Juggling.

Juggling.

The dreaded FYP report may be over and done with, but I'm swimming in a pool of work and back-to-back deadlines... enough to make me wish for a a quick idyllic beach getaway. Nope, juggling work and school is not easy and I am thankful that I never had to subject myself to pursuing a part-time degree while holding a full-time job.

I think I'll handle my time a lot better when school's finally out for good! Countdown: 35 days. Whoopeedoo.

The most reliable source.

The most reliable source.

                                                                                                                              image from here

In between oodles of work, I've been scouring food blogs and magazines to add on to my list of Aussie must-eats. Who would have known that posting my silly mistake of asking Google Maps how to get to Blanco Restaurant (that's in Sydney) from my Melbourne hotel on my Facebook status would result in recommendations from old friends who were living, or have lived, Down Under?

I'm looking forward to catching up and having them take me to the nooks and crannies of the city. I think I deserve to be super, super excited now that our FYP's report printed and submitted! All I wish for now is for a load more cash, and five stomachs.

Epicurean musings.

Epicurean musings.

Hello Saturday. :) The rainy day's got me feeling lazier than I already am, but I'm really excited about two things so that's sprung me out of bed at a respectable 10 a.m.

#1: I signed away my gut and freedom yesterday evening with a big smile. That officially puts a damper on my grand plans to really bum around before joining the corporate zombie but well, writing is a tad more artistic than corporate isn't it? And I get to wear jeans and flats everyday.

So now that I've taken the first step to my brilliant (I hope!) career, it's back to the basics of building my food knowledge. Food is universal and while many of you may not have made food writing your livelihood, I am quite certain you all have an opinion about what you eat, what's good and what's not. I have mine as well and I have over the past few days been preparing an avenue for my epicurean musings. Which leads me to the second thing.

#2: http://www.lickthyspoon.blogspot.com
Not another food blog, you must be thinking. Well, I hope not! Yes, some entries will inevitably be about where to eat (though I will try not to do one-off reviews but instead group them into sort of mood foods), and then there will be recipes of the food my guests have eaten and lived through. Now this is rare gold for I am not one of the most talented people in the kitchen, so the tried-and-tested recipes are basically idiot proof. Lastly (I'm really excited this part), there will be food musings that I can't quite categorize. It can be about my fumbled learning about wines, my thoughts on Food Inc. and fast food crap, or something interesting I learned. And this is where you come in.

I find it a little disconcerting sometimes when people make references to my blog because I didn't know they read it. Lurking's not a bad thing (I do that all the time) but I do have a tiny request for Lick Thy Spoon. Click on the "Follow" tab on its sidebar, even if I don't know you personally. I'm not aiming to build a community of 100 people here, I just want to know if the food blog is a worthwhile venture. Most of all, it's not just about living vicariously through my gut. I will probably sound like an idiot sometimes and I honestly think you can teach me something. Correct me, share your experiences or yes, even call me a fool.

So click on there, and let me know what you think about it. Happy weekend. :)

In between chaos.

In between chaos.

Hello world. It's been a while hasn't it? One moment I was dreaming up grand plans to spend a lazy Wednesday afternoon reading; the next I was fervently hammering on the keyboard while my mind whirled with a list of people I had to hound. That's almost done thankfully, so I'm taking a moment to luxuriate in the fact that I no longer feel the urge to check my email every three minutes.

And I gotta say that I don't fancy how emails seem to lose their way in cyberspace from their sender's mailbox to my Yahoo account? Perhaps it is time I took up D's suggestion to switch to Gmail.

Anyway, I have a tendency of getting so wrapped up in my writing that I just want to hole myself up at home and type away, so much so that I wished for a moment that I didn't have to go to Lawry's with the ladies who lunch yesterday. It's pathetic I know, but thank goodness that folly lasted only a second.

Lunch was waaaay better than my last visit to the old Paragon establishment; and it is certainly comforting that it's one-for-one with a DBS credit card. ;)

Off I go to terrorise the last lady. Bless her soul.

Nosh news.

Nosh news.

I'm starting a little project - kinda excited about it. Watch this space!

Why friendships are priceless.

Why friendships are priceless.

picture from here

Cristina: [to Lexie] You can't have feelings for Alex Karev. Emotionally he's like Meredith, three years ago.
Meredith: I said that!

Cristina: [to Lexie]: You are not a no feelings type of girl. Your heart lives in your vagina.

Meredith: I said that too!

Reminds me of us, bitch!

Project Wine Session #1.

Project Wine Session #1.

The inaugural project wine session was quite the success! Good wine(s), good food (I hope!) and excellent company as always. Not only did I pick up several tips from resident wine expert K, I also had my second breakthrough by detecting the pear in the bouquet of our first wine. Some improvement here at least.

It was also the first in a long time that I've cooked for a dinner party, and successfully at that. I suppose I've internalized enough from all the culinary programmes I've been watching to semi-bury the memory of a very dismal pad thai that my guests had to smother in belachan several new year eves ago.

On the menu:

Inspired by an episode of Take Home Chef. This was served with Quartz Reef Pinot Gris 2008, a wine that on hindsight would have worked better with a spicy Asian salad.

Having to roast the garlic and tomatoes may be more cumbersome than a basic pesto recipe, but it is absolutely worth the effort. Recipe from here.

My proudest culinary achievement to date - perfecting the sabayon on my second try and accidentally-yummy vanilla custard on my first. Thank you Anna Olson, for making it look so easy on Fresh. Recipe from here. The dessert was served with Pegasus Bay FINALE Noble Chardonnay 2004, an extremely sweet wine with an extremely strong nose of brussel sprouts or as DX says, sauerkraut. How odd is that! It worked fine in the sabayon recipe though.

I'm gonna freeze some of that pesto the next time I get around to making it, and I think the sabayon's going to be my dessert of choice for entertaining at home. Quite a night huh? :)

Project Wine.

Project Wine.

                                                                                           picture from inmagine

  

Writing is by comparison a small part of food writing. The greater and undoubtedly more important part is food knowledge, without which a brilliantly written article can only be superficial and mediocre.

Everybody knows how to eat and select foods to please temperamental palates, but the art of eating is another thing altogether. It is not enough to enjoy a dish and subsequently hammer out a 300-word review where more words are dedicated to the chef and decor than the food. It is equally, or if not more so, important to know the produce, the tools and the techniques the cook has harnessed to create that particular dish. Only then can the review be a fair critique.

And this is exactly where I'm lacking. While I grew up in a family where food is celebrated and the dining table never empty, it wasn't till my summer in France in 2008 that I truly embraced it. I have certainly learnt a lot more during and subsequently after my food writing internship last year, but what I know now is just the tip of a giant iceberg of food facts. It can be daunting but the challenge is exactly what drives my passion - knowing that there's still so much more to know, taste and learn out there that would aid me in becoming a better food writer, it will be a long time before I stagnate.

Wine is possibly my greatest pitfall in my quest to become a bona fide foodie. At a recent beer workshop, I was surprised that I could detect the different tasting notes the brewer mentioned. I have never been able to detect ANYTHING (apart from fermented grapes) in wines. That has thankfully been changing slowly but gradually - I detected my first undertone of apricots in a glass of Pinot Gris at dinner last Monday.

And while I'm guessing it'll be some time before wine will be my tipple of choice especially when in direct competition with beer or mojitos; training and educating my palate doesn't have to be a chore. In comes the perks of having foodie friends who are always up for a meal. Come Thursday, I'll be hosting the girls for our first Project Wine session where I'll cook dinner (chance to brush up on kitchen knowledge) and we'll taste a bottle or two of wines with tasting notes from P's wine book.

I'm thinking mushroom crostinis, roasted garlic pesto pasta with grilled shrimp, and a chilled sabayon I saw on Anna Olson's Fresh just this morning...

Bright colors grow weary from years of neglect.

Bright colors grow weary from years of neglect.

The somewhat slow-moving break culminated in a weekend jam-packed with lots of writing and brainstorming. After sitting on our behinds for a good part of the break (despite having a morning presentation first thing Monday and a one-pager outline to hand up), my International Public Relations team sprang into action so efficiently we nailed both in under two days. I'm a huge fan of efficiency - why would you want to work hard if you can work smart? - and I've been riding on the high of our turbo-charged turnaround progress these two days.

It felt like polytechnic all over again.

I'll be honest here. The project work groups I've been in throughout my university education rarely (though not never) possess the group chemistry I have been spoilt with during my poly days, and I have indeed missed working with like-minded people. So this, you see, is quite a treat and a breath of fresh air especially after the year-long drag of FYP (which does not even classify as project due to its sheer scale and resultant complexities).

On an entirely different note, I managed to see quite a bit on Saturday evening, under the pretext of food research.

 

Two late nights, a morning presentation, two meetings and a tennis game later, I'm officially pooped. I'm gonna snuggle and go on a quick armchair vacation with Simon Majumdar before caving in to sleep. Good night world. It's been quite the day. Ooof.

Warning: Don't read this when hungry.

Warning: Don't read this when hungry.

I've been out and about quite a bit this week. Ironical really, as I'd expected to be stuck at home churning out articles and project essays, but I'm not complaining. I finally got around to checking out four foodie joints I've been meaning to for awhile now, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. 

P.s. I've developed a crazy obsession with this Polaroid application, so please bear with me for awhile.

Hungry yet? :)

Friendly exchange.

Friendly exchange.

I'm thinking we should do a girly swop party before setting up stall at our next flea market. Friends gets first dips. :)

Mixed tape medley.

Mixed tape medley.

 

Last Friday, a friend passed me a CD of songs with instructions to hole myself in my room and listen from track 1 to 20. I attempted to do just that on Sunday night, but distraction came in the form of writing and the music was soon relegated to become the haunting background for my idea generation. 

Yesterday, I finally settled into the couch to pay my full attention to the songs, some of which were already consistent favorites on my playlist. I listened, and I suppose on some subconscious level, I internalized for when Ingrid Michaelson's A Bird's Song snuck up unexpectedly on my own playlist in the late night, I bawled like a baby.

"When I would play my song
You used to sing along.
I always seem to forget
How fragile are the very strong.
 
I’m sorry I can’t steal you
I’m sorry I can’t stay
So I put band-aids on your knees
And watch you fly away.

I’m sending you away tonight
I’ll put you on a bird’s strong wing
I’m saving you the best way I know how
I hope again one day to hear you sing."


The song struck a chord when my brother first got hospitalized, but I had listened to it countless times since with nary a tear. Last night however, the lyrics took on a life of their own and twisted their lyrical limbs around my heart. The pain shot through the armor of indifference I've settled into and for the first time, I felt the loss.

To all my friends to have smiled and laughed with me in the past weeks, thank you for moving me along and for allowing me to forget. To wooka, thank you for knowing and understanding, even when I didn't, the need for emotional catharsis.

It's vintage, darling!

It's vintage, darling!

 

  

  

Whatever you do, do it in good company. Good friends, good food and making enough money from clearing out my junk to pay for my Kitaro concert ticket and with some leftover for my Aussie travel fund. I think I had quite the fabulous weekend!