singers boleh

when we landed at heathrow a couple of days ago, i realised i don't know when i'll next be back in sg. the mister makes the odd foray to 'the far east' for work every now and again, but whenever i go, it's purely personal. i guess it's about time this endless summer draws to a close, seeing how it's my 6th (!!!) 3-4 month summer break. having spent at least 18 months on holiday (not counting the 8 month break before starting undergrad!) it's high time i start being more productive. i've heard from more than one acquaintance that i'm 'always on holiday' and have a hard time convincing them that i only travel during term breaks, or over the weekend. much as i wish i had thick-skin and wasn't affected by the subtext ("...and therefore you don't work hard enough") i am sometimes bothered by the presumption. 

medsch is something i take very seriously but don't see the point in making a big show about how much work i do, or not. if i was solely a childless housewife, dropping everything to care for my able-bodied spouse and twiddling my thumbs while he's at work, fine. go ahead and judge. in fact, i'd even join you! but who's to say i can't have my cake and eat it, doing all the housewifely things while being in medsch. i'm trying not to morph into a pinterest wife, taking photos of the dishes i cook and tidy state of our tiny flat, but it is something i take pride in. i want to be a great many things - interior designer, cook, handywoman, tailor, herb grower etc summer gives me the luxury of time to do all that. 

been going a little nuts with my herb garden (said tiny flat has a tinier window ledge where my pots reside) and been harvesting chillis for oil, jam, flakes and basil for pesto. i note with more than a hint of pride that my sister asked quite disbelievingly, "are you a doctor or a gardener?!" and while i'm neither, i find multi-faceted people interesting. being in london, with it's exorbitant labour costs has turned me into a handywoman out of necessity. shant bore you with the mundane details but the mister and i have basically had to do almost every fix-it thing around the flat, to save ourselves the GBP80 call out fee if we had called a plumber / electrician. lest you think we're naturally inclined, no. it's all trial and error and grace of God. alterations cost an arm and a leg (neighbourhood tailor quoted GBP25 to shorten my GBP10 h&m maxi!!!) and the plight of being 1.6m (don't laugh) is that i've been altering all my clothes myself. youtube is a godsend to the sartorially-challenged! singaporeans who complain don't know how lucky they are with domestic help a'plenty and cheap labour.

however, i miss the intellectual stimulation that uni provides and no number of books i read makes up for its lack. looking forward to clinicals (finally!) and enjoying the process. it's funny how people assume i'm in a hurry to graduate (different set of people from those who think i don't ever want to work) when the truth is, i'm blessed to be in a good place and taking things as them come. too often we rush through life, hurtling towards the next step and miss enjoying each stage for what it is. it's been a good summer, and we've been very lucky to travel as much as we had. from paris and barca in june, to bruges in july, and then singers, phuket and soon norway in august. 

and while i said i'm trying not to be a pinterest wife, here's the chilli oil from our first harvest!

parallel universe

it's no secret that i left my heart in stockholm in 2009. had the most glorious time on exchange, met an amazing group of friends whom i'm still in touch with and in a strange way, stockholm is my happy place. thinking about my huge room in kungshamra and taking the bus to uni never fails to cheer me up. of course thoughts of the endless corridor parties and white nights on the yellow house roof terrace don't hurt either. just got off the phone with J, a dear friend who was just back in sweden over summer, and we were musing about how life would've been so different if we'd stayed on and worked for swedish firms. we'd probably be enjoying 10am starts, 6 weeks annual leave, summers in our country homes and incredible benefits. what leaves an even bigger pang is how i did have a good relationship with the firms, and attended one too many recruitment lunches ;) still in touch with the industry contacts i made, and they, too, have become friends over the years. in fact, just got a couple of emails from their summer homes!

if i'd been white, single, and without close family, i'd have moved in a heartbeat. but that's a big if. perceived or otherwise, the bamboo ceiling was not something i felt confident of breaking. and there was my wonderful family in singers. london isn't much closer than stockholm but it's easier to assimilate into, and it's with the view to get my GMC qualifications and then get outta here. i complain enough, but when 30% of the mister's modest salary goes to 'national insurance' and tax every month, it's all i can do to stop from screaming. i mean, if it were a personal stash (like CPF!) that we eventually get back, fine. but it's not. it disappears into a common pool and i'm not about to wish a serious illness on either of us to see a return on his investment. 

in that respect, sweden is no better (income tax was 68%, or so i learnt during swedish law course) and i wouldn't be any happier to pay taxes should i have stayed on to work in stockholm. which is why i'm genuinely worried by this year's national day rally and the increasingly populist slant. having lived in sweden and the uk, and enduring the pain that is uk tax, populist measures are really not the way to go! but what to do, singaporeans can be demanding, unappreciative and entitled. bo pians.

so on to happier things, like memories of cider nights at the law house in stockholm uni. the bartender who used to sneak us free drinks now works for one of the top swedish law firms, and J's swedish fling is now a mother. sodermalm has a ton of new indie shops and apparently the rest of sweden is pretty darn scenic too. silly me for being too comfortable to venture beyond stockholm. 

i read an article recently where the writer lamented how the older she gets, the more scandinavian she becomes. and i find the same slowly happening to me. increasingly minimalist, i'm happy with tiny spaces and a capsule wardrobe. might be a by-product of this constant moving / lack of permanence. displacement is too strong a word but for the first time ever, when i was last back in singers, i felt out of place. the moment we touched down at changi (still my all-time favourite airport!) i wanted to turn around and go back to london. singers was too hot. which is a really stupid reason not to want to go home. but it's where my family is, where i want to raise my eventual family. and let's just hope populist measures will not be reason enough to never return.

granny

phuket was a treat but i was also itching to be home to hang with my granny. as a product of two working parents, granny retired early to look after me. she's my hero and constant inspiration. granny was suddenly widowed in her early 30s and literally left carrying the baby. they didn't have very much and she never remarried, scraping by on her meagre teacher's salary. fifty years on, my parents, siblings and i are still her only family. i cannot even begin to imagine how absolutely horrific it must've been to be in her unenviable position all those years ago. how does one ever recover from such trauma? but she's one of the strongest ladies i know, picked herself up and just got on with it. i've much to be grateful for (one can do worse than be raised by a retired schoolteacher!) and credit granny for teaching me english and good manners, one more successfully than the other it seems! 

much as i enjoy being a newlywed in london, a part of me misses my granny with a horrific pang. i'm glad she's happy and healthy, ageing as gracefully as possible (doesn't she look amazing for an octogenarian who had a tough life?!) and wish i could spend more time with her. but there's skype, and summers back home and i'm constantly reminded of how fortunate i am that she's supportive  of my dreams.

just before this picture was taken, we'd gone to the hair salon and stopped for pulot hitam ice cream on the way home. naturally this completely spoilt our appetites for lunch (nasi lemak!) but when you're 83, i guess you call the shots ;)

phuket food snapshots

we'd a couple of friends in phuket at the same time and they kept our insta-feeds, well, fed, with amazing photos of delicious looking phuket food trails and all the best local food the island had to offer. despite the crazy temptation at hand and mega lure of our friends' discerning palates (they're foodies not to be messed with!) we just couldn't muster up the energy to leave the villa. didn't hurt that the chef was beyond amazing and we had four of each main meal with nary a repeat. if you think that's impressive (i sure do, with my relatively limited repertoire!) our hosts told us they once stayed for two weeks without a repeat. thai culinary prowess and legendary hospitality at its finest :) tried not to do the azn thing so unforch these are the only two 'food' photos i have. because, anyway, food photos. love-hate relationship, yes?

phuket

the stars aligned and we were very lucky to have a four day weekend last week. even more fortunate was to have gracious friends who invited us to stay at their home. it's a beautiful villa perched just above the andaman sea and the mister and i were last there during our minimoon. we were staying somewhere else but the friends, who were guests at our wedding, insisted we cancel our booking and stay at theirs as their guests. we'd have done that in a heartbeat but because the mister had already paid in full, our friends invited us to spend an afternoon (lunch, massage, more massage!) at theirs instead.

 

it was such a treat to return a year later and spend four full days in the most beautiful surroundings. usually so itchy feet but had absolutely no desire to leave the villa for the duration of our stay. 

monochrome

 

we're lucky to have a particular family friend who gifts us with books! might stem from how my folks didn't believe in toys and for the birthdays they did celebrate (there weren't many!) they'd insist on books. having spent most of my formal education reading under the desk, i'm not complaining. in retrospect, such behaviour seems almost like a chicken-egg question ;) so you can imagine my joy when said family friend very kindly passed me not one but three eggcellent reads just before we left for phuket :) and i promptly spent the next few days sprawled out on a deck chair reading to my heart's content. such a nerd, i know. such a bibliophile i even attempted to dress according to the book covers.

petersham nursery

a lovely sydneysider we met in ecuador told us about petersham nursery. she's a horticulturalist and was going to be in london for the chelsea flower show. embarrassing as it was, we'd to admit that despite living in london (she was jetting back from sydney!) the show wasn't on our to-do list. we did meet up over l'atelier when she was in town, and heard even more good things about petersham nursery. so my ever-organised husband booked us in for the one weekend (!!!) this summer when we didn't have guests in town. 

apart from being next-to-impossible to find (poor directions, obscure signage) it was worth the hike. and as if to soothe our bruised egos, the affable waiter conspiratorially shared that getting lost is a rite of passage. there was a long table set up next to us for a wedding and the gorgeous settings made me want to have a wedding lunch too! maybe for our next anniversary...

after lunch we moseyed around the nursery and miraculously left laden with a sweetpea, basil and chilli plant. now to just keep them alive! and i'm half sure that even if they were to shrivel and die in my absence, the mister will replace 'em without my knowledge.

 

richmond is a beautiful area and i can't believe it took us  a year to finally venture out of london. we try to spend every weekend in a different park to make the most of summer and it was surprisingly empty for a saturday evening. doesn't it look almost like the serengeti in this photo? then again, i've never been and wouldn't know!

hutong

while i often lament that the london dining scene is too faddy for its own good, once in a while i succumb (more often that not, when there are friends in town!) and make an exception. our ever-resourceful friend M booked hutong way in advance for when S was in town and despite my initial reservations about it being overrated and overhyped, i was pleasantly surprised by how authentic the food was. and the view? beats duck*waffle and their consistently abysmal service hands down. easily my new go-to for when we've guests in london :) didn't hurt that i was a little ignorant at the beginning and only later realised that we know the owner! who was so kind as to share an insider's tip (and photo teaser) below. careful as we try to be with our spending (the less we spend in london, the more we can spend on holidays!) meeting up with my london-based cousin, and S my visiting cousin was a special occasion indeed. i've three first cousins who are wonderfully dear to me, but with so few first cousins, we grew up close to our extended family. JW is a second cousin (our grannies are sisters) and we're third cousins with S (her granny is JW & my grannies' first cousins). have i lost you yet? uninteresting family tree aside, i did try to explain all this to poor JM who had the misfortune of being our house guest that night. and he very gamely bought an entire outfit (shirt, belt, trousers, dress shoes!) for the occasion. guess i'd forgotten that someone cycling through europe for three months would not be toting around fancy clothes... views are breath-taking, food excellent and company even better. so grateful for family and friends, and for people to enjoy treats like this with :)

according to the mister (although photo credits to JM), this is the world's most scenic little boys' room. despite having never been to one, i have to agree.

and here are my gorgeous cousins!

D's insider tip, as promised: The best view is from 9.30pm so don't go too early or if you have an early dinner then stay around for desserts and cocktails in aqua shard on level 31 and watch the night view suddenly materialize.  It is quite breathtaking.  We operate aqua shard as well.   Here is a little taster of things to come:

sound of music

one of my happiest childhood memories is of watching the sound of music repeatedly. you could even track technology's development through the means with which i watched it. from video cassettes (gosh! does anyone else remember those?!) to laser disks (sigh, now i'm giving away my age) to VCD and then DVD. the only constant was my choice of musical, which should probably have clued my indulgent parents in on my OCD. actually, they thought i'd aspergers and i'm adamant that everyone no matter how normal on the surface, does fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. hah. lengthy preamble aside, you cannot imagine how absolutely psyched i was to watch the sound of music in the open air theatre at regents park. quite embarrassingly, i can almost recite the lines of the movie verbatim, and it took every ounce of self-restraint not to do just that during the performance. wish i could have said the same for husband dearest. who was bopping along and singing under his breath :) cute like anything but goodness me i don't think the fabulous couple next to him were too amused.

and because theatre times always conflict with dinner time, the mister has been with me long enough to know how hangry (hungry-angry) i get. so he made sure i was well fed and watered at brgr&co before we took a slow walk to the park.

here's our incredibly good value tea. three sliders (lobster, chicken, beef!), the yummiest fries, a dessert selection with milkshake, brownie, apple crumble and trifle, a glass of bubbly and home made iced tea! my tummy was singing before the hills were alive with the sound of music ;)

scenic route home

i should've known that the mister would want to maximise every minute of our very brief weekend trip to bruges. he'd booked the very last eurotunnel passage back to ol' blighty and that gave us a good few hours to mosey around the north of france. thankfully got a late check out from our cute little hotel and took the scenic, coastal road back to and through france. we passed the sweetest little towns like wissant, audinghen, audresselles and ambleteuse. we even did the touristy thing and stopped at cap blanco to see where the germans had place their cannons during WWII, because captain husband is a closet military history buff. admiring german guns aside, we took a long walk along the beach and stumbled upon a quaint little seafood shack. the boss lady's husband takes their tiny fishing boat out every morning, and they sell what he catches the rest of the day. she didn't speak a word of english, so thank goodness for the month of french i took before going to stockholm (yeah, that doesn't make sense to me either...) and voila! dinner was served :)

 

oh and a photo of the M4(?) at dusk, for good measure and to show our ancient set of third hand wheels were roadworthy. phew!

exploring bruges

now the mister took one look at the breakfast spread before we went to bed (bless him, always two meals ahead of me!) and decided it was not worth EUR25. we're also not morning people, and good grief, was it hard to tear ourselves away from the window the next morning.

in fact, it was as if we'd grown roots to the window sill and i'd a whale of a time watching the canal boats go by. easily pleased, i am. better yet was being able to eavesdrop on the canal boat commentary and after a morning of vicarious touring, i was almost able to recite the spiel and rehearsed jokes.  awesome windows though so once they were closed and the air-conditioning switched on, you forget you're truly at the heart of this picturesque town. 

and here's the hotel from the canal! how's that for a change of perspective? we stayed in the three-windowed room on the top right, with the sloping roof. thank you mr. manager sir for the complimentary upgrade. my inner el cheapo was well pleased :)

bruges is a very historic, UNESCO heritage town and what i liked was the accessibility of all these cultural events. on our first night, there was a huge concert in the square and on the second day there was this full orchestra casually performing in the sunshine.

what was nice was no longer being a student (ok, so i still am!) in belgium. when we were last there five years ago, EUR5 for a pizza/pasta and drink was a splurge. we ate in most days, and i credit the summer in the mister's tiny student flat as the trigger of my culinary aspirations. hey, he was in the thick of exams and after i tired of twiddling my thumbs, i do remember cooking for him. little did we know then how that division of labour would foretell our roles after marriage ;) and speaking of the mister's flat, it was an incomplete walk down memory lane because it's since been condemned and demolished. about time, if you ask me! we were reminiscing about how some things change (he no longer balks at paying more than EUR2 for beer) while others remain the same (we're still not at the level where we'd eat a poor value hotel breakfast). and it's nice that half a decade on, he's still the only person i travel with. i'm so antisocial, if i wasn't going to be with the mister, i rather be on my own. grateful he gets that, grateful how i don't need 'space' when i'm with him.

oh and we'd dinner at den huzaar, a sweet little belgian restaurant with flaming desserts (just missing the lambo...) and we didn't mind being stranded by the rain because we'd all the time in the world.

roadtrip to bruges

the mister doesn't ask for much, and when i suggested visiting bruges over the summer bank holiday,  he wasn't the most interested. "why waste a good day off", he reasoned but was game to visit over a weekend. and boy was he right! now belgium holds a special place in our hearts. the mister spent a year in leuven (home of stella artois) on exchange, and during that year he traveled all over europe. i'm surprised he even managed to explore belgium, seeing how he was using it merely as a base. actually, i'm more surprised he won best speaker at the european round of the space moot. but that's another story for another time. and the mister, he hates when i brag about him so i really shouldn't. but i am so proud of him (even a couple of years on) and it was particularly poignant because on the very same day he won, i was miles away in singers receiving a D (not distinction but A, B, C, D... also an achievement!) for constitutional law. yay me. undergrad throwback aside, was fortunate to visit the mister in leuven during winter and summer holidays and the small university town grew on me. 

so you can imagine how excited i was to return to belgium after five years. and to finally visit bruges because we didn't get round to when he was on exchange. little did i know that in the years passed, bruges has gained infamy as the boring town from the colin farrell movie! and being the total ignoramus i am, i booked us into the same hotel as in the movie. took me a couple of days to realise why there was a constant stream of tourists on our otherwise quiet side street, and why they taking photo after photo of that darn bridge! 

and because the mister isn't a big fan of birthdays, i'm not really allowed to say that we went to bruges for his birthday (it fell mid-week and we were away over the weekend). to which he's quick to point out that if we were to celebrate his birthday, i didn't do a very good job because he ended up driving us to bruges, around bruges, and back. but the hotel was lovely and they very kindly gave us a free upgrade to a canal suite, which was superlative. in fact, it was just so darn beautes that leaving the room felt like a waste. and to me, that's the essence of a destination hotel. 

but a little more about the drive before i leave you with some photos. now we've driven all over europe (iceland, corsica, south of france, tuscany, mykonos, santorini, crete) and it's always been a rental car. now i've nothing against rental cars, but luxury isn't a priority and we usually get the cheapest manual car available. so to be able to drive our car (nevermind it is ancient and third-hand, it's ours!) over to europe was a real treat. the euro tunnel has got to be the most amazing engineering feat ever and it's so organised! absolutely seamless, pain-free commute. after this i'm not sure if i can take the eurostar any more. it's quite unreal how in the span of an hour, we'd gone from folkestone, UK to calais, france before driving to bruges, belgium. and the check-in onto the train was a breeze, the crossing took all of 25 minutes and before we knew it, hellooo continent!

easy peasy drive, minus the mister having to switch his mind around. he's driven right-hand car in right-hand drive (singers, UK, australia), left-hand car in left-hand drive (europe, US) but never right-hand car in left-hand drive. we pulled up at the hotel around 11 and the lovely night manager poured us beers and nibbles on the terrace.

(view from our room!)

cheeky deli wales

bright and early the morning after our japanese home-cooking dinner party, the mister had to be in wales for a meeting. now i really should've planned this better because being the novice housewife that i am, cleaning takes forever. add cleaning deep-fryer to the agenda and it's an all-night job. now to be fair, our wonderful guests taught me how to use the dishwasher (lived here for a year, not used the dishwasher once!) and did most of clearing up. so why i was scrubbing till 3am is beyond me. then again, no one said the flat needed a deep clean... so to leave at 5am for wales was a bit of a stretch. ever the supportive wife, i insisted on going along to keep the mister company during the 4+ hour drive. but then it was quite counter-productive because he alleges i fell asleep the moment we left our garage, and only woke in wales. thus defeating the purpose of keeping him awake during the drive. oops. he was going to a tiny town and after some last minute scrambling, i found another tiny town to be dropped off at. managed to wander into their only tea room, plopped myself down for postcards and tea. read a few issues of goodhousekeeping and before i knew it, it was time to head home. 

cue another four hour drive that i apparently slept through again. the mister was unamused.

sunday in dover

to risk sounding like a total ingrate, the weather has been unbearably warm of late and we've spent the last few sundays at one park or another. from hyde park to primrose hill, it started to get a little same-y after a while and wanderlust got the better of us. as we were going to roadtrip to belgium the next weekend, the mister suggested we  recce the channel tunnel route and swing by dover. now we've been going out for six years and i really should've known better than to take him on face value when he said we could visit the dover high street and tea rooms. sold on the idea, despite the 2h drive each way (and an early dinner with friends back in london!) we set off. until we reached dover and i saw the gps had been programmed for the white cliffs. that the mister was determined to climb. with me in tow! never mind i was dressed for a fancy dinner (black silk dress, cropped jacket, pearls, LKbennys...) so looking like the best dressed walkers / clowns, we took the scenic route and soaked in the views of the white cliffs. 

it's times like this that i'm glad we leave the picnic blanket in the car, and a pair of flats for me! what also made all the difference (and stopped me from shoving the mister off the cliff) were the freshest, sweetest fruit we picked up from a roadside cart.  

fear of missing out (i.e. FOMO) had us shifting picnic spots every so often. and at the last spot we settled for before heading back to the capital, we saw this little boat doing infinity signs. and that's when we remembered it was exactly a year since our singapore wedding celebration. "to infinity and beyond" was our wedding tagline and seeing it so randomly a year on was sort of like a wink from the universe ;)

japanese home-cooking

after one too many japanese supper clubs, i'm convinced that i too can muster up sufficient proficiency to cook an elaborate japanese meal. needless to say, that wasn't quite how it turned out. it was a somewhat belated celebration. our dear friend K graduated the MBBS with merit (!!!), R the neurosurgeon was officially welcomed to cool surgeons' club (there's a fancier name but i forget) and A may have just found himself a ladyfriend. all milestones defo worth celebrating and seeing how we've known them since forever it's wonderful they're based in londontown too :) having last had them over around easter, when they were absolute dream guests, it was high time for our next dinner party. plus it's the mister's birthday soon and i thought it'd be nice for him to have a boys night in - where they can eat all the fried food they want and wash it down with good sake.

went a little overboard and attempted a ten course meal. didn't help that i couldn't count and inadvertently scaled up to cook for 9 instead of 5. math fail :(

appetisers 

tori kariage (bite-sized pieces of fried chicken) 

pork gyoza

green beans with sesame dressing

steamed course

chawanmushi

tempura course

prawn tempura

vegetable tempura 

simmered course

beef steaks in home-made terriyaki sauce

soup course

salmon miso hot pot

rice course

garlic fried rice

dessert 

chocolate pound cake with summer berries

genmaicha

 

monkey see, monkey do! 

super thankful it turned out mostly o-k, and for the help along the way. gimme dinner guests who are good around the kitchen any day! although i did feel quite bad making them cook part of their supper. only managed to take a photo of the beans with sesame before it descended into mayhem. what did help was the sparkling sake we began with, before moving on to bubbles. the genmaicha (green tea with roasted rice) at the end was a relief and i love how R described it as "popcorn tea". who cares if it's "peasant tea" in japan - it's the perfect end to a full meal.

(photo credits to R & A, sans the one of beans i managed to take before they arrived)

happy saturday

so it was one of those mornings when the stars aligned for an absolutely perfect day. allow me to warn you that this post might reek of self-indulgent self-satisfaction and smugness, so if you're reading on an empty stomach, please feel free to visit another time. or not at all ;)

one of my favourite things on earth is sleeping without setting the alarm. and it's happened for a good part of my summer break thus far. but to have the mister sleeping without the alarm too - now that's a rarity that only happens on the weekend. okok, so it happens every weekend because we're usually too lazy to make morning weekend plans. but still! 

we must've woken past noon (oh the luxury!) and promptly migrated to the living room. the mister watched man vs food and then very politely requested an american-size omelette. ever the obliging wife (oh he can dream) i figured an omelette was well-within my limited repertoire. popped out to the store to stock up and sneakily bought more veggie than i care to admit to. see, the mister, he doesn't like his greens. goodness knows how i'm fast running out of scheming ways to hide veggie in his food. and there's only so many times i can disguise it as lasagne mince! now while this might put me in good stead for future parenthood (picky eater? been there, dealt with that!) it's proving to be a daily challenge. in fact, i'm even going so far as to host a japanese dinner party next week to experiment with new ways to hide the mister's vegetables (veggie tempura, anyone? and a salmon veggie miso hotpot!) thank goodness the mister hadn't asked for anything more exotic - because a deep pan omelette with mushrooms, spinach, onion, tomato, bacon and cheese is a meal in itself.

and lest you think we are complete slobs, we actually had party plans! hermetic as i enjoy being, very occasionally we do get invited out. it's embarrassing how little we socialise. hey, i'm all for meeting new people and presenting my best self to complete strangers but there's a time and place for every thing. anyhoos our friends just bought and completely renovated a house in angel and we were psyched to visit them in their new digs. nevermind it entailed us trekking across londontown. fuel-ed up by the huge omelette, we took a slow drive by the river.

our friends had done an amazing job and it felt so wonderfully grown up to be in a proper house. it had three storeys and a yard and plenty of space for animals and kids! i got major home envy and here's hoping our starter flat grows up into a respectable home one day :) and being pseudo-social creatures, we got to know a few of their other friends.

we did eventually excuse ourselves to explore the rest of angel and had a lovely evening wandering around the little lanes, stopping for a drink or three at frederick's. had to make it to the japan centre to buy ingredients for our japanese home-cooking but after that, we continued on foot to polpo, after lusting over the flank steak from insta. 

i guess more than the spread and company at D's, the indie shops in angel, the cool cocktails at frederick's, the fun of groceries and yummy-ness of polpo, saturday was perfect because i got to spend it with the mister :)

attempts at domesticity

the novelty of cooking for the mister has yet to wear off and i hope it never will :) work is a concept i'm still trying to get my mind around but for the moment, i'm happy as a clam to cook, clean and domestic it up. in fact, household things are immeasurably easier than a full-time job and there's something incredibly therapeutic about the mundane. and with seasonal ingredients this fresh - i'm all for finding new ways to get the mister to eat his greens. a little slow on the home made pesto bandwagon because it's so accessible at farmers' markets but then my inner control freak took over and i wanted to make pesto exactly to taste (what an oxymoron!)

easy peasy lemon squeezy with a pestle and mortar. a bowl of spinach leaves, a bowl of basil leaves, as much garlic as i want because that's the beauty of marriage and unconditional love, truffle oil, olive oil infused with garlic, celery salt and parmesan. 

and because i'd leftover basil and cheese, guess what went swimming in my tomato soup. also from scratch (on a roll!) with cherry tomatoes, red pepper, onion and apples!