For lack of databases I'm not usually one to complain about the army, most notably because I've "left" it for a while, but there's something very fishy about the deferment process for ICT, especially for undergraduates. There is certainly something incredibly blah about why so many of my friends, and now myself, have received callups for training in strange months like September and October when we're clearly having our brains beaten to pulp in school at that time. It's something that completely eludes my understanding because MINDEF presumably has such unnerving volumes of data on our movements that it seems peculiar how our being enrolled in school doesn't register on their big I-know-what-you-did-last-summer radar.In fact, if you think about it, any guy who went through post-secondary school education would have gone through the first deferment process at age 18- we all had to go on some online portal and indicate where we were studying and for how long, and in some cases (as with my brother), if you make a mistake, everything screws up for you (he had to go down to MINDEF a couple of times to re-apply for deferment). Isn't it bizzarre that MINDEF can't plough all this rather obvious information directly from MOE, and chooses instead to pester boys in school and give clerks more work to do through harvesting and processing relatively easy-to-find information?Just yesterday, in applying for deferment for some nonsense in October, I had to submit documentary proof of my studying in NUS in the form of acceptance letters plus copies of my timetables. I got a call this morning from some clerk at MINDEF telling me to submit a letter of confirmation rather than the offer letter I had emailed over, as the latter wasn't good enough as evidence of my enrollment at NUS. That was a reasonable request, but the funny thing is why I have to do any of this at all- I have, after all, been matriculated for a month now, and NUS has had confirmation of my enrollment for at least a year since January 2007- is it too much to ask that MINDEF find some way to access this information without bothering me? I figure it's such a phenomenal waste of resources to have MINDEF clerks receiving and processing (not to mention printing) faxes and emails from male undergraduates all over the island and having to make calls to request for proper documenation. To my annoyance, I have also just found out that NUS offers the printing of "student status letters" as a student service, so is it terribly hard to imagine that if NUS can print it out on paper, it probably has it on some digital database? And as with the above case with post-secondary education, doesn't there exist some sort of central database as to who is studying where and for how long?Maybe MINDEF really doesn't have tie-ups with MOE, and maybe MOE doesn't have dealings with universities (it certainly does with Junior Colleges), but I think it might be more than just prudent to have some sort of a gateway between the three. It's just so bizzarre that with all the personal data we have to submit to various databases over the course of our lives, something as simple as proving your student status eludes the power of MINDEF and inter-ministry data sharing. Why does MINDEF delight so much in making so much of this fussy deferment process manual? Is it out of respect for our liberty and independence? Far from it, I don't think flouncy arguments about loss of privacy and digital surveillance hold any credence here because we end up submitting the information ourselves anyway- not voluntarily, mind, but because we have no choice. Doesn't it come to the exact same conclusion?I figure, at the end of the day, it's really about giving MINDEF clerks something to do with their time. Got Pwned Life has thrown a couple of disappointments at me lately. Uncharacteristically, I might fault myself for being generally wide-eyed and optimistic about things, and that might be true- but it doesn't make stuff any less crappy.I am disappointed, for instance, that my grandiose and romantic plan to not stay in hall and residence for the sake of being near my kitchen has failed most spectacularly- shuttling myself to and from school everyday only to come home to a pile of droll, pessimistic readings, I find the mere whisp of kitchenlust that remains at the end of the day is enough merely to pop two sausages in the toaster and slather them with my mum's expensive mustard. Far from any home-cooked culinary wonders, I have found myself an unhappy slave of Kinder Bueno and storebought mini croissants, and bowls of instant noodles in front of the TV listening to Jade Seah's mind-neutering Olympics coverage.  I am disappointed, too, by my lack of vigour in schoolwork. You would've thought that two years out of school makes the brain more horny for intellectual booty, and that's the general assumption (not always couched in those terms, it's the Kinder Bueno talking)- but I find my dear old friends Procrastination and Waterbed lurking- tartily as ever- in the back of my mind like little French trollops, calling out to me... "one last Kinder Bueno, just a 10 minute naaap". Curses, it is as if my gruelling military training in SAF Bands has done nothing to drive out my fiendish inner demons- clearly the military means very different things for (very) different people. Sigh. It doesn't help, of course, that the readings are of the photocopied, written by a guy in a tweed jacket variety. The sociology reading, for instance, laments from the start that the very discipline it introduces is in bad shape, and then goes on to exhort that all modern sociologists must, let me paraphrase to the best of my abilities, return to the past but not return to the past. What also doesn't help is hearing everyone on the stupid soci IVLE forum (updates courtesy of daily alerts to my NUS email) whiiine about how difficult the readings are, "ohhh what are we supposed to learn from them, are they essential?" Misery does seek companionship, but the unhappy downside is that it just makes everyone miserable. Someone should really go into those forums and, guns ablazing, yell something like "just read the damned readings and pay attention in lecture instead of chatting on MSN, giggling, falling asleep, whining and switching off 'cuz the professor is British, I'm sure it'll help more than whining about it on these stupid forums, choking up peoples' email inboxes, all the while hoping the professors will magically erase the readings and prescribe Enid Blyton instead".*greeeetch* Other people can be so frustrating sometimes, it makes me feel like kicking the next person who walks past without thanking me for holding the LT doors open for her (yes, it's usually a she). ...And now, with the grace of an African elephant, I shall attempt to weave in the true concern of this post...The biggest disappointment of all, of course, has to be the alumni band. I started writing this entry hoping to get to this first, but I thought it wasn't subtle enough. Now that I've actually gotten here, I'm not even sure I want to write about it. It's not like I don't have the right to be upset about the alumni band, but it's not something that I should get upset about and still claim to be empathetic. The backstory is easy enough to infer- just think of how Chee Soon Juan might feel as he scans the empty chairs in a 20-seat auditorium, the tepid little crowd of SDP party members, disinterested journalists and ISD regulars gathered for his talk about "Liberal Democracy- Today!". Disappointment is really just the tip of the iceberg, and my adjectives fail me at this hour. I'm disillusioned, perhaps, certainly annoyed, exasperated, resigned, amused? I know of a lot of people who will laugh at me, at the silly optimism of the project, like how I used to laugh at people who tried to instigate change in Singapore politics, for instance. And I understand their amusement- we thought that by organising ourselves, it would be different from the last time, but even with a big and fancy bureaucracy going on, the attendance at our first rehearsal was smaller than the entire committee. It's hilarious!I could get angry, but that wouldn't serve any purpose- I could bitch some more about it here, but it would only hurt people. And it sucks because I live across the street from MJC so people think I don't get it, and that's probably true, but then maybe the alumni band will never fall into place until everyone moves into my block. That might be fun, but it's also as probable as me representing Singapore in the Olympics in a given measure of lifetimes. To this end, I should suggest to the committee that the next alumni band president shouldn't even have been from MJ so that the empathy level is higher- and it might make sense since the very concept of "the alumni" seems so vague and irrelevant to actual ex-Meridians. Perhaps it is wrong of me to lambast the lack of enthusiasm- commitment is a tricky issue, and with school and everything weighing down on peoples' minds, it is perfectly understandable. What am I lambasting, then? Is it the attitude, the indifference, or the stupidity of optimism? I don't even know what I can be upset about- I just know that I am.At the end of the day, it's really just a conflict between people stepping up to pull things together and other people taking it for granted that it's gonna flop anyway, or that patience runs forever, or that because something is difficult, like sociology readings, we shouldn't try as hard and just wait for somebody to come around and sweep it under the carpet. I am disappointed that optimism always turns out to be a stupid outlook when it comes to people, and if there's one thing I've learned from my soci readings, it's that people are very fascinating, but ultimately not worth the time and energy it takes to organise them.Sociologically, of course, I'm talking sociologically. La souris, le chat et le singe Thanks to Eddie Izzard (c'est un comedien anglais, et un travesti exécutif, a British comedian who is also an executive tranvestite), my one true motivation in learning French in school, apart from actually going to France, is to force-fit the following into my conversations:1. La souris est en-dessous la table! (the mouse is under the table)2. Le chat est sur la chaise! (the cat is on the chair)3. Le singe est sur la branche! (the monkey is on the branch)Ala, in a restaurant,"Excuse moi, garcon! je ne suis pas d'ici, et parle tres peu Francais, mais il y a une souris en-dessous la table, et c'est tres ecoeurant!" (Excuse me, waiter! I am not from around here, and I speak very little French, but there is a mouse under the table, and it is very disgusting!) "Ah, oui. Ne vous inquiétez pas, monsieur, il y a un chat sur la chaise." (Ah, yes. Don't you worry, sir, there is a cat on the chair)On top of all that, all this Olympic fever is driving me crazy. I announced to my friends over dinner, for instance, that I want to represent Singapore in the discus throw in 2016. I do, really, it's either that or gymnastics. Oeuffs oeuffs oeuffs I once wrote, rather gloatingly, that cooking eggs is my singular talent in the kitchen, but I would like to correct my ego at this moment and say that because eggs are so simple to cook, anyone can do it, including this bumbling bull in a glass kitchen. I love eggs, I ADORE eggs, I love their sunny colour, their incomparable, comforting taste... I love how they announce breakfast and how they are the foundations of so many wonderful dishes, sauces and desserts! And I love how simple they are to prepare- and today I'll be sharing for the benefit of the couple of people who came to my house for breakfast after Juling's hic party- scrambled eggs!There's nothing terribly complicated about scrambled eggs- they are, in essence, well-beaten eggs fried in butter until set. Different people have different preferences, and I like my scrambled eggs soft-set and creamy in the middle, though I know of many people who prefer theirs slightly firmer and fluffy. All that lies between the two is the cooking time, and the method is exactly the same, though before I learned the "proper" way of scrambling eggs, mine always turned out dry, over-browned and rubbery. We start off, easily enough, with three eggs and milk (ordinarily, I would have used heavy cream, but I didn't have any on hand tonight. EITHER is fine, though!). This will serve ONE person (YES I KNOW, 3 eggs a person!). I add about 1 short glug of milk per egg (I know this is unhelpful, but I suppose it's about 1 tablespoon per egg, because I like things creamy and milky). Combine in a large bowl, throw in a pinch of salt, and then begin to whip vigorously with a whisk. The way this is done is quite important- the aim here is to incorporate air into the mixture, and the best way to do this is to tilt the bowl so that the mixture collects near the lip, and then beat with a rotary movement- it will look like you are literally "whipping" the eggs.Eventually, ^reaches below counter and whips up a completed sample^ you will get THIS:The surface will be covered with bubbles, though you don't want to have overbeaten the eggs, so about 2 minutes of beating should do it.All this while, your pan should have been set on a middlish heat to warm it up. After beating the eggs, leave the bowl there to rest as you potter about with the butter. Into the pan, throw 20g or so of butter.With a flat wooden spoon, move it around the coat the pan, and when it has completely melted, add the eggs.Leave the egg to set for a while, and then begins the fun part.The idea here is to keep the mixture moving, and the method I employ is to use my wooden spoon to draw the set egg from the sides into the centre, and then swivel the pan to distribute the uncooked egg around, allowing it to set, frequently drawing more set eggs into the centre. I also occasionally shake the pan to turn up more curds, which I then push into the centre. Observe, here, how the set curds (the lumps) have been drawn into the middle, leaving a blob of space where it once was. Swivel the pan so that uncooked mixture can fill up the gaps.Eventually, you will run out of uncooked egg, and so, at this point, you may cut the set curds into smaller folds, and turn the eggs over.At this point, if you want soft-set eggs, just remove from the heat and wait maybe 30 seconds before removing the eggs to a warmed plate to serve. The outsides will be set and smooth, and the insides will be slightly creamy.If, as I did here, you keep them on the heat for the 30 seconds, you will get firmer eggs, which are just as delicious!Here, I pay homage to the marriage of eggs and ham (or laziness, more like it), seasoning the eggs with salt and pepper to taste. I know the French prefer a more creamy scrambled egg (or "creamed egg"), and that would be the classical way of going about this dish, but I love the fluffy chunks of egg and how I can pick them up with a fork- it's like a MacDonald's breakfast in your own home, just lots lots better! A week away I have been struck, of late, by a certain mental stupor, and I haven't been able to shake it off to write anything on this blog. As it stands, I'm having trouble finishing this paragraph.Okay, there we go, one paragraph. Two!Life has been strangely fun and cheery in the aftermath of the MJ Band activities for July and in the grand rampage towards the starting of school in exactly one week. For starters, lazing around at home with the occasional pottering about in the kitchen has proven to be quite relaxing, screw all that shopping-oh-my-god-i-need-to-go-oooout angst that preceded it, and now I'm quite content to just curl up (yes, I can curl) in a little corner and think about existence. I actually meant that quite literally: I am now reading a ridiculously ambitious and unnervingly thick book called "Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud" the scope of which predates history and, for some reason as yet unknown to me, ends with Freud and his whizbang theories about boys and their mommies (I'm not giving Freud due credit, yes, yes). The author is thankfully not quite as dry as he could have been, and there is some very interesting material- particularly about archaeological evidence that suggests the first deities were The Woman and the Bull, and yet more material that links Zoroastrian beliefs to early Christianity (or the other way round, really). Before those OCS commissioning parades I used to play for in SAF Bands, where a line of religious leaders would stand at the front of the parade and sprinkle blessings on the soon-to-be-viciously-empowered cadets, I hadn't even heard of Zoroastrianism, so yaaay. Now I find that its key concepts may have influenced the most culturally and historically important set of religious beliefs of all time, and what brain-tickling fun all this learning is. My fascination with these things will probably influence what I choose to do in uni, and it spells gloom and doom for my career prospects, chika chika boom boom. What I do in uni is a completely hellish story of its own. With not a lot of difficulty, and thanks to shrewdly calculated strategies towards the end of bidding, I managed to get all the modules I bid for- so this semester, I shall be introduced to sociology, political science, South Asian studies and French. That said, I kind of regret not choosing philosophy instead of one of the above, because the lineup just sounds so incredibly sciency to me in ways that my JC-stamp-of-approval waffling about may not be able to handle. I love waffles! See? The heart of the matter is that I really have no idea about what I am going to major in, my interests having had time to steep and build on each other over the two years out of school, and even though I'm not required to declare my major until much later, it's kind of like stabbing in the dark with all these damned modules. Many, if not all, of them interest me, but not all of them are going to count towards my graduation. I sometimes wish we could be hand-fed all these things, but in the general spirit of character building, I shall bravely plod along, tiny little step at a time, and hope I don't hate the choices I come to make at the end of it all. Like if I end up working at the national archives or something.Anyway, here's a shot of me from Juling's 21st Birthday, the theme being "Nerds and Geeks come out to play!"This is my attempted hybrid of nerd and geek- the line between the two is thin and whispery most of the time, anyway. In real life, I am neither- I am a free spirit and flutter about playfully in the cosmic wind.Anyway, I was roundly acclaimed as being one of the most convincing and disturbing guests of the evening, and that hurts me on so many levels that I can't even begin to describe, nasty fat hobbitses!This really is one of the better photos of me from the party, and it says alot- go clicky click on the picture on the right sidebar to go see my facebook profile and hunt for the relevant pictures, where you'll either burst out laughing or dig your eyeballs out. Suffice to say, the drinking only began after most of the people had left and the stay-overs settled down into their Alcohol Personalities- Rickson was grumpy, Jun Yang was ditzy, Zhenghong was stoic (BAH!), Fu Quan was sleepy (and to think we were trying to extract information from him, it worked the other way around!), Bao Lun was a tie between being emo and weepy, Juling was her usual self, and I was ungovernably blabby (like blab blab blab i shouldn't have told you that blab blab blab). All this only reinforces what I believe, and that is that Vodka is the devil's drink (I don't even really like vodka- especially the fruitree fresh versions, which only ever taste acerbic and medicinal) and that if Juling had had the good sense to bring a bottle of Tequila, the evening would have involved a fair bit more visual horror. Tequila! *dumdum duuum dumdum duuumdumdum dumdum dum dumdum... BRAAAZIIILLL.... lalalalalalalalaaaa* Or is that Mexico?On a separate note, mostly everything on my wishlist on the left sidebar IS STILL VALID, and I'm therefore rolling it forward to Christmas. Just to keep you informed! I'm off to go bounce around on my inflatable pouffe (and save that story for another day)! Out of slumber That was a really long blog suspension! And I notice that Focushub, my webspace provider, has punitively included the "contact the billing department" thingamajig on the suspension page, thwarting any self-indulgent hopes of leading people on to think that I'd been caught by the Thought Police. I am mildly surprised that my relatives from Perth, who expressed thorough shock at the "liberal, anti-government writing" on this blog and made a long distance call to warn me about the danger of my self-important excesses, didn't have a heart attack and call me to check if the government hadn't already dismembered me and imprisoned me on Sentosa. Alas, like the incomparable Dr. Catherine Lim, I am still here, though I have been delayed in my payments for this little patch of the Internet because I lost my debit card, and that's been irritatingly inconvenient on so many levels.Anyway, so much has happened since darkness fell on this blog, not the least of these the USP camp I attended just a couple of days ago. Not being the reliably campy type who readily sells self-esteem for the greater good of the OG, I was quite hesitant about how much I might enjoy camp. Fortunately enough, everyone was super nice and super friendly and the pace was absolutely perfectly just right- screamy where necessary but generally chill and slacky: oh my word, I enjoyed it so much that I'm having strange fits now (random outbursts of running around, cheering, screaming, taking stupid photos), a sign of what Juling calls "camp withdrawal syndrome". I made lotsa friends too, from all sorts of backgrounds and with different intellectual interests, it was really such a ball of a time.Yesterday, incidentally, also concluded the mad rush of MJCSB/AB activities for July, and everyone's just incredibly bushed from the non-stop playing and running around, though there's no lack of stupid camwhorish pictures for it! Coming up this Thursday, after all, is the combined concert with Aichi Meiden at MJC, so we've gotta gear up for even more camera madness. I wouldn't count this as being part of the mad rush of activities since Aichi Meiden is going to command most of the attention that night, so we can easily slack off in a corner and let them to what they're best at: being Japanese (this includes, happily enough, letting them clean up the hall for us as a matter of national pride! Can someone say Bankai!)National Day is around the corner, and sappy as the holiday is, I must admit I've always loved the fireworks and other combustible manifestations of Tax Payers' money. Being the quiet patriot that I am, I shall stay glued to the TV screen, seeing what the little kids and old people have been co-erced into doing this year- I suspect, given the strange, misplaced love story on this year's National Day Music Video, that there will be a lot of HEARTS. Since we're talking about the video- I have to confess that it makes absolutely no sense to me. I won't criticise the song, which isn't half as bad as it could have been, but the video is seriously out of whack. I kinda get the little girl with a learning deficiency drawing a little red heart (that kinda meets the sap requirement of the video), but the Nat Ho plotline about the girl with unbalanced legs just really doesn't work for me. I mean, first of all, what on earth is a love story doing in a National Day video, and why a girl with one leg longer than the other? And yet again, why NAT HO? It offers itself to so many lame interpretations that I'm not going to bother, except that I think it's a thinly veiled reference to "Open, Inclusive Singapore" where everyone except gay people are treated with love and respect. Welcome to Singapore where, even if you have two legs that aren't quite the same length, there'll be a charming young (possibly homosexual) man to woo you and melt your heart like ice kachang on a hot Singapore day! That is unles you are a GAY guy with two legs that aren't quite the same length, in which case you'd just be a freak with criminal tendencies. Sorry about that, I've been bottling it up for so long and screeching out my frustration to my friends has hurt my throat.I'm glad my blog is back, it's like an old friend come to visit and then stay over for the night. A word on things gone past As things now stand, I have just consumed a margarita made with the cocktail shaker my friends got for my birthday. I think I screwed up the proportions- there are at least THREE shots of tequila in that thing and TWO shots of Grand Marnier. My kitchen instincts abandoned me at that moment, and I'm feeling strangely floaty at this moment ~giggle~. Note to self: use the small measuring cup.Anyway, I meant to write about the process of preparing for the National Band Competition with MJC Band, the main pre-occupation in my weeks for the past 2 months or so.It has not been an entirely smooth ride- preparing for any competition will get any band prickly and irritable, more so when you're the MJC Band, with our very demanding conductor (whom we love, don't get me wrong), and hyper-sensitive, dangerously precarious track record (each gold brings with it more stress, it's not a joy ride), and doubly so when the band is made up of maybe 30-40% alumni. Looking at the demographics, the MJCSB alumni, at the moment, are either a) in NS, b) doing temp jobs, c) in Uni or d) not doing anything, and the concentration lies in the former three. We've had the usual alumni commitment issues- work work work NS work work, mainly- and the band as a whole has had to deal with our juniors' student lives- mid years, camps, PW, the whole pizzazz- at every stage of the preparations. This is not to say that our musicians aren't committed, it's just that we've had a lot more interruptions than have been comfortable, and the competition is on Sunday... our choice piece has shaped up considerably from when we first started rehearsing, but has reached a certain stasis for the past 2 weeks or so- nothing seems to have improved where alot can be improved. The alumni have collectively agreed that we're tired, sometimes annoyed, disappointed and generally worried at our prospects- at attitudes, at the piece, at the band, at each other, at ourselves...Negative and dour as the mood has been so far, I have drawn tremendous enjoyment from our rehearsals. Not so much the music, as it were, which is fun but loses some of its charm when repeated over and over, but at the company and the good memories that rehearsing with my old fellows brings up. Many of us have been good friends since we were in school, and are still good friends, and yet many of us have only just begun to become good friends, all sharing a commonality of experience and enjoyment of strange, random, self-deprecating MJC humour. Some of us may not understand why we keep returning to MJ band for project after project, but I believe a lot of it has to do with the people involved- we love to be with each other, meet the juniors (who, consistent with the MJ band character, are always strangely entertaining) and relive, not without strong sado-masochistic subtext, our Ms. Sia memories.  My friend, Fransico Luke Jeremiah (or Cheeko from Francheeko), who was from CJC and in SAF Bands with myself and some 5-6 other MJC people, remarked that you can tell who's from MJC from the strange, twisted, random (hypo-sexual, vaguely homosexual?) humour we seem to enjoy (I believe a lot of it has to do with our experiences with such personalities as a certain economics teacher integral to an understanding of the MJC experience). The fact that we see this same random humour in our juniors and our juniors' juniors' juniors says a lot- it's screaming, running around, screeching, laughing, cam-whoring, screaming, running around and more screeching the minute the baton comes down, and sometimes even in the midst of rehearsal- count, for instance, the number of times we cast knowing, an chio looks at each other. So I would like to encourage every MJC band freak who's playing for NBC by saying that this competition is more like a celebration of all the nonsense we've accumulated over the years- how we're just as much about the screaming and laughing as we are about the music- and that no matter how tiring and droll the rehearsals can get, there's always dinner or lunch with each other to look forward to. And for those of us who live really, really far away from school, I appreciate and respect your dedication to coming back not only to rehearse with us, but to enjoy the company of our old friends. Regardless of how we emerge at the end of this competition, we're gonna be the same MJC band- unpretensious, fun-loving and excitable- I would strongly advise that we don't let anything get in the way of that, not frustration nor impatience nor stupidity. I say this knowing that the success of our alumni band, which is due to start rehearsing in August, is contingent on how dearly we hold on to our shared experiences, and how willing we are to keep things going on even as we move on the new, exciting things. MJC Band has always held dear the spirit of the CCA- which is character-building through teamwork and learning new skills- and my, what a character we've built. Making carbonara Bacon, cheese and eggs form a holy trinity in food that's not good for you, but that is, as in most things that aren't good for you, insanely delicious. Pasta al carbonara is just the perfect confluence of all three- it is like stand up comedians playing off each others' energy to create perfect comedy. It is also ridiculously easy to make, and therefore frustrated me to no end that they actually sell carbonara "sauce" by the bottle at supermarkets. Some people I know actually fry bacon to plonk into this sauce, and I figure that if you're going to do that, you really might as well go the whole hog and do it the proper way.All carbonara is, unlike what they might try to pass off as carbonara in some diners, is pasta tossed in wine-coated bacon in a hot pan, and then slathered with a thick mixture of eggs, cheese and black pepper, all accentuated with a good grating of nutmeg. It is nothing terribly complicated.Here is how I did it for lunch today:I started off, easily enough, by filling a large pot with water and putting it on the heat to boil.Even for a relatively small amount of pasta, you will need a lot more water than you think- enough to let the pasta bounce about aerobatically in the pot.Although I normally use spaghetti, I was persuaded by Jamie Oliver on Jamie at Home that the Italians use penne, and decided to give it a go. 120g per serving works for me, and this carries across most shapes and sizes of pasta.While the water is boiling (I usually wait for it to come to a boil before salting it, I don't know why, but it's how I've done it for years), prepare the egg and cheese mixture. This isn't a fantastically precise preparation- for one person, use one egg, about 1/3 cup of grated parmesan and a helluva lot of freshly-grated black pepper. Simply stir with a fork to combine into a sludy mix.As a final aromatic touch, I always grate over a healthy bit of nutmeg, it somehow works very well with all things eggy, creamy, cheesy and buttery. There is very little point in buying pre-grated nutmeg- it is usually bland and dusty and does little to enrich your food. I find buying a bottle of whole nutmeg is a far more useful investment- they usually last you forever, and a tiny little bit goes a long way. Bacon is the vehicle of choice for this dish and while the Italians use their fancy cured bacons, everyday streaky bacon works fine (I have not been convinced that prosciutto/parma ham is useful in carbonara by virtue of the fact that it's too thin to find its place in the tangles of noodle or, even, that is has the smoky, porkish taste of even the most simple of bacon). I cut the bacon into 1/2 inch strips, then fry it in a pan with a little bit of olive oil until it begins to crisp and leave stuck bits on the pan, this takes maybe 6 minutes. Then, with about 3 tablespoons of a dry white wine or cooking white wine, I deglazed the pan and stirred to coat the bacon, leaving the liquid to bubble away until syrupy, taking it off the heat until needed.All that's left to do, at this point, is to wait for the water to boil (promptly salt it with a good measure of..er..salt) and boil the pasta according to the packet's instructions, stirring every minute to keep the pasta going. I usually undercook it very slightly since it will get some treatment in the pan over fire, by about 1 minute. When the time is up, I always have on hand one cup or bowl of water to stop the cooking and another to scoop out the starchy pasta water in case I need to bind or thicken the pasta sauce (this works especially well for the simplest sauces- pesto, or mixtures of cheese, oil or butter). That done, I drain the pasta quickly and then throw it into the pan with the bacon and a knob of butter (brought back to the heat about a minute before the pasta is done). The purpose here is to quickly coat the pasta with the excess bacony liquid, which works especially well with spaghetti or linguine, not so much with penne. When sufficiently coated, all you have to do is remove immediately from the heat and let the sizzling die off. This is, in many cookbooks, described as the critical moment, which I think only makes us cooks more nervous and fidgety and prone to screw things up or take unnecessary measures that waste time and resources. The fear is of throwing the egg mixture into too hot a pan and creating scrambled eggs OR of throwing the egg mixture into too cool a pan and getting egg soup. This is an irrational fear- simply wait for the sizzling to die down, and, if you want, throw in a small blob of the egg mixture to see what happens. Throw in the egg mixture and stir through the pasta, leaving it for a while to let the cheese melt. Then, toss in a little bit of the reserved pasta liquid to make a creamier or runnier sauce if desired.Transfer to a warmed plate (a normal ceramic plate set in a low oven for a few minutes will do wonders to keep your food warm), and voila. Rich, creamy carbonara that, despite all this wonderful flavour, is not as gelat or over-rich as "carbonara" made as a cream sauce with pools and pools of white cream. After lunch today, I abandoned earlier plans to go out and have an adventure, settling instead on reading recipes with tea and macarons by my side. These macarons are really very tasty- they somehow succeed in not being cloyingly sweet, and the filling manages to capture the delicious tartness of raspberry in an otherwise buttery and velvety-smooth buttercream. The texture is lovely a few minutes out of the fridge- at once crispy on the outside and unctuously chewy as my teeth made their way towards the centres. It helped, too, that they were such a pretty pink, and that, outside of the window, I saw what I was missing- Ah, those MJC memories. I know this looks obssessive, but... Anyone who knows even the remotest bit about me will know that I'm not exactly a perfectionist- I easily accept things as they are as long as they don't annoy me. I prefer to think of this as being "laid back" or "easy going" rather than any other disparaging adjectives that might be forming in your head now, so bugger that. This changes very slightly when it comes to the kitchen. I won't go so far as to say I'm a perfectionist when it comes to food, because I'm not, but I get easily obssessed with doing the same old thing until I get the hang of it. It was like this with meringue, which until about 2 years ago, I was completely incapable of producing (I stupidly thought it was alright to let some yolk get into the white), it was even worse with ganache (chocolate EVERYWHERE), a nightmare with genoise (countless eggs thrown down the vortex of inedible rubber cakes), stock, risotto (admittedly, I haven't got this one down pat yet), bread (bread is loving, it forgives little whims and accidents like Mother Theresa), and now I'm obssessed with macarons. It's not because I particularly enjoy making them- they are alot, alot of work- but I get some strange motherly satisfaction when I see the little puddles grow tiny feet and become macaron shells, and then totter out of the oven onto the cooling rack. I will readily admit that I have got it to the extent that my macarons now, at least, produce feet and take on the lovely chewy-crispy texture that I love so much. Having thus mastered this facet of these little French lolitas, I am now concerned with piping them properly and incorporating flavour into the shells. This, of course, calls for more practise and more research accordingly. Today, I pissed myself off with my latest batch by over-folding the batter, and I think I know what caused this. The story starts with something I scraweld on the kitchen blackboard yesterday-This was a warning to my brother, the inveterate ingrate from the last post, not to touch the 5 macarons I had in the fridge, which I was intending to give to my friends. As my mother said last night, after I came home to an empty box, "you go and draw that thing, it's just inviting him to eat only". Meh.In childish mockery, the callous carbuncle had thoughtfully struck off each macaron he ate, though he was careful to erase the whole drawing before I had a chance to photograph such petulence. Anyway, thus left with an empty box, I annoyedly started preparing the ingredients for a double recipe, thinking that there was some sense in the impetuous impspawn's cheeky rejoinder, "you should have made moreeee". So, I did-And that's not even all the macarons I made, honey, mm hmm. If there was a picture next to "inconsistency" in the dictionary, that would be it.Back to the over-folding...I realise now that if I am to make a double recipe and fold the dry ingredients into all of the meringue in the same bowl, I will need a far larger spatula than the old faithful I have. It takes too many turns with a small spatula to incorporate all of the mixture, so I must remind myself either to divide the batter or buy a large folding paddle thingamajig. Distracted, too, by my witch-like cackling at the thought of making more macarons than my brother could hope to eat in a lifetime, I probably didn't notice when the batter began to become a little stiffer than desirable. This, of course, was compounded by the fact that my digital thermometer seized up on me when making the syrup, and I didn't notice that the egg whites had already reached soft peaks as I was bumbling around trying to get the probe to work. It is a whole litany of reasons, so, a lesson learnt- when doubling a recipe, be doubly alert. Over-folding strangely didn't cause terrible problems- the shells still rose and grew feet and weren't brittle and brick-hard. They were, however, bumpy and knobbly, like gnarled mushrooms, instead of flat and smooth like pebbles. This is because the peaks were too stiff to sink back flawlessly into the puddles- and thus the importance of not over-folding the batter, it is a waste of all the effort trying to push the almond meal and sugar through a sieve! Bravura. I also learned that in order to make the filling peek out adorably through the shells, it is desirable to bake them a little longer, 10 instead of 7 minutes, to firm up the bottoms so they don't collapse under the weight and cause the filling to sink into the shells invisibly. The only problem with this is that the bottoms get a little browned, which is ugly and gives off a faint toasted almond scent, which isn't particularly pretty either.And to prove that this obssession is a healthy learning experience, I also learned that if I place the piping bag tip-down in a tall jar and open the cuff over the jar's mouth, it becomes infinitely easier to transfer the batter or whatever it is I want to pipe into the bag, in no small way saving batter and making things much neater. Bravo!So yes, I now have 60+ raspberry macarons sitting in the fridge, and the next time I make macarons, which might be sooner than I think, given my brother's inexplicable appetite for the confections, it will be a new flavour, a new day.   What I've been up to Ever since I came back from Australia, finding myself jobless and bored, I've been jobless and bored. The only excitement, activity-wise, really comes from rehearsals for NBC with MJ- the competition is in about 2 weeks and it's really anyone's guess how much we can iron things out before then. Come think about it, it's not so much "excitement" as it is "almost-stress".Anyway, I thought I'd blog about the past few days with, appropriately enough, a blow by blow account of some interesting meals and treats I was bored enough to photograph.Following the actual making of the macarons from the previous post is the actual eating of the macarons from the previous post- they are coloured pink, incidentally, because I thought it'd be cute, they're really just filled with caramel. I don't particularly like how the caramel, while undoubtedly delicious, oozes about- it makes for such untidy sandwiches. I think I'd rather put the oozy stuff in a buttercream and pepper it with shards of set caramel. The macarons, by the way, were very tasty, all chewy and wonderful- my brother and I polished off all of them over 2 days. Yes, I know.Since we're talking about diabetes, I must report that, yesterday, I had the most wonderful teh-ping in my life ever at the S11 at Sembawang, where, conveniently enough, you can also find very good teochew "economical rice (porridge)". I didn't expect anything fantastic, teh-ping being so mediocre everywhere you go, but when the nice lady plonked the above cup of frothy butterbeer in front of me, I nearly yelped for fear of the rabid, foamy-mouthed beverage. Look at that froth, it's almost vulgar! The froth could have just been froth, and any drinks stall auntie with a judiciously exercised wrist and teaspoon could've conjured it, but it helped that this drink was served in a tall glass, was thick and creamy and not-to-sweet and, ah, very good. You can stop with the judgmental eyebrow, I don't usually drink teh-ping (tea ice, the milk is silent), having opted for the sake of my kidneys to go easy on the sugar- so I usually order teh-o-ping (tea black ice). When the mood strikes me, however, I am usually thoroughly disappointed and never know why it is that I still call for it anyway. There was this once, last year during NS where it was considered army-boy chic to eat at prata places, I ordered teh-ping from the nice Indian guy and it came sweetened with gula melaka- it was really icky, like drinking ondeh-ondeh and earl grey. This shows a certain French sensibility in how there are decent limits, in my opinion at least, within which one can hope to freak around with standard practice and get away with a pat on the back for being innovative. Corduroy Cafe at Vivo City, for instance, serves this conceptually hip "Earl Grey with Mint" which is so disturbing I can still taste it at the back of my tongue. I think it cost me $5, but I'd rather have a mojito for three times the price.Later that night, I made dinner for my mother and brother (the latter an inveterate ingrate who tries to get away with a phobia of washing dishes), and settled on a roast chicken, these things being reliably cushy and, arguably, quite nutritious. You might want to contrast that to the deep fried spring chickens my dad keeps eating, and everyone is terribly alarmed at how he ingests oil so liberally. I have updated my recipe for roast chicken, improving it, as it were, by including a stuffing to go with the bird. This was inspired by the kind of roast chickens you find in Australia. On my family's trip there, we bought a roast chicken back from the supermarket one night, being too tired to cook and the restaurants all closing like skittish touch-me-nots. To our immense surprise, the chicken was actually really tasty (this was not symptomatic of our hunger, we bought another one the next night, for supper, mind, and it was even better), and we registered surprise only because the roast chickens you buy from supermarkets in Singapore are really just such a waste of the poor birds' lives. Stringy and dry, greasy and over-salted, it is an ignoble fate for the world's favourite bird. In contrast, the supermarket roast chickens in Australia were very juicy, flavourful and sweet, as can be said to some degree for the chickens at Australia's favourite chickenhouse- Red Rooster. All come with wonderful stuffing- buttery and soft and fragrant, which I believe perfumes the meat with deeper flavour and keeps it juicy. On my first attempt, a few weeks back, at making stuffing, I got it right, which only goes to show how simple the process is. It's really no more than 10 minutes' extra work, and it's very pleasurable, finger-squidging work. Simply throw together in a bowl 2 cups of soft bread crumbs (they needn't be very fine, either, you can actually chop the bread up), 2 cloves of garlic, minced, 1 onion chopped or grated, a good 3-4 tablespoons of dried oregano or thyme or sage (or all three!), a good grating of pepper, a good pinch of salt and a tablespoon of softened butter (which you should cut in with two knives). When nicely tossed, stir in 1/3 cup of milk and mix to moisten, then bind with 1 beaten egg. Stuff the bird (I've discovered that the large/besar halal chickens from NTUC are actually pretty good, as, of course, are sakura chickens) and remember to seal the cavity with either a stop made of alumnium foil or by sewing it up with kitchen string. There isn't enough stuffing in one bird to feed 4 people, but you can always make extra on the side, or just serve with rice and crunchy steamed vegetables. It's so simple and tasty, you'll never want to pay $40 to eat at Kenny Roger's again (I'm not being arrogant, have you tasted their chickens lately?)As if the eating would never end, I also endeavoured, yesterday, to make strawberry jam!It is no mystic secret that the best strawberries you can hope to get year-round are frozen ones, as seen thawing above. They are picked at their prime and then quickly thrown into cryo-freeze, a process that I believe inspired those sci-fi writers and their fantasies about immortality. These strawberries have such a wonderful flavour, not at all like the puckerish, misshapen ones that seem to fill our supermarket shelves. Frozen strawberries are mostly available at Cold Storage, under the brand "Dole", which also sells fantastic frozen blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. Jam making is not a particularly Singaporean thing to do, but who doesn't love strawberry jam on bread? It helps that the process is very relaxing, the putting sound of sticky fruit bubbling away in a pot therepeutic in its own right. This is the strawberry syrup reducing furiously before I threw in the cooked berries for the final reduction into rubied bliss. This is the interesting process of placing the bottled jam in boiling water to vacuum seal it (the water really should be covering the bottle, sigh, for my lack of organisation). I'll post pictures of the jam when it's done gelling, a process the recipe tells me will take 2 days owing to its relying on natural pectin in the fruit to set. I am quite apprehensive about this, though, but we'll wait and see.And this morning was time for my third macaron attempt- this time I did away with the bungled recipe and just followed the directions as given, which ultimately paid off. The batter was alot shinier and flowy this time round, and spread out into neater rounds- interestingly enough, they developed skins very quickly too, somewhere around 20-30 minutes, and baked into nice shells with tiny frilly feet.Here they are baking with tremendously big feet and smooth tops. I just wish the feet would hold after baking, they kinda collapse after I take them out of the oven. I think I shall try baking the shells a little longer to "dry out" the feet, which might allow them to hold better. I decided to fill these with my favourite raspberry buttercream from the Cake Bible, using up my last bottle of raspberry sauce. Looks like I'll have to make another batch, and that's a painstaking process if I've ever known one. I have yet to taste any of the macarons, because they taste better after an overnight rest in the fridge, but knowing the buttercream, I think it will be quite a treat.Stupidly, I wasted an entire tray of shells because I forgot to turn the baking paper with pencil-drawn circles around, leaving poisonous lead circles on the macarons. So I'm only left with, I think, 16 macarons out of the planned 24, which is a strangely small yield to begin with. I wonder if I'm wasting too much batter left in the bowl.Anyway, that's all I have for the moment, it's back to enjoying my lazy afternoon of doing absolutely nothing. Macarons at last I have finally succeeded, okay not succeded, I have managed to produce macarons that, for the first time, look and taste like macarons. They are far from perfect, but are at least a start, and I won't be so disparaging of attempts to create them at home anymore. Compared to my first attempt, digusting little limpids with diabetic overtones, these are just more pleasant in every way- they are firm and chewy, have those fabled, mystical feet and, amazingly, are only mildly sweet. Paired with gooey caramel, they are just wonderful eats.Here are some pictures of my 2nd attempt-Despite the batter being rather stiff and matte, my fault there, what I thought would become brittle blobs of royal icing began to rise, and feet bubbled, very War of the Worldsly, from under the smooth pink heads, and I risk innnuendo in saying that. They could've been smoother, but with my food processor out of action, there was fairly little I could do about it The first tray came out rather flat with unattractive feet, and the bottoms were burnt. After sliding another tray under the first, this problem was immediately rectified. And here, the most decent-looking of the lot, clear evidence that I need a lot more practice. In the background are home-made lemon curd and raspberry sauce.In this attempt, I approached the cookie with an Italian Meringue instead of a French one, the latter infamous for being finicky and un-cooperative in our very un-French climate. The only thing I bungled, I think, was incorporating Rose Levy Beranbaum's Italian Meringue method into the recipe, which I think caused the meringue to be too stiff. It does, however, cause them to develop skins very quickly- the tops dried up in 20 minutes instead of the suggested 2 hours. Anyhoo, I shall leave the recipe here for my own reference, including the bungled-but-strangely-successful method!Macaron Shells (Italian Meringue, adapted from- Fanny of "Foodbeam")For the "tant-pour-tant"125g powdered almond125g icing sugarFor the meringue125g caster sugar (remove 1 tbs)31g water47g aged egg whites (aged overnight up to 48 hours)43g fresh egg whites at room temperaturePreheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.1. In a food processor, break down the tant-pour-tant ingredients for 1 minute, until very fine, then sift twice. * here begins the bungled method2. To make the meringue, begin by mixing all but 1tbs of the caster sugar into the water, and set over the heat, stirring until completely dissolved. Bring the fire to the lowest possible setting. Insert thermometer.3. Begin whipping the aged egg white with the whip attachment on your mixer until foamy, then add in 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar (I forgot to scale down the recipe, this might actually be 1/8 tsp). When soft peaks form, add in the 1tbs of sugar and beat on high until stiff peaks form. Stop the mixer.4. Bring the sugar syrup to the boil until it reaches the hard-ball stage at 120 degrees Celsius (bubbles will be bigger and syrup will be completely clear), quickly transfer to a glass measure or other heat proof 1 cup-capacity vessel to stop the cooking.5. Add a small amount to the stiff whites, avoiding the beater, then quickly beat on high for 5 seconds. Stop the mixer, add a large amount of syrup and immediately beat on high for 5 seconds. Repeat with the rest of the syrup, and, for the final addition, scrape the syrup out of the cup with a rubber spatula. This method is not necessary with a hand-held mixer, you can simply pour the syrup in a stream as you beat. 6. Beat the mixture until the sides of the bowl are cool or slightly warm to the touch.*here ends the bungled method 7. With a spatula, quickly but lightly fold the tant-pour-tant and the 43g fresh egg white into the meringue in at least 4 additions. Count maybe about 10 strokes per addition. Because of the bungled method, the batter will probably not be shiny, but it will be quite flowy. 8. Transfer the batter to a large 16-20" piping bag with a round nozzle (I used the Wilton No. 12) and pipe into 1" mounds, ending on the side to get rid of tails. Leave to develop skins (because of the bungled method, this happens quite quickly), then bake on insulated baking trays (what I did was put the baking paper on an overturned baking tray, and then put another overturned baking tray underneath) for 7 minutes.9. Remove and slide the baking paper onto a cooling rack. To remove, simply take a finger or two, put it underneath the baking paper where the shell is, and gently prod it to release, peeling the paper away from the shell. Let cool before filling, and voila~ All god's creatures big and small I watched with fascination tonight's News report on the 4th public university- the tangent is, apparently, a more industry-involved university with a focus on engineering and other technical disciplines, catching some 2500 students, mostly diploma holders from polytechnics, annually. Interestingly, the committee involved in setting up the university said they were cautious about taking up suggestions to build a liberal-arts college in the style of some American universities. My mind could only generate a few possible reasons for this hesitance about a liberal-arts college. The main one, I think, is that it simply wouldn't be economically viable, or that, at least, such a college would churn out graduates with fairly little, mm, practical or industrial value. It made me think about education in Singapore, and something a friend of mine told me over lunch one afternoon."I saw this mother and her daughter," she began, "on the MRT one day. The mother was lecturing the girl about studying hard.""Girl ah, why you don't study hard. You need to study hard and do well in school you know, if not next time how to feed yourself?"My friend and I then had an interesting discussion about this strange, perhaps overtly Chinese, mentality about feeding yourself with a degree. Inherent in this, of course, is that you get a degree, or an education, really, to survive, to get a job, get money, end of story. Where lies, my friend lamented, the joy of education, learning for learning's sake, character building through CCA, education as a means of bettering the person? Granted, these are idealistic, but why shouldn't we be idealistic about education?What we have today are people flocking to courses that promise financial security- medicine, law, accounting, business, engineering- and our university sector developing core niches in industrial-type disciplines. There is nothing wrong with this, but the debris from such a situation is the fate of people who don't have a knack for more intimately 'economical' studies- the philosopher, perhaps, or the political scientist or literary critic- will a liberal arts degree or a humanities degree put one in good stead to do anything but churn out others like himself or slip back into the system? As a friend of mine asked, why do we (students of the humanities) have to justify our degrees?Education here is so functional and I wonder if subjecting ourselves to such dictums is just a microcosmic reflection of how and why Singapore society as a whole ticks the way it does.  If it is not broken or, rather, if it rakes in profits, don't fix it! It certainly seems to affect the way we vote, and the sense of complacency our incumbent government takes on in its approach to policies- the ridiculous ERP hike in these times of inflation, for one, then you have obscene ministerial payhikes in the face of gaping income disparity, fishy (and opaque?) investment practices, gaffe after gaffe without ministerial responsibility (WKS, incidentally, should be "appalled" that he still has a job), an egregiously state-controlled media that remorselessly bandies about ideas like complacency and insanity- this list is possibly as limited as my reading. When you combine unpopular policies with bad timing, you're either very brave or very cocksure.Cocksure, I think, is the best answer, because, certainly, the incumbent government sees no immediate threat coming from any opposition parties, they having been portrayed (allowed themselves to be portrayed?) as ineffectual, limp-wristed, full of hot air and, in some cases, insane. Otherwise, they're just walked over, wink wink nudge nudge.Perhaps the incumbent government is waiting for the trees of the forest to march, and one wonders if our complacency has set us up for this predicament.If it's not broken or, rather, if it rakes in profits, why fix it?Is there a cause for change?I may not be armed with the kind of theory needed to answer that fully, but I think that in a system such as ours, it is those who slip out of the state machinery that suffer the most- in a nation ever pushed to meet quotas, to be functional, to be efficient, who will suffer but the elderly, the poor, the uneducated? Shouting "no welfare" doesn't make the problem go away- welfare may not be the answer, but neither is wishing the weak and poor into statistical oblivion. Is there cause for change in a society where those in power have to cling on to it by managing opinion, by demonising criticism, by painting themselves as our moral superiors? That, in their fear of the masses, they engineer fear from the masses?Is there cause for change in a society where we are told change is a downward spiral? That our women will become maids, and that we will die in bloody cesspools on the streets? I don't know the answers to those questions, perhaps I am naive, but it's my 21st birthday wish that if change is due, that change will come. You may grovel at my selflessness.    Mastering my mastercard As it stands, there is currently a tussle in my conscience between looking for a job and relishing the guilty pleasure of 10 hour naps and coffee over comic books (~ahem~ graphic novels), my bank account all the while dwindling nihilistically. Compounded with the fact that my party was an indulgent $1K plus escapade, I really should stand corrected- it isn't so much a tussle in my conscience as it is typically drugged-out denial of my bleak financial future.Wee Kiat came up to me on MSN the other day and, newly dyed hair flaming in the light of his video cam, exclaimed that he was, and insert Wee Kiatish whine, "going into uni with only $2kaaaaay". Munching on the Pierre Hermes macarons the Saxtion got me for my birthday (every bit worth the calories), I blinked to myself and thought, "$2k is ahrlot of money". I mean, hell, I'm going into uni with a bank account on drip.We all know why I am in this, mm, predicament- I spend very lavishly on things that are only going to compound my health problems in the future- food, mainly- like if I eat out, I tend to spam away $20 on a meal and if I cook, I can bubble away $30 on ingredients. I suppose it's to my own undoing that I hate instant noodles (even though, and this is a very arguable case, my almost weekly La Mien from Crystal Jade has something strangely Maggi-meeish about it) and love Canele (this here is justifiable, because their pastries are so tasty). It's disturbing that my friends seem to think that I hate food courts, because, and this is such a spurious claim, they say everytime we go out we end up eating at diners. It perhaps stems from my philosophy, not a very good one maybe, that every meal should be an event. So yes, I think it's time to expunge this ridiculously French bravado and learn to eat and cook simply (it's so difficult- the best flour makes the best bread...) and, as my dearest Benny will point out, he on this new warpath towards a diet of sweaters and morning dew, healthily. I was considering going vegetarian for a while, and may progressively reduce my meat intake until I can convince myself that mushrooms taste like beef.On top of food, I spend quite a bit on books as well, and it's regrettable that most of the books you find in good bookshops hover around the $30-50 range. It doesn't help, too, that most of the books on my birthday amazon wishlist still float around in my mind's "to read" cesspool. Worse still, it attests to a rather acquistive nature of mine that I like piling books in my room, maybe so I can get some sick erotic pleasure at looking at how they stack up (lame pun completely intended, please giggle). Contrary to people who buy books to be seen reading them, I actually do finish the books I read and generally get enriched by them, so it's not entirely a waste of money, not exactly, anyway. What is a waste of money, I suppose, is whether or not I really need to own them, considering how some of them of such sadly little re-read value (especially, as far as I'm concerned, that heinous piece of modernist writing involving a young artist and his self-indulgent portrait. There is fairly little you need to do in appraising the novel- it was written by an Irishman). I love the library, don't get me wrong, I love poring through the shelves almost self-importantly, watching uncles read newspapers and children getting scolded by librarians (more on children another day, perhaps, that could fill up 10 entries). I think, henceforth, I shall de-centralise my spending on books first by borrowing cookbooks from the library before deciding if I should purchase them (this, to my credit, is what I have done for some of my more recent purchases), and hopefully this carries over to other books of more monumental importance (like "The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear", a work that I very much enjoy). Right now, I am wrestling with myself over whether or not to buy "The Chronicles of Narnia". I did, after all, mildly enjoy the movies, but couldn't stand the badly veiled religious allegories (very pushy), and fear this might reach hysterical levels in the actual books. Taking into account too, that I know that everyone bleeding dies (in a soap-opera worthy railway accident, no less), I'm also considering whether or not C.S. Lewis is even a good human being- even J.K Rowling has more integrity, and look at what ill favour she found with the relevant authorities. It sucks how much it costs to get entertained in this country. I love watching movies, but they cost more than a meal sometimes, I love chilling out, but the only "cool" way to do this usually costs more than a movie, I love watching concerts, but they cost more than chilling out. My friends, infinitely wisened beyond my years, usually just reject my advances to go out, unless it involves hanging out by standing around. I wish I had their tolerance for ennui- today, I spent my entire day downloading album art for my iPod and then fell asleep on the couch. It is a phenomenal waste of time, something my friends avoid, I think, by working. Oh.Looking to the future, I think my current spending patterns will take me into a poorhouse within 10 years. Look at it this way- I currently own 1 debit card and, already, the feeling of shopping without taking cash out my wallet has accelerated my spending. Some may argue that I even take some sort of masochistic thrill from watching the NETS/Mastercard console bleep before going "approved" or, and this especially for those who peer over my shoulder at the ATM, seeing "$3.99" under my account balance. No okay, I don't enjoy it- it's like the same vampiric force that makes hamsters eat their babies (more on babies in another entry). But, to be serious, I am beginning to get spooked. In less than 10 years, maybe 8, my parents will have stopped working (my dad is in his 60s, and my mum is 58). Looking at how things are going, in 8 years, I will only be 4 years into my first job (assuming I find one within the first year after graduation), struggling to pay back my university fees OR, worst of all, maybe even doing post-grad (I don't know, okay, you can't say it's impossible). All the while, my parents will be living off their savings, while I will be penniless, potentially jobless and trapped in a financial dreadlock. I can't even be a taxi driver because I can't bleeding drive. I foresee some possible problems, can you? I don't wish to pre-empt anything, but I think that if it comes to the crunch, I might have to take up teaching simply because NIE pays while you study, and it seems, to me, to be the career with the lowest barriers to entry. At this point in my life, I don't know if I want to do that, and maybe more time pondering over these ponderous issues will make the future clearer. At the USP interview I went for last week, the professors asked me, amidst some very strange questions, what I see myself doing in 10 years' time. I regret that I gave an answer I don't believe in, something about working in foreign affairs. I don't believe in it because I honestly cannot see myself in 10 years, except that it mightn't be something I particularly enjoy doing. Unlike some highly driven individuals, I don't map out 10 year plans every few months and this has, perhaps, been to my disadvantage- even today I am entertaining the thought of opening up a cafe, something a humanities degree doesn't necessarily prepare you for (of course, I want it to be a cafe in the grand tradition of 18th century French parlours, hotspots for political discourse and pseudo-intellectual speeches made from tabletops~ think bartop politicking!). Ah well, time will tell, but it sucks that I have to think about finances even before I go through university (aka my "ticket" to subsistence). I hate thinking about money, because my observation is that money brings out the ugliest in people, and try as I may, my generosity and bigness of spirit will, in the face of this cynical, satanic world, leave me looking stupid rather successful. Sometimes I wish society had never evolved out of barter trade- at least I know my weight in cow. My 21st It's oveeeer!After 2 months of planning and 2 weeks of back-breaking lifting of strangely heavy objects, my birthday party whizzed past in a pouffy cloud of tequila, fake fur and ribena. It's weird and annoying how quickly climaxes pass, and now I have nothing to do but pick up the dirty linen from all over the floor, the list of which includes one chocolate smeared cushion cover (which looks wrong for obvious reasons) and a table cloth that looks like someone spurted something icky all over it. This is not to say, of course, that there was any rampant drunkedness at the party, it was just very crowded. I wish I had photos to do the event some justice, but they're all with other people, my camera having disappeared in the fray. I should really get down to looking for it soon.Anyway, thanks a million to all who came, everyone contributed in some way (some more than others) to the general noisemaking and the "it's Joel's birthday but we'll insult him anyway" spirit. If the shindig could have been any better, I would have had to plan my own surprise party. I might consider that for the next keystone age, which is 60. My memory might be so far down the road that the self-planned surprise party might actually work!So thank you all who came!Thank you... 04A201 (Ming Yan, Sarah Ching, Jia Zhao, Cheryl, Kelly, Pei Sin [tie dan! whee!], Jun Wen, Khairah [my long lost yindian friend!], Audrie, Jun Yang)MJCSB breathes (Rickson, Juling, Bao Lun, Zheng Hong, Dawn, Wei Le, Fu Quan, Benny, Jun Yang, Jun Wen, Wee Juay Yi Jun Timothy Fabian [the saxtion~], Justin, Eugene, Donovan, Weeeee Kiat, Geraldine [who screamed the birthday song more than she sang it] Pok breathes Chelsea Nurbaya Xueying James [crazy idiotic Choya hating juniors!])SAF Bands! (Zhong Wei, Zhen Hua, Yi Ming, Yeong Chee, Derrick, DEAAANA Turner, Sunil, Fraaankie Lee, plus the MJCSBAANDBEE people, Rickson, Benny, Jun Yang, Wee Kiat, Fu Quan!]Montforteers/Montforters/Montfortians (Jeremy Ong, Eugene, Jun Yang [Jun Yang, incidentally, appeared in practically every group shot, see above associations])AJC! (Gerald[s] Tan, Tay and Jeffrey!)and me 'mom, 'pop and bro'er, who were so nice and helpful moving things around, tending to the washing and food and decor and everything, all without complaint! I am always unbearably self-indulgent, and they actually humoured that to levels beyond human comprehension! When I get nice pics, I shall post them here to let everyone see what a wonderful job my brother did with the house, it went from Countryside Barnyard to Cafe del Mar, and all with his superb designing eye and lotsa rented furniture heh.Thanks, too, for the gifts! I especially love the iPod Air wink wink nudge nudge and the kitchen stuff and cookbooks and the ZOMG Pierre Hermes Macarons from Paris! I love Paris! I love Yijun even more for actually going to Paris!That said, I apologise to everyone for the disgustingly dry katsuobushi pasta, I overestimated, in my general state of mother-hen worry, the amount of food that was needed, and made too much linguine and too little sauce. If you would like to re-create it, sans the dry bits, however, call me for the recipe! Or type "tako pachi pasta" in the search box on the right side bar! It really is amazingly delicious when done properly~ So all, in all, I can only hope that the food was decent and that the house was comfortable, because the company was certainly wonderful, and, as far as I know, no one walked away with a ba-humbug ho-hum in their step~ Cheers!*NBTo those who asked about the origins of some of the food,the caterer is Liang Food Centre, and they can be found at http://www.caterers.com.sg/. the soup was a cream of mushroom and caramelised onions, simply add about 3/4 cup caramelised onion (about 1.5 kg of onions cut into 1/4" slices and throw into a slow cooker with 1 stick of unsalted butter on low for 12-14 hours until dark brown) to the mushroom soup recipe on my blog. to make the flavoured butter, cream a stick of softened unsalted butter and add into it 4 cloves of garlic, preferably grated or pounded, 2 teaspoons of dried or fresh herbs of your choice (I used parsely), salt and pepper to taste and a short glug of truffle oil. Scrape out of the bowl into a log onto cling wrap or foil and chill until firm.the sundried tomato bread is from the 'Swiss Bakery' that you can find at some Cold Storages, in particular the ones at Holland V, Centrepoint and that new shopping mall at Kallang. The cake is 'Le Royale' from Canele, a wonderful French-style pastisserie with outlets at Paragon, Raffles City and Robertson walk- everybody knows it and loves it! The cake is sold by the slice at their boutiques. Salade "Mesclun" Lardons Following from my mollet egg frenzy, here is a mollet egg atop a mesclun and bacon salad that I made for dinner...Mine doesn't have an egg, of course, because that would bring today's egg count to FIVE, which is suicidal by any standard.The salad is from "French" by Pignolet again, and while the original calls for frisee lettuce, I've gone with a simple mesclun mix from the packet. The vinaigrette is made with olive and walnut oils, red wine vingear and shallots (in a ratio of 5:1), and the salad itself is scattered with tiny pieces of crisp bacon. The original calls for a poached egg, but I don't see how a mollet egg is a very much inferior substitute~Atop a rocket salad.I love salads, especially these "composed" salads, flavour deepened and complicated by the addition of different ingredients. I must confess that I don't adore unadorned salads- I generally cannot stomach a plate of rocket just lying there by itself. Rocket, in all its bitterness, just doesn't agree with me, sweet and wonderful as my personality is. I can bring myself to finish it, but I don't see the harm in a little vinaigrette and salt. Balanced well, the vinaigrette neither dripping nor sparsely sprayed onto the leaves, it can only serve as a wonderful marriage of flavours. I don't see the problem with that, do you? Think happy thoughts I hope they catch the guy soon.Whining about the police and Minister Wong aside, I think it's more pressing (and useful!) to focus all our negative energy at Mas Selamat. I think we can do it, we shall overcome. I know the immediate reaction, us being bloggers and Singaporeans in general, is to go "oh my gawd, we invest so much in security, pay that minister so much money, and THIS still happens?! whine whine whine whine". Some of us have even been so ingenious (not without certain precedent) as to speculate that this is a funny little cover-up by the government to take our minds off the Budget. No such luck, I fear, 'cuz even if it were, it's gone terribly wrong: he's now in Indonesia! But wait, don't whine yet!I tell you now that the government has a built-in mechanism to deflect ill-will, it is called The Spin 2000- it is like Magneto's helmet in X-Men, something so thick and dense that not even the cry of a million irritated citizens can penetrate it. So I say we should leave the government alone in the meantime, and focus all sorts of bad karma at Mas Selamat. I move for a a temporary suspsension of all vulgarities (yes, Army boys, you heard me) until Mas Selamat turns up in a ditch somewhere. Alive, so we can tickle him until he goes into palsy. Use instead the name of Mas Selamat.If you cut yourself in the kitchen, instead of swearing, go "Mas Selamat!".When you slip and fall, go "alamak la Mas Selamat!"If you fail your test, go "what the Mas Selamat!"When someone chiongs your taxi, go "shit la Mas Selamat!"You get the idea. Be sure, however, to have the guy's face in mind when you cuss, because there are many Mas Selamats in the world. You don't want your neighbour slipping and falling to his death simply because you were careless. While you're at it, let's hope and pray that he doesn't conjure up some Indonesian black magic to do a Voldermort and make his name unspeakable. Wouldn't it be horrible if you started a sentence with "Mak! Selamat..." and then JI Death Eaters pop up behind you and blow everyone up to Virgin Kingdom? But I jest.Being Christian, I'm not supposed to believe in Karma, we call it something else. But I firmly believe that if we generate enough black matter/negative energy/bad moolah that Mas Selamat will feel it. Maybe it will be so terrible that he'll just explode or something. It has worked before, the power of disgruntled Singaporeans. The government's awesome anti-black matter device is so effective that, every year, it single-handedly deflects our whining to Indonesia where the heat starts forest fires. Yes, I think it explains the earthquakes too. So a recap, children:Not damn, sh*t, f***, mother, fricken or cheese pie, but Yes, do your part for International Security today, seeing as to how the government hasn't been too hot in that area. Send your nasty thoughts to Mas Selamat, and maybe he'll choke on his goreng pisang. After that, maybe we can all go dance on some rooftops, you know, for old times' sake.That aside, reflecting on terrorism, I think it is poignant for us to step back and think about what religion has done to societies as a whole. Religiosity, rather. Terrorism isn't just bombs and mustaches, I think it's very cultural, too, and we've gotta watch out for nuanced religious fundamentalism wherever we go. Wherever we are, especially, and oh so especially, if the constitution is avowedly secular.Just my penny's worth. Staff of life Ever since I've started baking out of Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible", my view on food has changed quite fundamentally. It is almost as if I am going back to the absolute basics, the ground zero of food. Bread, it is the staff of life, civilisations were founded on it, wars were fuelled by bread- it even became symbolic of salvation. And then when you taste the breads that come out of your oven, it is the most stunning revelation. Here is something that comprises of nothing but flour, water, salt and yeast, and yet, every bite has such a beguiling, full flavour, it has to say something about food in general. How is it that the food we crave for at the end of the day usually isn't some high-falluting sampling plucked out of haute cuisine, but the simplest, most humbling bowl of rice, or noodles, or bread? Or just a simple dish, thrown together with local ingredients, cooked the way your mother would? I think it is because food is, fundamentally, supposed to meet our nutritional needs. Maybe the enjoyment of food, the discovery of complex flavours and pleasing tastes, came as a perk of sorts- food complicated by people and thier interpretations of it. And then when these tastes cross borders and cuisine becomes multicultural, there comes another level of complexity- that's why Singaporeans who can afford it hanker after foie gras, why Americans appreciate the umami flavour of sashimi. But what bread has taught me, both from the making and eating of it, is that simplicity is very powerful! That something so simple in construction can yield so much satisfaction is one of those little miracles. It is the same message I took away after watching an episode of Jamie Oliver's Italy programme on Discovery Travel and Living- these Italians, they've been eating pasta the same way for generations- simply and traditionally. Anyway, the thing about bread is that it is not fundamentally a Chinese mainstay- I don't believe the Chinese ever grew wheat, or at least used wheat to make bread. The mysterious leavening power of yeast, I think, was harnessed by the Chinese to make only wine. Perhaps because we had rice, bread never occurred to us as being essential. Yet, here I am biting into a freshly baked loaf, and it's really like taking a bite into something ancient, the food of life that hasn't changed very much since the first baker discovered a blob of flour and water bubbling with the inexorable activity of wild yeast. Even for a simple home cook and baker like me, the origins of food and everything that goes into it, speak as much to me about a people as does its military and political history. Bread tells me a little bit about how all the food we know today came about- answering a small part of that big question that always looms over food: "how on earth did they figure that out!". Bread is a miracle, it is as miraculous as it is scientific how it works. The first breads were leavened or raised by wild yeast, not the commericial yeast that we can buy from stores today. That wasn't possible until Pasteur figured out his theory about germs. So until then, bakers harnessed the wild yeast that clung onto flour, grapeskins, even floating about in the air, and fed them with more flour and water, forming what we call, today, a culture. Inside this culture, the yeast is protected from overcrowding by other micro-organisms because of the antibiodies produced by a strain of lactobacillus bacteria that settles on the mixture. This strain of bacteria lives off what the yeast doesn't consume, and thus enters into a symbiotic relationship with the yeast. Is it happy chance that this, then, results in the ability to raise bread, and makes it tender and delicious?   The Auntie's View on the Budget Haiyo.When PM Lee said "no need to buy branded bread", I really took it to heart, so I baked my own bread. Quite cheap also, less than $2 for a good loaf leh. And then when PM Lee said that we can cut costs by buying frozen food, my mother, machiam food crisis coming, went to stock up our freezer with frozen pork, beef, chicken, and I also froze all my bread for good measure so we didn't need to buy Gardenia bread, so expensive you know. And this was because my family is very middle class. When we say "peanuts", we literally mean that, ie. the stuff with the Thumbs Up picture on the packet. In fact, re the peanuts, we're so middle class that if we ever use "peanuts" figuratively, it might refer to, as Andrew Loh points out in this article, the 60% of GST revenue that the government is giving back to Singaporeans, grandiosely called "growth dividends" or wealth sharing. Because home economics, and not economics economics, is my forte, I had to struggle for a while to understand it until a suitable metaphor came to my mind. It is like the government invites us to a Prosperity Potluck Party, and I spend $10 and bring popiah, but am only allowed to eat $6 worth of ngoh hiang. The rest of the food goes to the government's frozen food repository, because the PM likes his stuff frozen. I think it's quite rude lah, to be honest, to complain and whine when people give you "free money", as is what this "hong bao Budget" (ah you've gotta love their quips) seems to be. But as every Chinese worth his imitation sea salt will know, the hong bao exchange is a very shrewdly calculated affair. My mother will always ask me, after the tedious round of CNY visits, to disclose, albeit with feigned disinterest, how much I got from whatever auntie, and sometimes I can't help but note a look of suckered offense on her face. The money being dished out "like free" this year is not so free after all! It comes at the price of, well, everything. Even my piano teacher, I think, increased her fees because of the GST hike. I hope I am not putting it out of perspective, but the growth dividends we are getting don't come from actual growth if they are essentially a percentage of what we gave in the first place. Perhaps if they had just called it "GST rebates", it might've sweetened the tea, and even by those standards, the tea is quite "kiam".  And I know my friend Wee Kiat is going to say I'm being disgustingly ungrateful, but I'm not! I'm just nitpicking. I've always felt the government has been good at giving names to its little policies and one-off thingamajigs, who could forget "Baby Bonus" and "Romancing Singapore". I'm just disappointed that this once, perhaps over-eager to wear its generosity on its pigtails, the government hasn't taken its own advice. After all, "bread is bread, and rice is rice", don't call it what it's not.And since we're dwelling on the Budget, I thought I'd mention another thing that caught my attention. The whole episode with the Government Budget turning up a $6.4 billion surplus versus the initially projected $0.7 million deficit is really quite beyond my understanding. It is not because of my bad maths or anything- I mean, any fool can see that -$0.7 billion is quite different from +$6.4 billion- but because there are people who are trying to spin the whole thing around. The term "a pleasant and embarrassing surprise" is more appropriate for a young couple realising they forgot protection and now have twins on the way. What is, perhaps, a more apt metaphor is crazed Jesuits predicting the world will end on February 15th 2007 and then realising a year later that it's actually Christmas on the Russian Calendar. The fact that the forecast actually had a part to play in bringing about our 2% GST hike brings about some horrific realisations, none of which the government is seriously addressing. Apart from MP Indergit Singh's slap on the wrist, which I found very astute, some MPs seem instead more occupied with turning this little Civil Service boo-boo into an avaricious woo-hoo."After all", writes Chua Mui Hoong, that excellent ST senior writer, echoing the sentiments of MPs Seng Han Thong and Amy Khor, "if the Government had projected a deficit, but the economy rebounded and its coffers overflow: that is good news." Rather, if the government hadn't projected a deficit and had not undertaken tax increases to cope with it, it mightn't be facing such scarily vertiguous inflation problems today. Or rather, if the economy hadn't "rebounded" as Chua writes, but simply "not underperformed". I don't hold it against the number crunchers, really, and Chua also writes that we should "remember that a forecast is just plain guesswork based on the state of knowledge at any one time." But such a gross margin of error should not be so happily celebrated and glossed over with token dispensations; I certainly hope the Finance Minister, in his address to Parliament tomorrow, makes clear exactly how Christmas came early this year. If it is because of inefficiency in the civil service across the board (isn't it their cost projections, after all, that affect budget forecasts?), I wonder if we will get a dividend from those civil service payhikes.Perhaps the Government is exercising prudence, which is a laudable virtue. Economic management with prudence in mind cuts down on overspending and extravagance, ministerial payhikes nonwithstanding (I hope it's irrelevant). But that said, I think the government could learn a thing or two from bakers. Bakers, too, are prudent or, rather, cost-saavy, people- every scruple is measured, every knot of dough scraped out. An abundance of fruits always goes into making jams, over-ripe bananas, not fit for eating, are turned into muffins, old bread is made into pudding, egg yolks left over from meringue are turned into custard, fairly little goes to waste. It stems, I think, from a tradition of frugality, that while today, even as we bake with certain extravagance, a real baker sees the value in prudence. Yet, bakers never bake small. Muffins come in 12, cookies in batches of 36, bread enough to last 3 days, dough starter enough to last a lifetime, even enough to share with friends and family. Bakers always bake in abundance, and we like to share our food, to spread the love, as it were. What the government could have done with its surplus, Andrew Loh points out in the above article- "freeze prices of essential goods and services such as electricity (which is adjusted every 3 months), transport fares, healthcare cost, school/tuition fees, etc, which are all within the control of the government." I don't think it's a bad idea, considering how everyone is suffering in some way or another because of inflation. Rather than writing off inflation as the necessary fever to burn away the virus, isn't it far more compassionate to do one's level best to help Singaporeans tide over the sickness? The government does this with bitter medicine, cooling off with higher GST, but perhaps it paints itself a false dilemma: with so much money at hand, is it really easier to let the country just sit it out, grin and bear it? I don't pretend to be good with economics, but I certainly echo NMP Siew Kum Hong's call for more compassion.Perhaps what Catherine Lim says here is poignant, even though it applies to more metaphysical urges like democracy and freedom:"If man does not live by bread alone, a nation does not survive in the long term by material prosperity alone. I'm going to risk being churlish and say that as long as Singapore's leaders do not pay heed to the fundamental needs of the human spirit, they can never be called wise, only clever, and as long as the nation they lead is admired only for its material achievements, it can never be called great, only successful." I know this is really auntie, but... Yesterday, I went to Carre Four and bought a Steam Cleaner. To be honest, it was not because I actually wanted to clean with it, but because I want to use it to inject steam into my oven for bread baking. It sounds stupid, but I think it'll work. That aside, I had to take a casual interest in the actual cleaning properties of the device, to make the money I spent on it somewhat more validated, and I was surprised how powerful the little devil is. No, I am not being paid to write this.It shoots a jet of steam from a changeable nozzle and even with just 0.25l of water can create a long and powerful blast for as long as you push the lever down. The spread of the blast of steam is pretty big so you can cover large areas very quickly, too. It's amazing how quickly it makes mincemeat out of hard to clean spots and stains, the steam just melts it away, or at least softens it so you can wipe it off quickly. I've never seen my wardrobe mirror so clean!I would even say this is very useful for clothes if you don't have a steam iron, and I don't, so my mum will be quite happy with this (she hasn't seen it in action yet). I tried using it to smoothen my clothes, though, and it doesn't work too hot, prolonged steaming dampens the fabric. But it's supposed to be a steam cleaner not a steam smoother thingamajig, so I forgive my steam cleaner. What a wonderful product this is, you've gotta give the Germans some credit for these things.It's called the Karcher SC 952 (it comes in a whole range of high pressure steam cleaners, near the car accessories section of Carre Four towards the cashiers) and it's my new toy.  Get fat fast with Slow Food Having been cooped at home for the past few weeks, without work or any activity beyond bread-baking and practising for my upcoming audition, I've been able to stuff on a whole 2kg. It even SHOWS, and I'd be depressed if the food weren't so good. I really need to put on those New Balance army running shoes again, and go for a run in the dead of the night when I might otherwise be tempted to gorge on whatever I can throw together from the fridge (and given my certain capability in the kitchen, it's a frightening prospect). Weight gain ain't fun, especially when you feel your whole body beginning to sink downwards, and you get tired doing the most ridiculously menial of tasks. So yes, exercise!If there is one thing I took away from NS, it is the the conviction that exercise is not ultimately a bad thing. It mightn't be fun, or natural, or glamorous or edible, but hey, it's not bad. I don't mind it, to be honest, when I'm actually engaged in it. It's always the thought of getting all huffed and sweaty and tired that puts me off the actual activity, and all this while I thought I had some level of mental veracity. Pah. Well, it's gotta start soon, 'cuz all the food I've been throwing together could've given me enough calories to last the year. Anyway, as a parting shot of sorts, here is a recipe I came up with on one of those lonely afternoons, blending mentaiko with risotto. I shan't say this is a spectacularly original creation, but it works very well. Mentaiko marries so beautifully with parmesan cheese, it's amazing how far away they are on the culinary map of the world. Risotto itself isn't very difficult to manage, a little time-consuming, but there is a certain calm you take away from 15 or so minutes of stirring a pot of slowly softening rice. It helps to take your mind of the sheer tedium (and really, if you've ever decorated a cake, risotto making is NOT tedium) if you imagine yourself as a burly, faintly mustached Italian woman, or Nigella, putting about with rustic absent-mindedness. For me, the resemblance isn't very far away, but the play-acting might be more exacting for you, who knows?And yes, you might have noticed I keep using the same plate(s), but they're the only decent ones I have that come in pretty, flattering white.Risotto with Mentaiko and Parmesan CheeseServes 2170g risotto rice (such as Arborio)450ml of chicken stock (recipe below, or use storebought)1 medium onion or a few shallots, diced2 cloves of garlic, mincedWhite wine Parmesan cheese 2 small mentaiko sacs, the roe scraped out and the membrane chopped roughlyOlive oil and 2 knobs of butter1. Heat the stock in a small pot. In another, wider, pot, heat the olive oil and 1 knob of butter. Add to this the diced onion, garlic and mentaiko membranes, and sautee very slowly over low heat until softened. Turn up the heat and add the rice, stirring to coat.2. After a few minutes, the rice should have turned slightly translucent, don't over-fry the rice. Add the white wine and stir, allowing the rice the absorb most of it. Lower the heat to a slight simmer and add a ladleful of hot stock. Stir the rice to coax out the starch even as it absorbs the stock. When all of the stock has been absorbed, add another ladleful and stir. Continue this process until the rice is al dente- tender but with a slight bite and still individual, you don't want a mush at this point. If you run out of stock before this happens, add in boiling water, a few tablespoons at a time, and stir. 3. Taste for seasoning, but do not oversalt- the cheese and mentaiko are especially salty. Remove from the heat and quickly stir in another largish knob of butter, grate over a healthy amount of parmesan (about 2 tablespoons worth) and the mentaiko roe. Stir well and robustly, then cover and let stand for 2 minutes. This will make the risotto very, very lusciously creamy. Serve immediately! When you have as much time on your hands as I do, you invariably try and do stuff that would ordinarily take hours out of your schedule. For some, it might be extended naps, or a good lazy lounging listening to music and reading something, or mindlessly trawling the Internet. I combine all of these things while at the same time filling my kitchen and fridge with wonderful edible things. There is nothing quite as relaxing as waking up in the morning, determined to coax deliciousness out of your kitchen, and then waddling off to do whatever you want as edibility bubbles into being over the stove or in the oven or, as in the case of bread starters, in air conditioned comfort. The zenith, the apotheosis, as it were, of this lazy, long-process cooking, is stock. I had never before been utterly convinced of the need for good stock- stock cubes and Heinz chicken broth were my best friends, they worked well, tasted alright, ho hum. When I first started making stock, experimentally, I was disappointed at how flimsy and mild it tasted, and it dawned on me, then, that commercial stocks probably contained a lot of taste-bud diluting MSG. It also didn't help that I was going about it all wrong, but I am convinced I have got it.I have gone fairly organic in the past months, and I prefer to make things as home-spun as possible. Apart from the simple pleasure of knowing that I can procure delicious things on my own, I enjoy the farmboyishness of all of it, coaxing flavours out of raw ingredients and enjoying them as freshly-made as possible, eating rustic artisinal breads that look like pictures out of Beowulf. I figure since our palates have, to a large part, succumbed to Frenchification and Italianification, we might as well boil that down to its source. Anyway, back to stock- I don't pretend to be the world's greatest maker of stocks, I have yet to experiment some more, but if this post encourages one Knorr-devotee to experience for his or herself the taste of home-made stock, then it would have found some meaning in this world of words. I used to think of stock as some esoteric secret recipe thing, but what it is, in essence, is liquid flavour, all natural, all good. It forms the base of complex soups and sauces, and provides a floor of flavour for risottos and other dishes. It is also strangely fun to make, relaxing in its softly bubbling, Mother of Goodness way. Chicken StockMakes about 2.5 litres2.5 kg worth of chicken- generally one large chicken and wings and feet to make up the rest. The gelatin in all these extra bits is what gives the stock flavour. Leave the neck and feet on, but shave off the breasts (save them for another use), and slash the thigh and leg muscles to promote the release of flavour. 1 large carrot, 1 stick of celery and 1 large onion, the former two cut into 2" chunks and the onion peeled and quartered1.5 tsp salt, to tease out flavour3.8 litres (4 quarts) of water1. In a large stock pot, it will need to accomodate at least 8-10 litres, lay the chicken parts. Cover with the water. If the chicken doesn't go under, remove the wings and legs until it does. Bring to a simmer over high heat. At a simmer, there will be bubbles but these will not be rapid.2. Brown bits will float to the top, scum, and when it has formed a definite foam, stir the chicken, releasing more foam, and skim it off with a spoon or slotted skimmer. When most of it has been removed, add the vegetables and salt, give a stir, and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, which you must, at all costs, maintain for the rest of the process. The stock should never boil or it will integrate the impurities. Cook like this, without stirring, for 4 hours. Skim occasionally, but only if it is brown scum. 3. When the stock tastes like it should, deep and chickeny, turn off the heat and let stand for a few minutes so the sediments can sink to the bottom. Meanwhile, fill your sink with iced water, and prepare a fine strainer (such as a colander lined with cheesecloth or a chinois) and a large container or bowl to receive the stock. Carefully ladle the stock over the strainer into the bowl, until the stock pot is light enough to be carried easily, then pour out the stock slowly. The vegetables and meat should have been completely depleted, but use them as you will. Plunge the bowl of stock into the iced water to bring down the temperature rapidly, to avoid bacterial growth. When coolish, cover with plastic wrap (I like to re-strain the stock into a large Tupperware container) and store in the fridge. 4. The next day, the stock will have jellied up, and the fat will have coagulated into a white and fairly disgusting layer at the top. Only remove it when you need to use the stock, as it insulates against bacterial growth. If not using soon, skim it off, and freeze the stock for up to a month. It keeps for 3 days in the fridge. From here you can use the stock as is or boil it down to a demiglace or glace de poulet. A demiglace is a reduction of a quantity of stock by half, it will concentrate the flavour and will still be largely watery. Do this if you want a stronger flavoured stock, perhaps for gravies and sauces. A glace de poulet is a much heavier reduction, boiled down until the stock becomes a thick, dark brown syrup- 2 cups will boil down to give you around 3-4 tablespoons. This is highly concentrated stock, it is incredibly flavourful and a few teaspoons of this added to a sauce or soup will impart wonderful things. When chilled, it will form a hard jelly, but I keep mine in the fridge as I would ice cubes, ever ready to spike whatever it is needs spiking.Have fun! Ciabatta It being Chinese New Year and all, we decided to take out the old oven and install a shiny new one. This isn't mere superstition, of course, the old oven was dying on us like Ah Meng in her prime- the filaments were damaged and couldn't heat up beyond 175 degrees, the oven light had blown so I was literally baking blind most of the time, yadayada. That was the Rowenta Gourmet Series, and it's lasted me a good 7 years. The new one is the DeLonghi 'professional' oven, it is a hulking piece, all shiny and gloriously new. Nothing like those immense, expensive built-in models, but very sophisticated and functional for a counter-top. The first thing I resolved to do with my oven was to bake something the old oven could not possibly have handled- bread.I've been hoarding the library's copy of The Bread Bible, from Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of the Cake Bible. I told myself that I wouldn't relinquish it until I had a chance to try one of the artisan bread recipes, which I have, today- I will now go and buy a copy of the book.I lovingly nursed, at Rose's instructions, a biga or Italian pre-ferment (or dough starter), in my room last night (at my air-con's lowest possible setting), and woke up today with the promise of bread; the biga, at first a stagnant lump of dough, had bubbled up and tripled overnight. This was added to more flour and water, making a very wet and tacky dough, and I managed to get it shaped and proofed (no slight task, but highly enjoyable) and popped it into my oven (fitted with a pizza stone from Spotlight) for 25 minutes. The result is a bread so wonderful that I shall never be convinced that home baking isn't worth the time.Here it is, being baked, and I confess something of an over-fiery oven made the bread brown too quickly. I hope I can remedy it. I also hope that extended high-temperature baking doesn't wear out the oven too soon! Voila! Look at those HOLES! The crust was crispy, with a real snap to it (I hope it's not because of the slight over-browning), and the insides were light and chewy, though a little too sparse and airy. I think I might have let the dough rise too much, but no bother, tomorrow's a new day, a new bread- the biga for tomorrow's ciabatta is already in my room! Ombudsman, what a queer little word On the way back from Clarke Quay after what might have become a rather messy affair, Jun Yang and I, taking the ECP, drove past a cluster of ERP gantries. They were clumped together and must've looked quite menacing because Jun Yang, being a new driver and all, let out a gasp. I don't know nuts about the road except who not to knock down and roll over, but there was something vaguely evil about that little bundle of gantries. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when we were studying Governance in social studies back in secondary school, the ERP came up as an example of "good governance as reflected through the government's tackling of traffic problems". The purpose of these things, these monstrous gallows of the roads, is, I think, to divert traffic from heavily used roads by imposing the beep of death on those who deign to travel through. Correct me if I'm wrong, again, but there never seems to be a shortage of jams going in and out of town, which was why I was heinously late for rehearsal yesterday. So what exactly are people paying for?And now this rather badly written article comes up, two days after the whole hubbub, and we hear the MM say that "the Government's prediction of consumer behaviour was 'not quite right'." Oh dear, if only this had come at a somewhat better time. The MM is worried about the people of my generation, how half of the top students in Singapore are not applying for the fast-track into the Civil Service, ie. PSC scholarships. This might affect, he insinuates (or at least the reporter does), the fourth generation of "A-team" leaders from the PAP. Oh let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say "coalition". Then he goes on to worry some more about the bleeding of Singapore's talents out of the country, how this might, he once again insinuates, drain out the "central core" of Singaporeans that will sustain our Singaporeanness.Perhaps it is Singaporeanness, or at least Singaporeanness as expressed through governance, that drives talent away, both out of the country and from the lure of government- the futility of public service, the sometimes inexplicable (and unexplained) policies, the bubbling tension that girdles political discourse, hell, the lack of constructive political discourse. Perhaps my generation knows this, that to serve in a government that preserves the trappings of a society emerging from 1965, is against the grain of modernity. I have a friend who accuses me of being rebellious for the sake of it, simply because I'm anti-PAP. This, of course, I found highly distressing because I'm not. I just think that at the pace the world is moving at, one where nothing is opaque anymore, where every other country can know what's going on anywhere else in the world as it happens, that the rate of change in the way our country is run hasn't evolved quickly enough from what was put into place by the "Original Team" of A-listers MM Lee mentions. The focus on economic growth in the 60s, at the expense of discarding exacting politics and freedom and what not, has yielded wonderful results today. And the by-product of this, and of placing a premium on education, is that you simply yield a more intelligent citizenry. And because little has changed in the way our leaders tick (curt, reactionary and conservative), there exists a strange paradox of political dreadlock and inquiry. People have begun to see cracks in our election process, subtle and devious reasons behind the sad state of our opposition parties, perhaps evidence of a nanny that doesn't want to let go.And so, when the MM says the government does not need more "policing", I think, and with all due respect, that he misses the point. It is not exactly "policing" that a human rights commission or ombudsmen represent, but change and inquiry (not in the Spanish sense of the word, of course). I just found out yesterday, for instance, that a citizen cannot take the government to court, and then I learned that the only way to seek redress for certain injustices is to seek out your local MP, and then bugger about for compensation, any amount of which ends the matter. Here is where ombudsmen might be useful, but that's just a hunch. But then again, ombudsmen represent everything the government has tried to avoid all these years: direct accountability, and this, I think, emerges from too many fingers in too many pies. Even if I could, I do not think I would want to serve in the government. And I stress on could because I am clearly not amongst the top 300 of our nation's students. This is because, and the MM is right, Singaporeans are very proficient grumblers. But this really might not have been the case, or at least grumbling might not have been so fearsome or annoying, if some proper institutions had been written into the system. Proper elections, for one. If I were to align myself with a particular party because I prefer the way it angles itself towards certain issues, in Singapore, I can only hope for this party to represent me in a few GRCs, one of which I might not even be living in. So now there is a bid for an independent elections committee, but I'll be damned if that doesn't count as "political policing".So I grumble. And having reached 21 years of age, or at least I will in a few months, this is something I shall have to consider soon, and what a pity for the sheer futility of it.    Sigh Joel on January 31st, 2008 at 11:44 am: *palmface*Although everything seems to suggest otherwise, I’ll take it that you did read my comment beyond the salutation. There was no war, except a holy war against misreading.Would like to give that stupidity award back, I really don’t think I deserve it, it’s almost defamatory.Cheers and toorahmr.udders on February 1st, 2008 at 1:49 am: You have gone out of point and you’re out of line.His writing was a piece of satire and you just didn’t get it. Face up to your stupidity, alright?Rascal on February 1st, 2008 at 2:03 pm: “Oh dear”, how eloquent. I’m sorry, Joel, it seems I do have to take that award away from you and give it to this loser. Yes, mr.udders, you have won for yourself the Stupidity of the Year award. Might be the only thing you’ll ever win in your life so treasure it will ya?Sigh.And I thought I could start the day by baking a bunch of cupcakes.Once upon a time, there was a chocolate cupcake called Bloobbloob who decided, for the fun of it, to put on lemon frosting. When the other cupcakes saw him, some of them thought it was funny, because lemon and chocolate just DON'T GO, and so they laughed along with him in the pretty meadows where the dogs rolled around and were happy and loved and didn't have fleas. Then the dogs ate Bloobbloob the chocolate cupcake. And God knows what chocolate does to dogs.The end!This is a true story, by the way, and not a parody or a satire, 'cuz cupcakes really can talk, run around and generally get away with it. I need a beer In what has proven to be the most baffling misreading of anything I have ever written, Rascal Voices has submitted yet another gross remonstration of my supposed dog-hating. I don't know if it's bad writing on my part or simply self-righteous selective reading on the other side, but it's becoming an increasingly lost cause. Perhaps I was a little too tongue-in-cheek for his/her liking, but blogwars are so not my thing. Besides, the guy writes from the point of view of a dog, and I can't even begin to take that literally even if I wanted to. In any case, yesterday's post was supposed to have settled things, but APPARENTLY NOT, whee. Whatever the case, I have posted the following response on his/her blog, in what I hope clears up a moral assassination of my character. For the life of me, I can't understand how I got mixed up in such a stupidly trivial... URGH I have no words for it."My dearest Sparky,I do apologise for the script on my blog, it seems most browsers can’t seem to pick up the In the meantime, I do beg you reconsider your harsh words! Perhaps you are not a frequent reader of my blog, and God knows I don’t have many such readers, but you really cannot take everything I write at face value the way you have! Perhaps it is a canine thing, in which case I do frantically beg your pardon, but seeing as to how that is both physically and logically unlikely, I think a chill pill is in order! Vis-a-vis the entry “Going to the Dogs”, I must remark that you were stunningly spot-on with 377A allusions. In fact, if I may just explain the whole hubbub, I think it might settle quite a few outstanding doubts about my character. The entry was not LITERALLY about dogs for Pete’s sake, it was, as you very astutely pointed out, a reference and a parody of the whole anti-repeal camp, most particularly her majesty NMP Thio Li-Ann. Perhaps it has rankled your collar that I chose dogs as a medium for such ill-received humour (and ill-timed too, considering the whole 377A affair fizzled down months ago), but you must forgive my sense of opportunism. I have no bones with dog owners, having been one myself, nor do I take issue with dog owners asking for a more dog-friendly society. The parallels are most stark, as you have noticed, both the gay and dog-owning communities wish for greater acceptance and freedom. Being a particularly vocal proponent of the repeal-377A motion, I found such a comparison both interesting and worth examining. At least that was the idea, good God. It is most unfortunate that most people who read the post took it literally, which is something of great annoyance to me. Where it was initially funny, I find now that it’s depressing and frankly quite disturbing. The post, having been read in isolation from mostly everything else on my blog, OF COURSE looks ridiculously caninephobic, and damn tomorrow.sg for that, so many failed to get a sense of what I was really driving at. I do not think it has anything to do with my communicative ability which, amongst sleeping and eating I count as one of my very very few talents. Rather, all this nonsense is a result of people not using a common and curious sense to figure out that no one in his right mind could have written something so oddly skewed and extreme and actually ~meant~ it. I find it sad that only 1 or 2 out of a burgeoning and incredibly irate bunch of readers got the gist of the post, and it speaks a lot about people’s analytical abilities. I also find it sad that I have to EXPLAIN the damned post, which is really the worst thing ever. I take it that most of the people who ~did~ get it didn’t leave comments, and kudos to their sanity. Whatever the case, I don’t regret writing the post because it’s shown me that discoursing in clouded metaphors can yield some insanely funny results.If anything DOES clear the air it should be this- I am not a dog and dog-owner hater. If no one got that long long bit before, at least try and figure out the above sentence.My very woeful pleas of dog-love, to the point of waxing lyrical about my dear canine friends Truffle and Kyra, seem to have fallen on flea-bitten ears and kibble-heartedness. Perhaps you missed that very pretty picture of the two darlings, because I don’t see how that hasn’t convinced you that I am not a dog-hating bigot. Also, since you chose to find fault with my defense of dog-owners, let me explain (again) what I meant by “an issue worth examining”. It is likely that only in Singapore, where people are neurotic, paranoid, overly-sensitive, overly-literal and overly fussy about everything, is dog ownership an area of debate. Heck, the fact that someone coined a “dog-friendly society” speaks volumes on its own. In ~other~ words, in a progressive and harmonious society, dogs and their owners wouldn’t be a problem. Simply put, Singaporeans make too much noise about dogs. I was simply suggesting that dog-unfriendly and dog-owner-unfriendly (GOD I hate spelling things out word for word!) people should get a life and stop writing in to our, yes, venerable Straits Times making such a big, colossal, unnecessary hoo-ha about people and their dogs. It clogs up what is already an almost unreadable paper. If even all of that tiresome elaboration remains clouded, then I give up.Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term blogwar- even then it was in jest- but really, oh my gawd.If you should feel a need to bark up my tree anymore, please just email me at joeltheobscure@gmail.com, I’ll be happy to entertain you there. In the meantime, there are things far more pressing to spend my energies on than a truly overblown case of sheer sheer misreading."Good GOD. BUKAKE! The time, my friends, has come for a blogwar. What follows is a reading from Rascal Voices, in response to this earlier post on my blog... "But this piece from the Daily Trackback surely wins (paws down) the Stupidity of the Year award:Dog owners should cease clamouring for their rights, it is socially and morally divisive, and will lead to a slippery and exponential slope of societal collapse. Already, in today’s Straits Times, one such dog owner has complained that people should ask for permission before patting dogs. What NEXT, what NEXT, I ask?! Legalising anti dog hate speech? Registering dogs with NRICs? It is morally outrageous, morally outrageous! It is moral, moral moral! It is nothing but an issue of morals! Morals! Morals, I tell you, morals! Morels of Morals! Pray for our nation today, pray that we will not go the way of countries like Japan and America that have fallen into moral disrepair because of their love for dogs. Morals”I might only be a dog, but I have enough sense to ask: What does morals have to do with this? You’re right, the answer is: ‘absolutely nothing’.“We’ll kill you because you have no morals. Don’t ask what morals have to do with it.” Picture source: RexCurry.net And then this:We are a young and developing society, and are simply not ready to accept dog owners and their insufferable dogs in public. We don’t care what they do at home in the privacy of their doghouses or bedrooms, but why do they have to drag it out and make it a public affair?! As it is, society doesn’t actively go out of its way to persecute dogs and their owners for leaving little doo-doos on the ground, barking late at night, being general four-legged animals- why must they create trouble for themselves by bringing the matter up to the venerable Straits Times? Don’t they know that by attracting this kind of attention to themselves, they will simply invite a greater public backlash?!Now this smells strangely familiar, almost like the indoctrinated cut-and-paste responses from certain groups to the 377A repeal last year. In fact, if you just replace the terms, the above paragraph would read as follow:We are a young and developing society, and are simply not ready to accept dog owners gays and their insufferable dogs actions in public. We don’t care what they do at home in the privacy of their doghouses houses or bedrooms, but why do they have to drag it out and make it a public affair?! As it is, society doesn’t actively go out of its way to persecute dogs gays and their owners partners for leaving little doo-doos spreading HIV on the ground, barking partying late at night, being general four-legged animals- why must they create trouble for themselves by bringing the matter up to the venerable Straits Times? Don’t they know that by attracting this kind of attention to themselves, they will simply invite a greater public backlash?!Yes, there you go. Evidence that ideology is rife in Singapore, and even the educated masses can be unthinking bigots who desperately need a kick on the backside to get them off their moral high horses. As MissCel says in response to the 377A episode: “Think about these things together before you make your stand. I hope next time, judgmental people would actually stop and use their brain first before even uttering a single syllable.”Firstly, I'm quite honoured by that Stupidity of the Year Award, and this so early in the year! I think there's a close runner-up, but I won't say who, later offend again. And darling, it's BACKTRACK not TRACKBACK.Secondly, I must say that I'm frankly quite miffed that a few people who read that post of mine didn't get it. I'm vaguely dismayed that I might have to write a post-script in explanation of the parallels that the above writer quite succinctly managed to draw, only to quite hilariously misapply them. I had a good laugh, but now I'm feeling hurt For the record, people who bother, the post had absolutely nothing to do with dogs.Thirdly, I am not an "unthinking bigot", as any regular reader of this blog will know, especially vis-a-vis gay issues. No wait, I'm not an unthinking bigot- period. I may be a bigot, but certainly not unthinking. I think.Fourthly,These are Truffle (left) and Kyra (right), and I love them both to bits like they were my own children. I am, however, just their uncle and they've since moved out of the house to be with their real daddy and mummy. I wish now that we had our own dogs in the house because I miss the pitter patter of furred paws. I love all animals, especially dogs, and especially miss having Truffle cuddle up to me in bed. I am happily looking forward to this Saturday when the dogs'll be over for CNY 'cuz their parents'll be out of the country. With regards to the dog-friendly society, I really couldn't agree more- people are too uptight about animals here, which is why, I think, there are complaints to the Straits Times in the first place. If there's one true thing from my post about dogs, it's that people shouldn't further denigrate our useless national paper by making dogs an 'issue' worth examining.Lastly, I'd gladly accept that Stupidity of the Year award, especially if it's got moolah involved! "Tako Pachi" Pasta Oh maaaan, I'm so happy with my lunch! I was thinking of what to do for lunch today, having almost set my mind on starving myself to make up for last night's dinner. It was too bad for my waistline, then, that I opened my fridge and saw that little tub of razor clam soaking brine I had reserved from my last hedonistic lunch (salmon and razor clams in saffron cream). It called out to be used, all milky white and pungent with the smell of little swimming things. I turned around, saw my half-full packet of katsuoboshi and another packet of nori, and that was that. When I first opened the katsuoboshi yesterday, the smell of it was so strong and fragrant, I decided it would be perfect if used to flavour some cream over the simmer, for a wonderful Japanese-style cream sauce. This, indeed, is what I set out to do this afternoon in creating a wonderful seafood-y pasta dish without any real and whole seafood! Seeing as to how CNY is around the corner, and all the canned shellfish is hitting the shelves, we might as well use the delicious broth! Whether in the white wine sauce you make for mussels or to flavour soups, or the gravy you cover abalone with, or even in the following recipe, it's not something you should throw away!Japanese 'From the Sea' PastaYou will need, for ONE serving:A mounded 1/4 cup of katsuobushiA bunch of nori pieces, shreddedHalf an onion, diced1 tbs unsalted butter85g angelhair spaghetti, or probably around 120g regular spaghettiScant 1/4 cup thickened cream, or regular cream whatever rocks your boatScant 1/4 cup of the reserved liquid from your next CNY shellfish purchase (I used this here in place of white wine, because I ran out, but 4 tbs of white wine together with this juice is wonderful, I will explain later)Japanese mayonnaiseOne softboiled or poached eggMatcha finishing salt, for garnishingHow:1. Mottle or poach your egg, set it aside2. Make the matcha finishing saltThis is pure joy, the earthy and woody taste of matcha ground with sea salt! It's difficult to make in small quantities, so I used 1 teaspoon of each and ground them in my spice mill. Larger quantities can be pulsed up in the food processor or, if you have the mortar-pestle setup, that would work charmingly. This can be used in a whole variety of ways, to give a sharp and unusual edge to desserts, or to flavour and decorate Japanese-inspired dishes like this one. The vibrant green is wonderful.3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the onions, put the pasta-water on the heatThe level of my kitchen kunfu doesn't permit me to finely and evenly mince onions, so this dicing is the best I can do without a processor. Conveniently, dicing works best for this recipe, it gives the dish some chunk.Sautee the diced onion over a low flame for 2-3 minutes, until a shade softer.4. Turn up the heat and add the wine/brineIf you, unlike me, have white wine on hand, add 4 tablespoons here and allow to bubble away, until just slightly reduced, then add the brine and let it boil for 3 minutes. If you are not using the wine, throw in the brine, and bring to the boil for about 3 minutes.5. Add the cream and katsuobushiPour in the cream, beating it in strongly with your wooden spoon, and allow to come to a bubble. Stir in a good squeeze of mayo, then throw in the katsuobushi. The smell will hit you, and you'll know it's going to be great. Stir a little, and turn off the fire. 6. The pasta water should be boiling by now, salt it and cook the pasta.The San Remo angelhair spaghetti I have cooks in TWO MINUTES, that's amazing. I prefer it here to regular spaghetti because it has a very nice bite to it when all tangled up as, being thin, it tends to. It also tends to pick up more chunky bits in the noodly knots.Halfway through the boiling, bring the sauce back to the heat again, just to keep it warm, and stir it a little, then remove to a large mixing bowl and throw in a good handful of nori. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss it into the bowl, using a pair of chopsticks to mix it evenly into the sauce. 7. Serve the pastaTransfer the pasta to a serving bowl, lay the egg on top, and squeeze over a little mayo, placing some shredded nori over the egg. Sprinkle over some matcha salt. Voila.I DO I DO! (Nevermind that I screwed up the egg again)Somehow, this tastes better eaten with chopsticks, and I've conveniently cropped out my face so I don't put any of you off, how nice.I've nicknamed this Tako Pachi Pasta, because it tastes strangely like it, just without the actual tako (octopus). It's very, very tasty, and that is, to me, the wonder of katsuobushi. A good chunk of the flavour comes from there, and what a celebrated ingredient it must be over in Japan. I shall certainly make this again, it is much cheaper than mentaiko pasta, and hits the same spots! Red herrings A few days after writing that article for TOC, my friend, who was a member of the Complaints Choir, by now famously known as having been given the ISD treatment, told me, with dark and heavy meaning, that there was an SDP member among their ranks. Being quite the naive little thing that I am, I tried to reason with my friend that the singing SDP member (and a surprise guest at one of the performances, a certain Dr so and so), had absolutely nothing to do with the choir and its permit problems. After all, the police had targetted the expats, what did the SDP have to do with that?The foreigners, insisted my friend, were red herrings, and the fact that the ISD (striking fear into opposition parties everywhere!) was involved smacks of some SDP-related muchamucha. If this is true, and I don't think we shall ever know, then I will lose all shred of respect for that particular public institution. Where once it claimed to save Singaporeans from the shame of seeing a buncha ang-mohs singbitch about living in our country, now, we learn, it may simply have been to cover-their-own-asses. Where's the public service in all of that, where, I ask, where. Apparently, the right to complaint may now lie only with locals who aren't from the SDP. Maybe SDP members have used up all their 'complain in public for free, go past Go, collect $200, bankrupt like free!' cards. Ah well, it is Monopoly, after all~ An attempted Japanese Night- Mentaiko and Katsuobushi After reading this post by Chubby Hubby, I was lulled into mouth-foaming silliness at the mere mention of mentaiko. Such is the ability of his photography and writing to make food seem real and delicious without having to eat it! Mentaiko is the spicy marinated roe of pollocks, and is a beloved delicacy in Japan and Korea. It is delicious on its own, not overwhelmingly spicy, but tingly, sweet and salty with just a little grittiness for bite. It is also horrendously unhealthy, which is what attracts me to it in the first place, just as I love the unctuous suicide of crab eggs and fatty pork. Ever since Pasta de Waraku opened in Singapore, I admit I've been quite cajolled into the whole Japanese-Italian thing. You can't really claim the restaurant's food as fusion-fusion, it's really very much more Japanese than it is Italian. The carbonara, for instance, is nothing like the traditional Italian carbonara, but is instead tangles of noodles and bacon in a thin, wafu or Japanese-style cream sauce; no hearty flecks of cheese or browned bacon fat. More appealing, on my couple'a visits to the outlets, was the cod-roe and squid pasta, the oyster carbonara (ohh man) and their generously decorated thin-crust pizzas, both very tasty and satisfying. My friends don't get the hoo-ha, they say the food's so-so, but I am very partial to it for some reason. Perhaps it is the prompt and friendly service, but I think I have a fetish for the oddly tasty wafu cream sauce they seem to serve with everything.Anyway, a new Japanese pasta and pizza place has opened at City Link mall, the exact same concept but named "Shokudo". The only difference, from what I can tell, is that they serve edamame as an appetiser and add 'penne' to the pasta choices (YES, Pasta de Waraku only does Fettucine and S