How to Peel an Asparagus (and other facts of Life)

I must apologise my dear friends, for the tardiness of this post. Ok yes it's been awhile since my last entry.
But NOT cos I've been laaaaazy (Wee Keong has been badgering me to post!)

You see my dear Wee Keong, while you've been cavorting with a certain Princess of Siamese origin, I have been busy wrangling with phallic looking vegetables. (And NO your life is not complete yet!! How can U say that! You have yet to meet the trumpet-playing Big Kahuna himself!)

My mother never taught me how to peel an asparagus. And what a messy time I had figuring out how to...I nearly lost the tips of my fingers!

Living a 2 minute walk away from a fresh food open air market, I've been doing my grocery shopping village style.... buying only what I need to cook for the day, everyday. If you were here, you'd see why! Stalls bursting with the freshest veggies of all shapes and colours, some of which I've never seen apart from a photo. (Luscious heads of artichokes, baby carrots the width of your pinkie with the stems and leaves still attached, bunches of rosy radishes.) The beautiful thing about French markets is that the produce changes with the seasons. Supermarkets seem SO boring and banal now. Food looks better too in the morning sunlight and crisp outdoor air. So right now, all the Spring veggies, fruits and flowers are de rigeur. For the first time in my life, I touched and inhaled the gorgeous scent of REAL lillacs! It reminds me of the scent of hyacinths but not as overwhelming. Tiger-striped roses and lilacs...lovely.




So U see how I ended up buying a big bundle of white asparagus....it just LOOKED so good. So how DID I peel them in the end? Well, first I used my fingers. You see back home in Singapore, my experience of cooking asparagus was limited to the skinny little green things that look like french fries. U could just peel the fibrous outer skin with your fingers.

But alas it didn't work with the ones I bought here, which were about 6 times the size and bursting with juice. So then I tried a paring knife. Now anyone who knows me, knows that Dawn and sharp objects don't go well together. Amazingly, I have inherited my father's knack for being able to handle tools INCORRECTLY. They usually slip and injure us. Til this day, I still can't peel a mango the way my Mum does. (Now, SHE'S nifty with a knife...and you should see what see can do with a screwdriver!) I just slice the mango in half and scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon.

So since the paring knife didn't work, I whipped out my trusty $1 potato peeler bought from the neighbourhood HDB Auntie shop in Lorong Ah Soo that sells plastic pails and mops. I never leave home without one. And YES, it begins to work on the asparagus, but unfortunately, I didn't know that asparagus was SO SLIMY when being peeled. After at least 45 minutes, I FINALLY peeled them all! GREAT SUCCESS as Borat would say. Only thing is, I also lost about one third of each spear! Hehe. Better them than my digits.

I must say that once you master it, peeling asparagus IS one of life's essential skills. The end result is SO worth it.... thick juicy spears of white Spring asparagus accompanied by a creamy, light mousseline sauce (made by me of course!) YUMMY! Finger-lickin good! ;)

OTHER FACTS OF LIFE

I love going to the market here, every day is a new culinary adventure. I never know what I'm going to cook.....just browse and see what's on offer. I even have a few favourite stalls now! The chicken man and his wife are so friendly!! They claim that their chicken is "le vrais poulet" (the REAL chicken) and "c'est extra" (extra good). I've always heard that chicken from Bresse is among the best tasting in the world....and gosh it's true. It's DELICIOUS. So funny how the chicken man said that it tastes good cos the chickens are happy cos they get to run around (making the wing movement with his arms as his speaks!) Heheh reminds me of the time Dominic was quoted in the papers saying that the chickens at the organic store he was working at were "happy chickens so they taste better"!!!!

My cheese guy looks like Tom Cruise...when he was in Top Gun (Not the mad Cheshire-grinned looney that he is NOW). What can I say...I don't need a reason to love cheese, but he sure makes going to the cheese stall a tastier experience....literally! Cos he lets me sample the different kinds :)

The olive lady is a darling too....she wears this big white hat and a white apron and encourages me to sample everything for free. "C'est pour votre plasir" she says. "It's for your pleasure". Today she said I should speak in French and she speak in English so we can practice the languages :) I got some cibolettes from her today...tiny little violet coloured olives from Provence...first time I ever ate one too!

The market stallholders always have a word or two to tell you about their produce or how to handle it, or how to pair it with other food. Things I've learnt from the market:

- You can buy and cook an ENTIRE calf's head. The brains are a treat, apparently.



- Never put tomatoes or strawberries in the fridge...it kills the taste. That's why tomatoes bought from supermarkets have no smell. The ones here are actually fragrant when sliced!

- Never wash mushrooms...again it kills the flavour. (Technically this isn't new to me....My friend Maarten taught me this some years ago and I was astounded...cos mushrooms were always washed in my home. How to eat with all that dirt? Well, you're SUPPOSED to BRUSH them with a mushroom brush...something I have YET to find. So I use a toothbrush.) If you really think about it, you're about to eat a FUNGUS, so why let a few specks of mud bother U?

- Dandelion leaves can be eaten. In French they are called Pessenlit. Which literally means "piss in bed" cos they have a direutic effect. These made it into my salad bowl. Tastes a bit like rocket. I was so capitvated by how the light hit them I just had to take a pic. Dandelions are so whimsical.



- Perfect looking, symetrical fruit that U see in supermarkets (think big red waxy apples and monster strawberries) are far inferior in taste to the smaller ugly looking ones. It's true! At first glance, I wouldn't have bought the small, mis-shapen French strawberries, but encouraged by the stallholder (and he was right!) they taste SO SWEET.

- Some cheese can mature over half a century and still be edible. Now I don't know HOW this is possible, but the hard 50 year old cheese I tasted sure was tasty!

- Dried mushrooms can cost SGD$680 a kilo!!