Hello again, Bob.

I've been a Bob Blumer fan ever since I saw him on telly; a crazy-haired cook driving around in his Toastermobile, cooking up the most amazing dishes for the most colourful characters. I first saw him in the flesh two years ago at a World Gourmet Summit dinner (where he made us churn our own butter), and I had the good fortune to meet him again on Saturday, this time around at the Starhub Hubalicious Food Festival.

I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Saturday evening – the wine was flowing, our table mates were nicely rowdy and amazing oyster shuckers (more on that later), and I got to bring my fellow fan girl with me. Oh yes, and we got to eat some pretty amazing food.

In typical Bob style, we had to work for our first course. Oyster shucker, I am so not!

Thank goodness for the friendly, experienced shuckers at our table!

Credit's far from mine, but I'm not complaining!

Lobster bisque

Stinging nettle ravioli – tastes like spinach!

Dessert for mains. Salmon cupcake – salmon fishcake with a beet-coloured mash icing

And breakfast for dessert. White chocolate "egg whites" with a passionfruit sorbet "yolk".

In 2009, with Ken

2011, with Ceci. Why does it look like I'm the only one who aged???

Moral efficiency.

So, I haven't been to the office much since we put our September baby to print. I've decided to condense two issues worth of recipe testing into a week (so I'm not obligated to hit the stoves after my vacay), and I've been zipping in and out of grocery stores and my kitchen like a woman on a mission.

But while I was milking the euphoria that comes with not having to beat the peak hour traffic to journey to the far east, I was also getting increasingly unsettled with each passing day. It's weird, but all that dissipated the minute I sat down at my mess of an office desk this morning.

I can't explain it. I actually feel morally more efficient in an environment of pantry chats and lunchtime trash talking, as opposed to what seems like an illicitly indulgent five-successful-recipes-a-day schedule.

Go figure!

Snaps from the road.

Something spurred me to check back on my very old travel blog to relive my globetrotting days. I wonder how I got the moolah and courage to go to some of the places I did, but I don't regret the seven years I've spent feeding my wanderlust.

The decision to re-ground myself – make more money-wise travel choices, that is! – is one that I've put off for long enough, and a necessary (albeit rather painful) one. I'll live with the restrictions when the time comes, but for now, I've got two epic trips to keep me going until 2012 comes around (with luck and planning I should be ushering it
in India).

I've definitely been slacking off the travel blogging, but here are my favourite snaps from the past nine months.

Christmas in Tokyo

Soy crazy with Ran

New Year prayer for my family

Kyoto in December

Nippon spirit

Lost in translation: Strangers on a train

Always good to have a friend on foreign land. :)

Ichiro-san, who's proof that chivalry is not dead.

Celestial sunset - Koh Klang, Mar '11

Work acquaintances turned friends in Krabi, Mar '11

Junjungan sunset, Apr '11

Bali roadtrip

Made's piglets

Inside Ketut's Ubud home

Georgetown in Penang, Jun '11

Why do I like such mambo jumbo?

The 60-year-old mountain climbing uncle from Penang

Bintan, Jul '11

Buses and trains.

image via weheartit.com

Are you more a bus or a train person?

Me, I've always fancied myself a bus kinda girl, and I thought I'd travelled enough on public transport to know – I may live right smack in central Singapore, but I've spent a good 9 years shuttling to both the east and west, first for school and then for work.

I have very fond memories of my bus rides to and fro Temasek Polytechnic – trading gossip with my hospitality course mates, late-night rides home snuggling up to my then boyfriend, solitary afternoons buried in a Nora Roberts novel or lost in my thoughts... I couldn't understand why anyone would choose the invasive chaos of a packed train over the undisturbed tranquility of a bus.

Things changed when I enrolled at university. Taking the bus to the extreme west of Singapore was no longer a choice, both for efficiency and the well-being of my behind. And so, I begrudgingly squeezed into a crowded carriage, and over time, assimilated myself into train culture – nudging my way into a seemingly packed peak-hour carriage, staying upright through hearty jerks without holding on to a pole, narrowing my eyes at over-eager seat grabbers, and perfecting the art of discreetly checking weirdos out. In fact, I'm quite sure you wouldn't spot the bus girl in me should you spot me on the train tomorrow.

I came to realise that trains can be unwelcoming, but also super efficient. They're fast and almost never prone to traffic delays (congestions maybe). And when I'm overseas, the metro system often makes more sense to me than the intricacies of a city's bus routes. Can you blame me for switching loyalties?

If I were more philosophical, as I was this evening, I'd liken the switch to the realist taking over the idealist in me. It is true. I'm always in a rush to make it from point A to point B these days (I fear I have progressively serious punctuality issues), I almost forget what it's really like to slow down and enjoy the ride.

That said, I would have been happy to remain a train girl forever (until I get my hippie VW beetle that is), but by some strange stroke of luck, I downloaded a gem of an iPhone app called gothere.sg last night and out of curiosity mapped my home to office route. The results changed my life. Instead of braving the peak hour train crowds for a 68-minute journey to work (of which I am constantly checking my watch to see if I've missed the feeder service), I could in fact hop on a bus for a 77-minute ride in relative peace.

Have I been rushing around like a crazed bee and fumbling my way into crowded trains for squat? No guesses how I'm going to work on Friday morning... I'm thinking it's time to slow it down a notch, if I can roll out of bed 10 minutes earlier.

It is impossible to watch a sunset and not dream.

07 Aug '11: Sunset on Raffles Place

One of my favourite things to do on a lazy weekend is to strap on my running shoes and... walk. While there is some form of sadistic euphoria that comes from pounding the pavement, walking brings with it a soul-soothing contentment, and a reminder that the simplest pleasures in life are often best savoured at your own pace.

I usually take to the hiking trail when I'm on my own, but I like having my walking buddy with me when it comes to taking the long route through the urban jungle. It's nice to be in good company and, because CH is a voice of reason, it gives me a chance to regurgitate the thinking I do during my walks of solitude. Sometimes, I get a plan of action out of our conversations, like I did today; at other times I get a big, fat reality check, like I did today, too.

Me: So, I've given myself till my 25th birthday before I start living more responsibly.
CH: -does a double take- I never expected to hear you say that so soon.
Me: Why not? It's about time. It's been seven years. After Adelaide. Okay, maybe India.
CH: -unconvinced- Yeah, yeah, and what's planned for next year after India? You're always flying somewhere.
Me: Hmm. But can you imagine how rich I'd be if I didn't travel? All these years?
CH: Well...... Haha, yes.

- lapse into comfortable silence -

Me: Then again, I'll be cash rich but poor in terms of life experiences!
CH: Really? How "poor" exactly will you be if you don't go to Adelaide?
Me: Shut up.

Old friends. Gotta love them to hate them.

Time check.

I have 34 days to scrimp to splurge in Adelaide;
58 till the self-imposed end of my gypsy lifestyle.

picture from here

Pantry Puttanesca

It's been awhile since I cooked purely for pleasure, longer still since I made dinner for myself. Cooking for one is, rather ironically, a treat in the Khoo household. You see, making your own dinner takes some forethought, as there is always food of some sort on the dining table, but I was in the rare mood to spend some time pottering about the kitchen doing something unrelated to work.

Eschewing cookbooks and food websites, I flicked through my mental archive of toss-it-together recipes instead and almost immediately decided on pasta Puttanesca. Why, I have no idea. I'd barely skimmed through an article on it weeks, possibly even months ago, and all I remembered were these key words – tomatoes, anchovies and whore's pasta. (Culinary lore believes that Puttanesca was named after ladies of the night, who lured men into brothels with the sauce's intense aroma.)

I vaguely remember olives and fresh herbs in the equation, but I was too lazy to trek out to the grocer's, and really, isn't the absence of a recipe the best bit about non-work cooking? Somewhere along raiding my pantry and mentally rocking up a recipe, I decided to corrupt it all with a topping of garlicky breadcrumbs, just because there was panko in my kitchen drawer. This is bastardised Puttanesca at its worst, comforting home-cooked supper at its best.

Leigh's pantry Puttanesca
Serves 2

1 small box cherry tomatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
¼ cup panko or stale breadcrumbs
Handful pasta (I used wholewheat spaghetti)
1 tin anchovies 
handful of baby spinach
handful of feta, crumbled (optional)
handful of basil, torn (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Toss the cherry tomatoes in 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic. Pop these into the oven and roast at 180C until the tomatoes start to blister and shrivel. I didn't time, but it probably took me about 30 mins. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Toast the panko in a small frying pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and ⅓ of the garlic, tossing or stirring occasionally until the crumbs are golden.
3. Cook the pasta until al dente in a pot of salted water. Drain and reserve ¼ cup of pasta water.
4. Heat the remaining oil in a pan and saute the remaining garlic until fragrant. Add in the anchovies and cook, stirring continuously, until they melt. Tip in the roasted tomatoes, give it a good stir and then add in the spinach. Cook, covered, for a min, and then add in the cooked pasta. Add a few tbsp of the reserved pasta water and toss to coat the pasta.
5. Crumble in some feta to taste, and stir through the basil, if using. Eat immediately, preferably in front of the telly! :)