Haggentines

The lovely Sean

I do believe that the lovely C and I may have introduced a new celebration into the Spring calendar - the festival of Haggentines.  This combination of Burns Night and Valentine's took place at Kiddy Towers a couple of weeks ago, intended to be a sort of Valentine celebration with haggis and Scottish poetry - and what could be a better way to spend an evening, I hear you ask.

In case you're wondering, Sean Connery was not among the guests; I just added this picture because I think the man looks damn fine in a kilt.  As did the lovely Ann Marie, who was channelling the Bay City Rollers in a teeny red kilt and black lace up boots.  I can't remember which of our guests suggested the name "Haggentines", but it may well have been the lovely Meg, who has a way with words and who also brought an intriguing gift of Japanese sweetmeats, described as an "Assortment of various" and featuring a weird beardy bloke on the front of the packaging.

So what is the perfect Haggentine's menu, combining aphrodisiac delights with the best that Scotland has to offer?  Well, oysters, of course, to begin.  Ours came from Pasarbella, which describes itself as a Farmers Market, a bizarre concept for Singapore, where the only things that seem to grow  are skyscrapers.  The oysters (happily) were not home grown and neither was most of the stuff on sale, but hey, it was a market of sorts and someone somewhere must have farmed the stuff, so I guess we can stretch the point.  That said, if you are an expat used to lush, abundant arrays of produce in your local farmers' market, you will be disappointed.  

Next up, Macsween's haggis, of course, in the meat and vegetarian varieties.  Now I consider myself to be pretty Scottish, the sort of Scot that gets weepy at the sound of the bagpipes, but I'd be even more weepy if someone made me eat real haggis.  Most of our guests were up for the challenge, however, including those who had eaten it before (I know, I don't get it either), but the lovely AM and I were very happy to chow down on the nutty, lentilly goodness of the veggie version.  Neeps are not readily available in Singapore, so we made do with sweet potato, which was just the right colour and worked pretty well taste wise also.  I'm not sure about the amorous powers of slow roasted leg of lamb, but the carnivores just loved it.  We finished off with my favourite dessert ever - Hilary Brown's caramel parfait pots from the La Potiniere cookbook.  This is/was a small, perfectly formed, restaurant in Gullane, near Edinburgh, run by a husband a wife team in the 80s and 90s.  Sadly, they broke up and moved away, but the restaurant seems to have had a renaissance now and I will definitely be giving it a shot the next time I'm in the area.  The Hillary and David Brown cookbook is sadly out of print, but if you need the recipe, just let me know!

On top of the world

Singapore is not short of tall buildings.  There are three office buildings in the business district that share the honour of being joint tallest, at 280 metres (or 920 feet) tall.  By comparison, the wonderful Marina Bay Sands hotel - the one with the swimming pool shaped like a ship on top) - is a mere two hundred metres, but that's two hundred metres of gorgeousness.

Model of the Pinnacle @ Duxton, courtesy of the HDB

When my sister, the lovely Alison,  came to stay at the end of last year, she and I decided to pay a visit to one of Singapore's most recent entrants to the list of very tall buildings and headed down to the Pinnacle @ Duxton.  I have to confess that I have very mixed feelings about this building.  When it was first being constructed, I thought it was a gigantic blot on the landscape, and to some extent, I still think that whenever I come upon it at ground level.  It is 163 metres tall, composed of seven connected towers, and dominates the skyline if you are in Chinatown or the business district.  It is, frankly, huge, and the biggest public housing project in Singapore by a very long way.  I really do not like the way that the windows form the wiggly lines that you can see in the photo on the left, but I absolutely love the views from the 50th storey skybridge that links all the towers together. In fact, I love everything about the skybridge.  The views are fabulous,completely out of this world, all for the bargain price of five Singapore dollars to non-residents.  The afternoon we went , there were fewer than a dozen visitors  - the two of us, a young expat couple and four Singaporeans doing a fashion photo shoot.  They said that they often come to the Pinnacle and I can see why.

Isabel living the high life

The skybridge flows continuously but has lots of different sections enabling visitors to sit down (or lie down in some cases) to enjoy the view or just meditate.  There is even a patch of concrete painted in a cool blue, presumably to suggest to the eye and the mind the presence of a swimming pool.  No matter how luxurious the HDB, however, a swimming pool is never part of the deal.

So, if you live in Singapore and are reading this, get yourself off to the Pinnacle on the next clear day.  It will be the best 5 dollars you have ever spent, which is saying something in the city where you can get a big bowl of pig organ soup for the same price.........