A strange day

Besides my alfresco on the floor dinner Today has been full of new experiences....I couldn't help spending most of the day smiling :)

I needed to get some documents witnessed so I ended up at a criminal court complete with hardened criminals and police!! It was definitely kinda exciting...suddenly boring old lawyers seemed brave, dashing and dangerous! LOL

Later I went to the famously XXX part of town which I've not seen for quite some time and not in the day...it's actually become pretty gentrified and actually reminded me a little of Soho with interesting little designer boutiques and lots of good food...it was fun pretending to be a Yuppie...my hot chocolate and friand in some hip cafe looked very designer but didn't taste too crash hot :P

I stickybeaked in a deli and tried fresh-made halva for the first time....yuck- sickly sweet! And I also saw a cake of quince which I don't recall seeing before....(apparently you eat slices of this with cheese and wine-the tartness complements well.)

I also had a lot of fun shopping in an upmarket grocer...these are my favourite just cos they always have food items you don't often get anywhere else- today the most interesting aquisition was green furry pod things a.k.a FRESH ALMONDS!! Like so...

Happy Days...Alfresco Dining!

I'm really enjoying the warmer weather- I've been taking advantage of being outdoors every night...usually breathing, meditating, doing yoga poses or lazing in a sandchair with my IPOD and admiring the stars :)

Last night I ate some leftovers with meat and I had a terrible sleep complete with psychadelic dream/nightmare (which I might outline in another post just cos I'd like to hear interpretations for it!)...anyhow so tonight I didn't dare another crappy night's sleep so got into the vegetarian groove.

Nothing gourmet...really simple but the novelty factor was really fun- I had lots of tiny dishes...tomato and baby spinach with caramelised balsamic and extra virgin olive oil, avocado slices, soba noodles, five grain rice, fried egg and french beans and to finish some papaya and pineapple...I wonder if with all of that I got sufficient nutrients?! I'm full at least :)

So I was sitting cross legged on my ratan mat on the balcony under the night sky with a Himalayan salt lamp flickering and ambient music eating but now I'm lazing on a banana chair with a big fat pillow, my Himalayan lamp and my laptop with wireless indulging in my favourite pasttime;)...and because it's the city, there are no mozzies or bugs to contend with! Talk about LIFESTYLE!!! lol

Who said city living was that bad?! hehe ;)

LOL I'm so glad my next door smoke-a-holics have moved on....I feel so much happier being able to breathe and eat in clean air and really enjoy my home to the maximum :-D

Food Lovers Paradise!

What's with the friggin' cold weather?!!

I haven't felt such icy winds since walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of winter when the temperature was -7 degrees. Bloody Hell I was so frozen I had to ditch my favourite someone else cooks me paella invite and run a nice warm bath (epsom salt, sea salt, bath oil, lavender bath salts, rose geranium oil and sandalwood oil) instead just to Defrost!

Yep it was an indulgent day...

In any case, the "man-is-killing-the-natural-environment-so-now-we- have-crazy- weather" unseemly cold weather probably has a lot to do with why I'm totally FOOD and EATING OBSESSED at the moment LOL

Today I got to E's and I immediately recognised the familiar "I really can't be arsed cooking" look on her face that I often get...so we decided to check out one of the hard to get to foodie streets nearby since she had the car...

W-O-W

This place was Foodie Heaven!

Too bad they were such Nazis about photography on the premises. She had some kind of upmarket panini and I had an oyster mushroom salad with chat potatoes, shallots without the cacciata(?) cheese that it was supposed to be sprinkled with. We then shared an Eton's mess dessert that consisted of strawberries, cream and meringue with a strawberry coulis- ohmygod talk about food orgasm LOL

The phenomenal taste and quality of produce used really made my day! My only reservation was that with the salad, I seriously felt like grease in the form of fine extra virgin olive oil was seeping out my pores after!

Later I went a little nuts in the store-haha, have no fear with me in a shopping mall *yawns*...

Let me loose in a gourmet food store however and the $ damage done can be very very painful if it's your credit card I'm inflicting it on LOL

My dad always told me "never try and save/scrimp where food is concerned"...that's probably the sole thing he said I have never had trouble obeying LOL: in fact, the lack of restraint and amount I end up spending on food for one person each week is totally outrageous!

Hehe maybe why G says I'm a glutton- thank god I was blessed with outrageously fast metabolism cos rationally speaking I should be a Total Porker LOL

Here are my modest takings from the day-thankfully limited by how much I was comfortable carrying home by hand LOL...

Caramelised in a barrel for 3 years(balsamic?) vinegar, snow pea sprouts, hand made pizza base, canned lentils, large strawberries, honeydew, Italian 'glassatine' puff pastry biscuits(just to try something new!)

Italian "Glassatine" biscuits up close and personal.

On a non-food note, it's been a weird day. It's like all the positive energy I've been putting out lately came back at me in a big way today. When I turned on my phone- two more meal invitations! When I opened my mailbox- Love from Paris! When I checked my email- several new random strangers saying Hi! WEIRD. COOL BUT WEIRD. I don't think I've felt so 'Miss Popularity' since the 9th grade! I'm sure next month the universe will go back to normal and everyone will hate me again...hehe ;)

Spoilt :-)

I've been sitting here the past 10 minutes deliberating whether I should brave the cold and go to yoga...I'm erring on the negative cos my stomach is feeling a little...too full to be hanging upside down!

It's great...for someone who hates to cook, the last few days have been heavenly...I haven't actually needed to cook since Thursday!!!

Today - it being the luxury of a weekday, one of my uni friends had a lunch and made...the Korean version of Vietnamese spring rolls...(sorry forgot the name).

It was quite exotic- we sat on some kind of modern tatami(which had a really nifty heated surface underneath it). All the ingredients were laid in a large platter on a low table and there was a gas burner with a pot full of simmering water- we dipped rice paper rounds into this water.

Then we laid an interesting assortment of veggies: shredded lettuce, finely sliced mushrooms, tomatoes, mung bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, spanish onion, avocado, Vietnamese mint and coriander leaves. We then dipped shabu shabu style(thinly sliced) beef into the simmering water and added this before forming rolls- the dipping sauce was very simple but interesting compared to the usual Vietnamese one. It consisted of canned pineapple blended into a paste with fish sauce. Finely sliced chilli in this sauce is optional.

After you've satiated on 10+ rolls you throw all the left over filling into the beef stock and add noodles....

Hence this Korean dish is something like Vietnamese rice rolls X Steam Boat(what the Japanese call Sukiyaki I think).

This meal is well suited to those days where time is of no concern and you want to have a good long catch up & conversation with several friends....we also had a really delicious tea I've never seen before from Taiwan- it was brown and looked like rice but on the packet it literally translated to ginseng oolong tea(!?) - unfortunately I don't think you can get it here...We then ate savoury Korean rice cake desserts and fruit- again I have no idea what this dessert is called in Korean but it looked like Chocolate flakes on glutinous rice cake squares...the 'chocolate flakes' were some kind of red bean...

Happy Tummy! I'm really loving this week...Wednesday the food festival continues with E cooking - looking forward :-)!

p.s The only thing with all my friends cooking for me is I'm starting to feel it's only fair that I repay the favour so I'm already racking my brains over what would be suitable and minimal fuss... It's so cold I'm personally feeling like a nice PIE I think...

I love this eating other people's cooking - it refreshes and inspires so that I want to at least try cooking new things. Too bad we all live so far apart and generally have pretty busy and different schedules- how awesome would it be to have a daily "cooking pool" so we get to eat something different everyday and don't have to cook everyday?! Hmmm...maybe I should start a monthly cooking circle??