I was wearing my short skirt today at work because my brother hasn’t washed my clothes. I walked past a colleague when I went to the bathroom. When I came back, my colleague was like “Oh! I couldn’t figure out who it was but you have a really nice skirt!” And I said “Yeah, it shows off my legs.” “Exactly!”

(My legs 1 World 0, bwahahahah! My plan to take over the world is falling into place… Bow before ashke’s legs!)

Joanna is bringing her friend over on Saturday! Finally someone who is fulfilling my request, heheheh. Also, huey has requested mashed potatoes but I probably won’t put wasabi in again. I will either make normal ones or add something else.

I finally got around to making my Japanese curry today. I’m making a note here: Huge success! It reminds me of how the curry tasted in that nice Japanese restaurant the IT gang went to at Central the other time. Woohoo! I’m good! The degree of creaminess is quite similar. Just missing the wasabi salad on the side.

(See! I have happy posts too!)

With these developments, I guess I won’t be too lonely this weekend =) My brother will be away at camp this whole weekend so I’ll be taking care of the house on my own. Maybe I should ask someone out on Sunday…

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Of all the challenges confronting the “Food Matters” plan for “responsible eating” — agribusiness lobbying and marketing, the low price of subsidized junk food, even evolutionary factors that attract us to high-calorie foods — probably the single most obdurate is the fact that so many contemporary Americans simply don’t know how to cook. By “cook,” I don’t mean being able to concoct an impressive dinner the one night a month you have guests over while otherwise subsisting on nuked Lean Cuisine. Real home cooking means having a good repertoire of reliable, quick, uncomplicated recipes and understanding enough of the underlying principles to improvise when needed. It means knowing how to stock a pantry and plan your menus so that you shop for groceries only once a week. It’s a set of skills manifested as an attitude, something you can acquire only through regular practice, and it’s the one thing that can make a person truly at ease in a kitchen. (An example of this everyday expertise is Bittman’s suggestion that, when determining how long to steam a vegetable, you “try bending or breaking whatever it is you’re planning to cook; the more pliable the pieces are, the more quickly they will become tender.”)

I really liked his “The Minimalist Cooks At Home” which got me started on cooking back when I was in the US on work & travel. Now that I’m back in Singapore, my mom being the main cook at home (which means I’m hardly in control of the kitchen), I guess I’m a bit sad that I can try cooking and cooking new things.

But I definitely won’t die if I had to cook again. Hahah. So that is one of the things I can thank Work & Travel USA for.

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We had an early dinner too and I cooked spaghetti. I bought some chicken fillet yesterday so it was a chicken + sausage + brown mushroom sauce. The chicken came out very nicely so I was pretty happy with the results. I added Parmesan instead of sliced cheese this time and I found that worked out okay too (less distinct cheesiness). I was tempted to add milk but hahah, stopped just in time.

I found that we didn’t have a can opener at home or else we would have had campbell soup and breadsticks. Sad. I will be getting one later in the evening (for supper or next day’s breakfast?)

My bro mentioned that he liked fish & chips. Maybe I’ll try that next time. And big thank you to da bro for cleaning up afterwards! Hahah, just like the arrangement with huey in the US. LOL.

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Admittedly, I didn’t spend as much time as I’d have liked with the book (this was before my library card in Orlando was fully activated and I was browsing through a stack of recipe books close to closing time) but what little I gleaned I realized helped me in thinking about cooking and how to work in the kitchen. If huey is any indication, it helped greatly to improve this amateur’s cooking, heeheh.

(On a side note, I was looking for the book in Kino’s book catalogue and it’s sold for $52.50 here! Gosh! If I ever scrape together enough money, I’ll surely buy this.)

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