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lately, i’ve been doing a bit of catching up on friends and family’s lives… suffice to say there’s much to be happy about and to feel grateful for. however, sometimes catching up is one-sided… and it’s really a listener or a sounding board that others need… so i just listen and not really share what’s been bothering me when they finally ask about others; it is unlikely they will have much mental space to empathise when people are in a self-absorbed mode… some people say misery likes company. i am not sure this is always the case… or whether it is because people in general hope that their situation isn’t the worst.
oh well. looks like this rabbit-ty year is going to be a rather challenging one… for many.
i don’t know about you, but i find it horrendously difficult to follow a cookbook recipe to the letter. strangely enough, i did alright in high-school Chemistry and Physics practicals where precision was crucial. but all that rigour breaks down quite embarrassingly in the kitchen… as if another more basic instinct takes over. as such, i never really take to recipe books in the way most people do… i use it more for inspiration, both visually and in trying to imagine the flavours evoked by the ingredients called for within a dish. on occasion, i do *try* very hard to follow a recipe to have a feel of where and what it might lead to in the culinary adventure. suffice to say, the simpler the recipe, the more at home i am with it.
thing is, mummy never really prepared our meals following a recipe book… and i found, from the numerous mundane chopping chores i often got roped into helping her, that the cooking part was most fun… although all that said, it wouldn’t be so without having the ingredients to play with. cooking with mum has always been very much an experimental affair and an exploration in taste and texture. nothing ever tastes the same, done twice. they get to approximate the previous attempts pretty closely but you could never say it is identical. and to add to that, amounts and measurements are always approximate. the only rare occasion when mummy deviates drastically from this experimenting cooking is when she is baking her amazing kuey lapis (Indonesian inspired multi-layered) cake for Chinese New Year… but that’s a recipe that has been tried and pretty rigorously tested. all in all, i have not been groomed for all things requiring precision in the kitchen setting.
my first acquaintance with recipe books began before i left home for boarding school in a faraway place… the little collection of recipes i received from one of my secondary school teachers was more of a reminder of the comforts i was leaving behind rather than any real possibility of me actually recreating them, given the lack of appropriate ingredients in the new country or the lack of a real proper kitchen in the student housing. and while i really appreciated the gesture, i dreaded opening it. the simplified version of many of the local dishes i love were found between its covers and it was pure torture even to open it to the contents page. and i never really considered buying a recipe book until i went to college (or as the Brits will say, University) and lived in a shared flat with a proper kitchen, which included a gas stove.
going on a suggestion from a friend, whose mother is a creative gourmand and a kitchen wizard, i picked up a copy of Nigel Slater‘s ‘Real Cooking‘ and subsequently his ‘Real Food‘… and never looked back. i like the simplicity of his recipes and also the anecdotal way he shares his unpretentious enthusiasm for food. the nice thing about all his books is i never ever really felt that i would be doomed if i didn’t follow the steps rigorously. that freedom is essential for an experimental cook i seem to be and for the fact that so very often in my life, i just can’t seem to find all the required ingredients!
in fact, that is exactly what i like about Nigel Slater’s recipes and his books, as aptly described in the introduction of my US version of his ‘Appetite‘ (acquired at a bargain price):
“I want to tell you about the sheer, unbridled joy of cooking without a recipe. I want to reveal the delight to be had from making our own decisions about what we eat rather than slavishly following someone else`s set of rules. And to suggest that our cooking has in fact become too complicated – hence the need to attach ourselves so firmly to recipes – when in truth good eating depends more on fine ingredients simply cooked.
…
I want to encourage you to take in the spirit of the recipes that follow but then to deviate according to your ingredients and your feelings. To understand that both our ingredients and our hunger are variables that should not, cannot, be subjected to a set of formulas laid down in tablets of stone. I want to get you to break the rules. I want you to follow your appetite.“
reading that (again) made me smile… i feel completely at ease in breaking rules particularly in the kitchen… i’ve been doing it since i can remember trying to cook, whether intentionally or not! but it’s nice to be ‘given’ that blessing… especially from the master of the trade.
these days, i don’t really acquire recipe books even though i am thrilled when i receive them as gifts and i thoroughly enjoy browsing them in bookstores. instead, i often derive my inspirations online (particularly from the links on the left featured under “Gourmands I Aspire To Be”) and since BBC now offers replay of certain foodie (or other) programmes (if you live and watch from the UK) using the ibbc service, i sometimes get to watch Mr Slater in action and i am always left hungry and salivating… no doubt, i find myself also much more inspired with foodie ideas to keep me excited about cooking and what i might like to eat, in the next meal or two…
and that is no small joy! i say it from one who cooks that being inspired is important for the activity. this is particularly so given that in many modern societies today, dining out can be a daily option. in fact, while it sometimes feels a bit overwhelming to have to get yourself fed and your sugar levels checked after a long day at work, i don’t think i will find life complete without cooking on a regular basis.
“… You can get through life perfectly comfortably without lifting so much as a wooden spoon. Fine. Do that. What I want to say is that if you do decide to go through life without cooking you are missing something very, very special. You are losing out on one of the greatest pleasures you can have with your clothes on. Cooking can be as passionate, creative, life-enhancing, uplifting, satisfying and downright exhilarating as anything else you can do with your life. Feeling, sniffing, chopping, sizzling, grilling, frying, roasting, baking, tasting, licking, sucking, biting, savouring and swallowing food are pleasures that would, to put it mildly, be a crime to miss out on. Add to that buzz, the satisfying tingle that goes down your spine when you watch someone eating something you have made for them, and you have one of the greatest joys known to man.” — from ‘Appetite’ by Nigel Slater.
and best of all… at least from my wee bit of foodie enjoyment and awareness… is that the whole eating, tasting, and experimenting feeds back into the cooking and sharing!
some days i wish i were more like the rest of you: working a standard 8-6 job, with predictable annual income of what someone with a decent post-graduate degree might earn, plus some annual bonus, company shares, benefits, plus a humane number of days of annual leave, and an appointment that is ‘permanent’ until you are being fired, etc., rather than trying to pursue this apparent path i’ve landed myself in.
because to everyone else it seems completely DAFT… this non-permanence and non-guarantee in the path towards a more stable (academic or other) research position… and the seemingly pointlessness in getting a higher degree.
some days, i truly wish i were more like the rest of you; living with that income stability, investing financially into your foreseeable future…
just so i won’t feel like an outcast for loving what i do.
reading this article from the Salon today reminded me that as a young child, i often wished my mum would be able to be more like my classmate’s, who was always around to pick her up from school or get her ready for after school activities, or be able to take time off work to make sure i wouldn’t get lost on my very first day at school, which saw me ending up in a class the next academic level up and feeling quite confused. yet, while i craved the parental attention, i am very glad my mum was and has always been financially independent, and that in itself proved to be something that benefited the whole family enormously over the years. it helped us through university/college — my brothers and me — and despite being left quite a lot to our own devices, we turned out alright — as human beings.
these days, thanks to modern well-bred domesticated males and females, parenting is a more collaborative hands-on affair shared by both parents in non-single-parent families, and many companies and institutions are more understanding towards the needs of working parents. however, it is still a tough decision for women who are at the same time also trying to establish and/or sustain their career. i find this reality a constant frustration. i see it in fellow female colleagues, who are at a different life stage from me, and who are both trying to be dedicated to their kids and family while struggling to keep on track with their chosen careers… lagging behind their spouses’, in terms of status and income, quite dramatically. at the same time, as illustrated within this German cultural commentary in the Berliner News it is still not uncommon for very well-educated women with a lot of career potential to give up their hard forged career paths just to raise their children because e.g. a) good childcare is so costly, b) society has not kept up with reality. and the scary bit of reality is that once you ‘opt-out’ it is not easy getting back (even though some governmental-sponsored opportunities in certain continental European nations are specifically targeted for such career-breaks, but these are not the norm).
it is a tough choice: to try to be ‘super’ women, or ‘fail’ miserably in trying to be a bad-ass, or to give up on pursuing your ‘chosen’ career and opting for something that allows you to ‘get-by’ such that the childcare can be taken cared of and your spouse or partner may keep the hunting skills sharpened and you become reliant on a dominant family income earner. and then hope that IFF circumstances arise (e.g. separation, illness, etc. luck forbid!) and you would need to get back into the workforce you may avoid global financial crisis and economic depression, and still land yourself on a decent-paying job with adequate benefits that include some form of retirement plan. furthermore, one should be so lucky if your career prospects are not as dim as it often appear for people who opted out.
while some of the female friends and acquaintances i know have expressed that they’d rather be a stay-at-home mum or a lady of leisure (‘Tai-Tai‘) if they didn’t have to help bring home the bacon, i have never really thought i might get to indulge in such wealth-related ‘luxuries’ nor am i completely sold on that option. the idea of spending 7 days a week throughout many years running errands and chasing after kids and making sure the spouse has what s/he needs — on the huge assumption that the ‘wealthy-enough’ you would not dispose your parental (and traditional household) responsibilities off to daycarers/househelpers etc. — does not sound very appealing. perhaps it’s just the way i’ve been brought up or whatever errands-running i’ve subjected myself to do previously… instead, i would rather spouses realize their necessary active participating role in these parenting and household activities as well, that societies be more understanding towards the demands and needs of modern parents, and that women would have less of a career-family choice dilemma in life. and all these ought to just magically ‘be’, because it doesn’t seem fair to have to just ‘get-by’.
- nearly five years ago a love story found its beginnings in the charming city of Edinburgh. the story’s two protagonists grew up in two different continents, speak different first languages, and their journey towards sharing their life adventures is an inspiration for those who wonder if long-distance relationships might ever work…
- visiting Hamburg for the first time thanks to the wedding invite from my once-upon-a-time-in-Edinburgh flatmate!
- Hamburg also happens to be the home city-state of my once-upon-a-time-in-Tübingen downstairs neighbour so i got to catch up with her, stay with her and her mum, and toured some of her favourite places in her home town.
- got to be one of the official witnesses to another cross-cultural couple’s wedding solemnisation in Scotland… and found it both awkward and interesting. awkward in the sense that even civil weddings have their idiosyncratic ‘rituals’ and interesting that while others take years to feel that they are in the ‘right’ situation for matrimony, some seem to feel that they have found their soul mate in just a few months. the amusing thing was the other witness (who is a fellow colleague) remarked a few days after that the thought of such a long-term commitment was ‘traumatic‘ enough to require the weekend’s recovery! i thought that was hilarious even if not unexpected from a German — it is practically normal not to wed in Germany and live as partners and many people do that particularly if they do not have children. furthermore, the idea of marriage and its notion of ‘happily-ever-after’ are no longer something that well-educated people (e.g. Germans) take for granted or simply accept just because it is a thing that people do traditionally.
- interesting to note that even the Scottish Registrar for the civil wedding of my colleagues highlighted that Asian females tend not to take their newly wedded partner’s surname. whether this is for practical reasons or an easier ‘out’ (!) is not clear… but it is certainly something i had previously observed in my married female Asian friends’ names as well… at least if their spouses are also Asian. i wonder if it is some Asian feminism at work!
- visiting Germany again brought back many fond memories of my stint in the country as a foreign student. there are many things i like about the country and the attitude of the Germans in many aspects of they way they do things. they are long-term planners; they invest in quality and in the future; they are obsessed with details; they have a decent healthcare insurance system; they value their free time and indeed their holidays! they also work hard but efficiently. in fact, i was happily reminded of the idiomatic term “Feierabend“. traditionally, it is used for “closing time” on the night before a festival holiday but it is commonly expressed as “calling it a day“. literally, the two agglutinating words (‘Feier’ and ‘Abend’) when on their own side by side, reads more like “celebration night“! indeed, there’s much to celebrate if you work hard and smart each day! =)
- am glad i have more vacation and public holidays to be able to celebrate such happy occasions with my friends… and indeed that travelling within Europe does not take as long as within the US continent and you can see and do much even on weekends! but best of all, it is ‘expected’ that you have some ‘summer’ vacay here! =) i think we need to transport some of the modern-day European work ‘ethos’ to the other side of the pond… and QUICKLY! =P
first, try juggling time, physical/personal space, finances… then, factor in life, unexpected chaos, and then some distractions.
some people just do it remarkably well and leave you in awe of how they manage it. there is a rumour/urban-myth that having kids forces you to manage your time and resources better… i am not sure how convinced i am on this. examples in life, i.e. those from friends and family, yield large variances in their relative successes.
however, if i may draw some tentative conclusions from my ongoing observations in life and those around me, it seems that the more adept jugglers are also more ‘focussed’ or ‘disciplined’ in their coordinating act… better at saying ‘NO’, better at ‘Prioritizing’, and then when they make time for others, it is often ‘Quality’ time they offer…
but, what is fundamentally driving all that?? a bouncy life philosophy that propels one forward with the daily zeal? i wonder.
the UK General Election certainly does not have the huge media hype and large-scale conventions that you are exposed to in the USA. to be honest, i had little idea about it until an unexpected “Official Poll Card” arrived in the post. although one could actually exercise voting power as a Commonwealth citizen, i did not vote. i did not feel i know my ‘new’ local environment well enough to fully understand the issues and policies that mattered and through the SG grapevine, i gathered that it was not advisable… fortunately, the outcome in Scotland was on par with my inclinations.
nonetheless, i am quite concerned as to who might be in power to form the next UK government because there are some crucial non-devolved powers that the UK government still have in Scotland. For example, issues like immigration, which is something i do worry about as a ‘foreigner’ here. the ease of passage in and out of the UK and liberty i enjoy as a ‘resident’ here would depend on whichever party forming the new parliament and to what extent they actually implement their proposed policies.
quite honestly, i do actually like the immigration policies that Labour has implemented thus far; the points-based system is much more fair and empowers potential/existing highly-skilled migrants and gives them the opportunity to seek employment in the UK without being tied to any one employer. it also allows them to prove their economic worth and contribution over time. what worries me is the current state of a likely hung-UK-parliament and a majority of seats held by the Conservatives. the Conservatives’ immigration policy for highly-skilled migrants outside of EEA may become more similar to that of the USA. this would, in my opinion, be bad news.
in any case, the people of the UK have apparently indicated that they are not pleased with how things are in their country. however, i feel that a large part of this negativity is fuelled by the recent economic downturn which had the whole of USA and Europe spiralling into a very difficult situation. and it is one which no government could have properly dealt with unless they had the foresight to do so more than 10-15 years ago; with regards to regulating, saving, anticipating… educating. sadly (or fortunately), for the political parties, voters tend to be myopic… and often their votes are acts of emotional fear and/or heuristics rather than rationality. what Obama and his US Presidential campaign seem to have impressively managed in reality is to amalgamate these seemingly disparate states of being.
all that aside, while the Tories, Labs, and Lib Dems try to figure out if they (or some of them) can work together, i find it fascinating that we actually get to witness some form of evolving democracy, which may hopefully translate into something meaningful for the British people and those who reside in and contribute to their kingdom.
– p.s. we also remember the end of WWII today!
i missed the live address that US President Barack Obama gave Congress on Tuesday. Such important speeches appear to be always delivered on a Tuesday, during working hours. reviewing it online on NewYorkTimes tonight made me teary. i must have gotten my emotional gene alleles from both my mum and dad… the genetic potency, when combined, seems to have made me doubly emotional for whatever reasons and offers a potential explanation for my propensities for being a little over empathetic, at times (particularly when watching horrors and thrillers).
in my opinion, there has never been a more eloquent orator in modern times than Mr President. he delivered yet another well sculpted speech that addressed the crucial issues facing USA today, and so rightfully reminded the Americans what and where their seemingly forgotten values are. indeed, he was wise to emphasize on family values that epitomizes the American tradition i have come to know, at least during my stay in the state of Minnesota. how ironic, it might seem, that it is away from home (in a country whose certain popular media would offer a differing perspective) where i learnt that open but close-knit family traditions are valued highly. it is also in the American Mid-West that i got to witness such genuine family bonding.
“These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent — for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child. (Applause.) I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father, when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That’s an American issue. (Applause.)
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that’s the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. (Applause.) That is critical. I agree, absolutely. See, I know we can get some consensus in here. (Laughter.)”
yet the issues he raised are not just a priority for the Americans. responsibility for our children is a universal one.
i have always been excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency from the start, even though i do worry for his safety and wellbeing. his progressive and practical views are not just his desirable traits. i think it rare, in times like today, to find ourselves (the USA and the world) being led by someone who is not only the epitome of internationalism but also of traditional values and moral upbringing. and he is not afraid to show his love and affection for those he care and admire, and above all, respect:
“Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States — (applause) — she’s around here somewhere.“
you do not see this very often in men with power; the open if not public acknowledgement of affection and respect for their spouse. it is very endearing to see the US President treating his wife, Michelle Obama, as an equal and with such endearment.
“May I speak to xxxx xxxx please?” came a caller from the Minnesota Orchestra Marketing personnel just a few minutes ago…
“Yes, speaking.“
“Oh… perhaps I’d like to speak to your mother, instead.“
“What does this concern?“
“Oh, perhaps it is you. I am sorry. I am……” continuing her spiel on whether I’d like to do an over-the-phone purchase of concert tickets.
i am sorry. i hate this phone-marketing business when people know that one can go online to check on concerts, that i get brochures sent to me, and that if i really wanted to i will make an effort to seek out concerts i like or think i might enjoy. the fact that i haven’t been visiting the Orchestra Hall either speaks of my time-commitment elsewhere, or that the programmes offered are just not my cuppa… if truth be spoken, it’s the latter. i simply detest the fact that businesses often choose to invade your personal space in the most direct and unpleasant way.
i am getting better at hanging up on these marketing people. it took me less than a minute, despite her desperate attempts, in part aware that she’s offended me.
yes, i know i don’t have the most adult-like voice out there… it is not necessarily a voice that commands authority… but it is my voice.
… i guess if my mummy had to learn it the hard way… everyone else, including me, myself, and i, will too.
grrr.
i’ve always had a benign curiosity for all things cosmological… my mummy is quite well-versed in deciphering chinese astrological almanacs but i am no where near capable of figuring out my own destiny. Google‘s web-tools offer a myriad of little gadgets like a daily horoscope reading that i subscribe for free, which allows me, on occasion, to derive some musings or solace for things not-going-so-well…
Daily Horoscope for Gemini By Rick Levine [from Tarot.com]
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
You are probably concerned with serious matters today, which can lure you past the lighter issues that typically interest you. Maybe you missed something or maybe you just got it wrong and now get a second chance. Reconsider what in your life is most valuable to you. Be practical, for you could be required to live with your current choices for a while.
this is slightly freaky… is there a voyeurist out there or have i got a virtual guardian angle? hmm… let’s hope i do get a second chance.
