Totally stuffed from easter lunch

When Cart and I arrived back home, we couldn’t move at all. We were stuffed from easter lunch with the combined food that my in laws and I have prepared.

Here are some of the food that we had. First off for antipasti (appetizer) :

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We had Carciofi sott’olio which is basically artichokes preserved in oil. This might take a bit of getting used to because it tends to be very sour.

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And then we had zucchini with tomatoes. This is pretty easy to make but very tasty – basically you stir fry some chopped onions, then add in sliced zucchini and then some cut tomatoes. You might want to add some vinegar towards the end if you like.

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I made Nasi Tomato using the recipe from “Tanya Mami Asmah Laili” which I won from Putri Berendam (which sidetracking, I think is really good considering that it is only $15SGD. There is also AYAM PENYET!!!! If anyone want, I can do a review of the DVD)

The rice was delicious by the way. All the adults liked it. Just too bad that the kids were afraid to eat something that they didn’t recognize

By this time, I was already feeling full. But then we still had first course to go which is pasta! Cart and I had Cannelloni ricotta e spinaci.

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This is a sort of lasagna, but instead of rectangular pasta pieces, these are long tubes instead and stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach. Kind of like the lasagna I video blogged a while ago.

The rest had Cappelletti in brodo di pollo.

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These are dumplings stuffed with 4 cheeses in chicken broth and this is a special Emilia-Romagna recipe from my in-laws. They would usually have it during main holidays like Christmas and these dumplings are actually hand made!

As I’ve already learnt how to make pasta, I’m curious to know how to make these too. Hopefully they will show me the next time

And finally for the secondo piatto, roasted lamb. Kind of like ketupat for us in Asia during hari raya, roasted lamb with potatoes are a speciality for pasqua because lamb has a religious symbolism.

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There was still Carciofi alla Romana to eat after this. And then strawberries for dessert. But at this point of time, as big as my eyes were, I just couldn’t stuff myself with more food and I just sat there on the chair for a full 5 minutes. Oh! And we still had to open our chocolate eggs!

Burp!

Even the turtles had a treat with a banana each. My niece and nephew had two turtles which are actually fun to play with (they move amazingly fast too)

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Check out one of the turtle eating a banana :

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

If you liked this post, check out :

The delightful taste of Ubuntu

Cart and I were in Ladispoli during the weekend for their annual artichoke festival (I’ll update more about that later in the week) and we stumbled upon this stall with loads of Ubuntu cola for sale! Tadah!

I’m so geeked out by this.

I’ve been using the Ubuntu linux distro for over a year now, and was very excited to give it a try. I doubt that it had anything to do with linux though, and instead has a sort of “open source” recipe (all the ingredients are listed at the back of the can) unlike Coca Cola where the recipe is highly secret.

We found out later that the cola is fairtrade and the makers give at least 15% of sales to the Ubuntu Africa Programme. But most importantly, how does Ubunto Cola taste like?

Take a peek in our “unboxing” video

 

Social centres in Italy

When you are around the neighbourhood in Italy, you’d notice some places which looks something like this :

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This one is in Monte Verde near my FIL. I’ve never seen it functioning though.

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This one is in Tor Pignattara which around the corner by the way has the best kebab shop that I’ve ever been to.

These are called “Centri Sociali” which is something like a community center in Singapore. They are almost always abandoned buildings which is renovated and refurbished and converted into a social center.

The hammer and the sickle symbol is for the communist political party and might look scary and apprehensive but here you could do a lot of interesting activities here such as learning another language, cooking classes at a fair price as well as meet other like minded, working class people. I’ve yet to meet a deranged politically crazed person here.

Basically these centers are made to bring the people in the neighborhood together.

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Anyway, Cart and I were here in La Citta Della Utopia which I think is probably one of the prettiest Centro Sociale that I’ve ever been to.

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Originally a building which was said to house Garibaldi, it’s such a charming area! Though it might look so here, walking in the area makes me feel as if I was in a fairy tale. I really liked how rustic everything looked like. Pity I didn’t take more pictures.

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But even then, I doubt that the pictures would give it justice. Like this verandah here, filled with beautiful hanging purple flowers. Just walking across it made me feel very tranquil.

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In any case, we were here to attend the 4th annual Soup Festival where participants do a cook off and visitors attending give their soups a try and vote for the best one. The winner will get a golden ladle.

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It was interesting seeing people busying themselves setting up and decorating their booths, making it all pretty. Cart was excited to try out the double potato soup from this particular booth.

But we reached there too early at about 3pm while the taste test only starts at 4.30pm. We didnt want to wait for over an hour and also didn’t wanted to jostle with the crowd that was sure to arrive then.

So we left.

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But I’d like to be here again in the future, maybe to take up one of their courses or just to hang and chill out with the people there.

Maybe I could try to participate in  the soup festival too next year. I’ve already thought up of something to make. A nice bowl of Soto Ayam.

I wonder how well Italians can take the spiciness. I might not win, but it’ll be worth it just to see their expression  Padan muka

A horrible dream

It was like any other night. I was in bed sleeping. And I awoke to find a woman slowly and deliberately going through the cupboards stealing my jewellery. I saw her taking one of my favourite necklaces.

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I asked her worriedly, “Please don’t take that. That used to belong to my mother. And my grandmother gave her that. It’s very precious to me”

The woman laughed, continued rummaging through the drawers but later on left the jewellery on the bed and eventually went out of the room.

I was surprised and asked Cart to call the police and I walked out to investigate.

But I was stunned to see on the dining table, all full of food like Curry, Rendang, Ketupat Ayam Masak Merah and all the other types of food that my mum used to cook. I could hear them. I was touched that my family would come all the way and give me such a nice surprise.

But when I turned my head to say hello. They were gone.

I woke up sobbing uncontrollably. I’ve never cried from a dream like that.

Lucy Minerals Review

I’ve been using mineral makeup regularly ever since I’ve been introduced to mineral makeup. I liked them mostly because of how natural it looked like on my skin. After using my Revlon one, I switched to Everyday Minerals which to me was probably THE best mineral makeup in 2008.

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These are just a few of the base powders that I’ve hit the pan.

Everyday minerals used to have a 45% discount of 12 items or more and I used to do a personal spree once a year as they had But recently, without any notice, Everyday Minerals has taken away this promo. I didn’t like how they are giving me the impression that they do not value their customer, swaying me to switch to something else.

I’m not the only person who’s not happy about this change. But what a pity though, because I thought that the Medium Tan base powder was a nice match for my skin and I really liked their brushes.

Anyway, I was in Cozycot and that was when I stumbled upon this post and I was intrigued. But doing a little more research about Lucy Minerals and it was actually this particular blog post which really clinched the deal.

Makeup that can hide blemishes and still look natural? Woah. I got to have it. So I went ahead and looked through the website. It can be a little confusing trying to navigate through the website as there are a lot of links.

The foundation powders for example, there are three types alone – Original, Oil Control and Light. Original which is said to be creamy, water resistant, free of preservatives and has super antioxidants like apple polyphenols. Oil control is the same as original but more suited for oily skin and light is the same as original but without any additives.

And then you’d have to figure out your shade out of the 19 different foundation shades. Thus it is definitely best to get samples before committing to full sized ones. By the way, this is one of the reasons why I prefer buying foundations online compared to over the counter, since I’ve brown skin and living in Italy, I don’t really have that much choice in darker shades.

I got 6 samples which costs about 11 USD including delivery and it took under 2 weeks to reach Italy. The sachet samples look like these :

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Some people might prefer their sample to come in little jars but I didnt mind sachets so much since it brings costs down for delivery charges.

The first test was to check for skin colour match. I’m using the original foundations and tried it on clean, moisturized skin.

Here is how Medium Caramel, Tan Olive and Golden Medium (top to bottom) looks like after 5 minutes on my skin.

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And here is how Caramel, Toffee and Medium Caramel (top to bottom) looks like after 5 minutes.

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Not the most perfect match, but it looks like Medium Caramel suits me the best out of the 5 samples that I got. So I’ll stick to that for now. And yes, like most people, I do have blemishes like large pores and pimples. Get over it

The next test is the wearabilty test. As how we use other mineral foundations, the trick is to use a dense brush, dip it in a little of the powder and dab it on the face with swirling motions.

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This is how much I use regularly. Don’t use too much powder as the foundation is actually quite concentrated and too much will make you risk looking like you’re wearing a mask later.

So far one sachet actually lasts me a good 2 weeks if I used it every day.

Contrary to many reviews saying how it feels creamy on the skin. I don’t really feel it, to me, it felt the same as other mineral foundations. However, I do like how very natural it looked like on my skin.

But most importantly, how it made my skin almost flawless. Take a look at my face close up. No photo retouched.

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Woah, where are my pimple spots? My skin looks almost flawless. I can still see my pores but it’s not so evident as before. This is totally photoshop in a can.

And interestingly after several hours outdoors, my skin still looks natural.

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Cat hat FTW!

Using the samples made me really liked it enough to get the full size and luckily Lucy Minerals have a set kit where you could get different combinations of foundation, finishing powder, blushes, eyeshadows, etc. for a cheaper price compared to if you bought each separately.

I got for myself a “Face It” Kit and Sweet Dream Ambrosia sample size to reach 35 USD (+4 USD for delivery) to get a free Blush and Eyeshadow promotion which was going on in December.

It took under a month to be delivered this time due to the busy holiday season but anyway here is how my package looks like! It’s a regular brown envelope and inside it are these packages wrapped in blue crepe paper like presents waiting to be opened

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And each package is wrapped and taped with bubble wrap so that the contents does not get damaged along the travel.

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I quite like how charming and whimsical the design looked like. They are pretty much the standard size for mineral make up though – 10 grams for foundation, 7 grams for finishing powder.

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But regardless, while it might look small, judging by how I used the sample sachet, this will probably last me at the very least 6 months if I used it every day and since I dont, this will last me a very long time indeed!

Oh! I forgot to mention the blushes that I got! They are really beautiful! I used them in the karaoke video back in February. Both of the blushes I got, Sweetcheeks and Petal are both very pigmented so use them with a light hand.

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Nevertheless, the colours are beautiful and they actually look very natural on me, like how the skin looks like when you’ve gone exercising. But even if you put too much blush, they are extremely easy to blend away with the finishing powder.

Each foundation and finishing powder has a rotatable lid where you could open and close to prevent spillage if you’re taking it out for travelling. This is always appreciated for mineral make up.

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I think that if you’re in the lookout for mineral makeup, try giving Lucy Minerals a try. It might seem a little bit pricier at first, but in my opinion, it’s totally worth it considering of the quality, the longevity and the range of choices. But best of all, the ingredients are actually good for your skin. So it is definitely a good buy.

Before I end, I’m going to put up a picture of me after I went jogging yesterday with Lucy Minerals foundation on.

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Ehm. I don’t recommend that you go jogging with makeup on because of the risk of clogged pores but check it out, the powder still looks intact under heat, perspiration and oil.

I really don’t know of other mekap that can stand all that.

No more epson printers for me

Ever since I’ve started tutoring, I asked Cart if he had a printer for me to use for printing out handouts, worksheets and whatnots.

Cart owns an Epson stylus photo printer that he bought some years back. At the time, he was impressed by the print quality as because this particular model uses two types of ink cartridges : a  5-colour cartridge and black one.

Each ink cartridge uses a chip (like what you see on top there) which will indicate to the printer of how much ink that is has left. Which is quite smart (although my old printers have the same function even with no inbuilt chip)

However, after using the printer, Cart eventually found out that one undesirable thing about this printer is that if either one one of the colours run out, the printer would not function at all.

So lets say, I use a lot of blue in my printwork and eventually the colour runs out. What will happen is that the printer will lock up even though the rest of the cartridges are full! Even if I just wanted my next document to printed in black.

Yikes! Making consumers buy a new cartridge altogether when just one colour runs out? What a waste of resources. That’s strike one.

But well, we sucked it up and headed to an ink cartridge shop to get some new ink and did a few print test page on it to get the ink flowing. The colours were faint at first but slowly ink started to flow out and I was feeling hopeful. But after a few nozzle cleanings, to our horror, the printer indicated that once again, it ran out of ink!

Huh? I was befuddled. The inks were brand new so they shouldn’t be acting up like that! What a waste of money!

And once again, the printer locked up. Strike two.

Something seems very fishy about the whole deal and Cart was so furious that he did a search online and bought for himself a chip resetter which costs about 10 euro. What it does is that it will reset the chip and make the printer think that the cartridge was brand new with full ink.

And behold, we were able to continue printing. It’s not a perfect print, but it should get better as the ink flows.

But what was interesting is that we found out later that using the chip resetter with the old ink cartridges, the printer was able to whip out a fully coloured document! Which means that the cartridge was not empty in the first place. Look at what Cart printed out.

Epson. What a deceitful thing to do. Who was the smart person who approved of this concept? If they think that this is a profitable idea of forcing consumers buy more printer ink, instead this will make users boycott this brand even more.

No more Epson printer for me.

I cannot take this anymore

Disclaimer : This is a rant and may be offensive to some

Back when I was living in Singapore, I worked as a Multimedia Educator and used to teach students on how to use software applications. Normally, I’d demonstrate to them first, and then they’ll do the practise together with me and then I’d task them with an exercise towards the end of the lesson to gauge their understanding.

Theoretically, that sounds reasonable right? But normally at this point of time, the class will be chaotic with :

MISS MARINA! IS THIS HOW YOU DO IT?

MISS MARINA! DID I DO THE EXERCISE CORRECT?

MISS MARINA! CAN YOU PLEASE SHOW ME AGAIN?

It wasn’t bad if it was just one or two students. But imagine 40 kids all screaming the same thing. Sometimes I feel like Dexter with an entire room filled with hyper Didis

If they had paid attention in the first place, they would be able to do their tasks at hand easily. Instead, these kids are distracted by surfing to websites like lovecalculator and whatnots.

But in anycase, most of the times I had to be patient and understanding because they are kids after all, and their attention span is way shorter compared to a mature adult.

And a couple of years later, I’d have messages and emails from former students and many of them would say things like “Your lessons were so useful for my school projects. I wish I paid more attention in your class!”

And secretly I’d gloat inside. Just like how every parent gloats when their kids have their own kids.

Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy teaching. I find it very satisfying to share my knowledge to others and even more when these people appreciate and do well in it. I just find it very disappointing when people, whom I know are intelligent and have the capacity to think, don’t even try to put two and two together.

I don’t think that I am asking too much. But like I’ve mentioned, these are kids with short attention span and I’ve to be patient.

But how about adults?

Ever since I’ve been living in Rome, people, mostly random strangers mind you, keep asking me to recommend them hotels, bed and breakfast’s as well as other type of lodgings. “Oh! She lives in Rome! And she’s blogging about Rome. Therefore she must know everything there is to know about Rome. Let me email her! And since she’s *just* a housewife, I expect her to reply back to me immediately.

Lets think of it this way. You are a Singaporean. You live in HDB flats all your life. And all of a sudden you have a friend from overseas asking for recommendation specifying for a  cheap and good hotel. And you think to yourself, “I don’t know. I’ve never stayed in one.” And then you think to yourself, “Maybe, I should help her anyway because she’s my friend” and then you do search on google and tripadvisor and wonder, “This is so easy! Why couldn’t she have done it herself in the first place?

I get this with complete strangers every. single. day.

It’s very frustrating for me. Moreso because I’ve already blogged my piece on “Tips on visiting Rome” and if these people would have just taken the time to do a search, 99.99% of the time, their questions would already be answered.

I don’t understand! Is it so difficult to do?

Instead I’m constantly bombarderd by people who messages me thinking that I have so much free time and expects me to hold their hand all the entire time and spoon feed them the answers with a cheerful endeavour and smiles like this :))))))

NO! Not any more! I am really tired of all these people!

Listen, I may be a housewife, but contrary to what you think, I’ve a lot of wifely duties to do – grocery shopping, tidying up the house, laundry, and whatnots, Italian classes to go to and this takes up a large part of my time.

And through experience, when I do reply back to them, they don’t even have the courtesy of responding back with a thank you. I’m sorry, but whether these people know or may not know it, but they are plain RUDE and thanks to these people, I dread to reply to any messages at all!

It’s just not worth my time. What do I even gain in return? A favour? A postcard? A following on twitter? On facebook? A comment on this blog? A small thank you?

NO! These people get what they want, and then they disappear. What? How ungrateful is that?

Go away and leave me alone. I’ve already reached the threshold. Don’t email me and don’t message me if you have absolutely no intention of being polite to me.

Next time I do, I’ll just point them to this blog post.

Sidenote : Not to be completely negative, I did meet plenty of nice friends through this blog which means that there ARE nice people out there. Thank goodness for a bit of sanity or else, I will go crazy!

Tempura artichokes are yum!

Hi everyone!

Finally after weeks and weeks of bearing with the cold, it’s finally springtime here in Rome. To me it is one of the best times to visit Rome when the temperature is not too cold and not too uncomfortably warm.

If you were here during these times, you’d probably see a lot of these for sale :

These are artichokes, or to be accurate, Carciofi Romaneschi. A speciality of Rome, these are different compared to regular artichokes because the petals are purple instead of green, they are very round and there are less thorny bits inside the buds.

One carciofo costs about an euro each and can be prepared in a variety of ways – such as, a frittata, pasta, risotto, alla romana or alla giudia like this one that I had at a Jewish restaurant.

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How pretty! It looks so much like a flower doesn’t it?

Today, I’d like to show you a quick and simple way of enjoying them. I had three carciofi at hand and the first step is to clean them.

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First you cut the stalk from the bud. The carciofi needs to be removed of a few layers of the petals outside as they are really tough and chewy. And then you cut the bud into quarters and remove the thorny bits inside. Cut also a layer from the stalk as seen in the picture above.

Oh! An important thing to note is that carciofi gets oxidized very easily. So it’s a good habit to rub some lemon on it as you clean it. You could also throw them in a bowl of lemon-water.

And when you are done, don’t be stunned to see a lot of peelings and whatnots. This is normal

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Now sprinkle some regular flour on top of the cut carciofi.

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And then dip them one by one in tempura batter and deep fry them in hot vegetable oil. I don’t remember which brand of batter I bought. It was a pre-packaged one, but you could make them from scratch.

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And then when they are golden brown, they are ready to eat. And believe me, even if it looks rather unremarkable here, it’s really yummy!

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Of course, if you’re like me, I’d always dip them with my favourite chili sauce