lobster spaghetti

was decidedly decadent by cooking with rose (instead of water) and tomatoes on the vine (instead of canned tomatoes). the fresh pasta soaked up the stock and made for a wonderful umami bomb. the lobster tails were on discount at the fishmonger and the prawns were wonderfully fresh.

oxtail stew

the recipe called for 5h on high-ish heat in the oven. which i couldn't bring my parsimonious self to do. turned oven off after 3h and left it overnight (el cheapo short cut) but should've known better than to cut corners because it wasn't perfect. didn't melt in mouth although it was tender and fell off the bone, ish. it was also the stew that kept giving because it probably lasted almost a week which in retrospect isn't the best of things because i'm incapable of throwing food away and have an embarrassing history of consuming things on the brink or maybe even a little over, to my detriment.

seafood stew

riverside cafe is one of the places we've been meaning to go to for years but just keep forgetting. have run past it once but it wasn't open for lunch yet, and it's been closed over the christmas / new year period. think the set lunch wasn't available till just recently. but it came highly recommended by a dear friend whose good taste i trust wholeheartedly. the next best thing was to go online and see what cooking videos they had, and this one was just asking to be tried. went to bute street fishmonger and got a whole lotta seafood and whipped out the le creuset. been a bit of a one trick pony with shellfish (repeated lobster pasta, alternating by adding squid / prawn) but hey why not.

fish porridge

it doesn't look like the most palatable of meals but porridge is serious comfort food around these parts. felt terrible for parents who were stranded in france when the eurostar got broken. incidentally, cousin and cousin in law were lucky to be on the very last train through the chunnel before subsequent services got cancelled. what a nightmare. poor parents (in their 60s! with lots of bags! and not speaking a word of french!) had to make their way from ulu town to paris then to CDG and very luckily got onto the last 2 seats on the last flight of the day to london. well, not london but luton. instead of meeting brother at st pancras at 4ish, having an early dins then moseying to mine where they were gonna spend the night, they landed at luton about 10ish at night and only got to mine past midnight. was incredulous that they'd not eaten since lunch and were in a fairly buoyant mood despite the delay. of course this happened on a day when i was super busy at work and only bothered to check plans with brother about 5pm, to be fillled in about the day's drama. 

brother came over about 9 for dins round 1 (chicken rice) then re-purposed the rice cooker to do porridge for parents ETA midnight. felt like all i did that evening was cook and clean...

cheater fish tacos

inadvertently found myself in a cooking rut comfort eating or relying on take out, both obviously doing wonders for the waistline ;) and felt like something exotic. not like tacos are very exotic but hey, beggars can't be choosers! stumbled upon what i'd initially written off as a deceptively easy recipe that was indeed simple (love when i'm wrong!) and got going. although making coleslaw was a feat. who'd have thunk one tiny cabbage would expand in the blender and i ended up with boxers of blitzed cabbage. so much so i was giving away coleslaw to friends in the neighbourhood! and the cilantro crema? sounds so fancy but absolute doozy. and because it was (already good) fish it became better with fish sauce aplenty!

team dins

had my clinical group round for dinner recently and realise how i lucked out with this bunch. everyone is nice, and that's often harder to come by than it sounds. i mean there seems to always be one or two people to prudently hold at arm's length, to say 'hmm i'm not so sure about so and so...' but in this happy group of eight, i'd love to work with anyone. it's a good team! and in true all-inclusive, "let's embrace diversity" fashion, did chips and dip (M's secret texan recipe!) that i fell for last thanksgiving, a massive cheese board, veggie (lentil bol) lasagna and lamb lasagna with a side salad. funny how lamb is the least offensive meat! H (pictured!) very kindly brought banana bread fresh from her over - and i'd a tiramisu on the go too. the mister had sponsored the cheese plate (aww!) and i'm a self-confessed feeder. it was so great to watch them try different cheeses and slowly a smile would creep up their faces and their eyes would light up! kept the bubbles going (tesco's finest rose wins hands down, trumping the more upmarket italian proseccos!) and then mulled wine at the end. 

before dins, it was a long day where almost all of us got yelled at by patients, so much so the supervisor had to sit us down at the end and make us talk about happy things, like what we were doing that evening. so important to re-enter earth's atmosphere and get re-oriented, you know? so this mid-rotation gathering was a much welcome distraction. and i've only experienced this with medics but they did the dishes and cleaned up the flat before leaving. felt like a terrible host but they insisted, and we all ended up squeezed in my tiny kitchen as someone washed, someone dried and the rest of us provided moral support.

seafood haul

one of the biggest draws of living in london is the abundance of fresh produce on our doorsteps. while i'm partial to japanese uni and its preparation and presentation, their european counterparts weren't all that bad. lots of work though for what felt like minimal reward, but it was inexpensive from the local fishmonger. who is so techy he sends out texts / email alerts whenever he's got special stuff for sale. was also a little indulgent and treated ourselves to a lobster that was soon turned into bisque. tell a lie, the turning into bisque wasn't quite so fast as it was shaping up to be a social weekend with friends in town and dinner en masse. i had the heebie jeebies listening to mr. lobster scamper around in our spare sink, and felt perhaps he deserved some salt water in the bath tub to while out his last couple of hours. but that's just me being over-sentimental. and soon enough the scampering stopped :( i was just about to get emotionally attached! over dinner, told friends how we had a soon-to-be dead lobster running around the flat and we engaged in heated debated about the most humane way to put it out of its misery (spike through the head or pot o' boiling water, the jury is still out...) and we also talked about the best way to prepare sea urchin. one of my biggest regrets to date is not having had sea urchin pasta at lo scoglio, hands down my best meal of 2014 (even without said pasta) because the sea was choppy that morning and the fishing boats didn't return with uni. which means my new life mission is to return to the coast to finally taste their sea urchin pasta.

also scored some monster scallops that joined the sea urchin for pasta

and the short-lived lobster that was completely pulverised into bisque.

chicken dinner

lazy person's meal that lasts a week, given how i've a bad habit of eating out and forgetting i've half a neglected chicken in the fridge. leftovers are so yummy. and the skillet is really the best thing since sliced bread. something i've been working on this year is more home-cooking and less takeaway, a challenge seeing how i live next to a chinese take out and am the lucky beneficiary of a 20% frequent flier discount. which makes everything more affordable, and somewhat reduces the guilt i feel about paying for something i could easily re-create if i weren't so lazy. ah who am i kidding. but it's all about making healthy choices and lifestyle modification if i want to sustain the health burst.

fortunate to be in a borough with green grocers aplenty and fresh produce around every corner. love the weekend markets for the fresh seafood, massive scallops and lobster and sea urchin excite me :) squid and clams too.

delicious nothing-ness

life's full and busy and moves so very fast some times it's lovely to get some down time, to opt out and sit around with my feet up. know bang on about being young, footloose and fancy free and i suppose i'm coming round to the thought that hey, i could just as easily be not-so-young, footloose and fancy free. which is comforting seeing how i've so many issues with age-ing and the annual wobble comes on the clock around my birthday.  seeing how my birthday is long past, this year i was grateful to be known and to have friends fully cognisant of my birthday aversion and yet descend on my doorstep with a pile of (ok, 10) apple pies and a rather lethal trick candle.

it's going to be a quiet easter break and relishing the stretch of white time that lies ahead. am eschewing planning anything and resisting the urge to pack it full, but open to spontaneous thingums that jump out. didn't leave the flat yesterday and finally got round to sorting it out. when one's life fits into a one-bedder, less is more. had a delightful house guest for the last week (little inflatable air mattress has been worth every penny!) and who left the place spotless but it's just laundry and life that needs to get done. weather's turning warm so have put the winter wear into storage and here's hoping london's cruel climate doesn't play a trick and send me scrambling for the woolies next week! needed 'office lady' clinical clothes for the next placement, then hopefully it's summer wardrobe all the way for next few weeks in the lab (look ma, test tubes!!!) and then it's back to singers to finally get my doctorlawyer on. psyched to be with an NGO i believe in and have supported for the last few years where i can get hands dirty in both the medical and legal clinics they run. that's the plan, anyway. goodness knows i much rather be on some boozy elective on paradise isle where the biggest problem is jellyfish stings... but again it's about choices, about being responsible and a good steward of heavenly gifts, according to my mother anyway. meh. don't feel particularly gifted.

bracing myself for final year but realise the danger of being caught up in the future. constantly reminded to be present, to savour the moment. there's been a bit of rolling with the punches the last few weeks, and needing to land on one's feet but nothing insurmountable. grateful for my coterie of girlfriends on the other end of the phone who are merely one desperate text message away. and for friends who make an effort to reach out and are much kinder to me than i'll ever be. in truth, it's all first world problems and tiny issues i manage to dramatise and make mountains out of. again, grateful for friends who stifle their guffaws and reassure me that my phone going for a swim isn't the worst thing in the world, despite not being revived by unholy amounts of holy water nor praying for an easter miracle. 

as someone who needs to have her life mapped out, this lack of visibility is semi-destablising. actually, tell a lie. i do know where i'll be all the way till june 2016. but then it's up in the air. the mister reminds me >12months visibility is already pretty good but i like to know where i'm going. although the best laid plans, mice and men etc... there's lots going on that i'm happy about and having just extricated myself from the self-imposed shackles of domestic drudgery, coming out on the other side appreciative of a spouse and house to care for is something i didn't think i was capable of years ago. but people change. it's no secret that i want to have it all. maybe we'll get there. 

feb, let's goo!

it's been one of those gloriously sunny stretches and much as i'm a shade-seeker, the soft winter sun has got to be a favourite. finished morning clinic on time and had a little break so took the scenic route home for a cheeky lunch. was a good week, weekend and i'm excited for the week ahead.

it feels so grown up to be living on my own in london, having friends pop over at the drop of a hat and deciding to throw fabulous dinner parties (ok, maybe only fabulous in my head!) at whim. M came round for cake and coffee saturday afternoon and we'd a lovely girly catch up for hours and hours. time flew and as i've said before, not watching the clock over deep meaningful conversation is one of life's biggest joys. phones away, 100% present and engaged / engaging. once she left (boo!) it was time to get down to bizniz of cooking for visiting family. 

there's nothing i enjoy more than getting busy in the kitchen (any excuse, really!) and even more when it's for the folks nearest and dearest to me. i know exactly what they like / dislike and can plan things to the tiniest detail (happy-OCD alert). simple meal, freshest ingredients, no added salt no oil but still tasty, if you get what i mean. turns out i'm the only one who likes cod but substituted with salmon for the rest, silky chicken porridge, massive garden salad (bit east meets west there!) mash with spring veg and a fresh fruit in lieu of pudding. super azn but reminds me of home. in fact, when R came round for dinner a couple of weeks ago, he commented that he'd not had fresh cut, skinned and sliced fruit for pudding since singers. discovered a taste for almond milk lattes (soooo good!) and got the rest hooked too. this is after freaking out at GM soy and phyto-oestrogens. sigh. bring me back to asia where the soy is genuine :(

and quite accidentally, i might be hosting dinner for six (eeks, dining table fits four comfortably!) because my dear friend T is in town and being the charming, popular personality has a big-ish group of friends to catch up with. the more the merrier? so if they all land on my doorstep tomorrow, it'll be a first for me. the mister expressed surprise that i'd invited T and (essentially) strangers for dinner but this has been a funny year where i'm trying to do things that scare me. the first scary thing i did was drive home from oxford street and parallel park all by myself. so maybe this is the next step for my inner misanthrope. am a self-confessed one-trick pony when it comes to home entertaining and there are a couple of stalwarts i can reliably assemble / produce on demand i.e. massive salad, good roast chicken, home made from scratch lasagne, cheese platter and tiramisu / brownies with ice cream. when in doubt, always have a couple of frozen pizzas handy with posh supplements to up the ante, and bottles of good wine that makes guests more forgiving of potential kitchen disasters. 

on the same hostessing note, have psyching up to help the mister host a massive 'do next week and a little nervous but hey, adding to my wifely repertoire (cook, entertain, clean + doctorlawyering) is also on the 'to do' list of perpetual self-improvement. relieved it's going to be at hutong (so there's no cooking nor cleaning to be done) and trying not to be intimidated / overwhelmed by the guest list. also hope they're quickly inebriated so they won't remember when i stick my foot in it. almost eight years together has taught him that with sufficient notice and mental preparation, i'm more or less game for most things so he's been cheeky to sound me out waay in advance knowing i'll come round to the idea in due time.

went on a tiny expedition to richmond. not been in winter but lucked out with the weather and our usual haunt was practically preening in the sunshine. yummy lunch followed by slow walk along the thames in a vain attempt to walk some of it off. would've liked to walk to kew had we time and energy but alas the siren song of the shops was louder than my plea for healthy living.

(photo credits to the papa-razzi)

lazy sunday

sitting surrounded by loads of drying laundry. have the stand out, stand #2 i inherited from a friend who's since left london, the duvet spread across two dining table chairs and the sheet across the arm chair and ottoman. it's quite a sight and being the organised housewife i am, i only put the laundry on in the evening, and am too parsimonious to use the dryer. no prizes for guessing who's sleeping on an unmade bed tonight (because i'm also too parsimonious for a second set of sheets). but it's been a lovely weekend spent predominantly at home. also, i drove home from oxford street and parallel parked on the very first try all by myself this afternoon. might not sound like much but they're both firsts for me and i'm still on cloud9. simple things for simple folks...

had leftovers from last night's thai take out for dinner while watching friends. how retro! i cannot believe there's a whole generation of kiddies who don't know what friends is. possibly because they're younger than ben (ross' son, for the uninitiated) but omg, boggles the mind. then a nice long bath x two (sorry, earth!) because i'm so inspired by garance and her moroccan mitt.was listening to a talk while in the bath and reminded how much i miss my home church in singers. have spotty attendance at a church near home here but it's not the same. vicar was preaching about god's favour (target audience: people completely unfamiliar with the concept) and i got a bit mean and started wondering why they're 15 years behind everyone else. bad jo.

friends have been kind and supportive re: most recent post and i'm constantly floored when people reach out. being a medical student is a funny thing where i feel underfoot and in the way most of the time, and woefully inadequate for the rest of it. there's no therapeutic benefit for the patient who's so graciously let me sit in on consultations and i dislike the almost voyeuristic quality being an observer inherently brings. yesyes, appreciate it's all about training the next generation and passing on the baton but i wish i could do more than dispense tissues at the first sign of a wobbly chin and change the paper cover on the examination couch. on a more positive note, it's nice to have no responsibilities, to be learning for learning's sake and to be thinking beyond finals because maybe this is what i want to do when i grow up. there was a slightly awkward moment at the end of clinic last week when the absolutely wonderful registrar i've been shadowing may have been asked on a date by another reg. it wasn't the smoothest of pick ups and my dating radar is non-existent but thought to be safe and bid a hasty retreat. darn. my social skills are so lacking that it's embarrassing!

thoughts on jan 2015

typing this on the first day of feb. can't believe january's whizzed by and we're into the second month of 2015. things have been busy in the real world, hence the relative silence on this front. but it's not just that. part of me feels increasingly reticent and hermetic with time, as if there's a creeping aversion to social media and being "out there" about what i get up to. life's been pretty much the same, more social in some ways even, but i'm less inclined to shout it from the rooftops. 

lots has happened this month, most of it thought-provoking, and i'm trying to figure out what motivates me. uninteresting existential questions and the like. not quite searching but i think most of one's 20s (or life?) is spent refining ideas, cultivating new ones and generally working towards being a better version of oneself. in theory, anyway. 

been incredibly fortunate to be in clinics at a centre of excellence and relishing every moment. steep learning curve and everyone's a superstar so i leave work feeling 2cm tall most days. humbling and awe-inspiring at the same time and so very excited to be on the cutting edge of medicine, learning from some of the world's best. did take a while to find my feet and found the first week particularly tough but hey, comes with the territory and glad to be on the other side now. also, being a 15min stroll to work is literally the best thing ever. not counting on the stars aligning as such again so treasuring every extra minute of zzz. was a little overambitious and ended up squeezing what was meant to be a six week audit into a week and a half so there were a couple of 12+h days (oh the shame!) that are thankfully behind me, or so i hope! 12h should be nothing but i'm totes weaksauce after leaving gainful employment in 2011.

on the social front it's been a carousel of friends in town and been lucky to have time with dear friends i don't see as often as i'd like. what's fun has also been doing different things with guests so as not to bore myself with a tried-and-tested "jo's top 5 things to do in london". keeping things fresh and mixing them up just means sort of dragging my ever-obliging visitors into my life, doing what i normally do i.e. weekends in the country, brunch in the 'hood, coffee runs to the local bakery, sunday dimsum lunches, gastropub adventures with foodie friends, home-cooked dinners at home, exploring new korean restaurants in the city etc. so, really, nothing particularly special or touristy. there's something to be said about finding joy in the ordinary and i've been quite particular about not going out of my way to entertain people. selfish as it sounds, life goes on and they're welcome to come along. 

a friend commented that the company i keep is all hyper-ambitious, over-achieving types and i got a bit self-conscious. don't necessarily agree but admit it might seem like that? like to think i value capability and potential, not particularly current networth in fact, i'm a big believer in undervalued sorts. yet i'm privileged to know some truly interesting people with fascinating minds, the sort i can just sit and listen to and feel smarter for at the end of it. love an exchange of ideas and getting different perspectives. A was telling me about criminal defence she practices at the hague, J about clerking for a federal judge and their frequent trips to hold court in papua new guinea, M about her organic dog food business and breeding winning racehorses, Y about auctioning off a diplomat's art collection in amsterdam, S for booking the hand&flower a year in advance and letting me free-ride on his reso, X about the ebola vaccine trials she's working on, E about writing foreign worker policy in singers and R likening neurosurgery to plumbing. having left the legal industry, i'm more than happy to live vicariously through friends in practice whom i met in stockholm on exchange and who've gone on to do amazingly well as lawyers, and friends who've similarly left practice for more attractive ventures. i suppose everyone picks their path and their battle. 

there's also been a fair bit of event planning / hosting to be done for which i grudgingly drag my feet along. there's a 'do for 100 at a chinese resto i like but i forget how much i enjoy negotiating and doing deals. feel incredibly accomplished to have substituted better dishes at no extra cost, and locked in four bottles of wine per table at a steal, with fixed low prices for cocktails. maybe it's an azn thing but i get such a kick out of feeling i've created / added value. and it's a bit embarrassing but i also like cultivating relationships and reaping the benefit in VIP discount and queue-jumping privileges. 20min wait for table of seven when i've waited 90min for table of three previously... don't mind if i do! doing another dinner at hutong, this time for 30, and again it's game face on and charm offensive. may be getting the wheels rolling for a nus*lawsch reunion in london too! feel the point of garnering goodwill is to pass it on, and who better to benefit than dear alma mater.

what's been more restorative, however, is having friends over for dinner. gotten into a little groove and taken to cooking for one or two friends at a time. not a fan of big groups unless absolutely necessary and it's great to do a simple but quality meal over a bottle of wine. far from a confident cook but friends have been forgiving, which's always an attractive trait. what was super nice today was that friends who were in the neighbourhood stopped by for coffee, which turned into cheese and charcuterie with bubbly rose. it's wonderful to be known and to have friends comfortable enough to come over spontaneously. and after they left, my local thai decided to be snarky so got take out and had newly-pregnant friends home for dinner instead. not to be vindictive but it's more comfortable at home, with limitless wine and singha beer plus friends stayed past midnight which's usually the sign of a good night, especially with mama-to-be's new 8pm bedime.

then when i'm social-ed out, bid a hasty retreat into my little cave and stay there for a stretch before venturing out again. more ebb and flow of interest and energy than bipolar (i hope!) and truly enjoying this time of responsibility-free self-indulgence. work's contained to the week, weekends wide open for 12h sleeps or as action-packed as i'm wanting them to be. appreciate things won't always be like this and grateful to be in a good place now. can't ask for more!

delaying tactics

it's been cold so i've been cooking up a storm, and probably being insufferable by sticking the photos on facebook. there's a monastic quality to revision and much as i'd love to moan about having to get. work. done. it's not your burden to bear. it's no secret that i thoroughly enjoy having the luxury of time to go to the store, choose fresh seasonal produce and then pull them together into a wholesome, home-cooked meal. of course, this is just me on a good day. not pictured is the whole apple pie struggling under the weight of vanilla bean ice cream that was dinner one night, or 500ml of waitrose's best custard that was supper on another. hey, gotta let go a little too! meal planning and food preparation is a creative outlet especially welcomed when i really don't want to read about the mechanics of nephrotoxic pharmaceuticals. the mister jokes that the meals take 30min to prepare and just as long to plate. he's right about the former but i feel plating is as important to make it look presentable, all the better to photograph it with, my dear.

prawn masala above, herb crusted chicken on tomatoes with capers below

fish goujons on garlic smashed mashed potato with courgette ribbons and home made tartar sauce

pork neck steaks on roasted fennel with candied oranges

done with exams tomorrow and it's going to be a manic few days! can't wait :)

winter warmers

of the non-alcoholic sort. i know i moan on and on about the weather and how it's cold. actually, i like the cold and have relatively decent cold tolerance (read: blubber), braving the single digit weather with no coat on nights on (haha) and generally not having to layer up too dramatically when i head out. but as with most things, exams being at the top of the list, i suddenly morph into the most enthusiastic of cooks when it's time to exhaust my delaying tactics. procrastination is a favourite past-time and when it results in a full belly, all the better. this photo also makes me realise i need to work on portion sizes because half of that (above) should more than suffice for dinner. 

ironically, this procrastination meal took all of fifteen minutes to prepare (sigh, can't even waste time if i tried...) and was accidentally efficient. was trying to be exotic with bulgar wheat and pork steaks take all of 3min on each side (then allowed to rest and tenderise on a plate covered with aluminium foil). braised apple and celery, stirred spring onions and dill through the fluffed up bulgar wheat and drizzled a tart dijon dressing on top of everything. 

tell a lie, while this was meant to be a winter warmer of the non-alcoholic sort, may have paired it with a sweet little gerwutz that went down waaay too easily. and orange lindt and peppermint tea at the end. having been brought up in a home that took dinner quite seriously, my inner child rebels by watching telly during dinner. know i shouldn't but ahhhh guilty pleasure. just like maccas.

housewife-dom

not the prettiest of pictures but sums up what i've been doing the past week or so. my defunct instagram bio reads "undercover housewife" which i suppose holds a grain of truth given that it's essentially what i am when i'm not at uni. friends are often surprised that i cook and clean on repeat while the mister, bless him, doesn't. haven't entirely worked out gender roles in my mind but this arrangement works and i like being able to manage a house (ok, one bedder) on top of everything else. not like there are kids or extended family in the fray, so it's really not all that impressive. how hard can looking after myself and another independent adult be? MIL was up last month and remarked how quickly i hung up clothes. back-handed compliment, much? suppose there are worse things to be known for...

i concede that husband is convincing

one of the downsides to living in london is that our home becomes a default storage facility for family and friends who buy things online. then again, it's probably our fault for offering in the first place. but we're such big softies when it comes to the people we hold dear that i'm more than happy to lug home health supplements and milk powder and baby clothes (for other people's babies). doesn't hurt that it's the mister who does the heavy lifting... 

so recently we'd a tiny h&b kerfuffle. to spare you the mundane details, i wanted the mister to put an order through because being the mature, responsible adult i am, i managed to temporarily misplace my wallet and cards. of course the website acts up and only part of the order goes through. throw in fast expiring vouchers and having to pay for shipping (i'm such a sucker for marketing ploys), there i was getting myself into a right tizzy. so i send the mister a terse whatsapp telling him to please fix it.

within minutes he's got it sorted. and we end up in a better position (1. free shipping on two orders, neither of which qualify for free shipping... 2. use of vouchers from two separate accounts despite only making the purchases from one account) than if the order had gone through correctly the first time. while i wonder about my new year resolution to remain calm and serene despite the circumstances (haha, as if!) i'm ever grateful for a +1 who magically makes my tiny, insignificant problems go away.

marathon meals

one of life's greatest pleasures is marathon meals with fascinating company. this probably all started during one of our first dates. the mister picked a simple family-run restaurant and as frugal students, we picked the best value two-course set. and somehow found ourselves there for almost four hours, as the tables next to us were turned over about three times. if i'd to pick a moment, it was probably during that lunch that i fell in love with his brain. i'm easily bored (as is he!) but this lovely boy kept me in rapt wonder the whole afternoon. having fallen once and for all for the mister, it's not done to go around falling for other people. but we've been very fortunate to have enjoyed a few more long meals since.

the longest dinner we've ever attended lasted all of 9h. we arrived at 6pm, and rolled out semi-comatose at 3am. that's swedish hospitality for you. more recently, we've had two separate 5h lunches with dear friends. one at the fat duck in bray, and another at the berkeley. and last night, i'd an (almost!) 5h dinner, on a school night no less, with new-found friends. to me, family is paramount, and i'll gladly spend any length of time with them. but when we're so far from home, the friends we have here are the next best thing. 

i used to think that frequency was a barometer of friendship, but am slowly realising it's trumped by duration. frequency is a luxury few of us can afford, with more frequent contact being circumstantial any way. but when you willingly put away the iPhones and stop watching the clock, you kind of transcend into meta-hang out. perhaps i best clarify that these gatherings are small. i mean, who hasn't gone for a 5h dinner party (aren't most wedding 'dos 3-4h already?) what i'm talking about is double date-esque. it's pretty darn amazing to have all the time in the world to meet for lunch on sunday, and only realise at 6pm that the dinner service is about to start. but couple is question are expecting a little one so it's probably the last time we'll get them for that long in years. boo :(

or take last night! i'd two absolutely gorgeous friends round for dinner at 7ish. T's lovely lady, who initially was going to pick him up, joined us for tea and chocolate at the end. the next thing we knew, it was midnight! these chance meetings are pure serendipity and i know i go on and on about fellow grads but T and C are such intriguing characters i can't resist telling you a bit more. both have biological science backgrounds, with T doing a research job and C casually going on tour to afgh* before we all made our way to medical school. T comes from a dairy farming family and we were swapping stories about mastitis (his cows, my rottie) with C chipping in about how he got a chick to imprint onto a tennis ball. having grown up in a relatively cookie cutter environment, i'm always thrilled to meet people with diverse life experiences. all these little anecdotes make for engaging dinner conversation, with T telling us about life in the trenches (as a junior doctor) and C about life in trenches of the literal sort. i appreciate the candour, how it's no holds barred (albeit appropriate) expletive flinging, i.e things you've got to see yourself to truly understand. plus they had me in stitches all night, discussing the best possible escape route from alcatraz, among other things! and it's nice how everyone is in committed relationships, talking about their partners and drinking grown up wine. it's very refined ;) 

promised them an asian meal (it's still cny!) and did egg noodles with pork dumplings and chives to start, followed by chicken rice and a huge salad. for dessert we'd lychee konnyaku (how retro!), sesame and peanut mochi and pineapple tarts courtesy of my best friend's mother.  paired the noodles with a pinot grigio, the mains with a yummy alsace and kusmi grapefruit tea with the sweets for something sharp to cut through the saccharine. absolutely enjoyable evening although i'm semi-paying the price for a "late night" by being more groggy than usual today. but hit the jackpot this afternoon with teaching by the amazing prof who's cured type ii diabetes, and single-handedly preserved the eyesight of multitude of diabetics in the north-east. what a hero.

old habits die hard, and a new routine.

clinicals have been amazing. which was a huge relief because on the off chance i realised i didn't like them, then, um, well i'd be in deep trouble, to say the very least! it's slowly sinking in that "omg this is what i get to do for the rest of my life!" and i'm beyond thrilled that it's unlikely i'll ever have a "desk job" again. offices? bah! give me hospital corridors and their sweetly sick disinfectant smell any day. but back to old habits... was at a GP surgery for my primary care placement last week and got a little too involved in their as-yet-incomplete partnership agreement than i should've. guess it's hard to deny that the legal element of running a business still intrigues me, and as a fellow grad medic (she did english as a first degree!), the GP was kind to indulge my little legal gander. but it's in the small things, like picking up discrepancies during case presentations and wishing for more detail than actually provided, that remind me how i haven't completely let go of law. fingers crossed i never do, even though all i seem to be doing now is firing off angry letters to all manner of consumer agencies, and informally advising friends of friends on housing disputes. and the mister, bless him, is constantly tickling what's left of my law brain by telling me about work. we talk about transferable skills all the time, and it appears the only transferable skill so far is more transferable skepticism ('never trust your client' becomes 'never trust your patient') which is probably terribly unfair to the little old dears who volunteer to be case studies. so there, a little medicolegal musing that better lives up to the blog title than, say, a recap of our weekend.

and regarding the new routine - there's something truly restorative about having good girlfriends round for dinner. grateful to have an amazing co-host in C, and we happen to like the same people (haha) which is always a plus. simple home-cooking, made from scratch with everything organic and free-range. i try not to be an organic snob but feel strongly about eating as well as my pocket allows. and also eating less but better. there's little rationalisation but i rather have non-animal protein (lentils, soy etc) than eat mistreated livestock. i usually do a soup, salad, main and dessert. it's a great excuse to spend the evening experimenting with dishes the mister and i can't finish on our own. when we were on honeymoon in the galapagos, we met a yummy mummy who'd been married for twenty years. she and her husb have a little dinner group comprising four couples that has more or less stayed the same since they were fresh graduates. they'd meet monthly with the host cooking the main and delegating the other items on the menu to the guests. sounded like a great tradition and i wish the mister and i knew three couples we could do that with. however, pathetic as it sounds, our dining table seats a grand total of four people. so maybe we'll start that when our house grows up ;) for now, completely happy having one to two guests over at a time, catching and keeping up with dear friends.

waste not, want not

as you might've guessed by now, the mister is a man of many talents. and when it comes to cooking, we're complete opposites. i'll pore over a recipe, try to be as precise as humanly possible (nothing comes between me and my digital scales originally meant for gold but alas i've none to measure!) and get a little more worked up than necessary when things don't go exactly according to plan. control freak? maybe a little. which begs the question why i even cook to decompress. 

in fact, we're having my girlfriends round on two consecutive mondays (these busy busy junior doctors, can never pin them down to the same day!) and i've already draw up a plan of action. it's supposed to be simple home-cooked, and it is, but i enjoy the planning and subconscious stewing aspect. the mister, however, is a more just wing it kind of cook. in fact, this is the man who sprouted the most beautiful wedding vows on the spur of the moment while i had spent most of the night before memorising mine. no surprises there... the jury's still out as to who's the better cook. i mean, hey, give our friends some credit. picking sides would be the surest way to invitation revocation! 

i often concede defeat, most times far from graciously, and then the mister goes and cooks something so divine he makes me eat my words. i'm constantly amazed by how he's able to turn the simplest ingredients into something so wholesome and hearty. there's roast chicken, and there's roast chicken - a roast so good you lick the bones clean before using the carcass for stock. and the mister has a midas touch that i'm openly envious of, and he turns almost everything into culinary gold.

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.