Today I notice I am a ridiculer. I thought I was funny but thinking back, I sounded like a complete pessimist. Not good. 

I need to remind myself to always think carefully before speaking, and to find a balance between pessimism and optimism. 

On an unrelated note... 

... drove into the city to pick this up today. I am obsessed - Lindberg Mette. It sits so well on my flat Asian nose 😆

I've wanted to own a pair of clear acetate frames, and this was love at first sight. Not exactly like what I had in mind, but even better. I was contemplating between matte or shiny titanium rim. Shiny won the vote. My previous frame was matte, so I figured I could use a change?

Prescription increased a wee bit after a year; it's now -4.00 and -5.00 😩 I guess laser will have to wait. 

Today I noticed I should really care less.

Banana Muffins

Overripe bananas, that's why.

I always have this habit of buying too many fruits and forgetting to eat them before they go bad.

This recipe is so easy and straight-forward that it will stick with me for a while. The one change I've made was using wholemeal Spelt flour instead of white whole wheat flour. I was at the grocer, and the only wholemeal variety they had in stock was Spelt. I wouldn't know how different it would have tasted if I have used white whole wheat flour but wholemeal Spelt is good enough for me. The muffins have an almost bread-like crumb/texture instead of cake-like, which a lot of typical banana bread/muffins tend to have. I'm not sure if it's because of the Spelt or the addition of oatmeal. Either way, I think it's a pleasant texture. 

I keep the baked muffins in the freezer. To reheat, nuke them for 30-40 seconds on high, and they're as good as freshly baked. 

The cake stand is adorable, I know. A good friend with brilliant taste has gifted it to me for one of my birthdays, so I have no idea where it's from.

Kimchi 김치

Made some kimchi last week because you know, Korean drama. Me and my cravings. *shrugs* Inexplicable.

By the way, Black 블랙 is hands down the best Kdrama I've watched. It's so good that I am rewatching it. The finale was quite dreadful, but every episode leading up to the second last one was phenomenal. Mind-blowing. (I have to admit Song Seung Heon just made the show that much better GOSH how can someone be that attractive ugh)

Ok back to the point of this post.

I followed a recipe from my favourite Korean Youtuber, Maangchi who creates the most adorable Korean cooking videos. 

The process was not challenging, only laborious. I'm glad I chose to make the full recipe yielding over 3kg of kimchi because I don't think I'll be doing this again. To clarify, it tasted good, but I don't need to eat kimchi every day to want to have this in my fridge all the time. I do like the fact that they can keep for a few months. I have had more than a few occasions of not having kimchi in hand (or not having enough!) to make a dish I wanted to cook, e.g. kimchi fried rice, kimchi jjigae, kimchi pancake etc. so this will come in handy. I have a feeling I'll be 'kimchi-ed out' once I'm done with all 3kg haha.

I was surprised to know there was not a drop of acid (lemon juice, vinegar) in this recipe at all. Surprised because I've always found kimchi to be slightly tart? I learned later that the sour taste is from lactic acid, a byproduct of the fermentation which happens as the kimchi soaks in its own 'juice'. The longer the kimchi stays in the fridge, the sourer it becomes.

Which made me think, hang on. Isn't this the same as milk going bad??!

Thankfully not. Milk is not salty, but kimchi is. Lots of salt is used in kimchi to create an environment where good bacteria thrive, and harmful bacteria don't. 

The Shape of Water

Today I noticed what a good film does to me - it keeps my eyes glued to the screen. Coming from Guillermo del Toro I did not expect less, but at the same time did not know what to expect either. This review is so tastefully written, I hope it will stay on the internet forever.

The movie takes its name from Plato's idea that in its purest form, water takes the shape of an icosahedron, a 20-sided polyhedron, evoking the idea that beauty, and humanity, has many faces.

On a completely unrelated note, this week I had the opportunity to try bubble tea from 2 different stores.

CoCo - Creamy and rich, excellent pearl texture. Love at first taste. I remember seeing many locals holding CoCo drinks in their hands when I was in Taipei. I was disappointed I didn't get a chance to try it while I was there but looks like I am not missing out. 

Tastea - Pleasantly milky with subtle tea flavour. Pearls texture are on the chewier side. 

Here is my personal ranking for pearl milk tea available in Melbourne so far:

1. CoCo

2. Tastea

3. Chatime

Today I noticed I'm a couch potato. Currently hooked on two Korean dramas: Black and A Korean Odyssey.

Day 1

Today I noticed I could go on a day without food for over 12 hours with just one wave of hunger. Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer’s The Fast Diet explains the science behind 5:2 intermittent fasting diet.  There is a mix of anecdotal and scientific evidence explaining how and why it works. The human body is designed to endure famine hence the saying. However, most of us seem to be eating most of the time. We eat when we are hungry, we eat when we confuse hunger with thirst, we eat when we are happy, sad, stressed or depressed. Which is not wrong, but the book further explains how feeding ourselves so frequently affects the health and also the mind. 

Malaysian Chee Cheong Fun

I am in a happy place. 

A few days ago I was craving for chee cheong fun. Searching for a restaurant which serves it was frustrating. They are either really far away, or they are mostly Hong Kong style which was not what I wanted. 

When I was little, back in our Batu Belah home I remember a truck which would drive through the alley at the back of our house. This middle-aged man sells chee cheong fun and yong tau foo from his truck. We would tell him which yong tau foo and how many pieces of cheong fun we wanted, then watch him deftly cut them into pieces with his scissors and put together the sauces for us in a plastic bag. 

I remember there was a restaurant near home we used to frequent serving the most delicate and silky cheong fun topped with crispy baby shrimp skins - it was one of my favourite places to eat. Their yong tau foo is served either in clear broth or deep fried. Everything was so simple yet done so well.

I also remember a time when mom would buy chee cheong fun home for our breakfast every Sunday morning until my siblings and I got so sick of eating it.

When I made this I did not expect much which explains why I was pleasantly surprised by how close it actually tasted to what I can remember. I usually don't blog about recipes but this one really did hit the spot. 

Recipe slightly adapted from 3 Hungry Tummies. 

This recipe requires shrimp paste 蝦醬 which is neither belacan nor the grey-ish purple stuff by Lee Kum Kee. It's that black shiny liquid served on your soup spoon when you order assam laksa from places which does assam laksa right. I got mine from Minh Phat in Richmond. I also got my ready-made cheong fun from Minh Phat - they usually have Vietnamese words on its packaging which will also say 'rolled noodles'.

2kg Cheong fun/Rice noodle rolls

Shallot oil

Fried shallots

Toasted sesame seeds

Shrimp paste sauce 

125g shrimp paste 

100ml water

1 1/4tbsp sugar

1/2tbsp corn syrup or liquid maltose

Optional: 2tbsp peanut butter (crunchy or smooth will work just fine)

Sweet sauce

100g hoisin sauce

50ml water

1tbsp sugar

1tbsp oil

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2tbsp corn syrup or liquid maltose

Chilli sauce

50g Sriracha or Cap Ibu jari/Jempol chilli sauce

1 tbsp shallot oil

50g water or enough to dilute chilli sauce

1. Shrimp paste sauce - simmer everything except for corn syrup for a minute or two, remove from heat and add corn syrup.
2. Sweet sauce - simmer everything except for corn syrup for a minute or two, remove from heat and add corn syrup.
3. Chilli sauce - simmer everything for a minute or two, adjust the amount of water accordingly. The consistency should be similar to the shrimp paste and sweet sauce.
4. Steam the noodles and cut them into 3-4cm pieces with kitchen scissors.
5. Drizzle sauces onto the noodles - roughly 1/2tbsp of sweet sauce, 1tbsp of shrimp paste sauce per 110g or 1 piece of noodle. Add chilli sauce to taste. (Noodles should be well coated with sauce but not drenched in a pool of sauce)
6. Drizzle with shallot oil and top with fried shallots and sesame seeds.

Empathy

Today I noticed how I feel when a client whom I thought was going to be a pain in the behind, could not stop raving about me and insisted on passing on her good feedback not only to my manager but to the company's head office as well. I noticed how sometimes people can come across blunt in an impolite manner but really, they are just anxious and the apprehension got the best of them. I feel slightly awful that I was quick to judge. Note to self - stop judging, start empathizing.

Opposites attract

Today I noticed I have a retro taste when it comes to interiors and/or furniture. Wk, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. It is definitely a challenge when it comes to making decisions on which furniture to get. 

Baked Sweet Potato

Today I noticed that the addictive umami flavour in potato chips are not that difficult to recreate without the addition of MSG. It all happened when I tried making this baked sweet potato recipe. I did not have the seasoning she used so I went ahead and made one. According to the brand's website, it has garlic, onion, sea salt, and white and black sesame seeds. I used garlic and onion powder but looking closely at the picture of the Trader Joe's seasoning, I think it might have been dried garlic granules and onion flakes. The challenge was knowing the ratio - I eyeballed mine, adjusting the amount of salt by taste. Next time I'll cut my potatoes in halves instead of quarters so that the seasoning and garlic can sit better. Most of my minced garlic ended up on the tray rather than the taters. They also got crisped by the oil, which was actually super tasty.

guilty pleasure

Today I noticed how much pizza I am capable of gorging when I’m hungry, regrets ensue of course. 

Baby steps to taking better photographs

Today I noticed how photography is not about the gear. This video really nailed it. I also spent my whole day watching different videos on Skillshare and yet I still feel like I learned nothing. If there is any knowledge I have managed to gather from the videos, it's lighting and composition. I feel like these two go hand in hand. Not that I understood lighting nor composition (I wish!), I just know that if these two elements are off, the photo is basically rubbish. I'll attempt to practice by shooting daily, starting with simple objects I can find in the house. Today's subject is pineapple cakes which I got from Taiwan. Just like Malaysia's pineapple jam tarts and Indonesia's Nastar cookies, it's a pastry with pineapple jam filling. I made use of this slab of stone which was sitting in the corner of our living room collecting dust. I threw in the "tea towel" (it is actually a table runner, I don't have any tea towel) for contrast because everything was looking monochromatic, cold and hard. I noticed how little 'props' I have to compose a decent photo, or perhaps eventually I will get better at making use of what I can find around the house.

Bubble tea

Today I noticed how Taiwan has changed my appreciation for bubble tea. I also noticed that there are possibly no bubble tea outlets in Melbourne which will ever come close to the quality of Taiwan's. I remember having my very first bubble milk tea,  it was from Ten Ren in Melbourne. I don't have a strong recollection of their drinks, probably because they were not very good. Which is ironic because Ten Ren is from Taiwan. The second time I had bubble tea was from a chain called Easyway in Sydney, circa 2009? I remember liking it and being ecstatic when they opened their first store here in Melbourne. Back in those days, there were not many bubble tea chains around. Chatime came into the scene a couple of years later, both in Malaysia and Melbourne. For a while, I was addicted to their Roasted Milk Tea with Grass Jelly topping. On my first day in Taipei I stumbled upon Ten Ren which immediately evoked nostalgia. I bought myself a drink, it was my 'dessert' after my beef noodle soup dinner. Even though I did not enjoy pearls as much as I used to, I got them with my milk tea anyway because why not. As I have anticipated myself when I bought the drink, I couldn't finish it. Starchy pearls - there's only that much I can stomach. I did thoroughly enjoy the drink. I didn't think I enjoyed it that much until I tried a few other bubble tea drinks from other stores in Taipei which I found to be inferior to Ten Ren's. Their tea flavour just could not compare. Yesterday, I bought myself a pearl milk tea from Chatime because surprisingly I've missed it! Taiwan's bubble tea, I mean. The first time I tasted a Chatime drink many years ago I remember going "mmm..." with satisfaction but this time, I was mildly disappointed. Tea flavour was weak, pearls were way too 'al dente'. To give them the benefit of the doubt, I got a different pearl milk tea from a different Chatime store today; it was the same story. I am unsure if it was due to a drop in quality, or because Taiwan has spoilt me. Either way, I am now on the hunt for the best bubble tea I can find in Melbourne.

Bubble tea from Han Lin Teahouse in Jiu Fen - their pearl milk tea was quite good.