Mecca cosmetica is evil

I walked around the city with my nose stuck in the crook of my elbow today. Saffron, coriander, pepper, amber, and musk smells much better than cheap tobacco and the stink of the masses. It was a warm day.

And I did buy it at the end of the day. It looks like a giant gold nugget sitting on my dresser. And a rosy saint, and a gipsy. Rubberized casing gets me. Major wallet burn. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like my heart of stone has been wrapped in a fur. PETA begone.


We had pastries and coffee, chased with roasted pistachio gelato. And there's pate and sourdough sitting on the counter waiting for me. Purrr

reading material

-raw organic activated almond & purple corn dark chocolate-
62% raw cacao
single origin from Satipo Peru
our cacao is fairly treated

** organic chocolate bars are handmade in Melbourne. the organic cacao we use is raw, which means our chocolate has up to 4 times as many antioxidants as conventional chocolate. We use organic agave syrup (a natural, low GI sweetener) instead of sugar to create this delicious chocolate bar.

Ingredients: organic raw cacao butter, organic raw cacao powder, organic agave syrup (dark), organic activated almods, vanilla beans, purple corn extract, himalayan crystal salt.

taste. apparently much better than cacao nibs (I haven't tried, JY has). a bit coarser than commercial dark chocolate but with a more complex flavour. maybe the soft bitty bits were cause it's raw... ooh, himalayan crystal salt, agave syrup. i'm a sucker for new stuff. and packaging. and

fair trade. the makers of this chocolate reportedly observe the spirit of fair trade more than green & blacks and, obviously, the big guns (incidentally, cadbury owns g&b) and definitely more than Lindt, Nestle, Hershey, and the Mars company (crap. boo!! off my safe eating list, you lot.)

more here

melbourne pt.1

I spent most of the trip eating, or at least it felt that way. JY insisted on paying for every meal we ate together as her graduation gift to me. In return, I made pancakes. I know. Breakfast was mostly at her flat - coffee and whatever else was on hand but I couldn't not trip down to the QV markets for pastries (and coffee) at least twice.

Gill's Diner - gnochetti with tomato and calamari, duck confit with lentils

some Japanese place - sword tataki with ponzu, spicy prok mince ramen

QV - almond croissant (lovelovelove. it wasn't the type you find in KL with a sprinkle of almond flakes on top of a normal croissant - this had chunky marzipan running through the pastry and on top, with a thorough dusting of icing sugar to make sure everyone know you've been eating sweet stuff)

mussels in white wine (home cooked)

Cafe Vue - lunch box. Cafe Vue is a more casual branch of Vue de Monde and the lunch box we both ordered is a genius idea. The contents change daily so you don't know what you're going to get and it comes in a sturdy red cardboard box designed by someone or another (printed on top, did not register. preoccupied with contents). Perfect for the indecisive. Let the chef decide what you should eat. Inside, there's a little menu to tell you what you've gotten. We got a starter of pork rilette with fennel seed crackers (rather Asian), a salad of haricot blanc and chorizo, tuna nicoise roll, and a dessert of chocolate mousse with baked orange cream. How sweet is that? And the disposable cutlery they supplied with it was made of wood. It kinda reminded me of toy kitchen sets, you know those plywood forks and spoons. I liked. There's a picture of me admiring the cutlery (just because they were such a novelty. no splinters either)

Laksa me - Khao Sao Gai. Not sure if this was Thai but it was yummy - dry fried noodles with a chicken curry.

QV (again) - coffee scroll. I'd seen this the first time I went to QV and put it on my to eat list. It had coffee in its name, can't go past that. Turns out, it's like a coffee cake - it doesn't actually have any coffee in it but it goes perfectly with coffee. More like a giant cinnamon bun. Damn. Not coffee.

Hooked - grilled fish, salt and pepper calamari, a mountain of chips (I shit you not. a mole hill, at least)

Fritz gelato - ruby grapefruit and blood orange. Blood orange...

smoky bacon and spiced plum sausages with broccoli. We picked up these sausages at QV and baked them. Smoky bacon really tasted like smoky bacon. I kept trying to taste plum in the other one because it intrigued me but it was fairly subtle. You could taste a slight fruitiness in it but it didn't overpower the meat. Yummy, very yummy. By this point I wanted to up stakes and live in Melbourne just because it has QV. But then the weather is kind of shit and it was really the central location of the flat which got me.

lamb and cheese gozleme at the Sunday arts market. Like pide, but thinner bread and less filling.

Grill'd - Hot Mama burger. I know there's a place in Kl with the same name but it's not part of this chain I think. The Hot Mama had harissa (love harissa. want to smuggle a tub back to KL with me), roasted peppers (another love), tzatziki (love, but a bit less), pickle and cheese. Oh and some salad too. It was at least 3 inches thick. Squish squish squish and it fits! chomp.

Animal Orchestra (love the name) - Baked eggs with chorizo, black pudding and tomato. I need to get a baked eggs recipe. Also shared a sticky date pudding with vanilla bean ice cream (it rhymes. say it really fast now: vanillabeanicecream vanillabeanicecream) and caramel sauce. Should also find a good recipe for this. Dammit, why are all the things I love hard to find in KL.

Dainty Sichuan (I swear, I'm not making these names up) - so not dainty. This is real sichuan food (I've been told). Sichuan peppercorns do this strange thing to your tongue and lips where they have a numbing effect. So it doesn't sting the way spicy food usually does. Instead, you just lose sensation. Hmm.... I glanced in the mirror when we got back and my lips were fatter than usual. It looked strange. Sichuan food works better than lip plumpers and doesn't sting like lip plumpers. The peppercorns themselves look slightly alien. It's like someone took regular peppercorns and covered them in tiny white zits. Oh right, the food - beef on toothpick (that's what it said on the menu, don't scold me for not remembering!), chilli chicken, and leeks with tofu. Both meat dishes came in a mountain of dry fried tiny chillies. Not sure if they were cili padi but there were a hell of a lot of them. I think they reuse the chillies - we had to wait a really long time for the chicken to come out and it was only after another table which had ordered it had left. Tasty, spicy and fascinating.

Nobu - sashimi tacos (shared), lunch bento box and suntory whisky cappucino (shared). Ok, so you've probably heard of Nobu. If you haven't, google it. The sashimi tacos were delicious. They put cubed tuna, salmon, crabmeat, and prawns (separately) into mini crisp taco shells and plonked a little pot of salsa next to it for you to dab on. South America meets Japan. Loved the contrasting textures and the different flavours. The tacos were a bit too tasty (salty) but it's all good. The bento box was huge. Stacked oblong bento box with 5 compartments. It came with a portion of black cod with miso (signature dish), tuna sashimi with a sesame-black pepper-maybe a bit of ponzu but i'm not sure dressing, various sushi, mixed vegetables on rice, citrusy shrimp tempura. And miso soup. And I finished it all! (except for most of the rice under the veges). The whisky cappucino was the best bit of the meal. It's actually a layered dessert in a cap cup. bottoms up: chocolate covered coffee bean bits, coffee creme brulee (not really a creme brulee, just custard), milk ice cream, whisky foam. I want this every day for a month, Then maybe I'd get sick of it and not crave it.

gnocchi with shrimp and peas in a creamy white wine sauce (homecooked and bloody good. easy too)

enchiladas and meatballs from DJ's food hall.


there. now I'm hungry.

week end

I got drizzled on at the market. It was an overcast day and I got there past 10, which is early by my standards since I had to wake up at 8.

The smell of food grilling floats through the open air market. You know the way they draw odours in cartoons, those wafting wispy strands of scent leading people forward by their noses? Yeah. First stop was for confused eggs (fancy egg and bacon roll) - eggs scrambled on a grill plate, smoky bacon, rocket and barbeque sauce on a chewy bun *love*. The sisters made a special request for the pomegranate balsamic vinegar that they got when I took them there back in June. M swore it turns the simplest salad into gourmet fare. It's funny how I'll shell out 20 dollars for a tiny jar of truffle salsa but wince inside at paying 22 for a bottle of balsamic (limited ed granted). Being the dutiful and loving sibling I am, I scored the last bottle available for them and a good pack of bush dukkah too (again, another easy gourmet maker). Plus a smaller packet of dukkah and tayberry jam to bring to JY in Melbourne.

'What's tayberry?'

A cross between a blackberry and a raspberry it seems, and possibly the most curious item at that stall. A minute after I asked, a couple came up and asked the same thing after glancing over the jams and tarts on display. The jam itself is slightly tart (raspberry genes?) but pleasantly so. (note to self: finish off stash of jams in fridge - strawberries and champagne, lemon curd, cherry, err.. too many. slight jam addiction maybe)

And that was it. That's all I got because it started drizzling while I was polishing off my brunch and I was wearing a dress and it was cold. >( The drizzle paused for awhile but it came back as rain later by which point I was trapped in the closest mall.

The walk to and back from the market along the harbour carried so many memories. The last time I had been there was in June with the sisters, happy and anticipating. Every visitor to Sydney has been brought to Darling Harbour to play in the random miniature fountains and try to get to the middle of the water swirl structure without getting their feet wet. It's this circular installation of sorts where alternating panels descending to a platform with a sphere in the middle have water flowing down towards the center in a spiral. Hard to describe. Takes too many words, but you know which one I'm talking about. I remember walking on the bridge overhead with B, S, and others, friends.

I just realized this afternoon that the goodbyes have begun. Friday's lunch was probably the last time I'll see that friend for a long time. Dinner with Duncan and his wife tomorrow will be another goodbye. And Tuesday brings another possibly last dinner. And as for the city itself, I'm slowly, reluctantly saying goodbye to it. There's a list of favourite haunts to visit before I fly. Some of them are everyday favourites, on campus, in Randwick. Others are more specialized - the art gallery for a dose of culture and calm in the storm, my secret place really, Coogee to doze and watch the waves roll in (some of my books are testament to this - sand between the pages), the train ride from bondi to circular quay just for the view pulling into the station, bills surry hills for the food and perfect brunch ambiance. One by one.


---
Last night doesn't bear talking about. I'm still seething/ stewing. You can tell me it'll drive you crazy after I leave if we start again and whisper that you'll miss me. Yet you don't want to make the most of the time I have left here. Because it'll drive you crazy after. Spineless. Allow me to express my contempt for you once again.
i'm losing my favourite game. my heart is black and my body is blue.
---

Reading: The Ethics of What We Eat - Singer and Mason.
I prefer Pollan's writing style, it's more polished and does not have the agenda these two have. But it is a good read nevertheless. Like Pollan, they raise serious questions about the food we eat, usually without thought. I might turn vegetarian for ethical reasons eventually. If my ethics ever hold up long enough to have their existence verified, that is. More on this later.

pack for melbourne! triptriptrip

purrr

another 3 hour lunch, big breakfast with poached eggs
talk: Malaysian and Singaporean politics, miscellaneous topics, food, the perks of being an academic, god knows what else. the heat saps everything.

AND IT"S FUCKING HOT! 38 degrees out and sweltering

tomorrow: pyrmont market to see if they have any more pomegranate vinegar and bush dukkah. and confused eggs for brunch

Monday

I spent the afternoon in the city. From Chinatown I made my way up to the CBD, felt the heat from the sun on my skin. It's different from what it is in Malaysia. The air here has a clarity I haven't encountered anywhere else; not in Melbourne where it is filtered by cloud cover, more diffuse in Brisbane, and unlike the heavy and dense air in KL. The brilliance startled me every time I returned from a month or three away. Just walking out on a clear day, perhaps after the rain, even in the middle of winter, the clarity of the light makes me smile.

I picked up a loaf of bread, a chocolate hazelnut croissant, and a cherry strudel from one of the best bakeries in the city. The croissant was my lunch on the go, happily leaving a trail of crumbs behind me as I walked through the underground of QVB, back into the light, through Myer, and up to Martin Place to get cupcakes. Knowing that it was one of the last times, possibly the last time I would do that did not make it any less enjoyable and I smiled to myself all the way, chomping on the flaky pastry.

Almost every landmark in this city has a memory attached to it. Places to meet friends or lovers, places to walk alone through the crowds, places to escape from the crowds and just be silent. Over these four years, this city has turned from a stranger to something else. It's sharp beauty, like the edge of a knife would cut through whatever else was fogging my mind; the emotions, preoccupations. And when there were none, it amplified the happiness and peace.The clarity of air I have found only here at times bordered on being overly bright. Almost blinding.

Yet the sharpness never cut me, instead cutting through to me. Frequent pauses for a moment of appreciation, to just stop running for awhile and admire you.

It's an oxymoron - a beautiful city. Cities aren't supposed to be beautiful. They are brick and mortar, steel and concrete, man made defences against nature and the wilderness. They are elegant at best but elegance is not beauty. Somehow you have that quality rare in a city and wear it lightly.

yum

strawberries in caramelized balsamic
porchetta with dijon on rye

life is good
*smirk*

hatchoo!

The company was good. So much so that I failed to notice until much later that the food wasn't actually as good as I remembered it to be. The deep fried prawn, chicken, fish, and mashed potato thing were lukewarm bordering on cold and the sashimi was dry as if it had been prepared a few hours ago. But I ate it all anyway. The whole dinner bento box (this is where you break out the applause). Not bad, but not what I remembered it to be.

The barbequed squid was good though.

Fucking sydney is fucking freezing. It's been like the middle of winter for the past two days - 15degrees out, plus rain, plus knock-you-over wind. Really. Thank you. I felt a cold catching this afternoon but dinner seems to have chased it away. Also chased dinner with a walk through the city (late night shopping Thursday, y'know! shops open til 9! excitement) and something I haven't had for years - one of those Japanese green tea ice cream things encased in wafer with red bean in the middle. Eating ice cream when it's cold is really counterintuitive. My head says no, my tastebuds go 'yes please!'. No prizes for guessing who wins. And because my tastebuds are self indulgent, the rest of me couldn't try on clothes. Which of course means a return trip is necessary.

And contrary to popular belief (really people, I do have some sense of morality that actually functions now and then. And it's functioning full swing right now) I am being good and staying away from all of them nasty liddle (or not so liddle) addictions. Mind over body.

The bad news is that the same ethics are also starting to hammer at me for all of the following reasons:-
i. eating unsustainably farmed food - meat and veg
ii. eating unethically grown meat
iii. eating un-local produce (both meat and veg again)
iv. eating processed 'food' and junk
In sum, contributing to the 'military-industrial complex' that fuels bad health and divorces people from nature by so easily turning that cow into an unrecognizable patty with corn filler.
It's also bad for the environment.
read
M. Pollan compacts the contents of 'the omnivore's dilemma' here AND offers solutions too. You will need an account with the NY Times to access the article, but it's free. Alternatively you could wait until the next time you see me in person and get the lowdown from me, significantly simplified and edited for content depending on the inconsistencies of my memory. Just sign up for an account dammit, save us all the trouble :p

Whether this will impact my eating habits remains to be seen. Because my carefully nurtured ethics are coming up against my culturally-ingrained apathy and cynicism. Activism vs. defeatism. Sit back and watch.
See, this is where all my energy is being redirected.

This weather calls for Miles Davis. It's a thing I have. Jazz goes well with hibernation. hibernate. zzzzz

It's nice not having anything to do. :)

puk

the sea salt and rosemary chips "cooked in 100% olive oil" had way too much rosemary.

today

I spoke with a man with the most brilliant blue eyes I have ever seen. They were jewel-toned, the colour of sapphires. Blue eyes and black hair get me every time

I amused myself by observing a pretty bubble head in the library

I picked up a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma

I was offered a gingerbread man for oktoberfest

I smiled a bit at every head that turned

I had my usual large skim latte, one sugar and banana bread, toasted and buttered

I shivered in the wind

I relished every minute here because I know they are coming to an end

book list

In preparation for freedom. I have a lot to catch up on

Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma
- In Defense of Food
Peter Singer & Jim Mason - The Ethics of What We Eat
Jennifer McLagan - Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient
The Waiter - Thanks for the Tip: Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (Waiter Rant is brilliant)

TBC

almost there

I *heart* gnocchi filled with spinach and ricotta. It doesn't even need sauce. Browned butter might be nice. mmmm..

The meeting over the first draft lasted two and a half hours but it didn't seem like 2.5 hours. Must have been the coffee. Surprisingly little to change though even if it'll take a few full days to correct. Minor details here and there but Duncan still hasn't criticized anything I've written much. He talks about how he kept scribbling 'excellent!!' instead and wanted a stamp so he wouldn't have to keep writing that. I hope it's just me being overly critical of my own work rather than him being overly easy to impress/ lenient. Now, finding more things to cut is going to be hell. Damn word count. Shouldn't have it. It's repressive.


gnocchignocchignocchignocchi. love the sound of it. gnocchi. too much coffee. gnocchi. shiny blind-you-bright fuschia nails. gnocchi

signs of summer

bikinis (yay, skin!)

shorts and mini skirts and dresses instead of jeans

strawberries on the cheap, all the time

which naturally means that I eat a punnet a day (sometimes)

because they are that good. that red, that sweet, not even dipping them in dark chocolate tops these berries fresh and unadulterated

:)

and yes, that is a package you see in the background. my cousin sent me a message two days ago - keep an eye out for the postman in a week!

it came today

and.. (now i know you'll scold me..)

this was in it

card telling me to hang in there

and the entire Zoya gossip collection

which completely satisfies all my hot-pink and purple cravings :) i know, i know..

plus Zoya ki, top coat, base coat, and quick dry drops

(photos taken with 1.3MP cameraphone so excuse the quality)

on another note, i was distracted by the presence of prawns (not dried, fresh and butterflied) in my papaya salad and wondering about the contents of my package. this is what happened

ooh prawns, i don't think they usually put prawns in papaya salad

(lifts a forkful of salad, briefly note red specks but continue pondering prawns)

munch munch munch

ow. shit. damn chilli. cili padi too

lazy dazy

mwrr... not having urgent work to do disorients me

i need:-
a haircut
fruits
an espresso machine

only 1 out of 3 is feasible right now but no matter

i want:-
*cough* nevermind
also vaguely tempted by the sound of Jo Malone's nectarine blossom and honey scent. hmm... $80. frig
papaya salad

yum!
toodle doo

oh right, clothes..

An Ode

Your tawny skin is warm to the touch
You nourish me when all else fails
Your perfection inspires me to words
In your sour saltiness my tongue delights

O vegemite on toast, how I love you!

tweet

I like the orange sour jellies the best. chomp

eat your veg, no meat

soy sausages are so not. just don't, in case you were thinking of it.

(consciously) going veg lasted all of one meal. those times when I live on coffee, hummus and water crackers, toast, and apples don't count. that's not by choice.

peevish

Dammit, what is it that you want now? The letter was the end of it and it did what it was supposed to for me. I'm moving on. There was no need to reply to that or for you to follow up on it. Now you've got me wondering what exactly is it you're sending to me, why you wanted my birthdate, why you're doing this when I made it perfectly clear that that was all there was to it. No response expected nor wanted.

I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Maybe you're returning anything I gave you. That would be better than a letter I would be reluctant to open.
Hmm... I hope you're not planning to burn my unit down. Now that would really be uncalled for!

chapter 5 in its preliminary form is done. and my word count is not terribly excessively over the limit set for it. but they all add up! all these little bits and pieces of 200, 400 add up. fret fret fret. malaysian politics. fret fret fret. man problems. fret fret fret.

my lip balm is making me crave grapefruit soda. my nails are blue.
it's one of those days.
go away, come back. why are you still here? no, really come back.
that really sums up everything.
I will now bury my head in the sand for posting something as short attention-spanned and vacuous as this.
mm... chorizo buns with salsa verde

delightful insights from conversations with E soon to come. when i remember them. d-oh!
cookie dough..

thbbpppt.

I don't care if it's extravagant. I'll eat truffle scrambled eggs for breakfast if I want.

zing

the harissa i put in the dip traumatized my tastebuds. all that is left is a shadow