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Lunch time with rinaz

Buon Giorno Signora and Signore! Please sit down comfortably while the chef serves you your lunch today!

For starters we have

Salad with Watercress, cherry tomatoes and grilled bell peppers with Italian dressing. Ah benissimo!

For the main course we have

Penne Arrabbiata. What Signore? You cant take the heat?

What about some honey glazed chicken instead? Squisito!

A bit of sparkly for the Signora? Perfetto!

And for dessert we have vanilla ice cream with a generous topping of chocolate syrup. Ah … Cielo!

Thank you for coming!

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To be honest, I’m not the type of person who’s into cooking. In fact, I actually hated it. As a kid, mum would try to coax me to learn how to cook and I’d always try to run away.

Malay cooking isnt the easiest thing to cook. With all the preparation, the pounding, the ingredients, the endless waiting of the stirring and such, the typical time to prepare one dish would be about 2 hours.

And it can be really physically harming. Cooking Ayam masak merah requires a soldier’s bravery. The frying of blended chili in hot oil – which tends to just splatter out at the most unexpected time, usually everywhere, like the kitchen walls, the stove top, the floor, and me! Its really painful! And the kitchen will end up like a warzone at the end of it.

It takes a brave person to try to clean the sticky mess up afterwards.

Not to say that its not worth cooking it though, because the end product is worth waiting for, wonderfully appetizing and aromatic. Foods like Kari Ayam (Chicken Curry), Otak-otak (BBQ Fish mousse), Ayam masak merah (Chicken in Red sauce), Satay (BBQ’ed marinated meat) and Nasi Lemak (Rice cooked with Pandan leaves and coconut milk) are just heavenly.

But I really dont have the patience to stay in the kitchen for too long. Makes me admire the persistance, patience and dexterity of the people who cooks them every day. Amazing people.

For the moment, I’m starting slow and try easy to make foods that doesnt require so much effort to make. Sure I’m no Jamie Oliver or Anthony Bourdain but at least my food is edible (At least I think so)

Jemput Makan!
Come and eat!

Dang … I’m 60 kilos now …

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The reopening of Jurong Lake Park

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Went kayaking with my mum and brother today at the beautiful, newly opened Jurong Lake park. That was a whole load of fun! Initially mum was so afraid of falling in the water while in the kayak but after a short while, she really enjoyed herself pedalling smoothly in the lake that when the time was up, she didn’t even want to leave!

I really like kayaking. It probably started in Outward Bound School I think. One try and I really liked it. One of the more memorable experiences that I had was during the trip to Thailand with my best friends Juli and Hema. We went through mangrove swamps and the open sea and the experience really felt like a discovery channel show with all the nature that we saw.

Hema and guide in the front kayak with me and Juli at the back I miss this. I’d love to go again

Will there be a kayaking club in Jurong, I wonder? The instructors didn’t say, but I think it would be lovely to have one on lakeside, with all the unused water catchment area. I’d join in a heartbeat!

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Night classes has been interesting. It was lovely to see some friendly faces but that nervous feeling is there. The feeling of unpreparedness, especially after one economics class when the tutor asked us a question and I just sat there feeling very blank.

I turn around to the person behind me.

“I don’t know how to do this. How do you answer it?”

“Oh, when the marginal propriety consumption goes up, the marginal propriety savings goes down. Thus, in the graph, it shifts up and the consumption graph, it pivots. Pretty easy right?”

“Huh? Err .. yeah, yeah yeah … easy …”

Just what the heck are you talking about?

I really need to buck up. I’m just too tired to do anything. Is it possible to have a burnout before anything even started?