For some inexplicable reason, I am obsessed with detoxing my colon and intestines. Don't ask me why.

I've been reading a few articles recently about colonic irrigation and gallbladder flushing. The amazing results from those pretty-convincing treatments got me quite psyched up. In fact, I was actually envisioning the stuff that might just get flushed out from said body parts.

Till I found out all those so-called detox programmes are a hoax. Needless to say, the revelation left me disappointed.

And then I bought this book.
















What better way to detox than with some good old-fashioned, healthy eating. There are 57 1/2 recipes in this book. And I intend to try ALL of them. Yes, even the ones that have beetroots in their ingredient list.

Watch this space for progress.

No, no, no. I won't be waxing lyrical about any contents that get er, flushed out from my system.

I'll just post all smoothies/veggies/fruities that I whip up here for all to see!

I love Nigel Slater.

Not only is he a great cook, he's also a brilliant writer. One of my favourite books by Mr Slater, Toast, isn't just a book about food. It's his life story, as remembered through food.

And then there are his recipes. If you take a look at his cookbooks, the first thing that strikes you is just how simple he makes everything sound. When you actually attempt any one of his recipes, "lo and behold" you'll exclaim, the recipes ARE really as easy to do as he says. And the results, more often than not, taste pretty darn good to boot.

So here we are, at Nigel Slater's Double Ginger Cake.


Stem ginger. Brown sugar. Cinnamon. Syrup. In a cake. Need I say more?

An excerpt from Mr Slater's recipe:

"Faintly spicy and mysterious, these dark-crumbed teatime treats are something that appeal more as you get older, like Midsomer Murders and boxes of Quality Street. Part of the intrigue of such cakes is that, despite containing both dense black-brown sugar and heavy golden syrup, they are not at all sweet. As I said, mysterious."

He also writes that the cake tastes better after we've left it to mature for a few days.

The first time I made this cake for some teatime company, there wasn't any left to "mature for a few days".

This second time round, it's for Wandernut. So I've wisely baked the cake a few days in advance, so it gets to her after it has matured.

So Earth Hour 2009 has come and gone, amidst much hype.

Hong Kong, 28 March at approximately 8.29pm (or could have been 13 February, 9.24pm for all I know)

Hong Kong, 28 March at approximately 8.31pm

In other news, came across some interesting facts and statistics if everyone in the US were to become vegetarian for just one day.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

• 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
• 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
• 70 million gallons of gas -- enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
• 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
• 33 tons of antibiotics

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

• Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
• 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
• 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
• Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant

Amazing, ain't it!

But I do see some drawbacks if an NGO were to implement a vegetarian equivalent of Earth Hour:

1. There are some people who just cannot give up their meat. By people, I mean mostly guys.
2. Even if Al Gore were to be an advocate, the word "vegetarian" is for some inexplicable reason too closely linked with Yoko Ono and tree-huggers. Aggressive tree-huggers.
3. Somehow, Vegetarian Day doesn't sound as catchy and cool as Earth Hour.

Till Earth Hour 2010! And Vegetarian Day 2056.

But if this is anything to go by, we'll all be dead by 2012 anyway. Sorry, was that too morbid?