Indonesia - Food Fanatics Dream

Thirty years in the food industry and I have to admit to having the great fortune to have experienced some truly amazing food.

From the most mundane to the most expensive I have enjoyed luxury items that many will never try, never afford and honestly, many would never want to try.

I love French fries, so my palette is not so refined, but add foie gras and Wagyu beef to those French fries and that sounds like the lunches I have enjoyed for the past few years…

I have also been blessed with the opportunity to have eaten and worked in Michelin Star outlets, some of the worlds best patisseries and worked alongside some of the best chefs in the global business of all things food.

It is therefore rare, that I am taken totally by surprise and floored by something unexpected in food. It does happen I am not saying that, but it is not often when my taste buds are tickled and blown clear out of the room by something that I just cant see coming.

Take therefore a warm, but wonderful morning recently in Padang Indonesia when a group of us where given the great honor of being police escorted up the mountains to a  private home called Cameron House in Padang to meet the Mayor of Padang along with Miss Padang 2012, Dr Rika…

Breakfast was to be quick as the mayor had more important things to attend to, in the end, he stayed longer than we expected and our entire group was blown away with the friendliness and humor of our other guest Dr Reka., a true and absolute ambassador for her title.

 But it was the food served at breakfast that was the true highlight. If you understood the company, the environment, the location high above the beaches of Padangs shoreline and the amazing day, then to say that the food was a highlight takes it all to a level of unbelievability.

And so it was a table full of individual dishes where sent out to us by the kitchen staff and those who waited upon us. 6-7 dishes, none of which individually took our appeal.

For those of us early to venture in we paired some rice with some meat dish and ate away, only to learn that the server at our table was meant to co-ordinate the dishes for us.

Taking a bowl, she place a rice cake, some milk porridge thickened with flour, some black sticky rice, some coconut milk and some banana cooked with sweet potato and served it to us.

It looked heavy. It looked like many dishes just placed on top of each other.

What it was from the first spoon full was SUBLIME gastronomy.

Just over a year ago I published the book ARABIAN DREAMS, taking Middle Eastern Desserts to a new level for the future of the cuisine.

So too had the dishes of Indonesia this morning in Padang been served to us in a manner that was worthy of their own book title.

The dish at the breakfast with the Mayor of Padang which took us by surprise. Served to us by the House Cook, she knew exactly what order to put everything and just how much sweet and plain, gorgeous and sensational to put into each of the plates. This dish looks like 5-6 dishes combined into one and that is exactly true....but the combination of flavors and textures was so sensational and perfect together that my mouth sang with the glory of the taste. Indonesia surprised my palate and I learnt much in this ethnic rich culturally diverse country...a land of many surprises. 

But what it does show is that travelling to new cultures, new destinations and a place as amazing as Indonesia is more than about visiting shrines and houses and seeing beaches and shopping malls, it is about opening your mind to the culture, the heritage and the cuisine of the place in which you are visiting.

I am and always will be thankful to the Bahrain Indonesian Embassy for allowing me to travel this amazing country of theirs and to the Indonesian Ministry or Tourism and Creative Economy for fully sponsoring the event, so that I might be able to tell the world about Indonesia. It is more than you think. It is more than just Bali and beaches. Indonesia is a culturally diverse haven of history, culture, eco-friendly natural sites such as volcanoes and waterfalls, rice paddies , tea, coffee cocoa and fruit plantations and the home to some of the most delicious cuisine this chef has ever tasted.

Indonesia deserves your time.

It deserves to be visited by us all, not just because I say so, not just because the Bahrain Indonesian Embassy sent me there to report back upon it! No, it deserves to be visited by us all because it is different and until you have been there and experienced the wonders of Indonesia for yourself, you will never have tasted some of the most exquisite dishes that this chef, longs to return for.
Indonesia has Bali, but it also has so much more. Be surprised and visit somewhere new for a change.
Indonesia deserves your time and attention.

Garuda Airlines is set to begin direct services from  Abu Dhabi to Jakarta in December 2012 with flights already being available from Jeddah to Jakarta, other countries and for connectors from Bahrain, consult your local travel agents.

Like a perfect tapas luncheon, the meals are often made up of many small dishes from which you take just a piece and combine it with rice, sauces and additions of your own choosing. I love this form of service. everyone is kept happy and for the adventurous, there are surprises just a dish away.

nothing screams delicious more than a half eaten fish !!

Not just the meats and the proteins where delicious but the sauces that covered many of the meals too.

AMAZING PLATED DESSERTS 2013

One of the most amazing things about a modern blog is that you can see which of your blogs has the most hits and which is constantly referred to by viewers of the site.
Therefore i am always surprised that the WHIMS OF FANCY of 2010 is one of the highest viewed posts I have ever added to this blog.

Out of respect for the chefs with whom I share my amazing career and out of respect for the industry who constantly strives for new ideas and amazing ways to excite customers, passengers and lovers of great cuisine, here therefore are my latest creations and my WHIMS OF FANCY- plated desserts for 2013....

MOTHERS DAY 2013

Cinnamon Chocolate mousse with a dark ganache centre, homemade cinnamon granola and true de cacao stick

tarte aux banoffee

Raspberry cake with raspberry ganache, mascarpone quenelle and red velvet streusel

peanut butter and banana bread and butter pudding with double cream and a shot of rosemary infused caramel sauce

russian honey cake with honey syrup

Opera 2012 (with kahlua coffee shooter)

BANOFFEE PIE 2013

FATHERS DAY 2013

Rosemary chocolate mousse with homemade Maldivian Granola, rosemary caramel infused syrup shooter and caramel creameux under a dark chocolate dome

Have a great year folks.

Pastries with Pride - An Amazing Honor

We are proud and happy to announce the recent good news that  Executive Pastry chef has been named on of the five shortlisted finalists for Caterer Middle East Awards Pastry chef of the Year 2012..

It is an honor just to be among the list of amazing chefs and a proud moment for the kitchen team.

http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/pics-15013-caterer-awards-2012-5-perfect-pastry-chefs-named/

Winner is announced on Sept 26th in Dubai...

and we wish all five finalists best of luck,  !!

With 15 cookbooks to his name over 20 years, Aaron Maree has  been changing the face of Patisserie in  the Middle East with his successful launch of ARABIAN DREAMS cookbook, which won the BEST ARABIC TITLE COOKBOOK IN THE WORLD and was voted One of the Top 57 Cookbooks in the WORLD 2011.

Its a Small World - in pastry !!

When I started cooking in 1983 at Oskars Restaurant on the Gold Coast of Queensland, I looked up to the Executive Chef... GARY MARTIN...he was the most amazing man. When he walked into the room, the air was just different..he had presence and awe. His skills and seriousness about food amazed me.
He was an extremely tough character and at the time I did not appreciate all the things he taught me, years later I understood and thanked him immensely for everything he put me through for those tough lessons are the ones that made me successful and made me remain with the program all these 30 years since.
Some of those lessons are not allowed any more. The world of political correctness and labor rules forbid them. But sometimes we need to learn the tough lessons the hard way to be thankful for everything else..I fear that the softening of our industry will eventually be its demise, but thats for another blog post..

One thing at the time though that seemed most amazing was his friendships of people from around the world.
Remember in 1983 we had never heard of computers, iPads or iPods and anything more advanced than a calculator...
He spoke of travels he had had and he friends with foreign accents stopped by the restaurant continuously to visit.
Today , I too have travelled and have had the pleasure to meet and make friends with many many people from around the planet, but it also much easier today.

People talk of Facebook being a social media , You Tube being a source of enjoyment and blogging being a way to think out a load, but I see it better than that..they are all potential tools for us today as well.

When politicians years before spoke of globalization bringing us all closer together I thought nothing of it. I was not into import export so what did I care.
But today I see the potential.
When I log onto my blog every day I am simply amazed at the breadth of readership and I thank you all for stopping by. Russia, India, Tahiti, Australia, Croatia, France , Philippines, Indonesia, and literally hundreds of other countries show up on the STATS page every single day.
And that makes me realize that while I must impart a sense of my own self on these pages I also have a responsibility to teach a little along the way...Facebook and the friendships I have there are mostly with like minded professionals and has the opportunity for us all, not just to be social but also to use it as a teaching forum. Today I can lecture to the world, by imparting a recipe, a photo and a skills set via you tube and linking it to my Facebook page.
I will start to do such in coming posts. But imagine if we all did this...how amazing the world would be...in cooking, each of us imparting to the friends and those who stop by our blog to teach, to learn and to share the passion..
Globalisation of our career. no need to travel so far to learn or to spend such big dollars to pic up a skill set..
Passion feeding passion and like minded people enhancing the talents of those in the industry who desire to self teach and learn.
I thank each and every person who stops by this page for taking the time. the responsibility i feel is immense and I will return such by teaching more from now on..., recipes and info will follow... it is after all not my desire to hold onto the recipes I have been entrusted with all these years only to see them die with me. they are such brilliantly well tested and proven recipes that everyone deserves to use them.
A recipe after all is merely a list of ingredients, it takes talent, passion and skills to produce something delicious and appetizing from it, and thats where we, the pastry chefs of this world step in...
Have a great day world....and happy cooking. !!!

BANOFFEE PIE 2013....Caramel creme, cookie streusel, caramelised bananas, thick cream and sage infused caramel shots.......... it is amazing what our minds can see when we step back from a traditional dish and rethink its parts....skill, talent, passion and a good set of taste buds....life is amazing as a pastry chef

SIMPLICITY...not a science ! A RED VELVET REVOLUTION

I do believe that our trade, of pastry is one based on science. Recipes are in essence a calculated formula by which if followed correctly can achieve an amazing chemical reaction taking place between something as mundane as flour and gluten particles, liquids in the form of milk or proteins such as eggs, chemicals such as baking soda and create the most delicious of products.

But science is one thing..I strictly require all my staff to follow my recipes to the letter of the law as they are so well tested that I know the exact number of items that comes from each and if the wrong number are the result then I know usually, where the have deviated form the path to success and have gone wrong.. I love recipes and formulae for that.

But in the hands of the passionless recipes are merely that, a formula...
Without pastry chefs and without their tireless passion for making the art and craft of Patisserie come alive to them, there can be no such amazing creations.

Yes we cook in the trade for customer, clients and passengers, but in essence if we are not cooking to inspire ourselves then we are not being true to ourselves either. Every now and then I need a day to create , to push the limits of my own knowledge, my own passion and my recipes to inspire even my own self. I never want to lose that. A day now and then of creating can open up a whole world of possibilities.

RED VELVET cake , Red Velvet Cupcakes are not my creation. They came from the USA.
(James Beard's 1972 reference American Cookery describes three red velvet cakes varying in the amounts of shortening and butter. All use red food coloring, but the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa. Before more alkaline "Dutch Processed" cocoa was widely available, the red color would have been more pronounced. This natural tinting may have been the source for the name "red velvet" as well as "Devil's Food" and similar names for chocolate cakes.) (Courtesy WIKIPEDIA)

But it has proven to be a very successful product and ever mores these days, thanks to its success as a cupcake...At Blossom Sweets it is definitely our biggest seller...
So what if RED VELVET Cake , once a proven successful recipe were found , we were look at it for more than a cupcake or a regular cake, what if it were fused it with modern patisserie and a little bit of love and a lot of creativity... Well then you would have my own RED VELVET REVOLUTION...
The past few days have seen me make a few options from what is possible as I adore the Red Velvet cake that we make and not only does the new Red Velvet Roulade taste sensational, but it is without a doubt , already one of our biggest sellers.

Sometimes it is the science of our trade that reaps the rewards of success..But sometimes too its the simplicity of just standing back and taking another look at your options...the simplicity of having another viewpoint of shape, form and design of an old product...and sometimes it is as simple as remembering that we do this because we love it...passion is the simplest tool we pastry chefs have....and the one tool we should never forget to bring to work....
Enjoy the following Red Velvet revolution photos

.RED VELVET ROULADE

RED VELVET ULTIME...Red velvet sponge layers, mascarpone and madagascan vanilla creme, rose and raspberry glaze, red velvet macarons and passionfruit shooters to offset the sweetness..

RED VELVET as a plated dessert with raspberry Margarita shooter and Passionfruit shooter to offset the sugary over load.

Red Velvet Boule...with raspberry margarita Shooter..for the adults 

Red Velvet Ball, to offset the sweetness here I made a peanut butter streusel, the dryness and the slightly salted finish of the streusel truly dampened down the sugar fix and made the whole dessert a little more formal and grown up !! I'd use pure raspberry puree for this one and in a way it all becomes a little bit like Peanut Butter and Jelly flavor notes. The berry, the sweetness and the peanut butter streusel combining into a dessert of truly delicious proportions.... From one dessert comes many....simple.

Shape and Form...and the land of Imagination !

I love my trade for one reason and one reason only....within it, anything is possible, life has no boundaries of reality, but is free within the land of imagination.

At work, wherever I am, that sentiment is felt on a daily basis by myself and the staff that surround me.....anything is possible.

Until we enter the kitchen each day we have little idea of what lay ahead, what trickery and expectations of wonder may come our way in the form of orders and request by our valued customers.

Every cake that we make is a memory to them.
A valued memory that  they have had and want renewed in the form of edible affection or a memory we are about to make that will never be forgotten.

From cats to camels, from Louis Vuitton to Chanel....anything is possible , just ask us and take a look at these photos to prove the point...

See you soon ...what will your memory be !!

Hitting the "Delete" button in life....!!

DELETE..

DELETE…

DELETE…

ESC...

Ctrl. ALT. DELETE...

DELETE...

Nothing works !!

Hitting the delete button in a modern world seems simplistic.

Delete  “Contacts” on Blackberry.

”Block sender” in email.

“Remove” friends from Facebook.

But what of the human mind?

A love spurned , a love mis-understood, mis-judged, mis-timed, a love unrequited, ……the trivialities of life.

Pain and anguish, angst and regret now flow through the veins where whence blood  flowed, both head and heart throb in unison; troubled, agonizing throbbing.

But our minds....the most powerful software of them all has no "delete" button.

Why can it not easily forget the love that once was?

Refresh its browser and be anew for another day!

Pablo Neruda knew of the angst I am living through,” Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

But in his day there was no technology. It was all pen paper, typewriter and carbon paper.

Forgetting lasted as long as it took the ink to fade....Today it gets stored in memory for ever.

We are surrounded by whiz kids and wunderkinds who think they are so smart and have made billions from gigabytes of junk, well why cant they turn their attention to the human computer for a while.

Eradicate our viruses.

Delete our junk.

Remove the hard drive and wipe it clean with a magnet.

Scrub the mother board and reset the power for a newer longer and refreshed life.

Remove the stored problems, the junk,  and the lost love and make me a shiny model filled with terabytes of possibility rather than an aged computer filled with megabytes of regret.

I had one beloved laptop, an Apple Mac Air, which survived countless rounds of emotions and numerous travels with me only to lose it to the burnt out hard rive division within 3 years.

I lost everything, wiped clean with no hope of memory restoral. When it came back from the store it was like new, but had that glazed look about its screen. It was the same, but different. It knew nothing of our previous time together.

I want to be like that too.

I want that glazed look when I look at some people.

As if perhaps we have met but without the longing pain of wanting to hug, to kiss to say sorry, forgive me, take me back, love me, never leave me, be mine, grow old with me, I love you forever.

Some things in life just never will be.

Some code in the human computer just does not sync with other formats.

My hardware may be an older version and hers newer, my code simply outdated.

As I age , I fear my code , whilst the starting blocks of most life and the structure on which all modern computing  has been based, is merely becoming shelved and looked upon, revered , bypassed for a the flashier, speedier more prestigious brand.

Perhaps love and the understanding of it is the final bug in the computing program. Perhaps X and Y do not always make Z.

The newer models may have faster methods of dealing with things, deleting and removing unwanted information, us older models merely crash, burn out, fade to grey,  our screens darkened but the hearts still beating with what could have been, misunderstood thanks to core processors incapable of being read properly by a newer generation.

I have heard and previously quoted such clichés as “to have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all” , “when one door closes another opens" and I am afraid I find them wrong today!

Doors are too numerable and  entering , being lead into doorways where we have no vision to where it itself leads is destiny for yet more pain and further regret. 

"To have loved and lost", depends on the depth of the loss and the seriousness, the depth of the love in the first place. I truly believe it would be better to have never loved than to suffer the human condition of loss at all.

No, of others words that help me at a time such as this I prefer Sufi Epigram who stated,” "When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left."

My spirit for now is in sleep mode.

I have reset the button of my hearts computer and when it restarts, rekindles, flickers to life once more I hope too the spirit and soul can rejoice over what remains.

An old beat up computer I may be…but laying within, there are spare parts even the young geniuses of today would kill for…

There’s life within this old dinosaur yet perhaps !!!

REALITY BITES or How can so many people be wrong ?

I was told today that I must face reality. 

To get real and stop dreaming.

That, what I want to happen,  can not,  because life does not happen that particular way. 

That I can see life , not , from reality’s perspective but through a dreamers…I say how can so many people be wrong considering they all agree with me (see below)…..reality is not, the be all to end all, it is the acceptance of reality which smothers ambition, suffocates our destiny and extinguishes dreams….

I prefer the happier world of dreams, hope, destiny and  imagination…where everything is possible , plausible and perfect..where I can be anything I want to be, where age doesn’t define us, where I am not labelled by the nationality on my passport , where love never dies and where freedom reigns….

Don’t take my word for it, but how can so many others be so wrong…..

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.


John Lennon


Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.

Tupac Shakur

Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams their reality.

Jonas Salk

Reality is something you rise above.

Liza Minnelli

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it.

Garrison Keillor

Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

Mason Cooley

Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.

Charles Baudelaire

Reality doesn't interest me.

Leni Riefenstahl

Reality means you live until you die. The real truth is nobody wants reality.

Chuck Palahniuk

Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

Robin Williams

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Albert Einstein

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Ray Bradbury

Is our own reality not merely a cause and effect of our own decisions.

Are decisions not,  the only thing as people we have left that are unmistakably and resoundingly the sole creation of ourselves. Proof of our intellect over animals.

Thus reality is what we make for ourselves through our dreams, wishes, desires , hopes and imagination.

Those who believe I don’t live in reality I believe don’t live in it themselves.

To say that they live in reality means they are merely accepting of others interpretations of it and conforming to an experience destined to lead to unhappiness.

To conform to the master plan of government, society, bosses etc is merely becoming a sheep in the world, which already has far too many.

Sheep get slaughtered. 

We are human and were put here to live differently, that’s why we were given the ability to dream, to act on our dreams and to find happiness.

True I don’t know the history of each person that tells me to face reality but neither do they of me.

I’m off to make my own reality…the dreams I dream at night are reality in the making for the following day…

I am here alone, I think alone therefore my actions, my words, my thoughts are the reality I will strive to live by….

Everything else...Unreal…

In my world , the reality is that global warming has nothing to do with nature but the planet is warming degree by degree due to the loss of dreams and imagination and the inaction of humans to live by them. If carbon monoxide is increasing its because there are far too many sheep in the world, following the one in front to an unhappy reality.

As every dream goes un-enacted upon, so too does the planet warm just a touch further…. We must restore imagination and dreams and live by them to restore the world to its boundless potential….reality and our guidance by, our conformity to it,  is killing us.

Hope,  lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams their reality.

Jonas Salk

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

FASHIONABLY SPEAKING

On the bucket list of life,( yes that list of things to do before one kicks the proverbial), there are numerous things I want to start doing and numerous things I just want to do once….But today I added something new..

For years, in fact decades I have noted homeless people talking to themselves or to the air. Some people in my youth called them weird, mental, strange or even demented. It is apparently a form of dementia, a distant symptom of schizophrenia anyway.

Every country has them, “self talkers” that is.  I’ve even seen the homeless and forlorn in Paris talking to themselves, although it does sound nicer there, along with numerous other countries I have travelled.

In any case talking to invisible friends, talking to the air, talking to themselves, I never really thought of it as anything but weird or strange myself until today. 
When a gorgeous young friend put the subject line of her email to me, as Soliloquy..

Oh how romantic does that old word sound…!!

Who cares if people think you’re weird, strange, demented or a little off the planet, the thought of having a soliloquy by oneself just seems about the nicest thing, me, myself and I have done in ages.

I mean people sing to themselves and if they sing in tune then no one stops them do they? 

But if you don’t sing, or cant carry a tune and simply desire to talk, then you are seen as mentally unstable ? 

Why the difference ? 

And how to tell these days anyway. I saw a girl on the train platform in London not that long back and she was as mental as you could imagine, she laughed to herself, she swore expletives loudly and she threw her arms around almost hitting three or four other passengers. No one dared stop her. Actually we all kept our distance from this weirdo , her actions looked scary and she was dressed like a right loon too. Then just as I boarded my train I noticed she had an ear piece in and was talk via Bluetooth to a friend on her phone.  The sane and the insane, the rude and obnoxious, a very fine line these days indeed !

And before you state that speaking to yourself is a monologue, excuse yourself now, for a monologue is a speech where one character addresses other characters, and I don’t care to address anyone really.

And before you even consider suggesting then it must be an “aside”, well you will be corrected yet again for an “aside” is a usually short comment by one character toward a general audience. 

And I don't much care for one of them either.

I just want to recount life, chat with someone interesting and have a fab conversation “avec moi.” 

In some circles it is even seen as a stress reliever.

Apparently in the dramatic arts a “soliloquy” went out of fashion around the 18^th century 

We’ll call me a trend setter because I’m bringing it back into fashion.

So as you drive down to the mall, if you see a large framed guy walking down the street thumping the air with his fist, laughing and talking to someone you can’t see, don’t laugh, , no I'm not talking into the phone using a Bluetooth device and I’m not completely demented, I’m just being fashionable and enjoying a good old “soliloquy.”

A "tete a tete", with someone I find interesting ! 

You should try it !

As it has been said before, “at least if I talk to myself, I can guarantee one person is listening!“

Other things we cook !!

I was asked by a friend just two days back if Customised cakes are all that I do..Definately they are a huge part of my trade and I am well renowned for the quality of of cakes flavors and finishes...but Patisserie is so much more !
If you can think it to ask, I'll probably make it for you...
From sugar free menus for customers, special recipes for Ramadan and of coarse on a daily basis cupcakes, whoopee pies, eclairs and some of the delicacies you see below..
Just wanted you to all see the gorgeous food created....and then i'll post some more of this weeks best orders from our Customised cake collection.

dacquoise aux figues fraiche

buche chocolat 

agali roulade

euphorique

tarte d'isis

pomeranian

plaisir arabia

ispahan Cafe 

Let your love see the sweet side within....give cake!!!