beer, bag, bed

home is a really nice place to be. we have beer, a YSL downtown bag, and even a mattress that takes up half the hallway but to me has become invisible. if you see something often enough, it does sort of cease to exist. there are exceptions that prove this rule -- namely, zits that never go away and pasta-sauce stains on white garments. both are categories of stuff that i, unfortunately, know way too much about.

and here is another sentence, because while i'm willing to end a sentence on a preposition, i won't end a blog post on one.

fritter

there's no better way to desecrate the sanctimonious health of vegetables than by deep-frying them. in this case, we're talking corn and coriander, both of which barely count as vegetables -- one is an herb; the other has so little nutritional value that your body doesn't even bother to digest it. but i suppose, who cares, as long as they make for good fritters. which they do.

start with:

1 can corn (or the equivalent in fresh, if you're not lazy)
1 onion (red or yellow, depending on how sweet you want it)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1/2 cup double cream
1 egg
3 tbsp of grated cheese
1 cup/lots of coriander leaves, roughly chopped
1 tbsp plain flour

- slice onions into strips or grate
- add corn and garlic, season with salt and pepper
- add cream, egg, grated cheese, coriander and flour
- add more coriander than you think you'd need, the stuff shrinks into nothingness
- heat a pan or wok and fill with about 1cm of oil
- spoon dollops into the hot oil like cookie dough and let them spread
- flip when golden brown, fry other side, then transfer to paper towels to soak oil
- cooking time should be a couple of minutes each side
- serve with thai chilli sauce

the whole shebang takes no longer than 20 minutes, and is near impossible to screw up.

since all i ever do is think about food, write about food, cook food and eat food, i figured i might as well share the wealth with y'all. "y'all" being my three readers. what say we?

30

i pretty much hate birthdays and all the hoopla associated with said occasions. i'm turning 30 this year, a milestone that i don't much care for either, not because i worry about wrinkles and the stress of getting older, but because the older you get, the less you can get away with. inappropriateness is the realm of the young. i refer, of course, not only to such frivolous examples as backless tops without bras, but also risk-taking in general. that's why it's nice sometimes to be just a 29-year-old jumping on a hotel-room bed. life is best in those moments you're suspended in mid-air.

[14:30] Brad: it's fanta monday?

[14:03] Meebo Message: Brad is online
[14:10] Christina: i'm eating a big mac
[14:11] Brad: o o o im havin a mcchicken
[14:14] Christina: hahahhha
[14:14] Christina: niiiiice
[14:14] Brad: how was ur weekend
[14:14] Christina: it was goooood
[14:15] Christina: okay maybe it was just okay
[14:15] Christina: hahhaha
[14:15] Christina: how was yours?
[14:15] Brad: played rugby
[14:15] Brad: yay
[14:15] Brad: n now my right side hurt
[14:15] Brad: s
[14:15] Christina: hahhah we were so healthy
[14:15] Christina: u played rugby
[14:15] Christina: i went wakeboarding
[14:15] Brad: yea i know
[14:15] Christina: now we are both eating mcdonald's in pain

imageshack won't let me post the image(s) that i want. that's the excuse i'm using for not updating more frequently. that and my upcoming monster travel plans, which include my first trip to europe outside of a two-day session in london, which sort of doesn't count, because all i did then was walk to the palace, steal hotel supplies which i still haven't used, play at the science museum (i don't remember much but i do know there were 3D glasses and it was fun), and go out in the streets of london in nothing but a trench coat and boots, because i was too lazy to get dressed but not too lazy to turn down dessert at midnight.

anyway this time we're mediterranean-bound: istanbul, kusadasi, santorini, sorrento, florence, st tropez, monte carlo. i feel like i should be most excited about florence, but given we're spending less than 24 hours in each location except monte carlo, i'm actually most psyched about santorini. and, er, not because i recently saw rory fall in love there in the first sisterhood of the traveling pants movie. because i totally don't watch those types of films. i'm deep, right? this paragraph must be a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream.

and to prove how deep i am...

[14:20] Christina: what aare you drinking
[14:20] Brad: im good haha
[14:20] Brad: fanta
[14:20] Brad: n u
[14:21] Christina: ME TOOOO
[14:22] Christina: omg
[14:22] Christina: it's like a cosmic sign
[14:22] Christina: like the universe telling us
[14:22] Christina: something. but i dunno what. hahhaha.
[14:30] Brad: it's fanta monday?
[14:32] Christina: i'm posting this up

redemption song

emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our minds.
have no fear for atomic energy,
'cause none of them can stop the time.
how long shall they kill our prophets,
while we stand aside and look? ooh!
some say it's just a part of it:
we've got to fullfil the book.

what's cooking

cooking is fun when there's someone to chop up the ingredients and do all the washing up. at the four seasons chiang mai, we learned to make thai salads, and while preparing it all was a cinch, shopping for those same ingredients in hong kong will be the real challenge. we picked up northern thai chili flakes while we were out there, but instead of seasoning larb (better known in our household as SMS -- spicy meaty shit) ended up using them last night to spice up pizza box's meat lover's and bbq duck breast pies. other useless skills picked up while on holiday -- how to carve a carrot into a leaf, curl a sprig of scallion and transform a big chili into an orchid.

thai beef salad

pomelo salad


papaya salad

munchies

bits and bites from dining at the four seasons chiang mai. the cooler northern thai weather (but only marginally) makes it the perfect place to sit on the terrace and stare at rice paddies over spicy tasty treats. more importantly, it marked a turning point in my dining repertoire. "chiang mai-style" noodles in yellow curry sauce is the best thing to happen to man, and more importantly, me, in recent history. further down below, breakfast is fun, fattening and fanTASTIC.

the social panda

looks like the guys over at wom guide are social pandas too. or at least they don't like to eat alone. my dahling virginia sent me this banner they had on the site.

you (yes you, my one and only reader) may wonder about the origin of the social panda. i once read that pandas, by nature, are solitary creatures with little to no sex drive, and whose ovulation cycles are something in the region of 18 months. no wonder they almost went extinct. thank god for sichuan and the advent of designer pandas (though i swear, they are fakes, super A-quality fakes), whose baby boom has ostensibly been due to instructional panda pornography to get the fluffy animals in the mood for luurve.

by the same theory, the way to stop overpopulation (and maybe even the hollywood baby binge) is to remove human porn from our society. or something like that.

on a more personal note, there will be more to read here soon, hopefully, once i sort through the 700+ photos downloaded off the slr. i promise, no pandas there, although there are plenty of elephants, pink water buffalo, plus a snake, a peacock, some goldfish... and yeah, that's it. And pie, glorious pie.

the rose that grew from concrete

[Tupac Shakur]
You try to plant somethin in the conrete, y'knowhatImean?
If it GROW, and the and the rose petal got all kind of
scratches and marks, you not gon' say, "Damn, look at
all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from concrete"
You gon' be like, "Damn! A rose grew from the concrete?!"
Same thing with me, y'knahmean? I grew out of all of this
Instead of sayin, "Damn, he did this, he did this,"
just be like, "DAMN! He grew out of that? He came out of that?"
That's what they should say, y'knowhatImean?
All the trouble to survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty
y'knowhahatImean unbelievable lifestyle they gave me
I'm just tryin to make somethin..

[Nikki Giovanni]
When no one even cared
The rose it grew from concrete
Keepin all these dreams
Provin nature's laws wrong
It learned how to walk without havin feet
It came from concrete

[spoken part]
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Provin nature's laws wrong it learned how to walk without havin feet
Funny it seems but, by keepin its dreams
it, learned to breathe FRESH air
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else even cared
No one else even cared..
The rose that grew from concrete

[spoken part]
Did you hear..
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Provin nature's laws wrong
It learned to walk without having feet
Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams
it learned to breathe FRESH air
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else, even cared

[Nikki Giovanni]
Keepin all these dreams
Provin nature's laws wrong
It learned how to walk without havin feet (to breathe the fresh air)
It came from concrete (to breathe the fresh air)
(to breathe the fresh air, to breathe the fresh air)

[Tupac Shakur]
You see you wouldn't ask why the rose that grew from the concrete
had damaged petals. On the contrary, we would all celebrate its
tenacity. We would all love it's will to reach the sun.
Well, we are the rose - this is the concrete - and these are
my damaged petals. Don't ask me why, thank God nigga, ask me how!

caught!

Panda found eating like a pig
Mon, Mar 01 11:15 AM EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hunger drove a wild panda to break into a Chinese farmer's pig pen and eat their food, which was meat and bone, rather than bamboo.

State-run China Central Television said the giant panda had apparently descended from the mountains in a region of southwest China's Sichuan province and was spotted in a field before the animal was found inside the pig pen, chewing on bones and spitting out the meat.

After eating its fill, the panda quietly left.

...

read the rest here. yahoo's oddly enough is the best. except that you know i would never spit out the meat, how sacrilegious.

Image: Tubaba

double whammy

whoa, what's this? a double-post? how scandalous! you can tell i'm bored, or dedicated, or bored... anyway this comic came in the mail a long while back and my co-worker showed it to me expecting some expression of shock. boobies, guns, weapons of mass destruction, eh... i'm very desensitized to porny stuff. but turn the page and BAM! lookie what i see, something very enticing indeed...



vivienne westwood, is that you in a garter belt and fishnet thigh-highs? although obviously what i was interested in was in the bottom right corner...



AWWWW.

calorie orgy

it's cny and it's foxy b and me for the next three days. if i weren't sick, i'd be cooking up all sorts of tasty delights -- lo pak go, taro, water chestnut cake... i wonder how long a human can go subsisting solely on mashed up, carbo-fied versions of vegetables. having a sore throat is the worst, because you're still hungry but you can't eat all the lovely things your stomach is craving. when you have a fever, it doesn't matter, because you don't want to eat anyway. so the situation right now is downright annoying, compounded by the fact that i'm all by my lonesome except for the world's hungriest dog at my side.

thought i'd further entice myself by uploading pictures from what would be our last thanksgiving in club syp. let's see what we have... clockwise from bottom left: macaroni tuna salad, cranberry sauce, pumpkin risotto, garlic mashed potatoes, citysuper 20lb turkey, fettucine alfredo, weird steamed veggies and roasted potatoes from citysuper, sourdough bread stuffing, cornbread stuffing, butternut squash, creamed spinach... man, this is actually rather torturous. and in the second pic we have two pumpkin pies, poonam's apple crumble (or was it berry crumble?) and complete deelite cupcakes.