Happy 45th Birthday Singapore!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

With my minuscule attention span, I thought I'd better get start following up on back-dated posts since I'm on a roll right now. I'm having a few uninterrupted hours of solitude and am appreciating it lots. Come to think of it, the hubs has been home late (when I'm fast asleep, which isn't too early as I'm a late bird) lately. Nevertheless, I'm happy in my very own Eden.

I've been questioning myself and people around me lately, how do they handle so much all at once? A friend recently shared that she relocated her shop just few days before her wedding and right after her wedding, she went away to Taiwan on course! Is it just me or is the world going at top speed? How does one appreciate the pleasures of life if one doesn't slow down a little? Then again, it's not surprising that multitasking has went up a notch. With the advent of the internet came facebook, twitter, ipads, iphones, emails and a host of other stuff. The blessed wonders of technology are overwhelming us. At any one time, most of us would be doing a minimum of two things. I used to pride myself that I can multitask real well, but lately, I think it's simply a neurotic inability to concentrate for more than three seconds.Take the pile of unread books i've amassed over the last few months and you'd get the picture. Try as I might, i think this hyperactive behaviour and non-stop freneticism is rendering me a nervous disorder!

Thankfully, the nation's birthday came. 9 August 2010. Monday. It's a public holiday and breather for most. Not for me though. Work as usual, not that I'm complaining. In fact, amid all the craziness, I managed to whip up a feast for the hubs:
Stuffed chicken wings. A kind parent shared this recipe with me which I've been wanting to try, but deboning the wings is an arduous task for me. UPon learning that i failed miserably at deboning the wings, kind parent actually deboned and gave me 7 wings! WOW!
So did you guess what the prawns were for? Yup, I used them as stuffings and together with the mushrooms, the combination was heavenly. The hubs loved it too! YEAH. Also, for the first time ever, I can proudly say my marinating skills was to my satisfaction. (PS, I'm quite a perfectionist when it comes to food creation)
Bought seasoned dried scallops at the Hokkaido fair some time back and haven't had the chance to cook it. I should have done so earlier as the rice was utterly fragrant! So easy to cook! Dried scallops and soya sauce is all you need! Akin to what you will enjoy in a Japanese restaurant, minus the Japanese rice :)

Radish Miso Soup. A delightful new dish I found in a new soup book I've purchased. At $5.90 a book, I thought the dishes inside would be mediocre but i was wrong. Here's how to make this soup:

Ingredients:
300g radish (cut in strips)
300g clams
20g miso
1 tsp bonito powder (i didn't know how this looks and couldn't find it in the supermarket. Can anyone enlighten me?)
15g chopped spring onion (optional)

Method
1) Rince radish and cut into shreds, leaving the skin on if you prefer. Soak clams in lightly salted water to get rid of sand.
2) Bring 5 cups of water to a boil, add radish and cook for 6 - 8 minutes.
3) Dissolve miso with a little warm water. This will prevent miso from forming lumps. Add miso towards the end of cooking so as to retain its fragrance. Pour into the radish soup and stir well. Season with bonito powder.
4) Cook clams in the soup until they open up. Turn off the heat and scatter spring on the top to serve.




VIOLA! Dinner! meant to cook for more, but alas, my place went down in popularity since everyone started buying their own crib. Nevertheless, amazingly, sweetie and I managed to finish most of the food! Impressive appetite! It was really a bliss to be watching the parade from home with sweetie. Sometimes, watching the parade and listening to the National Day songs would bring tears to my eyes. I guess I'm unknowingly patriotic.




Photo credits to Joanne Peh
Photo credits to Joanne Peh
Photo credits to Joanne Peh
Photo credits to Gerald
Photo credits to Joanne Peh
Photo credits to Joanne Peh

The parade's getting more spectacular each year. Though I do not have the patience to sit through it all, I still find myself delightfully enthralled by the fireworks which I could view from my crib. I find this day a time for not only the nation to reflect, but for one to reflect. How did we come this far? Surely, not pure luck. One of the essential problems of our society is that we have the tendency to lose sight of what is truly human in ourselves. We need to reduce speed limits of our lives and savour the trip.

HAPPY 45th BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!

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