Forgetful me

Boy oh boy do I have a problem with my memory! It’s deteriorating. Fast. Age is catching up. And fast. So what I forgot about was to share Adeline’s Photographic Diary, this entry is on ink or tattoos. My small tattoos made it on there together with Liz and Diana’s massive sleeves! Was super stoked to be included. Plus Adeline’s recently banged out a new neat layout which was done by Katrina and well, short story short, I’m pretty much in love with how tight this blogging community is.

So from tattoos to food, here we go with food on film #2.

pan-fried salmon, kenyan green beans, zucchini & tomato & avocado salad

penne with pork sausage (minced up) & kenyan green beans, in a chicken broth sauce (I followed a recipe for the sauce but switched up the greens). It’s nice change from the usual tomato/cream base and Ben was very quick to say he liked it (yay for me)! If you’d like the recipe, I’d be happy to scan a copy.

breakfast of zucchini and avocado on wholemeal toast

clear-the-fridge-and-throw-it-all-in fried rice for lunch

I rarely snack on chocolate but the new packaging gave me a reason to put it in the basket. It’s boxy and nice to hold now.

How’s everyone’s weekend going? I’m desk-bound and working on more twigs, watching the new season of Project Runway and hopefully, eat some ice cream tomorrow.

Over at Sarah’s

Sarahs-loft that is! I can’t believe I forgot about these pictures. This was… early July. She invited some of us over for home-style pizzas! There, I got to meet her ridiculously obedient mini kewt! toy poodle, Momo.

Cupcakes from yokebakery

Starving wagging tongues were first fed a cream-based seafood pizza

Followed by this! Prosciutto or parma ham, I forget but oohahh together with spinach and all that cheese.

I’m torturing myself, I’m hungry sleepy but surprisingly, not grumpy. Anyway the pizza lady is waltzing around Melbourne right now and for many more days! Come home soon!

Heavily nocturnal

I made bolognese sauce last week - a lot of it - because I’ve become a freezer meal person. I took the recipe and freezer meal idea from Real simple, I’ve uploaded a copy of it here. Remember to write the date down! (Same with all the ant & cockroach baits! Which I never do. And sorry for mentioning cockroaches when talking about food.)

Anyway if cooking isn’t your thing, here’s some worthy links to check out:
• New on The Selby; Rockaway Taco - I want to be a customer there or better yet, their homie!
• Street art at Pioneer Square in Seattle, the one of the hand… j.a.w.d.r.o.p.p.i.n.g
• Scroll down half the page to see some seriously good camera porn

I’m running late, I have to get ready and buy some shizz from the supermarket before heading to my folks’ for dinner and catch the National Day Parade on telly. It’s Singapore’s 45th birthday today!! Why I’m excited I don’t know!!!

Bangkok #2

On our second last day in Bangkok, we ate too much for lunch at Greyhound Cafe. The cafe came highly recommended by Stephie with specific dishes to try, so we did just that.

With my greedy face on

Butter tastes weird in Bangkok, something I noticed when eating my rolls

I had this dish called Complicated Noodles, basically I had to put my meal together

A very powerful and spicy, erm, sauce. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what was in it - parsley, garlic, lime?

This is the meat sauce which was urghhh-sooo-good

So this was how I ate it at first but really, I ended up using all ten fingers towards the end of the meal.

I don’t have photos of the other stuff we stuffed our faces with but I’ll list them down here if anyone wants to know. Chicken wings, clam and mussel soup, miso salmon, chinese plum float and the carbonara’s supposedly good too but we didn’t try that. And, Greyhound Cafe is on the first floor of Siam Centre.

On the last day, we killed some time by visiting the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. It’s right in the shopping district so it’s a nice respite if you’ve had enough of malls.

I’m beginning to realise the documentation is a bit fragmented because some photos are shot on digital and some on film. So I’m opting to share them separately instead of mixing them up. I haven’t decided which works better.

{Photos taken with a Nikon D40 using 35mm F1.8 lens}

Bangkok #1

We didn’t do much there, also because there wasn’t much for us to do. We walked a lot. Noticed how new modern buildings sprout out between slummy heavily-vandalized broken buildings. Saw a string of bright pink taxis coincidentally caught in a traffic jam at one point. Took long baths. Watched a lot of Fox News in the hotel?!? Quietly honestly, I was simply happy to wake up by myself, for myself and not by our cats.

In the last two photos, we were at a bar where the live band played serious heavy metal. Lamb of God, Iron Maiden. I’ve never seen a grown man shout so much and so loud before, it was something to remember.

{Photos taken with a Nikon D40 + 35mm F1.8 lens}

Food on film #1

Howdy! Some photos of food before I gobbled it all down.

coffee shop breakfast - toast with milk and sugar, soft-boiled eggs and coffee

wendy’s is here in singapore! but it doesn’t taste as good as what I had in toronto

supper of cheap takeaway sushi

sundried tomato + basil + chicken pasta (recipe from here)

takeaway caesar salad with chicken

breakfast

gooey porridge with century egg! (I kinda hate century eggs now)

instant noods when I was ill

beef pastrami wrap + homemade iced lemon tea

key lime pie that didn’t set so a friend suggested I freeze it, it saved the pie

Some pretty big games tonight and tomorrow if you’re following the World Cup, I’m so nervous for Spain and Argentina, yikes. G’weekend friends!

Light+shadows & the kitchen

The progression of light streaming in from early dawn to noon in my kitchen. At noon, I made shrimp curry for lunch based on this recipe but changed a few ingredients. It tasted pretty amazing considering how easy and quick it was to make!

I’m gonna type out my version in the comments so check there if you want to give this curry a try.

Lunch

What’s for lunch today folks? This is what I made y’day.

earl grey + ham/bacon/egg/cheese triple decker sandwich + spinach/mushrooms/eggs + a lone sausage

I scheduled this post for today and as you’re reading this, I should be somewhere in Chek Jawa in Pulau Ubin, climbing on coastal rocks and something something. Well I’ve never been there so I don’t really know what I’m talking about. What I do know is that I’m very eager to finish a few rolls of film and share the experience and sights with you peeps!!

G’weekend monsters!

Moms’s day

Happy mother’s day to moms-a-doodles out there! My family went to PS Cafe at Harding for dinner tonight because my brother’s working (he’s a sou chef there!) and my folks haven’t been there yet so it just works out perfectly. We seriously overate, I feel like a rollypolly right now. Here’s most of the food we ate! I’m pathetic at being descriptive about how food tastes, if it’s good, I polish the entire plate and burp “awesome”. So I’m just gonna list the actual descriptions I got off their website and maybe you can imagine how it’d taste.

One of the starter specials - littleneck clams with spicy chorizo - steamed with roma tomatoes, italian parsley & white wine. My mom and I loved this!

Poutine!

My mom’s main: Crispy skin barramundi - spicy potato croquette, braised fennel, seasonal roasted vegetables & lemon caper beurre blanc

My dad, sis and I had burgers, the PS Burger - grilled wagyu & us chuck patty topped with camembert cheese, wilted spinach, bacon, tomato & caramelized onion on toasted sesame bun. SO GOOD SO BIG.

Monster brownie for my lil sis and my dad, mom and I shared the ginger steamed pudding with earl grey creme anglaise. Delish, if like me, you don’t enjoy sweet desserts and chocolate cakes.

I have two loads of clean laundry to fold and put away but I’m so lazy! Help.

One step at a time

Howdy, I feel like I keep saying this over and over - I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like to. But there’s this need to say it I guess, because it’s true. I had high hopes of photographing my friends and I rollerblading over the weekend. I even bought overpriced film at Ion (a shopping mall in town) cos my trusty film shop wasn’t open on a Saturday, I don’t know why. Yeeeah but the sun had gone down by the time we got around to rollerblading. Huuuge bummer.

Anyway I’m gonna try to be better about posting this week! For starters, I made pasta for dinner tonight and I managed to plate it pretty neatly so what the heck, I snapped a shot.

Linguine with grilled veggies and chunks of sausages

Morning birds are chirping; gotta head to bed.

Good day one and all!

roo-teen

Hello hello. I’ve been trying really hard to keep up with this daily routine I got going for myself. I love how it’s lent some structure to my daily life and sleeping patterns. I don’t know why I never tied down these details earlier but it can never be too late now can it?

But this week has been a little busier than usual and that’s the curve ball I’m facing. It’s so easy to let things slide and make excuses for myself, it can be so frustrating. Well, tomorrow’s a new day!

So I don’t know how and why I came up with this idea to photograph what I ate today in the exact same position. My feeble attempt to reflect routine but instead shows repetition… or it could very well be my conscience sending me reminders. Wow I’m actually slurring in my head, I should go to bed, enjoy my abstract photos and thoughts to go along with!

cupcake / banana smoothie / avocado + condensed milk / prawn briyani (with raita and curry - not pictured)

Wordless chorus

Yesterday I;

started the day real early with some dim sum at Red Star

went down town after many weeks -yikes- and came home with this pencil eraser from muji and new bras! not exactly sexy to share but it’s been a tough hunt so I’m super pleased.

ended the day with a full load of processed food - instant noods, canned bamboo shoots (I LOVE!), fried tofu, some honeydew and iced green tea

a mad thunderstorm woke me at about 2AM, couldn’t sleep after and so I had eggs on toast with warm milo

completed a different style of the twiggy things I’ve been making, sending this out to someone

And I also finished watching BBC’s Long Way Down, a documentary of Ewan McGregor and his buddy, Charley Boorman’s motorcycle adventure from Scotland to Cape Town, Africa. The first one’s Long Way Round (London to New York City) and I have to get my hands on that one next. It was beautiful to watch, the sights in Africa especially Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi are nothing I imagined the continent to be. I wonder if I’ll ever make it out there some day. I highly recommend watching it if you like a sense of adventure and feeling emo!

What’s everyone been up to? I’ve been catching up on sleep and feeling like I have small small eyes every waking hour.

No proof

I had a pretty awesome weekend but have no photos to show for it. I snapped a couple here and there and I’ll try to fill in the blanks with words maybe?

Friday night, a few of us attended a friend’s brother’s wedding.

Farah went disco-gaga with her glowstick-glasses

They planted a photobooth for guests to take silly faces for keeps

Mel, myself and Farah; too much food, too much whiskey and not enough bread pudding for me later

Saturday, I found myself in the East but was fed very nice cheng teng (a kind of dessert) so it wasn’t so bad.

Sunday afternoon, we went to Mel’s place for Easter Sunday lunch!

Her sister taught us how to make our own mock mojitos, delicioso

We ate laksa and rolled our own popiah

And watched re-runs of American Idol and Glee and popiahs became kueh pie tees and afternoon left and evening came around so it was time to go home.

Been up to

Making tomato pasta sauce that turned out more orange than red

Drinking lots of fluids - oj on the left and chilled japanese green tea on the right

Sneaking up on Fboy playing with the christmas ball he managed to get off the tree

Using the pasta sauce to make dinner

Waking Fboy up to chat. He sleeps on the top of a cabinet in the kitchen. This is me looking up at him.

Toronto, 2008

I’ve been neck deep in work, I almost want to say shite but this shite makes us money so it’s nice shite. Well I’ve just been a wee bit grumpy because, hmm, it feels nice for a few hours a day to be super productive but the adrenalin trickles down slowly as night creeps into early morning. Then it’s 6AM, oh no!

So at times like these, I either really want to spend all my money on a nice bag or I dream of travelling. The big urge to urgh, do something that would make me smile for ten days straight! I’m digging these out from my photo collection, I don’t have new material to share at the mo’. Photos from my visit to Toronto, Canada, back in 2008. Ben and I went to visit my brother who was working there then.

We took the Amtrak train from New York City’s Penn Station to Toronto, packed sandwiches for the 12-hour ride

This is New York’s side of Niagara Falls. The train ran through, Poughkeepsie, Buffalo… I stopped counting after a while.

We got in the city at night and the first thing we did after putting our bags down was to go get a tattoo. This is where I got my gnome done.

And this is Kayla, the first husky I’ve ever befriended and lived with.

It was Spring when we arrived so the plants were happy things, even this was beautiful and I took this outside my brother’s apartment, along the pavement.

Like nothing I’ve ever seen before; Kensington Market

My brother cooked dinner

We had Wendy’s!

I love beavers so I yelped at seeing this

And I yelped again when my brother drove into a drive-thru ATM (?) Never seen anything like that either.

We stopped by this quaint town on our way to Niagara Falls, I forgot what its called. I love this photo in particular because it just shows how touristy Ben & I are. Busy taking photos while the locals sit on a bench on top of a hill and feed on cakes and such.

My brother and I

The magnificent Niagara Falls, it’s so big and loud and unreal

After the Falls, we headed back to Mississauga and went to an all-you-can-eat-wings buffet with some of his friends!

We went to Canada’s Wonderland on our last day

Then we drove to one of his friend’s home in the outskirts of Toronto for dinner and his mom made pupusas, oh my, my taste buds died and went to heaven while eating it.

I’m sorry, this was long!

{Photos by Ben and I}