from sydney with love

Blargh. This week has been ROUGH. All you can do is power through, dust yourself off, say a prayer, hope for the best, and stare at the pretty pictures you bought in Australia last week.

As always I have no respect for chronological order and am doing my posts in a timeless disarray. There’s a point though. These pretty pictures are bringing some peace and contentment to a rocky week. For all yous peeps out there suffering from the ugh-what-else-is-gonna-suck-this-week blues, my heart and my wombat go out to you.

I had most of Saturday to myself in Sydney last week. Since I was going in a completely different direction on a different airline, my flight times were way off of the homies. After they all went California-bound, I had 7 hours all to myself to mosey around and see Sydney before my own jet plane took off towards the equator. I roamed Darling Harbour, checked out the Sydney Aquarium, and then continued on my quest for art.

malaysian airlines, sin to syd

I’m back from Sydney and taking all of Sunday to recuperate from the fun times and the red eye flight. I came home to a super clean apartment courtesy of the parents and aunt who visited last week (we both left last Monday – them to the Philippines and me to Sydney). It was so nice of them to tidy up my lil’ crib.

Sadly, I only have a few Sydney posts (one of which is not food related) lined up. Certainly less than what I had thought I would come back with, but it was a fun trip nonetheless.

Let’s start off with the flights, yes? I took Malaysian Airlines because they had a deal for Singapore to Sydney for SGD600 – even less than the budget airlines.

My first impression of MH (the airline code for Malaysian Airlines) was ho-hum. They flew a small Boeing from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur which was quite old. All of the seats were different colors – orange, blue, red, green. The result was more fiesta than anything else.

unnecessary pringles flavors

I have enjoyed the extensively modified potato chip that is the Pringle for many years. My favorite flavor is a toss up between sour cream and onion and salt and vinegar. Imagine my amusement when my cousin and I were cruising Carrefour and saw these babies on sale for SGD4.80 for 2 cans.

At first the grilled shrimp and seaweed flavors didn’t phase me too much since I’ve had seaweed flavored things before and I love a nice salty bag of shrimp chips. Then my cousin explained that the real kicker is that all of these flavors would be on top of that distinctive crispy crumbly Pringles chip.

Then I got a little worried.

travel cafe philippines, greenbelt 5

I am so fatchin’ tired. There are about 80 other things I should be doing – cleaning my house, paying my cable bill, ironing some clothes, sleeping since it’s well past midnight – but here we are blogging. Yay for messed up priorities.

I just got back from a few days in the Philippines and unlike most of my trips I got to actually stay in Manila for awhile. My dreams of moving to Manila to work have slipped off the radar since I moved to Singapore but were sorta kinda resurrected by the 3 days I spent exploring and enjoying the city life rather than the usual weekend of hanging out in the bahay kubo all up in the province.

In the middle of what I like to refer to as Meeting Marathon Tuesday (not to be confused with Meeting Fun Times Monday), Lianne and I had time to grab a real lunch at Greenbelt 5.

Lianne let me pick between Travel Cafe Philippines  and another Spanish restaurant whose name escapes me. TCP won because we found it first and because I was not feeling the urge to revisit my people’s colonial oppression. Kidding. I was also wearing 3 inch heels and carrying my stupidly heavy laptop so really finding it first meant sitting down sooner which was the idea overall.

western basics, class 7

Awww it’s the second to the last Palate Sensations Western Basics class!

Having been to other cooking schools I appreciate the kitchen at PS even more these days. It’s so organized, homey, and well stocked. You feel like you can really cook anything in there. It’s fun puttering around the kitchen all day especially when you don’t have to do the dishes (thanks Loretta!).

The last 2 classes are all about desserts and this lesson we covered cakes and tarts. Two words for you today: sugar headache.

Two other words: worth it.

western basics, class 6

Filleting a fish is not easy  kids. There are sharp knives and bones and fins and a few scales involved.

Sigh, I’m gonna miss spending my Saturdays in the PS kitchen. Here fishy fishy fishy…

playing nice with chicken rice

Look it rhymes. It never rhymes so that’s kind of  big deal.

You know what else is a big deal (in Singapore, anyway)? Chicken rice. Most everyone is a fan of chicken rice. My last few run ins have been just eh. I mean steamed/boiled chicken and some rice. How good could it be.

Apparently, pretty darn good if you get lucky.

western basics, class 5

Guess what we learned in Week 5? You got it right lurkers (I see you lurkers, all 150 or so of you who visit everyday but don’t say a word), it’s PASTA TIME.

Another day, another dough ball sistas and mistas.

breadmaking asian style

I told you I was on a cooking class kick.

I had 8 hours of cooking class this weekend. First, of course, was my weekly basics course at Palate Sensations followed by a breadmaking class at Creative Culinaire on Sunday. This was my first class at CC although I had heard great things about Chef Judy Kho who runs the school and the adjacent cafe. She is nothing if not passionate for baking. She is also super nice and super patient and while 5 hours of baking seem crazy long it goes by in a flash.

Hello there, little dough ball. I like you and all of your friends.

wine & dine & me

During our first Basics class Lynette introduced us to a few folks from Wine & Dine that she said were doing a story about Palate Sensations. This past Saturday Chef Francois said that the article had been included in the November issue which was already out on newsstands.

I had always hoped my first foray into the glossies would be me looking chic on the arm of some Hollywood up and coming star. Not so says the universe.