Monday, September 29, 2008
Wild WeekendHad great fun on Friday with a bunch of people! Monty, Smartypants, Da Bitch, Ariel, Felicia and Yx were all at St Jame's. The fun actually really started after 1am, when the juggies were going at $19 each. We've got to do this again! Or rather, we've got to do it soon before we all get too old to be allowed. I need party-ish clothes though. And I need to lose that flab. OK, I've got to grab those crazy photos from Felicia and upload those.
Had a house-warming party at Anna's the next day, and I came up with a seaweed salad. I'm afraid I can't quite recall what I added into the dressing though, but it had seaweed extract, sesame oil, tomato and sugar. Alas, I made do with cheapo smoked salmon though, so it wasn't all that great. Here's a pic!
For the greens, I used baby spinach, baby butterhead lettuce, dried wakame seaweed and dried assorted seaweed which contained some of the funkiest seaweed ever. There were Gracillaria, Ulva and a host of others that I can't quite identify. For the savoury part there was smoked salmon, smoked mussels, seasoned jellyfish, faux crabmeat and salmon roe. The secret here is to rehydrate the seaweed in
salt water instead of tap water, as suggested. Tastes very much of the ocean, which was nice.
More from the party:
The 4 poster girls ..
The soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Andrew (something .. I don't know his surname!)
Animated conversation after quarter-bottle of
neat Vodka each. Yx (very unwisely) challenged a German-Pole to Vodka-drinking. I must say, neat Smirnoff is actually very palatable when chilled.
Brownie and I spent the night over at Yx's, but the naughty little boy soiled himself the next morning and had to be brought back home for a nasty shower. Post-shower misery:
And I finally visited Culina today. It's this shop beside Coronation Plaza that stocks artisan gourmet selections. So if you're looking for that elusive duck leg confit, a specific kind of potato, or even seasonal black winter truffles, that will be the shop to go to! Just a little sneak peak at next week's project - can you guess what's coming up?
That little bottle is
fleur de sel, by the way, which I've been searching high and low for.
The shop also stocks
sel gris, but I don't really fancy adding marsh mud into my food. Now these 2 bottles are my preciousssss, so they'll be hidden away from roaming paws in the kitchen. Hmmm ... having some sort of infatuation with salt now. Crazy. Of all things ...
Wenky
12:24 AM
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Friday, September 26, 2008
Caltrop, unveiledRemember my call for the ID of this Mid-Autumn Festival thing that we eat? To my utmost surprise, Yx actually had the answer ready! (Don't get me wrong here, it's just that the subject matter is
plants and I was honestly, pleasantly surprised) It's actually called
water caltrop (Trapa sp.). Yay! She says it's her years of literature reviews finally paying off. =p
Here's a pic of the root itself (or is it a tuber?)
And the actual plant floating around in my DIY "pond"
The pond - gotta coin a funky name for it soon - is actually getting rather mucky with filamentous algae now. Which is odd - I'd have thought that the plants would compete favourably. I'll probably have a think about it. It's either algae-eating shrimp/snails or my favourite Triops. I just don't want anything eating the Utricularia.
Wenky
7:36 AM
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Monday, September 22, 2008
I finally snapped. For those who do know, I've been working as a HOMO for the last 1 week. And in Renal, you really do need someone to do some mundane work. So I've been going round like a madman, not to mention people starting to get ill, and on top of that my registrar's been stuck at conferences etc. So it's just down to one single person - not pleasant at all. So, I decided to take the weekend off. Seriously, I needed a break. One of those "I just don't give a shit anymore" moods.
Yx was off having fun at a hen night yesterday, and I had no activities on so I decided to make a trip down to west coast park at night to just take some photos. Yes, geeky, I know. They actually turned out pretty well! Only contrast had been retouched in Photoshop, but otherwise these are pretty much the original.
Love the melancholy in this one.
And the star-shaped points of light here.
Not bad huh, with some patience and meddling around with settings. Just a simple camera, no fancy add-ons.
I missed dinner last night, so I decided to make it up by cooking tonight. Dad was upset that my menu was largely veggie, so he added in a stir-fried wild boar with ginger. Foreground: stuffed peppers (OMG, Cold Storage Jelita has these beautiful, single-portion sized peppers in stock now!). On the right: Breaded portabello with minced pork and sweet basil. Background: Spiced rice topped with broccoli with cashew nuts. Pretty hard work, but enjoyable.
Wenky
1:00 AM
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Sunday, September 14, 2008
The inevitable, and what to do with itI haven't written for a long, long while. Last time I thought about writing, it was just half an hour before doing a weekend night call. And yep - as would be expected, the call was filled with horrors and I didn't get to write at all. At least I intubated my first patient that day (I almost sound like the freak Christina Yang in Grey's) and got to know my registrar much better. It's times like these that I start questioning my would-be career choice. I
know I'll miss internal medicine.
Anyway, I finally succumbed to lust and desire. No fancy parties for a long, long while I guess. And yet my resolve was sorely tested yesterday when I went for a kitchen-utensils sale (how
Auntie is that?!?) and I started drooling over the gleaming knives and cold, bright silverware.
Random pictures. I just need more practice!
One of my favourite shots - Brownie doing his bunny-bounce towards me.
Felicia's new puppy
***
Tuesday.
I went to the surgical ICU with my mom during lunch to visit an old acquaintance. For as long as I remember, I had known her as "Tak Tahu" ("I don't know" in Malay), a nickname my mom coined for her, which later stuck for years amongst her own friends.
I must admit, I never knew her real name. And neither did my mom, I suspect.
I remember her as this kindly old Malay dame who would shop at my mom's old mini-market every other day and stay to chat. What's more, she'd bring goodies. The nicest nasi lemak, mee soto and kuehs - which eventually my mom placed in her shop to sell. She was admitted after being found unconscious - a massive bleed in the brain. Her children, for some unknown reason, had called up my mom on her third day of coma and told her of the news. As drama would have it, we reached the ICU not a moment too soon, and arrived to find that she had passed away. The trolley was in fact waiting, and if we had arrived a minute or two later, we wouldn't have had a chance to see her. She was unrecognisable. Not after all these years. Standing there, looking back at a small and conveniently-forgotten part of life's experiences, the memories of those primary school days just came back.
It was an abrupt closure to a special friendship between my mom and her. And how odd to finally know her real name only at the end, though she'll always be Tak Tahu for me and my mom.
***
Had an uncomfortable day earlier this week, during lunch when one of the registrars started broaching a rather horrid topic to me and my friend. It just got me more and more irritated. I suppose it's more pertinent to my friend for now, since I'm not affected - not yet anyway. But that time will come. And what do I foresee myself doing then? I know I'll be miserable. It's part of the deal - misery. Unless you are, like that registrar, one of those who can talk about it and preach for others to try and do well. It just got me thinking that maybe it's because of people like these who have perpetuated this very uncivilized rite of mental rape and theft of youth. Good for them. I'm glad they are enthusiastic.
I've actually begun exercising, no thanks to Yx who dug out old pictures of me and asked me earnestly what the hell happened to me. I'm glad to say that despite my bulk, I'm still able to glide gracefully on wheels set in tandem. I really do miss youth.
Remember those Triops from the December before last? I'm so tempted to grow them again. The eggs are sitting in my drawer, I just need to get down to preparing a tank. Oh! And I made up a tupperware-pond right outside my window! Yx doesn't really catch what's going on, but it's like a childhood dream come true for me. I've got one of those miniature lilies in it, miscellaneous aquatic plants, a floating plant (could someone please point me to what those black 牛角 things we eat during the Autumn festival are? These floating plants produce them ...), some small shrimp, a group of 10
Badis badis fish, and of course the carnivorous plant part - some
Utricularia aurea. I intend for this tupperware pond to eventually hold
Aldrovanda vesiculosa. Or wait. Why destroy a perfectly nice pond? I could have another one! *wink*
And finally, just an aside, I attempted a New England Clam Chowder from scratch not too long ago, and the recipe is up on the food blog. I told myself I'll never touch the crap they sell outside again.
Wenky
9:32 AM
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