People treat their hearts like water balloons.
They fill it up with love,
Then they tie the knot.
But for some inexplicable reason,
feel compelled to throw it all away,
leaving someone else completely drenched in their mess.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Twice burned, yet I still eat 'em...
Even though you can't taste anything on your tongue for days after polishing off an entire packet, it's still worth it. Wasabi chips - the snack food for masochists.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
To be a cook...
I guess one of the prouder and happier memories from last year was helping to cook for a hundred fifty guests at someone's wedding banquet.
I barely knew the bride, having helped out during her local all-women's theatre group production. A couple of days before her wedding, she sent out a distress email to her vagina monologue-ing sisters and me asking for help. Apparently her friends who were supposed to help out for the wedding had copped out on her and she was desperate. Hearing the call for help to either cook or serve at a wedding banquet drew me like a moth to a flame.
I was supposed to be part of the waiting team at first, but once I arrived at the forest lodge where the wedding was held (after riding my bike through some rough, muddy Dutch country terrain in the middle of the woods), I quickly got acquainted with the three cooks and got to work slicing radishes for the mis en place.
Only Reinard, the executive chef for the night was an actual professional. The rest of the team were made of amateurs who were friends of the groom but had some group cooking experiences at local fundraisers or university events.
I managed to help out mostly with the prep work, like cutting vegetables and arranging slices of venison carpaccio on plates that were to be the starter for the evening.
Since I told Reinard I once worked in a catering place while I was studying in Toronto, he put me to work as fry cook. So I got to dunk cheese-stuffed pimentos dipped in tempura batter into hot oil for one of the components of the hor de'oeurve tray.
As the evening went on and dinner was about to start, everyone started to get into motion. Luckily, the menu wasn't too complicated. Much of the stuff was already half-prepared in advance so it wasn't too difficult to plate and send out. From my memory, it was:
Hor de'oeurve plate: spoonful of fettucine with parma ham in cream sauce, radish slices with cream cheese on crostini and those tempura cheese-filled pimentos.
Starter: Venison of carpaccio with pine nuts, croutons and some kinda mayonaise-base sauce. Cheese souffle was the vegetarian option.
Main course: Roast chicken with side of roasted vegetables, herbed roasted potatoes and risotto as sides.
Dessert: Champagne fruit salad with a quenelle of lemon sorbet.
The evening went surprisingly smoothly food-wise, considering we were mostly Jamie-Oliver-watching homecook types. The only small hiccup for the whole evening was some confusion in the dining room because some tables apparently didn't get any chicken, which thankfully was not our fault.
For dessert, Reinard also put me in charge of quenelling the sorbet onto the fruit salad, since I was the only one besides him who knew what a quenelle was and how to do it. Later the same evening he told me if I wanted, I could probably apply to work at restaurants since I seemed to have the right stuff. My proud little moment for the night.
So dinner eventually ended, and the cooks were asked to come out of the kitchen to receive the applause and gratitude of the wedding guests and newly-wedded couple. Everyone seemed really happy, and so was I and everyone else who had toiled for hours in the kitchen (starting at 2pm and finishing at 10).
The night continued on, and I got drunk on beer and palinka (a Hungarian plum brandy that the father of the bride brought over). I slept in one of the rooms of the lodge overnight. Woke up the next day, biked home in dreadful Dutch weather (it was raining), got home completely exhausted and promptly went back to bed for the rest of the day.
In the end the only reward I got from the couple was a cheap bottle of wine and a box of arugula left over from the night before. I don't think it was because they were cheap or ungrately, just kinda poor. They were decent people and did eventually invite us (me & the theatre troupe who were the servers) to dinner sometime later to thank us for our efforts.
Yet somehow knowing I helped make somebody's big day work out right that night was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my life. And the fact that it was for someone whom I didn't even know very well made it all the more satisfying.
I guess that's one of the reasons I'm grateful I learned how to cook.
I barely knew the bride, having helped out during her local all-women's theatre group production. A couple of days before her wedding, she sent out a distress email to her vagina monologue-ing sisters and me asking for help. Apparently her friends who were supposed to help out for the wedding had copped out on her and she was desperate. Hearing the call for help to either cook or serve at a wedding banquet drew me like a moth to a flame.
I was supposed to be part of the waiting team at first, but once I arrived at the forest lodge where the wedding was held (after riding my bike through some rough, muddy Dutch country terrain in the middle of the woods), I quickly got acquainted with the three cooks and got to work slicing radishes for the mis en place.
Only Reinard, the executive chef for the night was an actual professional. The rest of the team were made of amateurs who were friends of the groom but had some group cooking experiences at local fundraisers or university events.
I managed to help out mostly with the prep work, like cutting vegetables and arranging slices of venison carpaccio on plates that were to be the starter for the evening.
Since I told Reinard I once worked in a catering place while I was studying in Toronto, he put me to work as fry cook. So I got to dunk cheese-stuffed pimentos dipped in tempura batter into hot oil for one of the components of the hor de'oeurve tray.
As the evening went on and dinner was about to start, everyone started to get into motion. Luckily, the menu wasn't too complicated. Much of the stuff was already half-prepared in advance so it wasn't too difficult to plate and send out. From my memory, it was:
Hor de'oeurve plate: spoonful of fettucine with parma ham in cream sauce, radish slices with cream cheese on crostini and those tempura cheese-filled pimentos.
Starter: Venison of carpaccio with pine nuts, croutons and some kinda mayonaise-base sauce. Cheese souffle was the vegetarian option.
Main course: Roast chicken with side of roasted vegetables, herbed roasted potatoes and risotto as sides.
Dessert: Champagne fruit salad with a quenelle of lemon sorbet.
The evening went surprisingly smoothly food-wise, considering we were mostly Jamie-Oliver-watching homecook types. The only small hiccup for the whole evening was some confusion in the dining room because some tables apparently didn't get any chicken, which thankfully was not our fault.
For dessert, Reinard also put me in charge of quenelling the sorbet onto the fruit salad, since I was the only one besides him who knew what a quenelle was and how to do it. Later the same evening he told me if I wanted, I could probably apply to work at restaurants since I seemed to have the right stuff. My proud little moment for the night.
So dinner eventually ended, and the cooks were asked to come out of the kitchen to receive the applause and gratitude of the wedding guests and newly-wedded couple. Everyone seemed really happy, and so was I and everyone else who had toiled for hours in the kitchen (starting at 2pm and finishing at 10).
The night continued on, and I got drunk on beer and palinka (a Hungarian plum brandy that the father of the bride brought over). I slept in one of the rooms of the lodge overnight. Woke up the next day, biked home in dreadful Dutch weather (it was raining), got home completely exhausted and promptly went back to bed for the rest of the day.
In the end the only reward I got from the couple was a cheap bottle of wine and a box of arugula left over from the night before. I don't think it was because they were cheap or ungrately, just kinda poor. They were decent people and did eventually invite us (me & the theatre troupe who were the servers) to dinner sometime later to thank us for our efforts.
Yet somehow knowing I helped make somebody's big day work out right that night was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my life. And the fact that it was for someone whom I didn't even know very well made it all the more satisfying.
I guess that's one of the reasons I'm grateful I learned how to cook.
Friday, November 14, 2008
It's not going to be easy...
I know what I am doing might not amount to anything in the end, but at the very least I have to try. I have to believe in what I can try to achieve. In spite of the potential pitfalls and complications, the fact that not everyone will be willing to go as far I am, in the end you know if you put your heart in it, you will not regret it either way. So I have to try.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Choices...
At times,
We relinquish happiness,
to embrace hardship,
For the sake of those,
who cannot choose either,
but have to suffer one.
Yet at times,
we relinquish hardship,
to embrace happiness,
For the sake of those,
who can choose either,
but want to suffer none.
Why aren't there times,
where we can choose neither,
and suffer both,
Relinquish nothing,
to embrace happiness and hardship,
as if they were the same thing?
We relinquish happiness,
to embrace hardship,
For the sake of those,
who cannot choose either,
but have to suffer one.
Yet at times,
we relinquish hardship,
to embrace happiness,
For the sake of those,
who can choose either,
but want to suffer none.
Why aren't there times,
where we can choose neither,
and suffer both,
Relinquish nothing,
to embrace happiness and hardship,
as if they were the same thing?
Good people are being lost to Youtube...
While talking to a friend, I just made a realization about Youtube.
Youtube, while being a creative outlet for countless of young (and now also older) people in the world, it is essentially preventing creativity from flowing out into the real world (i.e. the physical, not-make-believe internet world).
Youtube is like a blackhole, where creativity is being sucked in and lost forever. It is essentially trivializing creativity, since whatever creativity channeled into Youtube is to a certain extent worthless since there is no clear tangible product of that creativity apart from a short video clip.
All the bright, creative, young minds out there who might have interesting ideas are wasting their time making videos on Youtube, when they could have been spending their time chanelling their creative thoughts and ideas into whatever field they would've tried to enter and excel at were it not so easy for them to just channel their creativity into Youtube.
I think this would actually make for pretty interesting social/media research.
Or at least I think so. And I sound like an old person writing this...
Youtube, while being a creative outlet for countless of young (and now also older) people in the world, it is essentially preventing creativity from flowing out into the real world (i.e. the physical, not-make-believe internet world).
Youtube is like a blackhole, where creativity is being sucked in and lost forever. It is essentially trivializing creativity, since whatever creativity channeled into Youtube is to a certain extent worthless since there is no clear tangible product of that creativity apart from a short video clip.
All the bright, creative, young minds out there who might have interesting ideas are wasting their time making videos on Youtube, when they could have been spending their time chanelling their creative thoughts and ideas into whatever field they would've tried to enter and excel at were it not so easy for them to just channel their creativity into Youtube.
I think this would actually make for pretty interesting social/media research.
Or at least I think so. And I sound like an old person writing this...
I miss cooking for people...
Solo dinners,
Make me thinner.
Wish I could share,
My humble fare.
With another,
A person other,
Than the one,
whose reflection stares.
Make me thinner.
Wish I could share,
My humble fare.
With another,
A person other,
Than the one,
whose reflection stares.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Krispy Kremes are good to eat, but bad for our culture...
Since I'm feeling ranty, do you realize how many people back home in Malaysia rave about Krispy Kreme donuts?
I guess it's mostly because it's not readily available in Malaysia, so when you do get to eat one it's because you've travelled to some far away land to have it. Mostly in its birthland of the US of A, but anywhere else where there is a store will do too.
When you've finally had one of those nice and sugary, heart-stopping, yeasted doughy treats somewhere in the world, you're obliged to tell the folks back home that, "It's the most amazing thing ever!"
Your friends can only look upon you with envy because you tried something they haven't, and they can't just go running down to the shop around the corner to get one as well.
As much as you've grown up liking those deep-fried-caster-sugar-coated donuts from the kuih seller at the pasar malam (which picture of is used on the outside of the box of almost every brand of deep fryer sold), they just aren't Krispy Kremes!
Subsequently the next person in your circle of friends who is going anywhere outside the country will be looking for Krispy Kreme donuts as if it was the holy grail. Nevermind all the stuff you can go do, watch, eat, and listen to to try to learn about another culture. "As long as I've had a bite of Krispy Kreme, I've seen the world!"
And then the vicious cycle continues with the next person and the next, and the next...
It is beyond ironic that a DONUT is a symbol of affluence in my country. I have to say it's quite sad, and seems to hint at the underlying socio-economic problems that we have.
The day when Krispy Kreme finally arrives in Malaysia, it will actually be a really good thing for our country. Because once it's readily available, nobody's going to seek it out anymore.
Maybe that's the real reason why they haven't set up shops in Malaysia.
*addendum* case in point: the perfect example, need I say more?
I guess it's mostly because it's not readily available in Malaysia, so when you do get to eat one it's because you've travelled to some far away land to have it. Mostly in its birthland of the US of A, but anywhere else where there is a store will do too.
When you've finally had one of those nice and sugary, heart-stopping, yeasted doughy treats somewhere in the world, you're obliged to tell the folks back home that, "It's the most amazing thing ever!"
Your friends can only look upon you with envy because you tried something they haven't, and they can't just go running down to the shop around the corner to get one as well.
As much as you've grown up liking those deep-fried-caster-sugar-coated donuts from the kuih seller at the pasar malam (which picture of is used on the outside of the box of almost every brand of deep fryer sold), they just aren't Krispy Kremes!
Subsequently the next person in your circle of friends who is going anywhere outside the country will be looking for Krispy Kreme donuts as if it was the holy grail. Nevermind all the stuff you can go do, watch, eat, and listen to to try to learn about another culture. "As long as I've had a bite of Krispy Kreme, I've seen the world!"
And then the vicious cycle continues with the next person and the next, and the next...
It is beyond ironic that a DONUT is a symbol of affluence in my country. I have to say it's quite sad, and seems to hint at the underlying socio-economic problems that we have.
The day when Krispy Kreme finally arrives in Malaysia, it will actually be a really good thing for our country. Because once it's readily available, nobody's going to seek it out anymore.
Maybe that's the real reason why they haven't set up shops in Malaysia.
*addendum* case in point: the perfect example, need I say more?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
If pigs could fly...
"It is possible for anyone from a minority group to be a nation’s leader, even in Malaysia, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi.
“It is up to the people to decide, just as the Americans had done through the democratic process,” he said while extending his congratulations to Senator Barack Obama."
I wonder how he even keeps a straight face saying that.
“It is up to the people to decide, just as the Americans had done through the democratic process,” he said while extending his congratulations to Senator Barack Obama."
I wonder how he even keeps a straight face saying that.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Democracy makes me want to throw up...
I just have to say it, people who wear "I voted" buttons make me sick.
Somehow they think they've brought salvation to humankind just because they scribble on a piece of paper and then pat themselves on the back for a job well done. When in fact, most of them would not lift another finger to really put in a personal effort to go that one step further to help someone else.
You can "yes we can" all you want, "we want change!" all you want, but when it comes to sacrificing one's own comforts for another, it just doesn't happen very much.
Nobody said it better than that bald old Indian guy when he said, "be the change you want to see."
And not just sit on your asses watching CNN hoping that change will come to you because you asked someone else to pick up the slack with your lousy ballot, and ask him to solve the mess you helped create. Credit card debt and what not was not forced upon by big bad credit card companies alone.
Someone actually has to spend that money that never existed in the first place.
Somehow they think they've brought salvation to humankind just because they scribble on a piece of paper and then pat themselves on the back for a job well done. When in fact, most of them would not lift another finger to really put in a personal effort to go that one step further to help someone else.
You can "yes we can" all you want, "we want change!" all you want, but when it comes to sacrificing one's own comforts for another, it just doesn't happen very much.
Nobody said it better than that bald old Indian guy when he said, "be the change you want to see."
And not just sit on your asses watching CNN hoping that change will come to you because you asked someone else to pick up the slack with your lousy ballot, and ask him to solve the mess you helped create. Credit card debt and what not was not forced upon by big bad credit card companies alone.
Someone actually has to spend that money that never existed in the first place.
Monday, November 3, 2008
The stuff you come up with while bored at work...
I wanted to have the roasted lamb at my best friend's wedding.
But it turned out they were out of it, so I had some nice beef steak.
After dinner we went to our rooms to check out the hotel bedding.
Jumping up and down the hotel bed, we finally caused it to break.
The hotel manager came up to tell us we would have to pay for it.
Since we had no money left on us, we ended up having to move out.
We walked on for hours, just trying to find a decent place to sit.
But I accidentally sat on a homeless guy and he let out a loud shout.
He wanted some form of compensation, he said I broke his leg.
I didn't know what else to do, so I let him run the show.
"Would you please pay the hooker down the street, I think her name is Meg.
Ask her to come right over here, and give me a nice blow."
So I talked to Meg, she said " Why not? As long as he doesnt have herpes."
She walked down to the homeless guy, and made the same sound as sipping slurpee.
But it turned out they were out of it, so I had some nice beef steak.
After dinner we went to our rooms to check out the hotel bedding.
Jumping up and down the hotel bed, we finally caused it to break.
The hotel manager came up to tell us we would have to pay for it.
Since we had no money left on us, we ended up having to move out.
We walked on for hours, just trying to find a decent place to sit.
But I accidentally sat on a homeless guy and he let out a loud shout.
He wanted some form of compensation, he said I broke his leg.
I didn't know what else to do, so I let him run the show.
"Would you please pay the hooker down the street, I think her name is Meg.
Ask her to come right over here, and give me a nice blow."
So I talked to Meg, she said " Why not? As long as he doesnt have herpes."
She walked down to the homeless guy, and made the same sound as sipping slurpee.
Vulgar poetry...
The shit hit the fan,
fell into the pan,
While frying the steak,
I cooked for my date.
We both had a bite,
it did not taste nice.
So we went on to bed,
Lust hunger was fed.
Hard as a stick,
The girl had a dick,
Oh shit! God damn!
The chick was a man!
fell into the pan,
While frying the steak,
I cooked for my date.
We both had a bite,
it did not taste nice.
So we went on to bed,
Lust hunger was fed.
Hard as a stick,
The girl had a dick,
Oh shit! God damn!
The chick was a man!
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