 Dessert
dreams
Chef Pierre admits he never was a straight A student but he certainly
is a dab hand at pastries and this flair has brought him a long way from
the class room.
By Michelle Henricus
Fancy a gastronomic journey with Pierre? Born and bred in Belgium, this
pastry wiz is here in Sri Lanka for the second time, to tempt all those
figure conscious people to gain some weight.
 Pierre
flown specially down by Gulf Air and residing in his favourite hotel the
Colombo Hilton, will be here till July 31.
Chef Pierre admits he never was a straight A student but he certainly
is a dab hand at pastries and this flair has brought him a long way from
the class room. "I never liked studying but to make breads and pastries
has always been a part of my life I guess.' But no one in the family is
involved in bakery, says Pierre.
As a teenager Pierre too had great dreams of one day becoming the best
chef in his motherland. At 16 Pierre launched into his career to make his
dream come true.
" Working for the first time in Belgium's Debailleul Restaurant
where pastries and lovely mouth watering breads are made was like walking
on sugar."
This where I made a name for myself and I have travelled since then
around Europe and learnt many things but Brussels is the place I long to
be," says Pierre.
Pierre's forte is breads and desserts but at the Hilton it's only desserts
he will be dabbling in.
 Some
of his delicious preparations are Symphonie- Meringue filled with nuts
and chocolate/ coffee cream mousse, Rivoli - Raspberry and passion fruit
mousse, Foret Noire - Black forest gateau, Trocadero - Coffee cream, chocolate
cake and many many mouthwatering tea-time assortments.
Everybody specialises in something and chef Pierre's specialty is making
beautiful wedding cake structures.
"I love using my imagination to make intricate wedding cake structures.
That gives me great pleasure. My other specialty is my mousses. It took
me awhile to be almost perfect in making it. Mousse is something everybody
thinks is easy to make, but I'm telling you it is one of the hardest desserts
ever. Because you've got to have the ingredients absolutely correct and
while making it the room temperature too has to be perfect. It take a lot
of training and lots of effort to come out  with
the best mousse," chef Pierre confidently states.
How chef Pierre came to Sri Lanka is another interesting story. Gerard
Mendis, the Hilton's executive pastry chef was in Belgium on a course and
happened to be at the Debailleul where he met this charming young man.
That's how Sri Lankans are able to taste Belgian delights from a Belgian.Other
than being a chef, Pierre is adventurous person. "I've done crazy
things like for instance jet sking 500 km on a 10 hour journey to an island
in Italy with a colleague of mine.
"Then when I came here to Sri Lanka I visited Yala and went fishing
in the high seas, got charged by an elephant by attempting close up pictures,"
he recalled.So that's the way he dabbles with his pastries too. Make sure
you at least get a bite of the Symphonie, for that's truly remarkable.
Pix. by Kumara Dayawansa Nanneththi
Singyore keyana katha
 What
has endeared the Gypsies to the people is the simplicity of their music
and the professionalism of their presentation. But the most important factor
is that the band deals with the social issues that touch the lives of the
ordinary man, woman and child. The lyrics are about the working class,
their humble lives, their problems, women, social discontent and crises.
By Feizal Samath
Thousands of screaming fans, fathers carrying toddlers, mothers with
infants, toothless old men, grey-haired women, youths in jeans and girls
in minis, all flock to see Sri Lanka's best-loved band when it tours the
countryside.
A small playground or an abandoned rice field, hastily turned into a
concert venue, is the scene of riotous crowds as the Gypsies turn on their
powerful music. It's fun and dancing throughout the night.
But for four years, the band - whose albums have sold easily over a
million copies - has not undertaken countryside concerts preferring overseas
tours and work in Colombo, thus depriving village fans of a glimpse of
their heroes.
The Gypsies are now ready to restart local tours and are awaiting the
arrival of new sound equipment from the United States of America (USA)
which they say would be the best mega-sound setup in Sri Lanka. The band,
buoyed by the tremendous success of its latest album that has a multiplicity
of social messages and takes a dig at politicians and their corrupt ways,
also has many other plans in the pipeline.
"We are ready for the local concert tour. We are planning a brand
new act and with the success of Singyore (our latest album), we hope we
would have something new to offer fans," says Sunil Perera, the band's
veteran leader and driving force.
The band, which solely plays Sinhalese pop music, is hard at practice
and is preparing for a tour of the USA later this month. It also recently
toured Australia and New Zealand.
While the Gypsies have not toured the countryside for the past four
years, band leader Perera and his brother, Piyal, have sung as a duo at
open-air concerts.
What has endeared the Gypsies to the people is the simplicity of their
music and the professionalism of their presentation. But the most important
factor is that the band deals with the social issues that touch the lives
of the ordinary man, woman and child. The lyrics are about the working
class, their humble lives, their problems, women, social discontent and
crises. The band has been amply rewarded for its concern, by the immense
popularity it has gained.
Perhaps, their latest album released in cassette form last November
and which has so far sold more than 200,000 copies, best exemplifies the
band's burning desire to raise social consciousness and rectify wrongs.
The same CD is due to be released in the market later this month with some
additional songs.
Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the country's independence,
Singyore was an instant hit. It's played on buses, in tea kiosks, on television,
at posh weddings, while even four and five-year-olds discuss and sing it
in their montessoris. Sri Lankans consider such songs ballads which will
be passed down to posterity, long after the band is no more. As the band
in a note says, tongue-in-cheek, "The album is dedicated to all those
gallant politicians, who by their untiring efforts, honesty and humility,
their unerring policies and divine foresight, have orchestrated the gradual
wreck and ruin of this once famous island paradise."
These sentiments are echoed by thousands of people. The band's video
of Singyore is much in demand and shown on several television channels.
The song about the ups and downs of a politician portrays Perera, a fine
actor himself, as the much-in-demand politician when he is a minister and
his corrupt ways and his return to normal life when he loses the poll.
Perera, whose strong feelings for peace in war-torn Sri Lanka and his
dislike for politicians are well known, also created two popular peace
songs that the Gypsies performed jointly with a string of other musicians.
One song titled, "This land is made for you and me", according
to Perera, highlights the fact that Sri Lanka is a multi-racial country
and everyone has a right to live here.
"We need to create a Sri Lankan identity so that people in this
country are called Sri Lankans instead of being Sinhalese, Tamils or Moslems.
We need to love all human beings; we need to right the terrible wrongs
that have been done to ethnic communities," he said passionately.
The music of the band reflects Perera's feelings very much.
Perera, a Sinhalese Roman Catholic, says he has many Tamil friends and
feels their grief and sadness over the state of affairs in this country.
Thousands of people from both communities have died in the ethnic conflict.
He says musicians can mould public opinion and music is a powerful force.
With this in mind, the band is planning to release its past and present
hits in the Tamil language. "I want to get a message across that music
can bring people together - be they Sinhalese, Tamils or Moslems. We want
these songs in Tamil to be a peace-building exercise," he said.
The Gypsies started out in the 1970s as a band of brothers from the
Perera family, which was then and even now involved in producing some of
the country's best sweets and toffees. The band was originally a purely
western music band, playing English songs but in 1974 transformed into
a Sinhalese pop band.
"We were doing well as a western music band but we realised that
the oriental music scene was much bigger and English pop music was just
confined to Colombo or a few towns outside. Sinhalese pop was attracting
people from all over Sri Lanka," said Perera.
Their first hit in 1974 was a love song like many of the songs that
followed in later years but now the band, which has just two brothers from
the Perera clan while the rest have gone into the family business, concentrates
a lot on music with powerful social themes.
"When a politician is ridiculed, people love to laugh at politicians.
They are so disgusted with the political setup that they want to have a
good laugh. That's why Singyore is selling like hot cakes," he said.
Though Singyore is about the ugly side of politics, the band gets telephone
calls from politicians from all sides praising them for the effort.
Another burning ambition of the band is to play in the northern Jaffna
peninsula which has been a virtually no-go area for southerners after the
war broke out in 1983.
"I wish we could play there; maybe some day. We want to meet the
people there," said Perera, an unusually outspoken musician. The band's
popularity also makes it the most expensive outfit in Sri Lanka.
"We charge a premium because sponsors are prepared to pay that
amount," Perera said. Crowds at a Gypsies' concert outside Colombo
would range from 30,000 to 50,000 people, the highest for any single band
in Sri Lanka. Music of the Gypsies is akin to country and western music
— one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the USA - which reflects
the life of the farmers, people, their trials and tribulations and everyday
problems.
An interesting piece of news about the Singyore album is that the song,
Singyore, was written and produced by the Gypies, way back in 1994. So
why did it take so long for the album to come out?
"We didn't have enough songs to put together into an album. It
was very frustrating. Here we knew we had a hit but couldn't market it
until we had a sufficient number of other songs; good songs," recalls
Perera. Any new hits, this year, next year? "Very unlikely. Even if
I want to come out with another album next year, I know I won't be able
to do it. It takes some years to put together a set of good songs; songs
that would create the kind of impact made by previous hits. People want
something exciting from us. And we've got to come out with something that
will attract the masses."
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