How I Made Carrot Cake And Met The Cha Dao Guy

I must be the laziest Singaporean around.

And by “laziest,” I mean laziest.

I will complain about being homesick for every kind of hawker food, but I will do nothing about it.

That is, until some motivating factor kicks in, such as I have been away from Singapore for more than 365 days; or, more likely, someone organizes a Singaporean potluck in Seattle and I was going to cop out and buy a bunch of egg tarts from the bakery but then I found out that my brother’s wife was going to make egg tarts from scratch (gasp!) and therefore had to think of an alternative quickly and decided I was going to make carrot cake, so help me God.

So here we are.

Carrot cake dreams are made of this.

I’m talking ABC sauce. I don’t know what’s in it, but it isn’t USDA Organic, that’s for sure.

For this “sweet soy sauce” to taste this good, I’m sure something cute, fluffy, and/or used to be organic matter did die for the good of carrot-cake-loving Singaporeans everywhere.

Ingredients:
Non-vegetarian radish cake (Don’t ask.)
Dried radish or chye por
Eggs
Garlic
Spring onions
ABC sauce
Love

Tactic:
Open all windows and doors. Turn on two burners to “highest.” Use biggest saucepan you have. Grease. Put in this order: garlic, radish, egg, radish cake, ABC sauce, spring onions. Love it up.

Result:
Heaven.

This is but one section of the Singaporean Foodestival!

You can tell how this ends for me.

In random groupie moment news, I discover that the host of the party is Ghim, a Singaporean behind the Cha Dao tea brand I’ve been seeing around Seattle. Hello! How did I not know a Singaporean was behind this?

The tea is freshly brewed, not too sweet, and authentic tasting. (All you Asian diaspora know what I’m talking about!)

I first had his Chrysanthemum tea when I was a cranky, craving, pregnant woman.

If you can please a cranky, craving, pregnant woman, there is nothing you cannot do.