the most fun is in the after-party

So we went for Maryam’s way-belated birthday-surprise high-tea yesterday at Carousel (Care-roo-sel, not Ker-roo-zel!). And while that was great fun, and great eating (and some way odd conversation topics…), it was the ‘after party’ that made me v.v. happy. Because, having nothing to do, we decided to go to Kino in Taka! I have to say, Kino is one of my favouritest places to go to in this country. I mean, in any country in particular, but in Singapore, where there’s often no where to go and nothing to do, I can happily spend three hours just browsing about, stocking up books in my imaginary library—the ‘if I had oodles of money to spend like water, I’d buy…” library.

But, as fate would have it, we discovered that Jasper has a Kino card! So of course for me that was the deciding factor in the ’should I buy books today despite my less-than-robust bank account balance?’ question. And the answer, of course, was a loud, cheerful YES. Make that a loud, cheerful YES!!

haha.

AND THEN! while I was in the kid’s section searching for the paperback version of Ink Exchange and Un Lun Dun, I found, to my intense and extreme delight, copies of LJ Smith books! and not just the Vampire Diaries, which are not really my favourites, but the Nightworld books!!! (yes, I know nobody else here really knows, or cares, what I’m talking about, but I’m just so happy!!) And they’ve been republished, so they’re all new and spiffy! Although I do feel a pang of regret that the old covers are no more (at least no more in bookstores, I think they’re still on Amazon), and that the books aren’t sold individually (they’re now in 3-in-1 s), I’m just really happy to have my hands on Nightworld books! muahahahaha. PLUS, it’s only $14.52 for three books!

Yes indeed. I am very happy with this. Happier yet because now I know where I can find my LJ Smith books. So really, if anyone is getting me Christmas presents, Kino vouchers are the way to go! Book vouchers always make very happy, cos then I don’t have to feel guilty about spending money on books. Am now waiting for the next Kino 20% sale, at which time I will drag Jasper (or, as he pointed out, his card) down to Kino and go nuts. TEEHEEHEE!

Oh yes. After reading pretty positive reviews of Un Lun Dun by my favourite LJ Smith fanfic writers, I also decided to get that. Although this was a little bit more expensive, $19.80, but I guess that’s what happens when the whole world starts giving the books rave reviews. Which is another reason I like kid’s fiction—no one really reads them ’seriously’, so books like Tamora Pierce and etc are always affordable. Not like the 27 over bucks ‘Classics’ or the 20plus bucks popular writers command.

So now all I have to do is brave the crowds of insane Sengkangians at Compasspoint and go to Popular and get a tube of plastic book-wrap. Or I could get it in school tomorrow…

:))

move over, mars bars.

On Sunday, my mother gave me a big tupperware full of watermelon chunks.

Yesterday, M and E gave me ’she must be seriously nuts’ looks when I said I was going to deep fry them.

Tonight, I decided that an hour of Althusser was enough (yeah I know, I have no self-discipline), and decided to go do it.

And they turned out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.

I wanted to make it a sweet-and savoury sort of thing, since after all, people make watermelon and feta salads, why not watermelon coated in a light, salty crispy batter, right?

My reference point was the fried nian gao my mother does when people give us nian gao during Chinese New Year. It’s sweet and sticky and technically cooked, but it isn’t very yummy cold, so most people either steam it before eating or panfry it. Once warm, it turns all gooey and sweet and sticky and delish. yum.

My mum does a thin batter to coat, and to prevent the pan from turning into a giant flat nian gao once it starts to warm up, and the batter is always a little salty, which was what I wanted for my watermelons. I also wanted it to be very light and crispy, a sharp textural contrast to the juicy watermelon within. So, I made a thickish paste of plain flour, a dash of baking powder, a dash of white pepper and salt, a generous sprinkling of ground black pepper, and a sprinkle of sugar, all held together with just enough water.

Of course, hot oil+water droplets scares the crap out of me, so my greatest worry was that the batter wouldn’t coat the watermelon completely, and leave me with spurts of hot oil coming out of the wok. And, of course, I wanted it to be light and crispy, without the goopy wet-batter aspect of some fish and chips. So I first dried the watermelon chunks by covering them with paper towels, then, I dredged them in corn flour before coating them in the batter and sliding them into the smoking wok. I must say, I hardly ever let my wok get so hot without any food in it, so it was quite scary. In my mind’s eye, the little oil molecules were gaining more and more and more energy from the heat, vibrating faster and faster and faster, until suddenly they just flew up and out of the wok to rain like napalm down on me. heh.

But all went without mishap, and I really loved the final result.

Biting into one, your teeth first encounter crisp, piping hot, fried batter before sinking into a lusciously juicy and decadently red interior. The outsides have a lovely, slight caramelised whiff from the sugar, whilst the insides are watermelonly, but juicier and sweeter from the heat. As you chew the bite in your mouth, the crispiness of the outsides soon give way to the juice running out if the watermelon, getting ever-so-slightly soaked. As your teeth chew it all up, the random bursts of fragrance and slight spiciness from the black pepper just add another delicious dimension to the whole thing. mmmm.

And it’s pretty too! The red of the watermelon just gets amplified by the heat—that picture hasn’t been photoshopped at all, except to flip it from horizontal to vertical—although, of course, starting out with red, ripe and sweet watermelons doesn’t hurt. :))

a little bottle of man-made magic

Once, years ago, I had a buffet dinner at the Hilton, and one of the tiny desserts was what looked in the dim light like an interesting white lump—no idea what it was. So I took it and gave it a try. It turned out to be rice pudding—rose scented rice pudding. It was the first time I’d eaten rice pudding, although I’d read of it in Edin Blyton books. The rose flavour though, quite frankly blew my mind. In my mind, rose was just such a red flavour—probably because the only time I’d ever encountered it was in rose syrup or bandung. So that that little dish of white stuff tasted so red whilst looking so white was just—inconceivable. To me, that rice pudding should just have been red—pink, rosy-coloured, just the way it tasted. It was one of those totally wow moments, one of those I hardly ever consciously thought about, but that had really been etched deeply into my mind. The first time I ate a rose macaron, my mind immediately flashed back to that first, earth-shaking rice pudding.

I’ve made rice pudding once before, using this recipe. While that was really nice and oozy and comforting, it was nothing like that first rice pudding—not only because there was no rose, but because it was much creamier and heavier. Rose macarons and Mark’s and Spencer’s Free Trade Rose Chocolate have been featuring quite frequently in my mouth this past year, and I’ve developed quite an obsession with flower fragrances, rose and violet in particular.

Bought two bars of the chocolate and a bottle of artificial rose extract today, with plans for a Chocolate-Rose cupcake sometime in the near future. Being curious as to how that little bottle of fake rose extract would smell/taste, I opened it, and the clear liquid with it’s immensely red, rosy scent just immediately threw my mind back to that original rose rice pudding, so I set out to recreate it. I used less milk than the recipe above, and made it up with water, to make it less rich, and I must say, though it doesn’t have the exact taste/texture that I remember, that mind-boggling red taste/white colour aspect of it is exactly as I remember it.

:)

It doesn’t look like much, just a mound of white, but the taste, oh the rosy, blushing taste of roses!

water, water every where, nor any drop to drink

One of the first dick flicks I ever watched was Waterworld, and I really loved it. I mean, the whole alternate world, swashbuckling, mysterious, gruff Kevin Costner with gills behind his ears, pirate-y cahracters—it was, quite simply, magical. Sadly, it was one of those movies that just seemed to disappear, and I haven’t given it a thought for years. Or at least, until I saw the trailer the other day, and watched it on star movies tonight.

:)

Some people know that I’ve got a total thing for catamarans, but I never really knew why. And I’ve never been able to find my perfect catamaran either. I always thought it was one of those created-by-my-mind sort of things, even though the image of the boat in my mind was always crystal clear. Now, it appears, my perfect catamaran is the one the ‘Mariner’ owns

Just three hulls and netting—like a sea-going hammock. This is my dream boat.

Fill for me a brimming bowl/And in it let me drown my soul

i want to go out and party!

It’s been almost a year since I last went out and got drunk.

Actually, it’s been almost a year since I drank at all.

Too long, it has been tooooo long.

I don’t neccessarily want to get drunk, I just want to drink some—beer, tequila, rum and coke, a martini—a lychee martini, a chocolate martini, a saketini. ohh boy it’s been so long since I’ve tasted good ol’ martini, no olives. I want to knock back a few tequila shots too, the salt on the rim, the harsh bite of the alchohol, the burn as it goes down your throat and hits your stomach, the tart acid of the lime wedge.

but really, all I really want is a good, cold beer. a nice, fizzy, malty beer. or a beach-beer, with a lime wedge shoved into the neck. or a dark, smooth Guinness, with a lovely, foamy, creamy head.

heh. I sound like an alchoholic.

but i’m not, really. it’s just so blasted hot that all i can focus my mind on is a beer. And thinking of beer makes me think of other alchoholic pursuits.

so there.

pig is good eatin’

*burp*

just got home from a late dinner with my mother at Bedok North Road hawker center, near block 85/the ntuc after the police station.

yeahh, it’s kind of a long name, the only reason I put it down here is so I can actually remember what the place is called.

To be honest, although it’s a crazy-ass big hakwer center, I only really go there for three reasons:

1) the bak chor mee, or minced pork noodles. These have got to be one of the best ever bak chor mees. Their pork balls are to die for, bouncy, chewy, porky, and tasting ever so slightly of salted fish. mmm. And their minced pork is the real deal, and it comes with the best soup ever. I usually eat my noodles dry, and ignore the small bowl of soup that comes with it, cos who wants to drink msg and water, right? But their soup comes in  bowl as big as the noodle bowl, and it is chock-a-block with minced pork and pork protein. damn but it’s good.

2) the ah balling. Or, as english-speaking people call them, rice balls. mmm. the ah balling here rock. They’re actually made by real people, as opposed to being bought, frozen, in bulk, so they’re really nice and chewy and bouncy. And the peanut filling is excellent. But don’t listen to me la, I’m an ah balling nut. I love glutinous rice balls.

3) the little old school bakery behind the hawker center. They sell the loveliest little cakes, the real, old school, under the hdb block kind of stuff. Each little cake is about maybe 5-6cm long, rectangular, three-layered old fashioned ‘cream’ cakes—decorated with dollops of piped-on fake ‘buttercream’: as my mother described them, retro. And totally delish. :)

maybe i’m a gigantic idiot

oh my god, hoe yu ying!

you suck!

i am ashamed of you.

i know, i know!

but, but, but..

NO BUTS!

you suck.

little piece of shit.

you SUCK!

go sit in your little corner and reflect on your stupidity and extreme suckiness.

GO.

But! Butbutbut!

you know how sometimes you do something that you know is just dumb, but you can’t stop yourself from doing it anyway?

like eating a whole bag of ruffles and then feeling disgustingly disgusting after that. or watching some lousy trashy movie when you should be studying or writing your assignments. or asking leading questions just to make someone say something that will hurt you without them even realising it.

maybe you don’t know. maybe it’s just me. maybe i’m just a masochist. maybe i’m just broken, maybe there’s just something wrong with me.

sigh.

maybe i just like this sort of pity party..

what can i say—like i said, i suck.

on a different note, i had fun today.

I love ice cream.

and the totally redonk conversation was a blast too. :)

attack of the killer stupids

Seriously, sometimes people can be so unbelievably dumb. Seriously. How the heck did these people get into Uni??

Stereotypes. Not a difficult concept to grasp, really. Especially when we actually get not one but two lectures on them. Stereotypes: generally negative oversimplifications of an entire racial group, culture, gender or something else. Countertype: ‘positive’ attributes that have become stereotypes. See? simple, right?

So then WHY THE HECK IS IT THAT PEOPLE CANNOT MOVE PAST THAT BASIC DEFINITION AND ONTO A REAL DISCUSSION??

It’s true that in some cases fruitful, meaningful discussions can come out of debating definitions. But honestly, this is not one of those cases. Or at least, that’s not what these people are doing. honestly. I can recognise when the discussion is too deep for me. But I can also recognise when a discussion is just a bunch of losers who don’t know what the crap they’re talking about, trying to post as much crap as they can cos they think that’s what’s going to get them marks. But seriously, folks. How is it possible for a 20-something undergraduate to not be able to tell the difference between stereotypes and perspective? Especially when we HAD a fortnight on perspective and context. Seriously, I’m not making this shit up.

I know that stereotypes are neutral, meaning it can be positive or negative. However I believe that countertypes just mean the ‘other’ type. For example, when you watched The joy luck club, the woman who married a man with wives seemed cheap. Her family turned against her because they did not believe her. The countertype would be that she was forced and she was still loyal to her beliefs and morals. The stereotype is still present, from her family’s point of view. But the audience would be able to see the countertype.

Another example would be, watching the first movie, I thought the white male lead was stronger and braver but the movie later reveals that the chinese male lead is stronger and braver.

-a person on my forum group who shall, for her own sake, remain unnamed

Uhm. Maybe there’s a point buried under that “blizzard of words”, to quote Charlie Gibson, but honestly, if you’re in Uni and you can’t make your point so that people can understand it, then there’s something seriously wrong with you.

ugh.

Baa-aa-aaa

For two hours every week, I wish I were American.

And in the meantime, Channel 5 has come up with a new “anthology series”, the “first English drama filmed entirely overseas”, A Sense of Home, probably to try to stem the flood of people migrating to greener pastures in Australia, New Zealand, America, the United Kingdom etc. The trailer’s tagline asks the (not really) rhetorical question, “Is the grass really greener on the other side?”

For at least two hours a week, I wish I were American. I wish to actually be able to vote, more or less meaningfully (and by more or less, I mean more, rather than less) for government officials, even the county dog catcher. To be able to write a TV sitcom in which characters make pointed comments about stolen elections. To have those certain inalienable rights and freedoms—the right to the pursuit of Happiness, freedom to assemble, to petition, freedom of speech. To live under the rule of law, not man, to have ideals and institutions that I would—misguidedly or not—rush to enlist in a war overseas to protect. To live in a country where, even if my fellow countrymen vote for an idiot of a President, I can be secure in the knowledge that in at most eight years, there will be a new, hopefully better, man leading the country, and that my country could survive any number of bad leaders. To be so into national day that I would bake a blue white and red cake, pie or other sort of food, fire up the ol’ barbecue and have a backyard potluck party to mark the occasion. That would be awesome

So, yes, in my opinion, the grass is greener on the other side. And it sure as hell ain’t some sort of metaphorical parallax error.

i seem to have lost my blogging mojo.

in fact, i think i’ve just lost my mojo, period.

am tired. am annoyed. am in one of those life-just-ain’t-all-that-worth-livin’ moods.
no, not going to kill myself. i’m just—feeling blah.