. However, I doubt I will be tasting the other varieties any time soon, as I cannot bring myself to join the long queues at the stores, and worse, being seen in public slavishly waiting in line. Not only am I anti-social, I’m also unreasonably snobbish.

The genderisation of food has added another dimension to the already complex relationship we forge with what we eat. Is it acceptable for a man to hold, yet alone eat, a dainty piece of cupcake? Should not those sweaty, hairy palms, roughened by labour and hardened by toil, be fit only to handle less beautiful things like donuts, hot dogs or a mean, meaty kebab?

The sight of a man grabbing a cupcake by the hands is almost grounds for sexual harassment. But I cannot deny the attractive impulse of cupcakes; the way they look, the way they smell, the way they make themselves even more irresistible when you say their name. Cupcakes. It just oozes with sexual charm.

How else would you finish off a beautiful cupcake other than eating it from the palm of your hands?

The motive for choosing a name that conjures images of smooth, velvety chocolate is pretty obvious. Chocolate is universally loved and anyone who is not mad about chocolate is himself quite mad (there’s never been a case of a woman who dislikes chocolate). A less obvious reason is that the first thing I ever made in the kitchen was a batch of truffles.

It never fails to amaze me how easy they are to prepare in relation to the decadent, luxurious taste they impart. Truffles are essentially a mixture of melted chocolate and cream, cooled and shaped into mounds and rounds and dusted with cocoa to resemble their namesake, those highly sought-after and extremely expensive fungi from Italy and France.

For my latest batch of truffles, I decided to deviate from the usual path of cocoa-coated truffles to try my hand at chocolate-dipped ones. Colour would be a dominant theme, and I wanted a play of colour to both confuse and excite the eater.

Milk chocolate is almost universally cherished, but its other cousins, dark and white, lie at the extreme spectrum of chocolate appreciation and have often divided what would otherwise be a United Chocolate Lovers Front. Purists maintain that the only chocolate worth its weight is the darker variety, while its fairer cousin seems to have attained cult status among the small but growing number of white chocolate fanatics.

I often find that those who like dark despise the white, and vice versa. This is unfortunate because their arrogance stems from complete ignorance of what the other has to offer. Dark chocolate lovers complain incessantly of the sickly sweet taste of white, while exponents of White Power whinge endlessly of the strong bitter aftertaste of the Dark Side. I personally find that the sickly sweet taste only occurs in cheap white chocolate. The better ones assert a comforting aroma of vanilla with a rich velvety texture that is unmistakably chocolate (or, technically speaking, cocoa butter).

The bitter aftertaste of dark chocolate only lingers during the first few samplings. After a while, the bitter aftertaste actually becomes a delight rather than a bother. There is something about dark chocolate that really invokes the sensation of decadence and guilty pleasure.

If only lovers of dark and white took the time and effort to give each other a chance, we could all then concentrate on more pressing issues, such as the pros and cons of margarine, why chicken skin should only be fried and never steamed, or the merits of using free-range eggs.

To trick them into eating the chocolates, I coated my white chocolate truffles with a layer of dark chocolate and vice versa. Although this is a rather dishonest method, I feel that in this particular circumstance, the Machiavellian attitude could perhaps be justified.

I, and people like me, then gasp with genuine horror when we read articles that tell us the ideal meat portion should be no bigger than the palm of your hands. “My palms must be unnaturally small”, I would reason, as I chomp down another chicken meatball that was created with no intention of being able to be fit into the palm of one’s hand.

The Spanish dining concept of tapas is quite contrary to the growing trend of super-sizing and overeating. Tapas is basically a meal consisting of various small, bite-sized dishes, like an array of entrees that Spaniards normally enjoy at a tapas bar on a night out. It allows diners to excite their senses by treating themselves to dishes of different textures and tastes. The small sizes of the dishes totally eliminate the prospect of big portions and the nature of being in a social group prevents overeating (or does it?)

Bakerzin, of Singapore, which specialises in cakes and French pastries, created a nifty menu of tapas desserts where we choose from quite a wide choice of desserts that come in threes, fives or sevens (or nines, I’m not too sure). We ordered the fives: banana pizza, vanilla creme brulee, raspberry panna cotta, chocolate fondue with strawberries and hazelnut ice cream with rice crispies.

The hazelnut ice cream and chocolate fondue came in two beautiful glasses that has a protruding conical bottom that allows it to tilt and rotate. Food is not just about taste; presentation elevates a meal from just being something to be eaten to something to be enjoyed, and the glasses provided that lift.

The banana pizza was for me, the most interesting dish; the crisp wafer-like base provided a contrast to the comforting velvet texture of the banana, while the sweet banana itself complements the slightly salty cheese topping. The dish was a classic example of a marriage between two opposing characters (salt vs sweet, crisp vs velvety) that complement each other when done the right way.