Wallaby Diplomacy
my marsupial mystery + houjicha banana brownie cheesecake tips
For the last two years, my accommodation in London has been a high-rise flat that mandates keycard access, meaning that a verified keycard is required not only to access the building, but also the specific floor I live on. Hence, it was particularly peculiar when I left my flat one day only to spot a solitary creature at the end of my corridor.
In case this picture isn’t clear enough, here is a zoomed-in version.
Look at its perked-up ears. Muscles engaged, ready to pounce. Long, macropodic tail and limbs. Every fibre of its being screams not dog, not cat, not animal of convention. The word in my head was: wallaby.
I stopped short. The corridor was completely silent. All the doors on the floor were closed, and there was no indication that this wallaby belonged to this dimension, let alone anyone on our floor. The moment was infinite. Rooted to the spot, I called out for Jingkai. When he did not answer, I dashed back to my flat door, and got him to come out. Within that half-a-minute span where he wore his shoes and followed me out, the wallaby disappeared without a trace — no sound, no vent out, no door slam.
Being the kind of person that not only has abundant amounts of audacity and a penchant for stress-baking, I did what every other rational person in my position would do. Over the next few days, I made a cheesecake with a houjicha banana brownie base as a pretext to knock on the doors of my neighbours, and investigate the presence (as well as the absence) of the wallaby. Hence, wallaby diplomacy.
What I did not expect, however, were my results to bear fruit so expediently. I had a slight hunch that the wallaby belonged to this particular person, so I knocked on a door with the upside down “福” on it.
A black guy opened the door. I know what you’re thinking. His race is significant to this story and not an arbitrary addition. The last time I knocked on his door was maybe six months ago. I had needed to borrow a cork opener, and with much bemusement I realised that the music that was blasting from one of his bedrooms were sad Chinese songs. It wasn’t even JJ Lin or Jay Chou or those conventional Heartbreak Anthem Guys, it was deep cut Only-Available-On-QQ Music type Chinese music. This was before the “福” was on his door, so it really took me by surprise.
Anyway, the second he opened the door and I started explaining the gift of the cake, he gestured for his girlfriend in a fluffy pink bathrobe (CHINESE GIRL, which explained everything) to come speak to us two Chinese girls (which was kind of crazy considering the fact that we were speaking in English). I told them about the allergens. They were slightly taken aback, but grateful. I then showed them the picture of the wallaby, and asked if they knew anything about it.
“Oh yes,” the lady said, examining the picture. “This is ours.”
She stepped aside to reveal this:
I know. This cat looks nothing like the picture, and I can assure you that it also looks nothing like how it looked like in real life that day. But I urge you to take a closer look at its ears and the shape of the collar. Even though, from this angle, it looks like a run-of-the-mill feline, the marsupial-panthery qualities that lent it that particular look shine through if you inspect the little details. Also, the couple owned two of these that look exactly the same, and they apparently “always escape”. Case closed. Maybe after this article my friends will finally stop hearing about this.
Houjicha brownie banana base cheesecake tips:
Add excessive amounts of houjicha powder in a regular chocolate brownie recipe.
Realise that you forgot to account for the fact that houjicha powder dries out brownies, and now your brownies are cracking and dry — intensely flavourful, but not yummy on their own.
Remember that you can use dry brownies for a cheesecake base.
Smack the dry brownies in a ziplock bag with a large metal spoon to create the base.
Meld together with butter.
Use three kinds of cheese to create the cheesecake bit of the cheesecake.
Bake it in your oven for two hours because your oven does not get hot enough.
Entertain queries about whether you’re going to use this cake to “lure the wallaby out”.
Serve.
Cake reviews:
that looks absolutely nothing like the pic