July 3, 2009
ate too much
this comes as a little overdue, but moses and i had lunch at Nicolas a couple of weeks ago, where i opted white asparagus for starters; my very first taste of the elusive vegetable.
i’ve read about the albino stalks many times, and my interest was certainly piqued when i read that they were reputed to have a mild yet pleasant flavour reminiscent of a normal asparagus, but without the bitter edge of the latter.
phwoaaar like where got so cheem right.
so opting for them ivory phallic edibles substantially upped my bill, naturally. i was served four fat juicy stalks, drizzled with.. i can’t remember what, a somewhat diluted orange hollandaise sauce?
texture wise, it was a little sinewy yet had a pleasant slight crunch not unlike that of a water chestnut. taste-wise, it was exactly what i had read and envisioned it to be. i’m no gourmet, so i shall describe the taste crudely as.. watered down version of a green asparagus. which is good, because i love asparagus.
not sure if they’re still available as i’ve read that their season’s already over, but you may want to drop by Nicolas’ website @ http://www.restaurantnicolas.com/
honestly i’ve tasted better french fare but its worth visiting if you’re in the area lah..
next up.. more muthu’s fish head curry please!
i need to chronicle my epicurean conquests soon. from chi-chi and frigid business lunches, to my never-ending hunt for the perfect har cheong gai, and my addiction to dr.oetker’s frozen al-funghi pizzas!
skinny but fat (inside).
June 30, 2009
hey kiddo
not too long ago, i was a precocious kid who counted the void deck and its vicinity as her playground.
i traipsed through cobwebbed drains, skidded on slimy canals and drank coconut water, or whatever was left inside the fallen fruits. i collected saga seeds (but dont eat them or you’ll become mute, my grandmother warned sternly), caught spiders in cassette tape covers, stole erasers and candies by stuffing them into my panties and bought home-made (and illegal) soda popsicles from a malay auntie who operated from her flat.
five minutes of bliss cost ten cents back then; such a bargain! nothing was too phallic to suck, and sucking wasn’t even remotely suggestive. i would take the tube of delectable ice in my mouth to extract the most of its flavour from its tip, slowly making my way down as it melted. “some more?” the auntie would ask, the styrofoam box containing the “air batu” beckoning like a treasure chest. fishing around my pocket fruitfully produced a gleaming ten cent coin. “okay lor, i want the zappel one.”
then i fell in love for the first time. and then for the second, and the third, and perhaps even a fourth. we watched Armageddon in a musty cinema in century square, and the date ended with me watching him kick ass in king of fighters 2 at the arcade. that was my first date. i was 12.
June 23, 2009
quite funny
About Kim Jong Il – Official biographers claim that his birth at Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a swallow, and heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain and a new star in the heavens.
Dude thinks that he is Jesus rebirthed or something.
Ah.. my fascination with North Korea never ceases. And yes.. keeping close tabs on their news. Dear Leader is just… really eccentric. And at the expense of his starving people, too.
June 12, 2009
hmm
now that i’m on twitter, on top of facebook (which sucks ass now), seems that blogging is getting a little redundant nowadays.
plus with a mountain of work waiting for me, it is alot easier for me to tweet bite-sized nuggets of my thoughts rather than to do it here.
so i’ve just gotten back from a week-long work trip in the philippines… well nothing much goin there as we were stuck in typhoon weather. seafood there was fabulous and cheap though.
follow me at www.twitter.com/hellohammie if you’re interested, but now that i’m devoting 99% of my mad skillzzzz to work-related writing, i doubt that there’ll be anything remotely interesting updates, if there are any at all.
June 1, 2009
happy
mosey bought me the pair of slim havaianas i’ve been eyeing for so long but never got to buy, because they don’t have it in my size.
we finally found it at peddar red retailing my size 33s at an exorbitant price.
sneaky fella went back to the shop the next day to get it (presumably to shut me up from grumbling)
wee!
May 31, 2009
heart
while handing out rations early one sunday, an elderly woman came up to us, hand in hand with a mentally handicapped man, presumably her son.
she wasn’t on our list of handouts, and wanted to know if she could register for the next round.
“auntie, where do you stay? is this your son?”, we asked.
“oh i stay upstairs (a one room flat), and no lah! he’s not my son.” the spritely lady replied in a mix of hokkien and mandarin.
“oh, who is he then?”, we needed to know for our records.
“he ah.. he’s just not my son lor. long story lah, i looked after him when he was a baby and then his family decided to give him up, so heartless! and i couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself on the streets right?”
such a candid reply, but it spoke volumes of how human compassion is still very much alive. what else could it be then, to propel someone who hardly has means to support herself to selflessly raise a stranger’s burdened child for decades.
whipping out a hankerchief tucked under her collar, she goes on to wipe the drool off his chin. chiding him playfully to behave in public, his only response was a toothless grin which gave way to yet another avalanche of dribble.
shames and humbles me completely to think that i’d have no qualms about terminating my pregnancy should my baby is found to have any birth defects such as down’s syndrome.
we gave her the day’s leftover rations.
May 23, 2009
hot off the press!
my watermelon plant has flowered!
now all i’d need is a female flower for some highly charged plant sex (read: pollination) and soon i’ll be harvesting mini watermelons from my corridor :p
the peanut, mulberry and tomato plants are looking good too!
May 23, 2009
230509
the estate cleaner was already there waiting for the lift when i got there.
the lift doors opened, and i got in, but oddly enough, he was still standing outside.
“are you heading up?”, i asked, and beckoned him in.
he hesitated for a moment before he entered, with his arsenal of a broom and dustpan fashioned out from a biscuit tin.
we’re all equals you know, i felt like telling him.
i am disturbed that it feels as if some sort of social caste system was in place, and even more so that his subordinate behaviour may be stemmed from the usual way he is being treated by the residents, or worse still, to have that mentality imbued into him by his employers.
shame on us.
