I Miss Asia

I've been working a lot these days, and I got a little stir-crazy.   I realized that I hadn't been out of the city since Thanksgiving.  As a remedy, Andy and I did a quick trip to Connecticut where we attended a dogwood festival, ran into four of his elementary school teachers at once, and played a game of Cashflow with my in-laws (think Monopoly + Life Lessons= way more fun that you would expect!).

Here's Connecticut in the Spring:

But sometimes when I say "I really want to get out of the city," I mean "I really want to get out of the US of A!"

Today is one of those days.  I took an almost two-week trip to Asia (Singapore and Hong Kong) last Fall and there are so many stories and pictures and wondrous things, that I think the trip will have to make cameo appearances on this blog for years to come.

Let's talk about food in Singapore on this lovely Saturday morning, shall we?  If you're like me and you only care about the quality of coffee in a country, skip to the bottom of this post and then take a trip to Albania.

Singapore is a very diverse country- there are many Chinese, Malays and Indians there, along with native Singaporeans, so the cookery is also diverse and interesting.  We were pleased after eating our way through a week of arroz con pollo on our honeymoon to go somewhere that had a big food culture.  

But what do you know, the most popular street food in Singapore:

Picture menus are ubiquitous in Asia. We bought ours at a booth in a mall.  There's one booth for drinks, one for chicken rice, one for noodles, and on and on. These food malls are usually owned by one person or family and they run the drinks stand because it has the biggest profit margin.
Everything is served on real plates and dish collectors come and take it away.

Here's our chicken rice:

Just like the picture! Bok Choy with fried onions, salt-boiled chicken, miso soup, and a "Festive Rice Cone."  Add hot sauce (I did) and together it is just delicious.

We took a trip down to Orchard Road, which is a mile-long stretch with 4-8 story malls on both sides of the street.  Thousands of people flock there every day to shop in the hundreds of designer stores.  We visited an ice cream sandwich cart, where a little old man cuts a slice off a "loaf" of ice cream and slaps Wonderbread on both sides.  He used a wafer for us, probably because we were foreigners.

That's red bean ice-cream.  

Our final stop on our Singapore food crawl is a hawker center.  

The closest comparison I could make to describe a Singapore Hawker Center is a food court at a mall mixed with a State Fair.  Just add palm trees.

This is where just regular folks might come on their lunch break every day.

More picture menus.  There are multiple booths that sell the same food, which is why I draw the comparison to a State Fair, but really, there's nothing like a Hawker Center here in the US.

 Our menu selections:

Juice drinks. I believe we have a watermelon one here.

 Carrot Cake- the white parts are the carrot.  Think "omelette with hot sauce and chopsticks" and you've got the idea.  We ordered ours without oysters.

This item I wasn't crazy about- Ice Kachang- it's shaved ice with a variety of gummies (jellies), pieces of corn, red beans, and some sort of syrup.  You are supposed to eat it before it melts together into a soupy gooey dessert mess.

Click here to see what it looks like before it melts (and more pictures of hawker centers).

The crown jewel of Singaporean food is Chili Crab.  It is exactly what it sounds like.  An entire crab, doused in a chili sauce that's about the consistency of marinara.    

You are supposed to eat with your hands, and they provide a bowl of water for rinsing.

And finally, Singaporean coffee, Kopi, it's sweet and thick- really good.
You can get in a mug, or if you're on the go, in a bag.
Yes, a bag; with a straw and a nylon string to carry it around.  Andy went to Singapore a lot to consult on a construction project, and he said people have hooks by their desks where they hang their coffee.

 I couldn't leave Singapore without trying coffee-in-a-bag.

Here are a couple of pictures in the Chinatown hawker street:

And it's always good to end with some funny food moments from Asia:

The most unsatisfying breakfast of all time at a place called Toastbox. It's my fault because I thought the place looked cute.  The buttered toast (one slice) did come cut into squares with a cute toothpick, at least.

And an American-themed establishment: 

Isn't it nice to get away now and then? Enjoy your Saturday!

Basil Hates Me

So remember when I wrote a post about cultivation... that our urge to build and cultivate comes from the Garden of Eden?

Well that spiritual ideal is still a bit out of reach for me at the moment.

Remember this picture?

Confession time. The chives (in the terra-cotta pot) were grocery store chives that I cut up for dinner one night then transplanted the roots into the pot.  They grew right back, which was cool, but in a floppy and weak sort of way.

Eventually, all of the plants in the terra cotta pots died (not that they look so vivacious above).   I transplanted the rest out on our balcony and started a container of spinach. The spinach, tomatoes, and pea plants are doing okay.  Every pea plant is latching on to the trellis like a champ. The spinach has already sprouted, and the tomatoes look happy.

I dumped the dead plants in the terra cotta pots and tried to reseed outdoors in the same pots. Chives and Basil.   Both are refusing to grow. I imagine these seeds just stubbornly hanging out under the dirt, germinated, but not willing to break to the surface- kind of like when I'm warm under the covers in the morning. Yeah, seeds, I know how it feels, but I still get up and go to work.

I am watering faithfully, giving them plenty of sun.  I have dreams of fresh basil on a homemade pizza, but these plants have totally gone prodigal on me.   Any ideas on what to do?

This being my first foray into home gardening, I have formed the opinion that my vegetables aren't growing fast enough. Isn't gardening supposed to be this "miracle of life" kind of experience, where every day is different and special? Maybe I'm confusing gardening with pregnancy.

I just want some juicy red tomatoes sooner rather than later.

How long, O Lord, until the wicked are no more and I can make fresh salsa?

Sitting Prettier

It's Friday! Friday! Everyone g'down on Friday!! Gotta get a bowl, gotta get cere-ole.

Ahem.

A side project for our living room renovation was reupholstering our dining chairs. 
They had a light pink velvety fabric, which was probably real pretty in the 1920s when this chair was made, but it sure doesn't match our gray-turquoise-yellow-red scheme.

Chair BEFORE

This was my first reupholstery project ever, so it definitely felt risky to venture on it, but my mom was in town and we worked on it together which boosted my confidence!

We removed the seats of the chairs and pulled out the original staples.  The foam inside was totally pulverized into a fine yellow dust. Such a mess!

We knew we needed to buy some new foam as well as pick out some new pretty fabric.
After our shopping trip, Mom had to hop in the car with Dad (who had been grouting with Andy- moe to come on that!) and I was on my own.

As the final four games played in the background, I traced each seat on the foam with a Sharpie and cut it out:

I moved the foam over to the backside of the fabric and lined up the pattern to be centered on the seat.

The fabric was stretched over the foam for a solid stapling!

After each seat cushion received a generous coat of Scotchguard, Andy helped me screw the seats back on to the chairs (there were 6) and 

And voila!  New chairs!

 

The foam gave the seats a little more "poof," which makes them look even newer.

I like how the curly-cues in the fabric pick up the curly-cue arm rests.

Ok- ready for a before-and-after animation (my favorite!)?

So, what do you think?

Pick-Up Weekend

This past weekend was the slowest we've had in a long time.  The most rigorous thing we did was vacuum and clean the windows. It's kind of weird not to have a huge project going.

On Sunday we invested in a basketball and Frisbee and played in Marcus Garvey Park.  There are two basketball courts- one where all the "big kids" and adults play a full court game where tempers flare at moments, but the hotdogging is pretty impressive.  The other court is where all the little kids play- more shooting around, 2-on-2's, sometimes saying bad words to impress each other.  Andy and I thought we could jump in there, so we did. We learned the two rules really quickly:

> Everyone shares all the basketballs. Ours changed hands dozens of times.
> If someone makes a basket, they get the ball back. It's about respect.  Nothing like a kid half your size lecturing you about it.  (I didn't know!)

One of the littlest kids poked Andy in the back with his basketball and challenged him to a one-on-one.  I have a camera phone picture of them playing each other, but this is the internet and I'm not going to put up pictures of kiddos without parental permission.  If you see me sometime, ask and I'll show you!

When we were playing Frisbee, people on the benches by the lawn kept commenting on how bad I was. Not that it's a big secret or anything.

It was really special to connect to our neighborhood in this positive way.