Trapped

You know you're trapped when

you're too scared to go forward

and it's too late to move backward.

All those forgotten springs,

way too hard to spread your wings

and see what tomorrow brings.

Oh you know you're trapped then.

© EScetera 2006 - 2012 

Pet Potato: Day 77

... look look look look look look LOOK!!!!!!!

Look at the little flower bud!
Look at the miniature green leaves!
Look at the purple shades underneath!
Look at the tender stalks shooting up!

Pet Potato is growing!!!!

Pet Companions!

Meet the Pet Companions!

This is Olive:

And this is Durian:

I worried that Pet Potato would feel rather lonely sitting by himself in the garden (he can get pretty emo, especially when it rains at night), so I decided to give him some friends.

Olive isn't actually an olive, since it's really a dabai or kana plant (scientific name: canarium odontophyllum). They're commonly called tropical olives though, since they look like olives and all. To be even more neurotic and exacting with the whole name-giving process, Olive shouldn't even be called Olive, since there are four seeds, but the name Olives (plural) sounds weird so I'm just sticking to Olive (singular). I think she's happy with that. As for Durian, well, pretty self-explanatory: Durian is Durian because it's a durian seed, and there's only one of him.

They're all basking in the sun in their matching blue porcelain pots as I'm typing this.

I hope you're happy now, Pet Potato.

Pet Potato: Day 72

Yesterday Pet Potato turned 72 days old and I decided to check on his progress. Dug him up from his earthen home, and horror of horrors, the alien fungi have returned.

I was quite upset. I thought Pet Potato might have been able to fight off the alien fungi, especially after removing the contaminated bits, but it seems the white terrors are pretty strong. Here's the thing: it's not like I'm intending to eat Pet Potato's sproutlings in the future. Logically, this means I can still keep Pet Potato despite the alien fungi, right? I mean, if Pet Potato is able to grow and sprout and bloom despite the alien fungi, and I'm not going to eat him and face the risk of food poisoning and all, then he can still remain my Pet Potato, right?

Twilight: it's over now

I'm writing this right away, before I forget the experience and the emotions, or procrastinate and get too lazy to blog.

Just got back from watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2, and all I can say is "wow". It's really over, five movies later. I guess the wait was shorter for me, since I only got started on the Twilight craze a couple of years back, in mid-2010, while I was studying in Sydney. I guess a little explaining is in order, since some of you might remember me scoffing and trashing the books and movies when they first came out. And especially since I'm supposed to have 'good taste' in books and all (at least that's what's implied and expected of English majors, but I say this with quite a bit of eye-rolling and sarcasm). But all that ridiculing and teasing and poking fun at certain golden-eyed sparkly-skinned individuals was before I actually sat down and watched the first movie. A few of us were at a coursemate's place, and she'd popped the DVD into the player so all us literature people could have a good laugh at the horror of it all. I just didn't expect to be immediately (more or less) caught up in the idyllic fantasy of it all. If you were to ask me to describe the first movie, I would tell you it was all blue and purple tones and googly eyes and dreamy (very dreamy) music. Just up my alley of emo-ness. Beautiful.

Silver lining

There's a silver lining

in ev'ry cloud that's greying

if we just stop looking

down and depressing.

© EScetera 2006 - 2012

Pet Potato: Day 65

Earlier in the week, I'd removed Pet Potato from his water bath and left him sitting happily on the windowsill, looking out into the great big world. So you can imagine my horror on Friday (Day 65) when I went to check on him: Pet Potato had been invaded by alien fungi!!!!

I took him out to the garden for a better look. Poor Pet Potato. He was squishy and oozing some foul-smelling brown-black liquid. It was a miserable moment, standing there in the garden, knowing the whole while that I had to dispose of Pet Potato.

I took several snapshots of Pet Potato, and watched as he posed and pondered upon what should have been his rightful place in our garden. And just when I was about to toss him out into the Giant Vegie Patch beyond, I realized I couldn't; not just yet, and especially not when there was still a chance that Pet Potato could be rescued.

A frenzy of activity ensued: the Great Potato Rescue was under way! I dug about for all the tools and items I would need. I was swift, I was ruthless, I was efficient. By the end of it, I had removed the parts of Pet Potato that had been contaminated with the alien fungi. What was left was a smaller, but very healthy-looking, version of Pet Potato. I looked for the prettiest porcelain pot I could find, picked out some stones, and aerated some earth. Filled the bottom of the pot with the stones, carefully poured in the earth, and snugly tucked Pet Potato into his new home.

And this is where Pet Potato is to this day (I'm typing and posting this on Day 68), sitting outdoors where I can conveniently keep watch over him, sunning him by day and watering him by night. The only downer to this whole thing is having to touch that moist earth. Moist earth means earthworms, and there were some (three thin ones to be exact) at the bottom of the pot when I went to check on Pet Potato this noon. Supremely grossed out. *shudder wiggle squirm*

Pet Potato: Day 60

I've been really worried about Pet Potato. It's Day 60, and he's still not sprouting any roots. Today I took him out of his little plastic-jar home, and there was some white gooey ick on the lower surface. I washed it off, gave him a good little wipe with some loo paper. Something I'd read online, earlier in the afternoon before I started inspecting Pet Potato, made me wonder:

Did I somehow manage to drown Pet Potato???

Apparently (and here's the bit that gave me a bit of a shock), it's possible to overload on water with potatoes, i.e. too much water is bad for potatoes. And to think I've been soaking Pet Potato in a water bath all this while. And apparently potatoes need sunlight, but this last couple of weeks Pet Potato has been beautifying the confines of my dim damp bathroom. Is that why you're not rooting, Pet Potato? *heartbreeeeeeeak*

On the bright side, there's one aspect in which Pet Potato has really flourished: the little buds that emerged from Pet Potato's eyes are really quite big now. Almost the size of my thumb! If you look closer and squint a bit (fine, you don't actually have to squint), it's actually quite pretty (or gross - I've felt both pride and disgust when I look at Pet Potato lately). Based on my online research this afternoon, I can expect to get beautiful purple flowers, and this excites me because Pet Potato has what appears to be little tiny purple tender furled-up flower buds! You can actually see individual petals (is that what you call those little leaf-like bits of a potato?) all over Pet Potato!

Don't you think Pet Potato looks like a real animal in the following picture, like maybe from the same family as snails or something (use your imagination, squint if you have to, think of the purple-yellow sprouts as his head and the potato as his hump or shell):

Anyway, I've decided to keep Pet Potato away from water for a bit. Well, maybe I'll flick some water at him when he starts looking parched, but I won't be submerging him in water for maybe a couple of days, just to see if he'll start rooting. If that doesn't work, I'll just plant him in a pot of earth.

But for now, Pet Potato will just have to sit in his waterless abode (it's really just a red plastic jar) on the windowsill and wistfully watch the world go by.

Oh Pet Potato, why so emo?

Coffee cake

There comes a time in every girl's life when she craves cake.

Actually, scrap that. The average girl will crave cake several times in her life. About two weeks ago I was in such a mood. I was also coincidentally in a cooking mood (aka mixing-random-ingredients-hoping-they-turn-out-good mood), and if you don't wanna buy a cake, you bake one.

I had a few problems when it came to this.

Problem #1: I had never baked a cake on my own before, i.e. unassisted, without adult supervision.
Solution: There is a first time for everything. Even culinary catastrophes. Breathe. Relax. Problem solved.

Problem #2: We don't have that many ingredients lying around the house. Or rather, we have those ingredients; they just choose to play hide-and-seek with me.
Solution: I needed to find a recipe with the simplest of ingredients, the kind of ingredients that are available in the average kitchen. That, and ingredients that have labels on them/ingredients I don't confuse for other things because they don't have labels on them. Found a recipe for coffee cake (with the help of online research) that required only the basics. Problem solved.

Problem #3: I couldn't use the ovens because they were too 'heavy-duty' for just one tiny cake.
Solution: I discovered a cake function on our high-tech rice cooker. Problem solved!

And so the cake assembly was off to a rocking start! Very very simple, as evidenced by the following pictures. Flour, baking soda (or was it baking powder?), sugar, salt (really?), eggs, butter, some milk, and coffee! Whisk eggs, brown butter, make coffee, pour, mix, smear batter on someone's face (optional).

The uncooked batter was really really good. I tried a bit, and really, it's so good, you could just spoon some into pretty glasses, sprinkle some chocolate powder on top, and serve it as dessert. Just don't tell your dinner guests they're eating uncooked cake batter and you should be fine. Rave reviews even.

It was so easy with the high-tech rice cooker. I know it sounds really odd to bake a cake in a rice cooker, but you've got to take a look at the manual that comes with the rice cooker to understand (that's right people, I read the manual, I'm a geek that way). This was no ordinary rice cooker. This was a high-tech repeat for emphasis high-tech rice cooker. I just dumped the whole gooey mass into the pot, closed the lid, and pressed the cake function. Takes the thinking out of the whole process.

I was quite nervous about baking a cake in the rice cooker though. When the timer went off signalling the end of cooking time, I took a little peek and was rather horrified. The surface of the cake had quite a number of holes and looked quite soggy and shiny. I gave it a little tentative poke, worried that it would squeal in pain, but it didn't: it was cooked perfectly. The steam circulating inside the rice cooker must have done strange things to the surface of the cake, but there was a slight crunch in the first bite. I'm afraid the crunch subsided with subsequent slices, although that's prolly pretty typical of cakes once they've cooled. I would have preferred a more baked-brown kinda look (the one you would usually get with oven-baked cakes), but for a rice cooker, I was pretty impressed. A high-tech rice cooker, mind you. Don't go trying to bake a cake in a normal rice cooker, you might end up with *cue suspense music: ta-da-daaaaaaaa!* ... THE BLOB!!!!!!!! (sorry, inside joke)

Overall, I guess you can say the cake was quite a success. If you put aside the whole baked-brown-crunchy-crust issue, the taste and texture of this coffee cake were pretty close to one you would get with an oven. The people who tried it (very brave, these folks) were surprised that it was made with a rice cooker. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about the rice cooker.

And that's it, people. Here's to many more slices of coffee cake, in the near future! Cheers!

Bagels from scratch!

I made bagels the other day. From scratch. No mean feat, anyone will tell you that, especially when one has not much experience with bagels or baking. But my first batch turned out well. Very well, in fact.

They're relatively easy to make. Or rather, relatively easy to put together. The ingredients are pretty straightforward; I found a few recipes on the 'net and tweaked them to my convenience. It's the shaping them into bagels that's the complicated part. Lots - and I mean lots! - of patience required as you wait for the dough to rise, over and over. Plenty of time to watch some reruns on the telly. Or if you prefer, brew yourself a cuppa and contemplate the changing of the seasons (we have only two here, hot summer and wet monsoon).

The first batch of bagels came out perfect. Pretty little circles of doughy, yeasty baked-brown goodness. The generous sprinklings of black and white sesame seeds made me smile. The second batch, not so much. I was impatient and didn't wait as long for the dough to rest and rise, and I was careless when it came to making the holes, so the bagels were more oval than round. Harder to chew too, but the taste was good, if not better than the first batch (I tweaked more and was even more generous with certain ingredients).

They were so good, I'm intending to whip them up again, sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later, but for good homemade bagels, it's worth the wait.

Cheers y'all, and here's to plenty of fresh bagels in the near future!