Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Jew Who Char?

Potluck. A social meal where everyone brings something to the table. Literally.


I'm normally all for potlucks. I get to polish my *ahem* culinary skills without having the headache of catering the entire meal, plus it's a way to experiment with new recipes and unleash them on unsuspecting friends.

But, wow. THREE potlucks in two weekends? I can't really do that wide a repertoire in so short a time frame.

Bringing my standard fruit salad to one party (for like, the nth time already) and buying my way out of another (someone's buying cake and needs some financial assistance? Count me in!), I still had to dish out another... dish. And boy, had I some serious competition to contend with.

The menu was already sounding like a lineup of traditional favourites - Kitty Satay, Spotty Pong Teh, Cubitt Wine Chicken and Twin Style Prawns... even a continental dessert in the form of a lovely Snowy Bread & Butter Pudding! And oh, starters as well, painstakingly put together into a platter of Jaymaki Rolls.

What with all that food already, I figured I'd go low profile and serve the vegetables. Not wanting to do a generic chop suey though, I drew inspiration from the Straights Chinese (but not necessarily straight Chinese) and decided on ju hu char - literally, cuttlefish fry, even though it's really shredded turnip fried with dried cuttlefish and not the other way round. Simple enough. Or so I thought.

Three supermarkets later, I finally found dried cuttlefish in Giant. And realised that turnip, known to us as bang kuang or mengkuang, is actually called sengkuang in supermarket speak. The drama-ness.

I tweaked the recipe I found from Audrey and measured my ingredients by sight. Dangerous, cause my eyes are rather greedy and always hungry. So I ended up with two large turnips, four carrots, a few handfuls of soaked dried chinese mushrooms, two dried cuttlefish (all julienned) and several cloves of garlic (chopped coarsely), fried in olive oil and light soy sauce in a small wok that barely contained everything (in fact it didn't cause I threw away about a quarter of the turnip). I was ready to feed a small platoon of hot, starving soldiers.

You know, potlucks are also about popularity. As in, "I brought this dish so you're gonna keep eating it if you're my friend. Even if it kills you" kind of thing. A clean plate would indicate a succesful socialite. Fine, it could really just mean the food was very delish but we're polite society, and in polite society, there's always the issue of giving face.

So how did my ju hu char fare? I ashamedly admit that only half the plate was eaten. Yes, I have bitches for friends. But then again, I served enough for two dozen when there were only eight of us to eat it.

I guess my friends don't hate me, after all. At least, not that much.


Saturday, October 18, 2008

Keeping Life Simple

Being over thirty is certainly not over-the-hill, but still I can feel I'm not so young anymore. Two consecutive nights of disco-dancing last weekend had left me quite exhausted and susceptible to minor ailments. Heck, even two consecutive nights of potluck parties is leaving me a little worn out.

Which is why, I would suppose that it's just as well there's nothing much going on in my life right now. Well, that's not exactly true since work's been keeping pretty occupied. But it still adds up to the fact that I don't have much of a life.

So whatever life goals I might have had are now shelved away and collecting dust somewhere in some forgotten corner. Only two things occupy me these days:

1. Eating

2. Boy-watching

Luckily for me, I can normally count on having good company for either (or, more often than not, both). Best of all, it's served with freeflow gossip and bottomless bitching.

So I say thank you for the gossip
The scandals I'm bitching
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it?
I ask in all honesty
What would we be?
Without a rumour or some slander, what are we?
So I say thank you for the gossip
For giving it to me

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Moo Of The Day

Egg yolk smells like smelly small boys
Spot

How a conversation about food turned into a queer (and I must say unverified) insight about boys. Apparently, she'd done some sniffing around.

Literally.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Comfort In A Crunch

Perhaps it's the urge to splurge now that it's the weekend.

Perhaps it's the thought of having to spend yet another week out in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps it's the lure of fancy pre-expiry chips going at 99 cents per pack (available at Cold Storage Subang Parade, go get it NOW!).

Whatever the reason may be, I'm all set for another week of afterhours pigging out on junk food.

Perhaps it's just because I'm a pig, is all the reason to it.