This post is too long and I have no title

1) My very handsum boyfriend/lover/future husband (ok I typed it out here so if this doesn't happen it will come back and haunt me forever) in one of his many floral shirts. Now I think he just needs a nice watch to complete the look.

2) How my usual breakfast looks like 

3) First time in Forty Hands (no, I didn't just hear it for the first time; I just couldn't be bothered to go look-see) and unfortunately, I don't like that place one bit neither do I like the supposedly awesome coffee. Too strong for me. Not sure if I was drinking water, spitting out or gurgling in the picture LOL brunch may be getting too pretentious for me now that I have found my perfect breakfast, see number 2 above.

I've just recovered from a random bout of high fever after my mom peeled me off my sweaty bed (gross ikr) and dragged my dying body to the Chinese doctor. Apparently my body is of the "cooling" type and I may have eaten too much raw vegetables (aka salads) over the past few months which is considered a "cooling" food so it isn't really good for me. ._______. All the supposedly healthy salad lunches for the past 10 months... are making me sick?!?!?! Ok anyway so I googled it (thank God for google) and it's not recommended to consume spinach, the main raw vege in my salad, raw too often because it's high in oxalic acid, which has been linked to the formation of kidney stones! But obviously you've got to eat like a ton of raw vege to get thaaaat sick like this woman who ate too much raw bok choy aka xiao bai cai aka my favourite Asian-y vegetable in the world (on par with kang kong yums) but who in the right mind will eat them raw when it's so much better steamed or lightly stir-fry?! So now, I've got to relook at my diet again. I think Jotham greatly approves and wants to hug the doctor and probably suggesting in his mind (because he knows I'll punch him hehe) that I just eat meat/protein or something. Btw I didn't fall sick because I ate too much salad (that is just sad) but the doctor just happened to ask about my diet and the first thing my mom said was "salad" and resulted in the whole raw vege conversation.

Actually I came here wanting to write about my October just for memories' sake. Overspent my credit cards (shall never give my daughter one, ever), got my knees bruised in Krav Maga, ate hell lot of sliced fish bee hoon, met my LLL peeps, tried to matchmake ML, failed to catch the church bus so destined to cab to Potong Pasir forever, went USS twice, first time for Halloween Horror Nights 2 with my bro who basically walked through all the haunted houses with his fingers stuffed in his ears and me pathetically hanging off his arm, second time with J's family where only both of us took the Human and Cyclone rides, met Siyun for Perks of Being a Wallflower and long talk, sort of screamed at an incompetent security guard through a taxi's driver's mobile phone (long story). OK goodnight.

Asian-style cooking

After a few months of sandwiches and wraps and salads, I finally realised that while our home pantry may not have lots of Western herbs/seasoning like thyme, basil, oregano, tarragon (I have all of them in bottles but still trying to figure out what goes with what sort of ingredients, it's truly a nightmare resulting in dubious food sometimes) but my mom has an impressive stock of Asian seasoning like fish sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce in all variations, abalone sauce, rice wine vinegar, etc, so I experimented.

I adapted a recipe from the BBC Good Food Asia magazine for the bowl above, a mixture of soba (they asked for rice noodles but I don't have and don't like it), leftover baby spinach, mixed vegetables, firm tofu and last minute bacon addition or else the picky little sister wouldn't eat it. While I failed at cooking tofu (looks nice but lacking in taste, damnit), the noodles were amazing because of the soy sauce and sesame oil!!! Didn't know the sauces would make such a great different but... omg totally in love with sesame oil.

Ok here's a Korean side dish of soya bean sprouts (finally found the right kind of bean sprouts in NTUC, everywhere else including the wet market my mom goes to only sell the regular bean sprouts, meh) with sesame seeds. Don't know why my mom has roasted sesame seeds in the fridge but she does, and totally made this a success. Again, soy sauce and sesame oil!!! So I snacked on this while watching tv shows yum. That's all for the gluton side of my life, bye.

Give thanks

Time is flying by too quickly, I cannot catch up. But in any case, here's another quick update of what has been happening in my life and things that I'm thankful for (and to rant a little bit, just a teeny bit):

Last week was pretty uneventful. Did the usual of sleeping in, staying up late and sleepover with Jotham. The best part of weekends is just lying in bed with this boy and talk about absolutely everything and anything. A close second is him carefully digging/cleaning my ear for me LOL gross but he doesn't mind so ok. Had flu the entire week so basically concussed in bed. Oh and have been obsessed with Masterchef, I now understand why people love the show because I do too. And result: I have five food magazines on my table now. I am ready to whip up a feast once I get my hands on a reasonably-priced food processor this week.

Last last week was, on the contrary, very eventful. I hung out with my "new" cell group mates (Meh, I don't know what to classify them under) in Sentosa but mostly trying my best to stay out of the sun and playing a little bit of volleyball. Em's 21st bbq at her house was, as usual, great because I met friends that I haven't seen in a year (literally) and sort of patched a broken friendship. Not too sure how that is yet, but I think we're off to a good (re)start. Met Amiril for some Mediterranean food at Olive & Fig and restored both our sanity for the week. Sometimes, we just need yummy food and friends, don't we? Sunday was Gideon's birthday and wedding. So, after a long absence, I went back to church for his solemnisation and the moment his bride stepped into the hall, I was on the verge of (happy) tears. I am so, so, so happy for him, it's ridiculous. This man, even though we hardly speak anymore, had a big role in shaping who I am today. I may have become a smoker + drinker/clubber + doomed to hell if not for him. Meh. Anyway, also discovered a new Bar Bar Black Sheep (way nicer than the one at Bukit Timah Road) at Cluny Court so I'm putting that into my to-visit list.

Ok, I'm hungry now. Shall pop some wholemeal bread into the toaster and have it with peanut butter (my fav!!!) while I watch Masterchef till bedtime. (And hopefully one day my toast will go beyond peanut butter.)

Fighting your demons

Right now, I have lentil stew cooking in the crockpot and I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be nice! Even though I made like a zillion tweaks to the original recipe. 

Went through a teensy bout of self-pity and bleakness last week and Jotham was so scared I was falling into depression. But I snapped out of it. I've been avoiding some of my issues, hiding them deep inside and hoping that if I don't speak about them, it'll just go away. Guess it just surfaced again last week in full force to haunt me again. But this time, I'm going to face it and fight it and make it right. Thank God that J is so annoyingly logical and that he anchors me to the ground when I'm overwhelmed and overly-dramatic. I like that we're not too whimsy or romantic (I've come to realised that it's only nice for a short while) because it's the steadfast and quiet confidence we both have towards each other that is deeply reassuring.

In other news, I have shoulder-length hair now. I love it, I may cut it even shorter the next time.

Second year

Exactly one week ago was our second anniversary. Jotham is the only boy I want to be counting the years with. :) And look at us going to Nex in matching AA tee shirts (I now "own" that purple tee of his hehe), only in different colours. Belated "celebration" by cooking steak at home. I think this is our second attempt to cook together. Burnt sweet potatoes fries courtesy of yours truly ): My mom came home when we were eating, took one look at the burnt fries and said "Better throw it away, it looks cancerous." So much support hahahahaha Nevermind, I will only get better.

Nomming in Bangkok

Took me an entire week to stop procrastinating but I must write this down while the memory is still fresh. Bangkok is good for many things, but nothing will beat the food (ok shopping comes really close). Especially Bangkok's street food. Embarrassingly, it's only my second time to Bangkok, my first time was a press trip I wrote about here. Basically everything is pretty new and exciting to me so please don't judge me. 

Above picture shows my two ultimate favourite drinks - freshly squeezed orange juice and passionfruit juice. Thailand's fruits are really, really fresh and exquisite; oranges are tiny and passionfruits (or is it  something else?) are so pretty! Plus they come cheap like 20 and 40 baht respectively so we drank them everyday.

Usually if I walked past anything deep fried (especially on a hot, sweaty day), I would have given them a miss. But Jotham specifically texted me to ask me to look out for fried bananas, and we found them! Apparently, it's his favourite Thai street food.

Random mango sticky rice store. Almost didn't want to buy them because we were so full after our zi char style street dinner (btw we paid over 200 baht for just tom yum soup aka kena ripped off) but thankfully we bought it back to our hotel to eat. So, so, so good.

Street vendors lining in the middle of Khao San Road. This backpacker place is probably the best place  to scour for street food! We went there on our first night and our 5-day overeating started there but so worth it.

Coconut ice cream in Chatuchak. Delicious on a hot and crowded weekend.

Banana pancake in Khao San Road. Surprisingly we didn't see this banana pancake anywhere else in Bangkok! There's nutella, chocolate and lots more other flavour but we got the original one. If the passionfruit juice is my favourite drink, this is my favourite street food.

Nothing special really, I just like steamed sweet corn. In fact, I have sweet corn ready with my lunch tomorrow!

Phad Thai in Khao San Road. No joke, that place is a food paradise. The only thing I didn't really fancy was the chicken kebab. It was sort of dry with lots of weird sauces on it and dropping all over my shirt as I attempted to eat it. Not a fan. 

No idea what this is, the auntie told us "pancakes" or at least, that's what we heard. But it has a sweet taste to it!

Green curry noodles at Platinum mall. Unsure if this is how green curry is supposed to taste like or they just watered it down to cheat tourists' money but I definitely prefer Singapore's version.

Had a cheesecake and tea in a cute Japanese cafe to wait for the rain to subside. This happened almost everyday. So we went to lots of cafes. And restaurants.

Another cafe in Siam Paragon. Just needed aircon after Chatuchak lol.

Ventured to Sukhumvit area and found a little soi (10 or 12 I think?) with lots of Korean bbq restaurants. There were lots of Koreans too so we thought it must be of reasonable standard so we went in to eat too. Good choice because we paid only $34 for two in total which, unfortunately, will never happen in Singapore. If you do know a place like that in Singapore, please let me know thank you. Will be grateful for life.

Above three are in Sukhumvit soi 11, a cool hippie street with lots of restaurants and bars and lots of expats. We went to a Mexican restaurant and a Spanish tapas cafe there (on different days) and were the only two Asian girls. Again, we pretty much ordered without looking at the prices and ate our fill. And yes, that is a Paul Frank Volkswagen bus/van mobile bar. Someone needs to set this up a bar like this in Singapore and I need to own this Volkswagen.

Ok, this is taking me way too long and my eyes are hurting. And I need a haircut. Bleah goodnight world.

Weekend pancakes

Every other weekend (or public holiday, like it is today), I make pancakes for breakfast. Or lunch, if I wake up too late. Since the beginning of the year, I've made so many variety of pancakes like smashing bananas into pancakes (ok not too bad), chocolate chips pancakes (yums), slathered insane amount of peanut butter on wheatgerm pancakes (thus nullifying any nutritious quality if it had any in the first place) and the usual ones with bacon and egg, etc.

This morning, I made oat pancakes with almost expiring blueberry/cranberry jam and scrambled eggs and cherries on the side. Even added some flaxseeds to the batter for texture which I bluffed Melissa was "special flour" (she asked why there was a weird crunch) or she will probably refuse to eat it because she generally rejects everything that is relatively good for the body. The jam made everything beyond sweet and I wonder if I'm overloading my body with sugar, but never mind. It's National Day!

It makes last week's oat pancakes with smashed avocado look pretty bleak. :( Btw, I think my overusing of avocados over the past 6 months in salad lunch is making me sick of it. I want to gag whenever I taste it. Is that even possible? Is there an alternative? Meh.

Ok break's over, now back to finishing this article before I pack extremely lightly for BKK. 

Making a list (again)

Picture from tumblr.

• Pretty stoked that I'm going on a week-long press trip to China almost straight after my BKK getaway with ML! 
• Prepared red cabbage salad (+carrots, chickpeas and stuff, not just red cabbage of course) for the first time for tomorrow's lunch and salad dressing of my own concoction. Gotta love my mom for being so supportive of me eating salad lunches.
• That said, breakfast nowadays have been plain yogurt + cereal + whatever fruits that's available. And I've found that the multigrain loaf from NTUC (or rather, the NTUC bakery?) is pretty darn awesome when lightly toasted and with a little margarine spread on it. And it's only $3! Forget about bakery breads!
• Also got me wondering if I should extend this healthy eating thing to dinner but nah. I'll save that for later, I'm only barely 21! Plus my moleskine is lined with too many meetups revolving around unhealthy dinners... Let's not deprive myself yet. I'll start with breakfast and lunch.
• Visited Littered with Books over the weekend and bought two new books to read! I've just finished Room by Emma Donoghue which left me in tears. It's been so long since I felt that sinking feeling after you're done with a good book.
• Went to Jotham's cell group for the first time ever. Made me realised how long I've yet to attend cell group and how important it is to have one. ):
• Ro's engaged. My cousin, who got proposed to on her 21st birthday this month, is also engaged. Happy for them but can't help thinking it's a teeny weeny bit too early for marriage. At least for me.
• Second issue of EX is out and I cannot be more pleased with it. It's one thing to write for a magazine and it's another to be able to plan and write original content (we basically don't accept any press releases for this mag) from scratch. Tough, but so rewarding. Third issue, here we go!
• I honestly need to put some thought into my dressing as it has watered down to basically jeans + whatever top that matches my bra or suits the weather (which means white loose shirts which I have plenty) + my trusty, sometimes boring, Superga sneakers. I don't need to look damn stylish or what, but this is just... blah. That's what BKK is for I guess.
• Super long list, going to stop here. Last reminder to self: Never buy blueberries from the US regardless of how big and plump and juicy it looks. It's not.

Everyday lunch

Ugly plastic container that I call my lunchbox holding my salad lunch for tomorrow. Because my workplace is so ulu, there's basically nowhere to get food and generally everyone just bring their own and eat in the office, so I've been making my lunches since... probably the 3rd day of work. 

Before I started work in Feb (6 months already?!?!), I had lots of time to make my own food (which explains this, this and this)  but now, salad is the fastest to prepare under 10 minutes. Just wanted to make a note here so in future, I'll look back and pat myself on the back for eating heathily (at least for lunch) which hopefully will contribute to my overall wellbeing and general health and encourage myself to not become a fat auntie.

Which reminds me... A note to future me: salad lunches are best with sweet corns cut out straight from the cobbs in Mommy's soup.

Train of thoughts

I didn't mean to abandon this space for two weeks but somehow, time just flew past. Met these crazy people (above) for xlb buffet on Monday at 10plus, ate like cows and staggered home with a full belly. Finally went to the gym twice this week with Jotham as my "personal trainer". Think he really enjoy torturing me with weights hahaha. And he sent flowers + subway to me during lunch time on one of his off days, aww so thoughtful, can't believe I'm such an idiot to ask why he added olives in my wrap HAHAHA sorry bb love you. Baked chocolate banana cupcakes with ML, definitely needs improvement lol. OH and BKK trip is finally booked!!!!! Going to live a life of a peasant soon. Sushi Tei with SY and thankfully, with her, I don't overeat. Started this dessert ban for my diet and failing since I ate Yoguru yesterday before watching Chernobyl Dairies with J and scaring ourselves (mostly me during the movie, and him after) shitless ): so hard to keep to any diet for realz. How do people do it. Yesterday was Ben's 19th birthday and this boy can have a more care-less attitude towards it. Don't want cake, don't want dinner, don't want present. Just went to school for dance class (like usual) and everything went as per his normal daily life .___. Don't know if we're related (I love birthdays). Speaking about birthdays, reminds me I have to go bathe and change now for Amiril's bday lunch and Ro's 21st BBQ tonight. At this rate, all these July babies are making me poorer than I already am.

July, the halfway mark of 2012

Into the second half of 2012 we go - the year of no school, no exams, no holidays to look forward to. Jotham and I went on a breakfast-turned-brunch + Amazing Spider-Man movie date on the last day of the first half of the year. May the next half be more exciting and fulfilling! I definitely could use more of that.

I believe in a world of good

I spent my weekend with Jotham as usual. Rolling in bed, having long talks, laughing at each other, ok no, just laughing at anything really. Highlight was Sunday night driving out for prata at Alazar after much deliberation about healthy vs unhealthy food and of course, once we reached there it's no turning back. Butter chicken masala, naan and even prata bomb which we (actually mostly just myself) polished up. And after a hearty meal, we went back to the car and found a summon ticket of $30 for not putting parking coupons. Ohwell... We also managed to catch a midnight movie The Vow at Nex on Saturday and had a lengthy talk about how we started our relationship. It's quite an amazing story actually but I'll save it for next time. Maybe for our kids or something.

Thank God it's public holiday Labour Day tomorrow and I'm watching The Avengers! So I'm going to sleep now and when I wake, it'll be May.

(Really old) pictures in my Blackberry

My favourite neighbourhood kitty aka demon cat (as we call it) makes an appearance again. The other day, it took the lift with Jotham's neighbour and came up to his doorstep!!!!! I almost died and went to kitty heaven.

Please meet the super cute wombat I brought home from Sydney. His name JJ Lian (short for Jotham Junior, sorry I'm so lame and uncreative). He's the first and only soft toy that I keep playing with repeatedly. And I don't even like soft toys, so that's saying alot. 

Normally we'd buy paddle pop (nom nom cravings) while walking home but that day, we decided to get a solero split. Best idea ever until it started dripping like crazy under the hot sun. Old school ice cream beats all the other ice cream hands down.

That's not even all of it...

One of the many bruises from kettlebell gym :( But I was way healthier 3 months ago than I am now.

This is a plate of mindblowing cereal prawns from the hawker centre near my house, which I must eat again soon.

Remains of my once fully intact purple pillow aka my baby pillow. I have set it aside in a secret hiding place to prevent myself from destroying it further. Maybe I will frame it up for my future home. 

Just a picture of me when I just woke up.

I love this bloated face (she just woke up), demon expression of Melissa. It wasn't even intentional.

I can't stare at the computer screen any longer, my eyes are hurting. Oh right, I got upgraded to a bigger imac in office + magic mouse and my eyes are dying from the hugeass screen. Never thought it would be a problem. Sigh, why do I have to grow up? ):

Food brings people together

Chinese New Year reunion dinner this year was pretty special because my Uncle & Aunty who lives in the States were back to visit. I don't really remember the last time they had reunion dinner with us so it should be a pretty looooong time ago. Anyway, everyone was in good spirits and I was kind of the appointed photographer of the day so I went around snapping pictures and ended up with close to 250 pictures to choose from. 

Bowling has got to be my family's favourite pastime, right behind watching movies. This time, some of my cousins joined in too. Way too cold in there to function so I gave up after a while and Ben/Melissa/someone else happily took my place.

Last 2 pictures were from another reunion dinner with my Mom's side. Amazing homecooked meal enough to feed an army (I exaggerate) which left all of us stuffed to the brim. And of course, cute Pri 3 nephew of mine who is growing up so quickly. The days when he was still tiny and barely walking and stuffing all kinds of nonsense food into his mouth because he was "hungry", actually just greedy. 

Had family buffet dinner at Hotel Rendezvous with Jotham's family and pow wow wow, received so many ang pows that it got embarrassing. :')