syntaxfree

Occasional Foodiness

We do a fair bit of cooking but I haven't bothered to write much about it here since cooking is hardly a novelty to either of us. For the same reason, I have hardly any photos of the stuff we've cooked so far, because taking a photograph of my food before eating it would just never occur to me. But since my sister was crouching over our baked fish, snapping away like the keen food photographer she's become, I thought I'd try my hand at it too, and am quite happy with the result.

It's fish baked Greek style with dill, tomatoes and potatoes, from a Nigel Slater recipe. We used kurau (threadfin) steaks, and the dill is from our makeshift balcony herb garden. It's a pretty great recipe because you hardly have to do anything - you chuck potatoes, onions and garlic in a baking tray with olive oil, bake for 10 minutes (180C), add the fish on top and surround it with tomatoes, season with herbs, lemon juice, salt and pepper, bake for 35 minutes more and it comes out perfect.

Apart from that, we also made chicken piccata and roasted aubergine, tomato and chickpea soup, and much credit for the delicious success of those dishes goes to the reliability of Elise's recipes. My mum made braised cabbage with wholegrain mustard, which went very well with everything else, and I whipped up apple, pear and banana smoothies for dessert. It was probably the easiest, cheapest, least stressful, most universally successful dinner party we've ever done. And contrary to Alec's yuppie parody, I can assure you that all ingredients (except the chickpeas, weirdly, we needed Cold Storage for those) can be purchased in NTUC Marine Parade.

My Best Men

My best friend Russ arrives in Singapore this Saturday and will be staying with Alec until the wedding. As long-time readers of this blog (if any of you are still around given its recent dwindle into shitness, that is) will know, Alec and Russ have a complicated relationship.

The two of them were on Gmail Chat today ironing out some arrangements, and the following conversation ensued. (To understand the joke you need to read this post's account of what happened at my graduation dinner, and this and this add a little extra flavour.)

Alec: Michelle and I are discussing who will collect you from the airport. Michelle is full of noble intentions but I'm expecting a resounding Zzzzzz on the actual morning.
Russ: Haha. Don't worry. I think I can make it to yours by myself :D I just need to remember which bus it is. Thanks though :)
Alec: Suits me though. I can say, I was there at 5 in the morning, to carry all your bags and drive you back and......Finally some closure on the awful dinner in London with [her parents]
Russ: Hahahahaha
(Ha)
:D
But you'd have to do this at least six times
ducks
Alec: #$%#$!!!!
Russ: Hee :) Can I forward this conversation to Michelle? (Hee hee)

Fuzzballs Seeking Good Homes

My family generally tries to sterilise all the strays we can get our hands on, but Mother Cat (we call her MC for short) was heavily pregnant when she first appeared, so there wasn't much we could do. After she'd given birth she came to our driveway to get fed, but the kittens were nowhere to be seen. Until Tuesday, when in the process of watering the plants my mum spotted a ball of fur which turned out to be a soaked kitten. Careful inspection under the plants revealed four more soaked kittens.

My mum dried them off (after first trapping a stressed-out MC) and created a little den for them and MC in the corner of the garden, where they've been happily snuggled ever since. Four kittens seem healthy, but there was a rat-sized runt who was shunned by the rest, including its mother. It died yesterday.

As adorable as these darlings are, we can't keep them. If they keep living in our driveway they risk getting killed on the road outside (where we've lost 2 cats already) or wandering into neighbouring houses and getting savaged by dogs. We can't bring them into our house because we already have three housecats and more would really be pushing it. If you're interested, or know somebody who might be, post a comment and I'll contact you with further details!

Lindy-Hop You Don't Stop

My So You Think You Can Dance obsession in December guilt-tripped me into returning to lindy-hopping when I realized I was shaping up to be a future world champion of So You Think You Can Sit On Your Ass For Hours On End, plus we're toying with the idea of doing a lindy-hop first dance at our wedding, so I resurfaced at Jitterbugs and signed up for SEA Jam 2007.

Now judging from the pattern of the last three years, my personal lindy-hop revivals never last more than a few months before the intensely cliquish Jitterbugs crowd puts me off and I disappear. But while I'm still on a high from last weekend, I thought I might as well share a couple of Youtube finds. Whenever it comes up in conversation that I lindy-hop/swing dance, the next question people always ask is whether I get thrown around a lot and it's always tough to explain without a demonstration that there's so much more to the dance than that.

But first, while we're on the subject I do still have to show you some of the finest throwing around ever captured on film, Hellzapoppin'. (The dancing only starts at 2.45 minutes but the bit before that is pretty cute if you like old movies.)
Hellzapoppin' also sets the stage for you to imagine how cool it is to be able to take classes from the choreographer of that dance scene, Frankie Manning. He was 26 when Hellzapoppin' came out in 1941. He's 93 this year, doesn't look much older than 75, and is still swingin' every time he comes to teach at SEA Jam. Here's Frankie dancing on the eve of his 92nd birthday.

And here are last year's US Open Showcase Swing champions Ben Morris and Carla Heiney doing their championship routine. They came to teach too and we got to see them do this again at the closing party.

As I mentioned in my Benji Schwimmer fangirl post, I love the improvisation of Jack and Jill competitions but it's surprisingly hard to find examples on Youtube of the musicality and playfulness I love watching every week in Jitterbugs over here. The best example I could find is this choreographed Jack and Jack which might sound strange to someone who doesn't do lindy but yeah, lindy-hop leads generally seem to love them a little homoeroticism and they're often at their hilarious best when they dance with another guy. I long for the day Alec takes his first, uh, slash at it.

Lastly, for any of you who just don't dig lindy-hop or swing dancing despite what you've seen through this post and the I Heart Benji one, I bet you didn't know Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage are swing dancers too. Recognize.

Ornament

We found this a couple of weeks ago on our second visit to the Bukit Timah Salvation Army store and just couldn't leave without it. I believe in home decor speak he could be described as a conversation piece, you know, like a Philippe Starck product or an ornate family heirloom.

So You Think You Can Blog

Well, I can't say I intended my last post of 2006 to be about feminine hygiene products, but so it goes. Not with a bang but a Whisper, with apologies to Eliot.

And so 2007 begins. I hope you weren't expecting anything profound, because there's not a whole lot of profundity that I can smoothly segue to from the topic of sanitary pads. After 14 days of futile efforts to meaningfully introduce what will be one of the most important years of my life so far, I think the best way to get through this impasse is to stop trying for insightful and settle for inconsequential. So please forgive the throwaway nature of this post and feel free to kick my ass in the comments, though you can also save the ass-kicking for my next post, in which I will blame reality TV for my problems in life. (Oh, and if you're in Singapore, watch Channel 5 at 7.30 pm today for a convenient summary of one of those problems. GO BENJI!)

Bushwhacking

Walking out from Tanglin Camp after Yi-Sheng's book launch along a rather dark creepy path, Alec and I were the last two in the procession with Fay just in front. We had fallen silent, perhaps a little cowed by the atmosphere. Unnerved by menacing jungly shadows, I amused myself by walking like one of the Bushwhackers.

"Um...dear...you're being weird..." Alec whispered, as he walked beside me.

I thought this was a bit rich coming from someone I have had to physically restrain from public vogue-ing whenever the song in question is played, so I protested "No one can see me, what's the problem?" and continued merrily.

After a good thirty metres or so of my happy bushwhacking, Fay turned around as if meaning to say something to us, but suddenly her eyes widened in fear at something behind me.

"WHO IS THAT???!!" she exclaimed, lunging towards me to try and see who, or what, was behind me. "ARE YOU SOMEONE??"

My heart performing the sort of spasmodic leaps one's heart performs in such circumstances, I whirled around too.

Who or what emerged from the shadows? A short, slightly plump, totally ordinary looking lady who was somewhat shocked by the outburst and walked quickly past us, laughing nervously, to the distant sanity of the shuttle bus.

According to Alec she had been behind me the whole time, so the poor lady first had to deal with walking alone behind a group of silent strangers on the dark creepy path, one of those strangers beginning to walk in an exceedingly bizarre fashion (look, use your imagination - the Bushwhackers were funny on TV, but if you saw a shadow walking towards you like that in the darkness? Meep!), and another one of those strangers loudly demanding to know whether she was "someone". Maybe you just had to be there, but I'd have been a little shaken if I were her. Sorry, lady.

Apart from that, what I also wanted to record here was a lovely evening spent steeped in pride for Yish, the filthy synergistic hilarity that characterizes our particular group of friends, and the immense honour of being able to purchase a book with my name among the dedications in the front, spelled the way only Yish spells it.

Dreampolitik

While we're still on the topic of dreaming, let me tell you how dreams spoiled my Tuesday. Again, I don't know if it's just me who this happens to, but do you ever get stuck in a dream just around the time you're supposed to be waking up? You may or may not know you're dreaming, but it's always so incredibly vivid that you can't stop. Whether or not your body is physically ready to wake up, your mind just won't.

So anyway, I was brimming over with plans to wake up early and spend the public holiday doing useful things. Instead, I got stuck in a dream that I was an aide helping Tony Blair prepare for a very important UN Security Council meeting, so I woke up at 1.30 pm. What was I going to do, just up and leave? I had responsibilities.

Blip

The quick news, which is all I have time to write in my free 15 minutes Internet in the Changi departure lounge, is that Fay's bald head has now raised over $10,000, Mogwai was pretty amazing and played Xmas Steps which is my favourite song on my favourite Mogwai album (EP + 6), and today I'm off to Bangkok for a bachelorette party. And of course, I haven't finished writing about the Kuching trip, the Vietnam trip, last summer's Europe trip, any of the music I've been listening to lately, any of the books that make my commute bearable, the Singapore Idol greatness that is Mathilda D'Silva singing Led Zeppelin, the Grey's Anatomy hilarity that is Dr Bailey saying "O'Malley! Stop. Lookin'. At my va-jay-jay!", my attempts at combining a weight loss regime and Japanese all-you-can-eat buffets, and of course nothing at all, at all, about how work is reducing me to a pale shadow of the person I once was.

My Favourite Bald Chick

I deviate a moment from this blog's regular (well, not so regular any more) programme of self-absorption to tell you that a dear friend of mine, Ng Mei Fay, is shaving her head to raise money for the Children's Cancer Foundation.

This is obviously a pretty cool thing to do, but in itself, it isn't the only reason I'm asking you to support her. I'm also asking you to support her because it's just one out of many charitable involvements Fay has had over the years. And without going into details, she has committed herself to such efforts despite personal problems that would cripple many people.

Please consider making an online donation at Fay's pledge page, no matter where you are in the world.

Pool Progress

Before the Germany / Argentina match on Friday night, we managed to get an hour or so on a larger 9 foot table, since there was one free. As to be expected, since Alec is still very much the better player, he beat me 2 games to 1. Although I wasn't quite as adept on the larger table as he was, I did manage to win the 3rd game with a shot he described as the best he'd ever seen me do and didn't think he'd ever managed himself:

• White and black at opposite ends of the table length, with black against the cushion
• I designate the hole about a foot away from the white as where I'm attempting the pot
• White travels the entire length of the table, hits black, black travels back the entire length of the table, enters designated hole
• I win. WOOT!

Pool Pipe Dream

Forget the Argentina vs Mexico match, the match of the weekend was my 3-0 victory aqainst Alec at pool.

I won the first game only by default - he potted the white in the process of potting the black - but the other 2 were won entirely on my own steam, including one which involved potting the black with a nifty ricochet. Not since my China Jump triumph of 2004 have I had such sweet victories at pool because basically, I've rarely had any victories. I've only had very occasional games here and there with Alec and Jacob, and I always lose.

But on a Friday night about 3 weeks ago I decided, for no reason in particular, that I felt like some pool. Alec then proceeded to wipe the floor with me for the next hour, but instead of accepting this philosophically as usual, this time I vowed something had to change.

The next Saturday, in between World Cup matches, I managed to pwn David before Alec pwned us both.

And this weekend, this glorious weekend, I pwned Alec 3-0.

Things are going rather well. I hope to put in more practice, move onto snooker (which I fully realize will pwn me for ages before I'm even vaguely decent), eventually become a hustler for big bucks, buy myself out of my scholarship bond and start a new life as Johnny Depp's masseuse.

IT COULD HAPPEN.

Breathe And Stop

I found myself thrust upon the horns of a dilemma on the bus home after dinner the other night. The bus stank of sweaty teenage boys and BO that had triumphed despite Lynx's most valiant efforts. On the other hand, after a meal at the Garlic Restaurant, my breath presumably stank too.

And so a challenging question of civic consciousness arose - should I breathe through my mouth or nose? The former would spare me the olfactory assault of Eau de Adolescence, but the latter would spare my surrounding passengers the feeling of sizzling in a wok while awaiting the addition of pak choy and oyster sauce.

I eventually decided in favour of the former. We were all just ingredients in an armpit stew anyway.

The Joy Of Text

The predictive text input system on my mobile phone learns from the frequency of my word usage and adapts its predictions accordingly. When I first got the phone, input of "9-2-9" would predict "way". Now it predicts "yay".

It's nice to know I send happy text messages.

In fact, further research has revealed that "cunt", "dick" and "bitch" aren't even in my phone's dictionary at all! "Fuck" is right up there at the top of the "3-8-2-5" list though, more commonly used by me than "dual", "duck" or "eval", which I suppose is hardly a surprise.

Swingin' Out For The Weekend

I wish I'd found the time this week to tell you about watching Womb Raider at the olde curiosity shoppe that is the Yangtze Cinema, or muse about the tumbleweed silence that follows whenever I tell people that I enjoyed the sex scene in Brokeback Mountain and wish there had been more, but unfortunately I didn't, and this weekend it's SEAjam time again.

I will regrettably be much more inept at this one than I was at last year's. I'm totally out of practice and unfit these days, which means that last year's goal of dancing with Frankie Manning is pretty much off the cards this time. Being wholly outdanced by a 92-year-old man is fine, but I'd rather not have him carry me fainting off the dancefloor.

But anyway, I just wanted to say that I know this blog's been rather meh lately, and I do intend to pick things up again once my work/life balance improves. Or rather, once I TAKE POSITIVE STEPS TO IMPROVE my work/life balance. I read my first ever self-help book recently, can you guess?

Crispin Lover

"The crisp is a truly wonderful thing," wrote Ralph Sharansky in the Idler. "It serves as the antithesis of real food." (Quote from Guardian article below.)

I find health food freakery to be one of the most boring afflictions known to modern man, so the Guardian's Great British Crisp Challenge delighted me.

"Recently, of course, parents have grown concerned by such disarming facts as: a single packet is three times as salty as sea water and contains half the recommended daily salt intake for a six-year-old; half the fat content is the evil saturated kind; the leading brand crisps all contain monosodium glutamate, among other enhancers; and there are 185 calories in a 34g packet. As a child you are not bothered by such information. You are more alarmed to find a witchy green crisp lurking in the shadowy depths of the packet, or too busy concentrating on sticking a Hula Hoop on every finger, or licking the foil wrapper for lingering salty-vinegariness, as it is technically known among playground aficionados."

The actual results of the challenge are a little less fun to me than the buildup, though mostly because none of my personal favourites (Kettle Chips salsa & mesquite, Marks & Spencers spring onion, Walkers Sensations Thai sweet chilli) were contenders. Your mileage may vary.

I still have beautiful memories of late night essay-writing breaks in university - putting on some appropriately ear-destroying music, sipping my 8-sugars-a-can Coke and finally, biting into a crisp and savouring the explosion of ill-health in my system. As Jay Rayner, the Observer's restaurant critic, so rightly commented in his rating of Walkers Salt & Shake, "Anyone who doesn't want salt on their crisps is no friend of mine."

Blip

Oh what the fucking fuck. Obviously my introductory post to my present travels has gone boom and the only way of getting it back will be to rewrite it. This will not happen, because I have better things to do in London than to rewrite my own blog posts.

To all the people who left comments, I'm really sorry - they're gone. On Friday I read and replied generally to everyone and specifically to wulfe and pumpkineyes, but if you posted a comment after that then I'm afraid I missed it. However, I do know that the server issues causing the lost posts/comments are now resolved, so please don't be put off from repeating your tips where relevant in my future posts about these travels. They won't get lost again.

It's nearly 4 am so I should sleep, but I hope to find some time in the next few days to write up my travel journals so far. As anyone who knows about me and London will expect, I'm having a wonderful time.

Keeping Up Appearances

Yesterday I went to the opening of a photography exhibition, because I am arty and sophisticated.

Then I accidentally dropped most of my goat's cheese canape into my glass of red wine, because I am a klutz and a half.

And lastly, I marked this unfortunate occurrence by breaking out uncontrollably into a resounding "FUCK!", because you really can't take me anywhere.

Half Empty, Half Full

The idealist in me is overjoyed that the stranger who found Alec's lost library book returned it to the library, thereby saving him from having to pay the library for it. Very much the proverbial random act of kindness, for which we are both grateful.

The cynic in me wonders if things would have turned out differently had the book been The Da Vinci Code/The Alchemist/Harry Potter (or any other huge bestseller) instead of Maupassant's Pierre Et Jean.