DURIAN POPPY SEED CAKE

There was a recent brouhaha in the papers about the use of a certain kind of poppy seed in indian cooking; can't remember what it's called in malay now; just looked up poppy in my handy english malay dictionary, and it said candu.... which i thought was opium. oh well, translated, my cake would be kek durian biji candu. oh dear, might be arrested and hung for drug trafficking.

That old cliche, about life giving you lemons, and making lemonade? Well, as it so happens, there seems to be a bumper crop of durians this year, so well, try this durian poppy seed cake. Actually, served warm, with cold fresh or durian cream, its rather good, if you like the taste of durian, that is. If I may say so myself, my food photography seems to be improving. Putting the camera on macro (denoted by a flower, on mine, as opposed to "mountains" which are far away) mode makes a big difference.

Someone recently showed me a pregnancy test kit, which showed a positive reading. Positive readings on these things show TWO parallel lines, if you are pregnant. I couldn't help reminiscing about the time where these PTKs were such a novelty item.... when ascertaining the existence of our second kid, I bought THREE different kits to ensure there was no false positive. Anyway, I was thinking, about the miracle of life, how from two parallel lines, we now have a strapping, obnoxious 5½ year old boy. I don't recall so much the PTK for the first kid, oddly enough. I think the one for no 2 was particularly memorable, because despite having spent RM60 on PTKs, our visit to the doctor, who must have used expired stock PTK, showed a negative reading. Ascertaining that pregnancy was expensive business man, 3 test kits, a doctors visit, (which said it was negative) and ANOTHER test kit AFTER THAT to reconfirm the doctor was wrong. Heck, I'm taking it out of the boy's inheritance.

Speaking of miracle of life, last night, I had a most joyous experience. My church hosted a Choral & Worship Festival, a hodge podge of music pieced together by these Americans from North Carolina. I was actually dragged into the choir, reluctantly at first, by my "evil twin". (evil twin is a close friend who supposedly looks like me, or me like him. my dad has mistaken him for me, in a photo, and his mother in law has also done likewise. i've actually spoken to one of his work related acquaintances for a good 3 minutes before he realised i was NOT who he thought i was). I VERY reluctantly turned up for the first practice, glanced around at the motley crew, and wondered what i was doing there. Everyone seemed either ....very young, or ....the opposite of that. Anyway, as choir rehearsals went, this one was VERY efficiently conducted. Led by Pastor Alan Moore from the US, (he's such a nice, likeable personable chap, my only regret is not having made an acquaintance out of him), our rehearsals proceeded smoothly. It was like exercise, or going to the gym. You feel lazy, and reluctant, but after having done it, you feel great.

The "festival" was a most uplifting experience, and I hope the main Spectator, for whom it was intended, was pleased.