DimSumDolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

The Spark Within You

As you grow older you will realise you are unique. When you are little, all kids want ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realise you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.

~ Chetan Bhagat

I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. No, not the ones you have in the deep of sleep, but the ones you have when you're wide awake. The ones where you picture yourself living a different life, travelling and wandering in faraway places, meeting people you'd never meet in your everyday humdrum life. About two months ago, a friend sent me the transcript of a speech given by Indian author Chetan Bhagat at the orientation programme for a new batch of MBA students at an Indian university. The quote above is an excerpt of it.

It's a paragraph that stands out because it reminded me to never let that spark within me die. The spark referred to in Bhagat's speech is that something that makes you excited and happy about life. That spark also has to do with one's goals and dreams. The friend who sent it to me is a bit of a dreamer herself. We've written to each other about our dreams and our musings about life. I've been thinking about my dreams and how to pursue the life I want. I'm not one of those fortunate people who could figure out early in life what is that they wanted to do. Actually I think most people are not doing what they REALLY want to do in life. Nine out of ten people I meet are not happy in their jobs. To most of us, a job is just a job. It's a means to an end - a means to put food in our stomachs and shelter over our heads.

I mean I could just be contented with doing what I'm doing now. I get a steady (though not fantastic) income and I don't really HATE what I'm doing. I mean it's OK, but I'm just not feeling fulfilled. There's always this tiny voice saying 'Surely there's more to life than this?? This can't be IT.' There's been a lot of self-reflection and self-questioning in the past couple of months. I don't want to be one of those people who moans and moans but not do anything about the situation. I've always been an 'action' person - I don't sit around waiting for things to happen. Friends sometimes say 'You're so lucky to have been able to work in London and Hong Kong. I wished I could do it too.' To which I answer, 'Well you could do it too. It's just that you're not willing to give up whatever you have in Singapore and take a leap of faith.'

It's not easy leaving one's comfort zone and the only difference is that I dared to do so. I actively pursued what I had always wanted, i.e. to work in another country apart from Singapore. The fact that it happened for me in London and Hong Kong wasn't due to chance. It didn't just fall from the sky and into my lap. It's something I chased and sought after, thus it's not something I'd attribute to luck. I've been thinking 'What next?' after Hong Kong. I have some ideas and I hope things will work out for me. It'll be another leap of faith which many others will find crazy and ridiculous. But heck, life's too short to care too much about what other people think. It's my life after all and I live the way I want it.

I've kind of made up my mind on my next step but it has to be said that it was not without a lot of wavering and considerations. However, I've been inspired by a few friends and acquaintances lately. One friend who used to be a programme executive dealing with the buying and selling of TV programmes is now a shiatsu massage therapist in the Netherlands. She's Singaporean Chinese but relocated to the Netherlands with her partner. Her partner is also pursuing his own dream of becoming a mountain bike guide by going for an instructor course in Scotland. How cool's that? On my most recent trip home, a friend announced that she intends to quit her job and go to Toronto to pursue a bachelor's degree in psychology. Her job as an engineer pays well but she admits that engineering was the 'safe' option for her when she was choosing what to study in university. Now she feels that she really wants to pursue something she's always been interested in, something that excites her. I was really happy to learn of her decision. I just hope she doesn't back down from it because of naysayers.

I have still yet another friend who's probably the bravest of all - she and her partner will be embarking on a cycling journey around the world, two Singaporean Chinese women out to pursue their dream on bicycles with video equipment in tow. Their dream is to chronicle, on video, the people around the world who have pursued or are pursuing their dreams. Follow my friend Tay and her partner Val on their journey here:

http://www.ibelievethatdreamscancometrue.com/

Their website address is really apt and what they're doing is very inspiring and brave. They'll probably be away for five to seven years and they'll be leaving in 14 days. In doing so, they'll be leaving behind family, friends and everything familiar. What they're about to do is the dream of many a person, but not many of us are brave enough to pursue it. Tay is a professional documentary producer and I'm sure whatever footage she gets at the end of her long journey will make for an extremely good story and programme. All the best to the both of them and kudos to them for their guts!

Anyway, I hope you, dear reader, can remember what your spark is. If you don't, perhaps it's time to reignite it.

Access the full transcript of Chetan Bhagat's speech here.

Eat, Pray, Love

I was over at a friend's place when I spotted Eat Pray Love and asked to borrow it because (1) I suffer from a lack of English reading material here in Hong Kong, and (2) it seems the whole world has read it so I decided to be a lemming and do likewise just to see what the fuss is about.

For the unbeknownst, Eat Pray Love in a nutshell is an autobiography by writer Elizabeth Gilbert who was on a year-long journey to three countries - Italy, India and Indonesia - during which she indulges in gastronomic pleasures in Italy, 'finds' herself and comes to terms with her own spiritual being in India, and seeks the balance between the pleasurable and spiritual in Indonesia.

It is in the first part of the book that we learn of her depression and the lack of happiness in her life even though she seemed to have the perfect life - doing what she loves and getting paid good money for being a writer, two apartments in New York, a loving husband and a great social life. But Gilbert whines and whines and whines, to the point of being self-absorbed and self-indulgent in my opinion. There were many times, especially in the first 150 pages or so, that I wanted to throw the book against the wall and just give it up altogether. It's like woman, give it up already! The worst is when she whines about David, the man she hooks up with after leaving her husband. The usual crap about how he's her soul mate but yet they're also bad for each other, so what should she do??? There are a few gems in the text, one of which is the piece of advice below given to her by Richard, her good friend at the Ashram in India. He said,

'People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A soul mate's purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."

In the first few pages, she writes that she wished the hot Italian 26-year-old (a decade younger than her) would kiss her and then take it further. But she had taken a vow of year-long celibacy because she said she needed time to just be alone and get in touch with herself. To add to that, she writes 'I have finally arrived at that age where a woman starts to question whether the wisest way to get over the loss of one beautiful brown-eyed young man is indeed to promptly invite another one into her bed.'

Obviously not very wise. I had to stifle a laugh when I read about her conscious decision to stay celibate for a year. I, on the other hand, seem to have sub-consciously taken that vow for, let's just say, too long. Anyway, Gilbert reneges on her vow with some Brazilian dude she meets in Bali. The fairy-tale ending is all a bit too saccharine sweet really. Even she admits so herself.

The only thing that made me press on with the book was the fact that I wanted to read more about the cultural aspects of the countries she visited. There are interesting nuggets of information about the people she meets and the places she visits. When Gilbert is less whiny, her words make for a more pleasant read and there are a few nuggets of wisdom.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life - whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Reading Eat, Pray, Love stirred up some wanderlust in me again...not that the dust has ever really settled. It got me thinking to where I'd choose to go if I were to do an Eat Pray Love. I thought, maybe France for all that wonderful food. I already know some very basic French so that bit of knowledge could help. France also seems to be the place for decadence. As for Pray, I thought either in some Buddhist getaway in Japan or China. The vegetarian food will be good, right? Heehee. And Love, where art thou? The place for Love to Gilbert had to be somewhere with a balance between the pleasurable and spiritual. Maybe I would choose Hawaii for that. It has lovely beaches and there's also something very spiritual about it, what with Hawaiian beliefs in their gods that exist even in outrigger canoes. OK, I just really want to go there to paddle and lie on the beach all day. I'd like to visit some country in South America which could fit any one of these categories. But I don't know much about South America so I can't really say which country would be good.

If you were to embark on your own Eat Pray Love, where would you go?

I Want to Travel Forever ... Sigh ...

"Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large unexpected check in the post, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside, hesitating at street corners to decide whether that cheerful and homey restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one? I just love it. I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city."

~ Bill Bryson

Ode to the Potato

For those of you who adore this tuber, here's an ode I came across. Personally, I don't really like potato. I don't eat French fries, chips or crisps as the British call it. Don't like baked potato either. It's ironic that sometimes I'm called kantang (Malay term for potato) by some Singaporeans I meet, by virtue of the fact that I come across as so English-speaking and Westernised. Anyway, not a big fan of potato in general but like this cute ode to it.

Ode to the Potato

by Barbara Hamby

"They eat a lot of French fries here," my mother
announces after a week in Paris, and she's right,
not only about les pommes frites but the celestial tuber
in all its forms: rotie, purée, not to mention
au gratin or boiled and oiled in la salade niçoise.
Batata edulis discovered by gold-mad conquistadors
in the West Indies, and only a 100 years later
in The Merry Wives of Windsor Falstaff cries,
"Let the skie raine Potatoes," for what would we be
without you--lost in a sea of fried turnips,
mashed beets, roasted parsnips? Mi corazón, mon coeur,
my core is not the heart but the stomach, tuber
of the body, its hollow stem the throat and esophagus,
leafing out to the nose and eyes and mouth. Hail
the conquering spud, all its names marvelous: Solanum
tuberosum, Igname, Caribe, Russian Banana, Yukon Gold.
When you turned black, Ireland mourned. O Mr. Potato Head,
how many deals can a man make before he stops being
small potatoes? How many men can a woman drop
like a hot potato? Eat it cooked or raw like an apple
with salt of the earth, apple of the earth, pomme de terre.
Tuber, tuber burning bright in a kingdom without light,
deep within the earth where the Incan potato gods rule,
forging their golden orbs for the world's ravening gorge.

Blueberry

Blueberry

by Diane Lockward

Deep-blue hue of the body, silvery bloom
on its skin. Undersized runt of a fruit,
like something that failed to thrive, dented top
a fontanel. Lopsided globe. A temperate zone.
Tiny paradox, tart and sweet, homely
but elegant afloat in sugar and cream,
baked in a pie, a cobbler, a muffin.

This is what I want to remember: my mother
and me, our quilted robes, hair in curlers,
that kitchen, that table,
plates stacked with pancakes, blueberries sparkling
like gemstones, blue stars in a gold sky,
the universe in reverse,
the two of us eating blueberry pancakes.

It's amazing how Diane Lockward manages to wax lyrical about so small a fruit. After coming across this poem, I felt compelled to post it on my blog as I adore blueberries. It's a pity that they are so expensive here in Singapore. If they were less expensive, I'd be buying punnets of them, and stuffing my face.

In London during summer when blueberries are in season, I used to buy blueberries and strawberries every other day from the fruit stall stationed just outside Holborn station. My office was near there and every day I would walk past the stall. My breakfast consisted of fruits most of the time - strawberries, blueberries, nectarines, grapes, and clementines were the usual suspects. My English colleagues deemed me to very healthy for eating fruits for breakfast every day. I don't think anyone else had the same habit. Anyway, when blueberries were in season, they were cheap - something like £1.50 for a small punnet of fresh blueberries. I would down all of them in one sitting and get my antioxidant boost. Perhaps that's why I was pretty healthy the months I was in Europe.

Like Lockward writes, I love how blueberries are so easy to eat. You only have to wash them and then they can be popped straight into your mouth. When they are nice and fresh, there's a slight crunch as you bite into them. For me, I like blueberries best fresh. I would only ever bake them if they were overripe. I feel that it's a waste of the fruit if one bakes or cooks them when they are freshly harvested. That said, I have a weakness for blueberry pancakes.

Fresh blueberries and strawberries go well with desserts such as pavlova or some other really sweet dessert. Their tartness helps to balance the sweetness and makes the dessert go down easier on the palate. Blueberries are also great additions in fruit salads. I would be one of the culprits picking them out in a salad bowl. ;p

I guess blueberries should be in season very soon and I'm hoping prices of blueberries in Singapore will come down a wee bit so that I can at least indulge in them a little more!

The Secret Life of Lobsters

If I had to choose to be a female animal, I might want to be a female lobster. Why? Simple - because the male lobster, it turns out, is a most tender and passionate lover. Hey, any female could do with a tender lover or two. Well, make that as many as possible. :p

In The Secret Life of Lobsters, Trevor Corson brings readers on a journey to show how fishermen and scientists unravel the mysteries behind how lobsters procreate and to understand their population cycles in the wild of North America.

Male lobsters, as I've read, have double genitalia which are, erm, always hard. Any male readers out there envious already? Lobsters mate when the female sheds her shell. When a lobster sheds its shell, it is at its most vulnerable state as it has no protection and there is every danger of being attacked and cannibalised by other lobsters lurking around. But when a male lobster senses that a molted female is ready to mate, he very gently hovers and toes around her, flips her over with the utmost care and then does the deed without injuring her fragile form. And hey, did you know that female lobsters seduced males into submission by urinating into their faces? OK, something definitely not to be tried in the homosapien context.

By focusing on the small lobstering community in Little Cranberry Island, which is one of the 300 Maine islands, readers are accorded an intimate portrayal of this group of people and how scientific developments and discoveries, sustainable practices and government legislations have affected the livelihoods of these people. This microcosm in turn provides a more in-depth understanding of the lobstering trade and industry as a whole in the United States.

Delve into the dangers of lobstering, the habitats lobsters inhabit and how weather conditions affect the catchment yield. Learn also how the lobstermen ensure the lobster population is not wiped out by the employment of sustainable methods of fishing. Lobstermen do this by cutting a V-notch in the tails of egg-bearing females to mark them as protected breeders. Large dominant males are also thrown back into the sea when caught so that they can mate with these protected breeders.

Corson manages to explain scientific fact in a reader-friendly style and engages the laymen in his quest to uncover the ins and outs of lobstering as well as the secrets behind the lobster's anatomy and how its different body parts help it to survive, move, hunt and procreate.

It's a thoroughly engaging book and one I'd recommend for a better understanding of this crustacean that we occasionally find on our dinner plate. The Appendix also teaches you how to cook a lobster and you can find out whether a lobster feels pain when thrust into boiling water. I'm not sure if this book is available in the National Library (so far I haven't come across it on the shelves of the branches I frequent) as the copy I read was very generously loaned to me by David from The Importance of Salt. Thanks!!!

'Steal Food' 偷吃

The other day I was reading the Chinese section of my paper 我报 and one of the headlines in the entertainment section screamed that Japanese comedian Tomonori Jinnai was caught 'stealing food', i.e. 偷吃. The article then went on to report how he apologised to his wife, Norika Fujiwara, and fans for his misconduct.

I'm not sure about other dialects, but I know for sure that in Mandarin and Cantonese, the term 偷吃 means that a man is fooling around behind his wife's or girlfriend's back. In Mandarin the two characters are pronounced 'tou chi' and in Cantonese 'tao sek'. It just occurred to me this morning as I was waiting for my bus to work that this is an example of how food is linked with language play. It seems that the Chinese people love food so much that even life's carnal pleasures has to be linked to food. Well to be fair, food IS one of life's carnal pleasures, to me anyway. Ha.

偷吃 is indeed an apt metaphor though. And one that, in my opinion, is subtle yet to the point in its underlying meaning. However the actor's apology for his lascivious greed came too late as Norika Fujiwara has decided to divorce him. Good on her! Guess real life isn't that funny for Jinnai after all.

Linguini

Whoever knew linguini could be something so romantic? I never knew one of my favourite types of pasta has been written about in such a lyrical and romantic way. If some guy wrote a poem like that for me, I'd marry him straight away. :p

Linguini

by Diane Lockward

It was always linguini between us.
Linguini with white sauce, or
red sauce, sauce with basil snatched from
the garden, oregano rubbed between
our palms, a single bay leaf adrift amidst
plum tomatoes. Linguini with meatballs,
sausage, a side of brascioli. Like lovers
trying positions, we enjoyed it every way
we could-artichokes, mushrooms, little
neck clams, mussels, and calamari-linguini
twining and braiding us each to each.
Linguini knew of the kisses, the smooches,
the molti baci. It was never spaghetti
between us, not cappellini, nor farfalle,
vermicelli, pappardelle, fettucini, perciatelli,
or even tagliarini. Linguini we stabbed, pitched,
and twirled on forks, spun round and round
on silver spoons. Long, smooth, and always
al dente. In dark trattorias, we broke crusty panera,
toasted each other--La dolce vita!--and sipped
Amarone, wrapped ourselves in linguini,
briskly boiled, lightly oiled, salted, and lavished
with sauce. Bellissimo, paradisio, belle gente!
Linguini witnessed our slurping, pulling, and
sucking, our unraveling and raveling, chins
glistening, napkins tucked like bibs in collars,
linguini stuck to lips, hips, and bellies, cheeks
flecked with formaggio--parmesan, romano,
and shaved pecorino--strands of linguini flung
around our necks like two fine silk scarves.

Any Cute Waiters Out There?

So there are a couple of reasons why I love waitresses. First of all they are often beautiful and men love beauty and are drawn to beauty. It can't be helped. Secondly, waitresses mimic the behaviour of my mother - they bring dishes of nourishment to me. My mother was very much a 1950s mother and she served the family all our meals for years, thus creating this early association with love and the placing of a dish of food in front of me. (My mother also cooked the food, but I don't seem to love cooks; perhaps because I never see them.) And thirdly, I love waitresses because of the angle at which I observe them - I stare right into their asses and vulvas, two of my favourite spots, and when they bend over sweetly to warm my coffee, I catch glimpses of breasts, another all-time favourite spot. For example, my wonderful breakfast waitress in Brooklyn says to me all the time, 'Do you want a warmer in your coffee, honey?' And she smiles at me when she says this; it's so lovely; and I say yes, and she bends over and I sneak a peek at her kind chest. I only see shadows, but it's enough.

~ Jonathan Ames 'Eggs Over Uneasy' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

I don't eye waitresses like Jonathan Ames, but I certainly do eye waiters that way. Hey, it doesn't hurt to have some eye candy to go with the meal, OK? So I've some waiters who stick to mind.

The most memorable being one who handed me the bill and my change in the restaurant Taillevent in Paris when I was there in September 2007. It was my first time eating in a Michelin-star restaurant and I was there for lunch with the Skinny Epicurean. The food there we had was divine and we were treated like princesses while there. The waiter who served us for most of the meal was probably in his late 50s to early 60s. White-haired but still very charming in his little banter and light-hearted flirts with these two Asian women. He tried to get us to order wine, but we weren't wine connoisseurs so we passed on it.

Anyway, it was only till the end of the meal that I noticed this cute waiter. I would liken his looks to a fairer version of Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal. My French waiter had light brown hair and a lighter skin tone and looked to be in his mid-20s. But oh, those eyes - and the best part, he was eyeing us! Had I been bold and brazen enough, I would have liked to have him for après petit-fours. That, by the way, is a course I just made up.

Alas, after three hours of eating, the Skinny Epicurean and I walked out of Taillevent happily sated and we walked off the meal by wandering around the charming streets of Paris. And it was forever au revoir to my French waiter. Sigh...

Another waiter whom I found cute was one who worked at Italian restaurant Carluccio's in their Covent Garden outlet in London when I ate there on an October evening in 2007. This dark-haired waiter was probably in his late teens or early 20s working at Carluccio's to pay for college or get some extra pocket money. Looked a bit like Gael Garcia Bernal too. OK, I gather you can surmise by now what type of men I'm attracted to. Anyways, so this Italian-looking waiter was very alert and on the ball, and was able to rattle off specials of the day the moment we sat down. He was prompt in taking our orders and made sure we had everything we needed. I liked his energy, alertness and of course the looks and the accent when he spoke. Waiter for dolce, anyone? :p

OK, in case I'm accused of being prejudiced against men in Singapore, I do have a waiter whom I thought was cute back home. Probably three years ago, I was having tea with two friends in P.S. Cafe in Paragon. There was a Singaporean Indian waiter there, prob in his early 20s, who had a really nice smile. He melted our hearts with that winsome smile of his. He was very alert and quick on the foot too.

So if anyone knows of any cute waiter about town, please remember to drop me a note. There's no harm in looking, right? :p

The Lonely Palate

Let's face it: the truth about eating alone, despite our best intentions, is that nine times out of ten we eat badly. We eat inadequate food; we eat it too fast; and we eat it slouched over a computer or sprawled in front of a television, with all the enlightened social skills of seagulls. ... Eating alone is not nature's way. Babies never eat alone. They can't. Children don't, unless they're in tragic circumstances. Old people eat alone regularly and it's dreadful. No wonder they lose their appetities. My theory (and I have several solo dinners behind me to back it up) is that to compose a happy character, and thus contribute to making the world a nice place to live in, you've either got to be fed (that is, by someone other than yourself who cares about you), which feels good and means that you're part of something larger than yourself; or, you've got to be the person feeding (that is, other people - not just dogs! - that you care about). That has the same positive effect.

~ Laura Calder 'The Lonely Palate' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

The Zen of Fish

Sushi lovers will love the book The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson. I certainly enjoyed the read because the book is filled with the history of sushi, scientific explanation of the common types of fish and seafood eaten in Japanese cuisine, and it gives an insight into the arduous training required to become a sushi chef.

If you think the book will read like a science textbook, please let me allay your fears. The book is nothing like that and is, in fact, very engaging. The human interest element in the book is provided by the owner of the California Sushi Academy, Toshi Sugiura, and this particular class of students that Corson has chosen to document in writing. For 10 weeks, Corson is like this omnipresence in the sushi classroom where he observes the students and their progress. He reports on their success and struggles and, in particular, chooses to focus on three students. The first a 20-year-old woman who's overcoming personal struggles as well as those in handling live fish, sharpening knives etc. The second, a former Japanese pop star who has abandoned his pop career in his native land to pursue his love for the culinary arts. Lastly, a young 17-year-old hormone-raging boy who thinks that learning to cook sushi during his summer break is going to score with a whole bevy of girls.

Interspersed with this narrative are easy-to-understand explanations of things such as:

- How miso is made - has to do with some kind of bacteria

- How umami comes about - something about amino acids

- How sushi came about and the different varieties that exist in different parts of Japan - very interesting! What we know as 'sushi' today actually originated in Tokyo as a form of fastfood. But the first forms of sushi appeared way before that in other parts of Japan and looked different.

- What type of rice is best for sushi - short grain most expensive. So cheaper joints actually use medium grain rice.

- Why you need to wash sushi rice with freezing cold water - sushi apprentices in Japan can spend up to about two years just washing rice every day till their hands go numb!

- The California roll, dragon roll, and caterpillar roll being bastardised versions of sushi

- Why mackerel (saba) is perilous to serve raw

- Why yellowtail (it goes by a variety of names depending on the stage of growth) is such a popular fish. Anyway, kanpachi is lean, wild yellowtail whilst hamachi is farmed and is a closely related species to kanpachi.

- How flat fish like halibut, turbot, and flounder evolved. Did you know some of them have eyes on the right (karei) and some have eyes on the left (hirame). At sushi bars in Japan, hirame have a reputation for being more delicious and hence are more expensive. Karei are cheaper and tend to be eaten cooked.

- How the anatomy of a fish affects the way it is being sliced for sushi and sashimi. E.g. the veins in tuna run along the body and converge into one point. So sushi chefs like to slice tuna in triangular pieces so that it looks more visually appealing when plated.

- Why it's rude to call a woman maguro, i.e. tuna - because tuna fish swim stiffly and so calling a woman maguro means she is stiff during sex. Wahaha.

Apart from all that, readers are also introduced to octopuses, geo-ducks, tuna (all three varieties), sea urchin and other sea creatures that we gamely tuck into. The book also teaches us the correct way to eat nigiri sushi!

Like the blade of an accomplished sushi chef's knife, the language of The Zen of Fish is sharp and succinct. It's a book I'd highly recommend to anyone who's interested in knowing more about Japanese food. In reading this book, I've been accorded with a much better understanding and appreciation of Japanese cuisine, as well as the effort and pains put into constructing a meal. The book is also marketed under the title The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice and it can found in the Singapore National Library.

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam.

~ Laurie Colwin, 'Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone is a collection of essays about dining alone and I've sieved out excerpts from the book in the past few entries to give you an idea of what the book is about. Some of the writers revel in having only themselves for company as it's the only time they get to have me-time amidst having to juggle the demands of family life. Others find the act of eating alone utterly depressing. Some relate dining alone to memorable times of life like living on their own for the first time or going off to college. The book's an easy and quick read and goes down easily on the literary palate.

For this blog entry, I'll write my own thoughts about dining alone. I can't say I like dining alone all the time because I associate food with social activity. I like dining with family and friends where there is conversation over the table, where you catch up on what happened during the day or what's happening in one another's lives.

At work, I like dining with colleagues. I think having lunch alone is depressing. I find that it's very different in Singapore compared to London. In Singapore, locals like to have lunch together in the workplace. To not partake in this lunch time gathering would seem very anti-social. And really, it's during lunch time that all the office gossip come spilling out. So to be in the know, one must eat with colleagues. Haha. To know all the office gossip, I've discovered that the best person to befriend is the office receptionist.

Anyway, in London, I found that many people like to eat in or at their desk. Maybe it's just some angmoh thing. Apart from the times I travel alone and lived in London, I seldom find myself dining alone.

However I do sometimes enjoy times when I have the flat all to myself and I sit in front of the TV and veg out. My secret junk food indulgence is Nissin cup noodles which doesn't contain an ounce of nutrition. I like the chicken flavour and chicken & mushroom flavour. I'd crack an egg into the cup before pouring the hot water into it. But oh, before all that, I'd also pick out the yellow foam-like bits which are supposed to be egg. But I hate it 'cos it tastes like foam/sponge. So I pick it out with a pair of chopsticks first. After three minutes, I take my cup noodles and sit in front of the TV and watch whatever takes my fancy - usually not much 'cos the state of TV these days is dismal. But I watch it nonetheless 'cos usually at that point I don't want to think.

And if I cook for myself, I do simple stir-fry and can cook everything in one pot sometimes. I remember how I used to cook rice in a pot in London ('cos I didn't have a rice cooker) and what I would do is to add the pieces of meat - usually chicken - and the sauce and vegetables into the pot together with seasoning and fry everything. And voila, I get fried rice for dinner. Then for dessert I'd make green bean soup for myself. Other times I'd buy fresh pasta and cook that for dinner and pair it with raw baby spinach for the requisite greens. Another time I made Japanese curry for myself. I'm a lazy cook so I always go for the easiest dishes! :)

So anyway, what is your 'Alone Food'?

Luxury

Eager to be the good neighbour, wanting to make sure she wasn't lonely, I invited her over for dinner with me and my three small children.

She gave me such a look. 'Why, uh, thanks ... but you know, I think I'll just stay in.'

'No, but really, I have this big ham I was going to cook - '

She grinned. 'But I was looking forward to it, actually. Sometimes you just need to curl up with a plate of scrambled eggs all by yourself. I never get to do that. It's like heaven. You know what I mean?

Well, I didn't until she said it. And there hasn't been a day since then that I haven't thought wistfully of that plate of solitary scrambled eggs.

~ Holly Hughes 'Luxury' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confession of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Eating Alone

I have thought about the apparent contradiction that someone who has dedicated most of her working life to cooking should be so reluctant, when she eats alone, to cook for herself. The explanation is that I consider cooking to be an act of love. I do enjoy the craft of cooking, of course, otherwise I would not have done so much of it, but that is a very small part of the pleasure it brings me. What I love is to cook for someone. To put a freshly made meal on the table, even if it is something very plain and simple, as long as it tastes good and is not a ready-to-heat something bought at the store, is a sincere expression of affection, it is an act of binding intimacy directed at whoever has a welcome place in your heart. And while other passions in your life may, at some point, begin to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.

~ Marcella Hazan 'Eating Alone' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Dinner for One, Please, James

Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the great liberties of being alone, like going to the movies by yourself in the afternoon or, back in those golden days of youth, having a cigarette in the bathtub. It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else's tastes into account or explain why I like to drink my grapefruit juice out of the carton. Eating, after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste. The very thought of maintaining high standards meal after meal is exhausting. It discounts all the peanut butter that is available in the world.

~ Ann Patchett 'Dinner for One, Please, James' in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Table for One

But in practice, eating alone feels wrong. I'm so accustomed to eating with people, and serving people who are eating with people, that the social aspect of it seems inextricable from any other step on that journey from farm to table. Without the shared appreciation, a meal might as well not exist, like a book with no one to read it except the author.

~ Erin Ergenbright in "Table for One" in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

How to Cook in a New York Apartment

You need music to cook to, especially under less-than-deal conditions. Break it out. Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan for soups. Bruce Springsteen for stews. Turn up "Atlantic City" when you're making beef stroganoff. The heat coming from the stovetop is making you flushed. To find balance, cover your radiator with the red beach towel that has survived six apartment moves. Pour yourself a second glass of wine. Hum along. Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City.

Stop humming.

~ Laura Dave in "How to Cook in a New York Apartment" in Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Potatoes and Love: Some Reflections

In the end, I always want potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Nothing like mashed potatoes when you're feeling blue. Nothing like getting into bed with a bowl of hot mashed potatoes already loaded with butter, and methodically adding a thin cold slice of butter to every forkful. The problem with mashed potatoes, though, is that they require almost as much hard work as crisp potatoes, and when you're feeling blue the last thing you feel like is hard work. Of course, you can always get someone to make the mashed potatoes for you, but let's face it: the reason you're blue is that there isn't anyone to make them for you. As a result, most people do not have nearly enough mashed potatoes in their lives, and when they do, it's almost always at the wrong time.

~ Nora Ephron in "Potatoes and Love: Some Reflections" in Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

The Man Who Ate the World

In The Man Who Ate the World, Jay Rayner The Observer's food critic, takes readers on his search for the perfect meal and bring us to some of the most expensive - but not necessarily ones with the best food - restaurants in the world in seven cities: Las Vegas, Moscow, Dubai, Tokyo, New York, London and Paris. Here are some excerpts I've gleaned from his book:

Las Vegas

Restaurants: Ergo, Bouchon, Bartolotta, Mesa Grill, Mix (which he hates), Nobu, Lotus of Siam

"It had struck me, as I moved from linen-covered table to linen-covered table, that the success of the new breed of Las Vegas restaurant now lay in its ability to transport you from the city in which it was located to somewhere else entirely, by sheer weight of excess. That dislocation I had experienced so acutely at Bouchon had actually been present at all the places I had eaten. In order to make you think that Las Vegas was now a really sophisticated place, which they had to make you stop thinking about Las Vegas altogether, and they had done so pretty successfully."

Moscow

Restaurants: Café Pushkin, The Peking, Sirena, Tsar's Hunt, Sumosan, Turandot

"The restaurants here do not feel like somewhere you go to eat, not even the ones like Tsar's Hunt where the food can be better than average. They feel like a redoubt, one built against a surfeit of politics and history at the door. In the restaurants of Las Vegas the fantasy was by turns charming and ludicrous, but never sinister. At the end everyone went home. Here, the fantasy restaurants feel necessary, a place of escape and therefore a vital resource for those who can afford them, and that in itself is troubling. No one cares about the food. Just as in Soviet times, they only care that they are part of an elite who can visit them."

Dubai

Restaurants: Al Mahara, Verre, World Trade Center Club, Indego, Al Nafoorah, City Star Restaurant (located in the poor - an often unseen - part of the city and costing a fraction of the price of the other restaurants visited)

"I realise now that I am still searching for the quintessential Dubai experience, the one that sums up the place in the way the Pushkin, with its mix of play food, sentimentality and sky-high prices, sums up Moscow; but it is difficult to get a handle on this city. Many of the signs are in Arabic. The spoken language is English. Most people are Indian. The food is from everywhere. The restaurant critic is confused."

Tokyo

Restaurants: Yukimura, Gagnaire, Hiramatsu, Japanese restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental (name not given in book), Tapas Molecular Bar, Okei-Sushi (Rayner loved this restaurant),

"Tokyo's restaurant world has proved a steep learning curve for me. In other cities I have visited, identifying the top restaurants has been a breeze ... In Tokyo nothing is obvious ... I had been told stories about tiny high-end places, hidden away in apartment buildings or in the basements of office blocks, serving intricate menus of extraordinary clarity and precision to just four or six people. There were dozens of them. The problem was that I didn't know any of their names, let alone how to book myself a seat."

"They [restaurants] are piled on top of each other, like children's building blocks. They are crammed down the narrow side streets between skyscrapers, squeezed in along the major boulevards, secreted away in both the basements and uppermost floors of department stores. They are everywhere. The vast majority, obviously, are Japanese, and most of them offer just one style of cooking: here a tempura shop, there a sushi joint, over there a ramen bar. In the Japanese restaurant business the specialist is venerated over the generalist."

New York

In New York, Rayner and celebrity food blogger Steve Plotnicki go on a restaurant crawl of some of New York's top restaurants in one night. It read like heaps of fun and gastronomic decadence!

Restaurants: Jean-Georges, Per Se, WD-50, Pearl Oyster Bar, Waverly Inn,

"It is nearly 12.30a.m. We have been eating for six hours. It occurs to me that in one night in New York I had managed to experience as much of this city's restaurant scene as I had in a week in all the other places I had visited. This, it seemed to me, was down to the nature of the trade here. It was adversarial, a battle of wills. Clearly, once Plotnicki had got Jean-Georges and Per Se on board, the others had felt duty-bound to play ball. And then, with the enthusiasm of New Yorkers, they had all bought into it [the restaurant crawl] fully, accepted it more as a happening than dinner. Steve Plotnicki, king of the food bloggers, had turned eating out into a competitive sport. Our only opponent had been ordinariness, and it seemed to me that we had won."

London

Restaurants: Square, Petrus, Galvin, The Greenhouse, Le Gavroche,

In explaining the bad restaurant food and the lack of regard for good food in Britain: "Both the war and, even more importantly, the nine gruelling years or rationing that followed had left the country with a collective sense that to spend proper money on sustenance was somehow indecent and that the flamboyance and display associated with the 'Continental' restaurant - all that setting fire to things! All that stuffing of one bird into another! - was a gross self-indulgence and certainly not the done thing in Britain."

"The most corrosive impact of the forces that shaped London's restaurant sector, particularly at the top end, was a by-the-numbers approach, which insisted that certain things be done not because they might be, say, fun or even merely pleasant, but because it was a 'fine-dining' restaurant, and that's what a joint with that title demanded. With little embedded restaurant tradition to pull upon, there was no real culture of professionalism and precious little skills base in the UK. All the new breed of restaurateur could do was ape what they had seen in France or the US - and all too often they were about as convincing as a six-year-old girl in Mummy's shoes."

Paris

In the culinary capital, Rayner embarks on an experiment which is like a scaled-down and posher version of SuperSize Me. He has lunch at a high-end restaurant every day for a week. If he is asked whether he wants to try the tasting/degustation menu, he will have to order it. He goes for a medical examination before and after his experiment to see if it makes any difference to his body.

Restaurants: Restaurant Alain Ducasse, Guy Savoy, Pierre Gagnaire, Le Grand Véfour, L'Astrance, Ledoyen, L'Arpège

"There was no doubt in my mind that a lot of the effect achieved by the Parisian three-star - and by high-end restaurants in general - has little to do with the food itself and everything to do with the supplementaries. Chuck enough gold at the walls, hang enough crystal off the ceiling, employ enough pretty twenty-somethings to care for your every need and follow you to the toilet and, if it's done with the requisite professionalism, most people will regard it as a good night out before they have eaten a thing. By setting the Paris restaurants up in sequence, I had cut through all that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rayner writes in the first person, in a style that's very conversational where he addresses the reader directly. Like every foodie, he's obsessed with food blogs and we learn of his addiction to blogs and forums like eGullet.com, Chez Pim, Opinionated About etc.

However, he sometimes came across as hypocritical. For example, on the one hand he says he wants the authentic experience so he can give a fair assessment of the restaurant. Then on the other, he goes and makes reservations by either calling on the restaurant's PR company or pulling some string or two to wrangle a table. More often than not, he ends up getting comped or will have some extra dishes appearing on his table without prompting on his part. Of course, once you do that, you're never going to get an authentic experience as such. Later into his journey, however, he does realise that there's some conflict in his quest for authenticity and the free meals (and sometimes posh accommodation) that he's getting. Thus he decides that he should make it a rule that he pays for his meals. However, 'cos of his reputation and connections, he still got many free meals and special treatment even when he forked out money from his own pocket. But I applaud his efforts.

"When I was eating on the house, I was always somebody's bitch. That was something I didn't like. Somehow, from now on, I would have to pay for every meal myself. Of course, it would be expensive, but if I didn't do that, I would never find the type of experiences I was hunting for. I would never understand what was happening out there. The journey would be wasted."

Though it's a book that's not necessarily accessible since not many of us can really afford to travel and eat the way he did, it's a piece of literature that's delectable enough for the literary foodie especially with Rayner's acerbic wit and self-deprecating humour.

Fave Reads of 2008

I read quite a lot of stuff – magazines, books, blogs, newspapers, news websites – but the best literary companion is always a book that I can stuff in my bag and carry around with me wherever I go. A book helps to fill the gaps between waiting for buses and trains and the lonely rides. Being engrossed in a book also makes the journey seem a little shorter and faster. And really, there's an immeasurable joy in letting your mind and imagination take flight in a good book. So here are my fave reads for 2008:

At Large and At Small – Anne Fadiman

This book is a collection of familiar essays by Fadiman, a genre of writing that her father, writer Clifton Fadiman, lamented "dead". In her charming, witty, and succinct writing, Fadiman brings back this genre which she says is a subset of the personal essay, autobiographical but also giving the reader more information about the subject matter in a broader sense of the world.

In her essays, we learn about how ice cream is made and bringing it back to herself, she relates how ice cream played a big part in her childhood. Another essay takes us back to her childhood days of catching and preserving butterflies with her brother and we learn how this is done as an art form.

Another recommended read is Fadiman's first book, Ex Libris which is a must-read for all book lovers as she waxes lyrical about her love for books.

Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand

I have this thing for horses; I love them. That grace and power they exude when galloping is such a sight to behold. So I couldn't help but love this book which is a biography of what is considered the greatest race horse in American history – Seabiscuit. How could you not love a horse with a name like that?

Everyone loves underdog stories and this book tells of the true story of two underdogs – one animal and one man – who found success together as two athletes who overcame great difficulties and injuries of their own to win the biggest race in the country, giving hope to a nation that was beset by the Great Depression. Seabiscuit became the biggest American celebrity in 1938 and this well-researched book brings us back to the exciting and sometimes cruel world of American horse racing.

The Soul of a Chef – Michael Ruhlman

Get an insider's point of view into the world of professional cooking as Michael Ruhlman susses out three top chefs in America – Bryan Polcyn, Michael Symon and Thomas Keller – and find out what makes them, and their businesses, tick.

The Reach of a Chef – Michael Ruhlman

Ruhlman explores the rise of the celebrity chef in yet another delicious book that promises to seduce with the descriptions of food, sushi knife-sharp writing and delectable prose.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals – Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan's writing is a little more intellectual and this reads more like an academic dissertation, but I like the ideas he presents about how we should be more conscious about the origin of the food we eat. Where does the food chain begin? Where are Americans' eating habits leading them in terms of environmental damage, economic wealth and health concerns?

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto – Michael Pollan

Pollan's next book follows the same lines and talks about how we, in particular Americans, should change the way we eat. He argues that people need to relearn the way they eat, to moderate appetites, learn what is real food so as to get optimal nutrition and health from what we consume.

When You’re Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris

If you like dark humour as I do, David Sedaris's books are a must-read. His most recent book is another gem where he satirises everyday life. You can always hear him delivering the lines in his book in a deadpan manner which would probably make you pause say think, 'Hey, I think that was supposed to be funny. Yeah. Haha.'

Emily of New Moon series - L.M. Montgomery

I finally finished the Emily of New Moon series this year and I love the protagonist whom we grow up with in the three books. The feisty 11-year-old who has a love for books and writing is a rather precocious child who grows up to be an independent, strong-willed and passionate woman who is ahead of her time in the time the story is set. Montgomery sets her delightful characters against the charming and gorgeous backdrop of Prince Edward Island in Canada and readers are led back to a time where the world was more innocent.

The Fourth Bear – Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde's irreverent humour and use of well-known literary characters in his plots are absolutely delightful. To appreciate the humour in his writing, you'll need to be someone familiar with the fairy tales and classics from authors such as Charlotte Bronte and Oscar Wilde. The imaginative plots in his books are a fun, intelligent and witty read. In The Fourth Bear, a woman with long blonde hair, people nickname her Goldilocks, has gone missing and the evil Gingerbreadman is on the loose, and it's up to the Nursery Crime Division in Reading, England, to solve these crimes...

The Soul and The Reach of a Chef

If you're interested in food writing, I'd recommend Michael Ruhlman's books 'cos after having read two of them, The Soul of a Chef: The Pursuit of Perfection and The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooking in the Age of Celebrity, I've found his writing very succinct, appropriately descriptive, insightful, informative and well-researched.

Ruhlman is an American author and journalist who is primarily known for his writing about food. The Soul of a Chef is divided into three parts. The first describes how Brian Polcyn, chef-owner of Five Lakes Grill outside Detroit takes the Certified Master Chef exam conducted by the Culinary Institute of America. We are given an insight into the gruelling process of the exam which lasts for 10 days, testing knowledge, skill, creativity, organisation and inherent qualities like flair and personality.

The second part puts the spotlight on Michael Symon, chef-owner of Lola Bistro and Wine Bar in Cleveland, at his restaurant. We are led to see how this chef-owner dominates the restaurant with his presence and big personality. We learn how he makes ingenious use of food to minimise wastage and maximise profit without compromising on quality and taste.

The last part features Thomas Keller, chef-owner of The French Laundry, among the most celebrated chefs in the world, at work in his Napa Valley restaurant. Ruhlman writes of how Keller succeeded against all odds by believing in himself and his cooking. Though untrained professionally, he has an innate talent in food plus the requisite skills and knowledge to go along with it.

The Reach of a Chef examines the celebrity chef phenomenon which has pervaded the world in recent years. In Ruhlman's words:

"The book is an attempt to get my arms around the expanding nature of the chef in America and what it means to be one today. The chef in the age of celebrity, the chef in the midst of a restaurant-as-theater bonanza, the chef in the middle of an American food revolution. Chefs today can do amazing things—from cooking great food to helping farmers raise it to improving school lunches for kids—but there are also chefs who expect adoration is due them simply for walking into a room with a chef coat on. We simultaneously adore and denigrate Rachael and Emeril, television icons—why? How did we become such a food neurotic country—cherishing carbs then fearing them (and just as we learned how to bake decent bread in this country). We are a fat country, so what do we do to lose weight? We embrace a high-protein, high-fat diet! We gorge on high-calorie, low-nutrition, sodium-saturated fast food. We've debased our hogs and polluted our chickens by breeding them in factories."

Ruhlman questions if it's a good thing for chefs to leave their kitchens and engage in things that do not actually involve cooking and serving food to customers. To describe some of the changes in the American culinary scene, Ruhlman returned to the Culinary Institute of America to speak to the chefs he had written about when he wrote The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America and The Soul of a Chef, to see if changes there reflected those in the industry. In the midst of his research, he discovered new kitchens and new chefs to watch out for.

Check out Michael Ruhlman at his blog for more of his informative writing about food and the culinary scene in the US. For the books he's worked on, go here.

Move On

I've been feeling down and demoralised of late, feelings primarily brought on by stuff that's been going on at work. When you suddenly suck at something you thought you were pretty good at, your confidence sinks to a new low; you're consumed with self-doubt and you can't seem to think properly anymore.

It was with these feelings that I wrote to a few close friends to pour my feelings out about how I felt about my life and where it's going, or rather not going. A telephone call with monoceros ended up in a teary conversation after releasing the floodgates that have been building up over quite some time.

Another dear friend, A, wrote back with consoling words and part of the lyrics of a song called Move On by Stephen Sondheim, apt for anyone feeling in a rut or is lost. I have no idea what the song sounds like, but its lyrics dance beautifully in my head with its words of encouragement.

Stop worrying where you're going,
Move on.
If you can know where you're going,
You've probably gone.
Just keep moving on.

I chose, and my world was shaken.
So what?
My choice may have been mistaken,
The choosing was not.
You have to move on...

Hot Chocolate

The ideal hot chocolate is made with the finest cocoa powder or solid chocolate or both. The resulting beverage should be neither too thin for serious satisfaction nor too thick to refresh; neither too bitter to produce the childlike enjoyment we seek, nor so sweet and simple as to insult the intellect. The harsh flavour and gritty texture of cocoa powder and the soft fattiness of solid chocolate should be blended so that neither can be distinguished. As a general rule, one's first swallow should induce a long interlude of silence.

~ Jeffrey Steingarten in It Must Have Been Something I Ate

Hot chocolate is one of those things which I mentally file under 'Comfort food' or perhaps more accurately 'Comfort drink'. It's best enjoyed on a cold winter's day or at a time when you need a sugar rush. You can also somehow convince yourself that it's healthy 'cos hey, it's milk after all, and milk is supposed to be healthy, right? But perhaps that reasoning can only be applied to hot chocolate that is more English- or American-style.

The hot chocolate that you find in Italy and Spain is like molten chocolate. It's thick and viscous and flows down your throat like molten lava. I like this version when I'm feeling I need something REALLY sinful. It's rather heavy-going and I know some people who can't fathom how anyone could gulp down something so thick and viscous. They can't, but DSD can!!!

In Singapore, I haven't found a place which does hot chocolate Italian or Spanish style. Admittedly, I haven't tried ordering it in an Italian or Spanish restaurant here. OK, I shall make that my next mission the next time I go to one. But if any of you know of any place which serves it that way, please let me know. Just don't tell me to go to a chocolate fountain at some buffet, 'cos that just ain't the real McCoy.

As for the normal hot chocolate, I like the one served in Canele. So far, it's the best one I've had in Singapore. Other recommendations are welcomed!

A Pig In Provence

A good book is one where you're able to experience the sights, smells and sounds the author is describing through words. In A Pig In Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France, American cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan brings us into the Provence she got to know in the 1970s when she moved there with her first husband and daughter to eke out a living making fresh goat's cheese.

The book centres around food and Brennan takes the reader into a time where there weren't hypermarts, and where more people were in tune with the land and what it had to offer. Readers are introduced to her French neighbours who teach her about French Provencal life. She learns how to make fresh goat's cheese the French way and ends up pleasing all her neighbours because no one in the area makes it anymore.

She experiences what it's like to herd goats and rear pigs. We feel her excitement when she goes on her first mushroom hunt and learns how to identify edible mushrooms. We can feel her squirm when she witnesses a pig being slaughtered to make sausages. Brennan also learns what it takes to make an authentic Marseille bouillabaisse. Her description of the long summer meals the locals enjoy seduces us to the charms of rural Provence.

If you love food and you're looking for an easy read for the weekend, this is the book to pick up!

For Singaporeans: This book is available in the National Library.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

If you are wondering what book you should pick up next, may I suggest that you read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer if you haven't already done so.

The book's protagonist is Oskar Shell, a precocious nine-year-old boy who had lost his father in the 911 World Trade Center attacks two years ago. While going through his father's things, he finds a key which doesn't seem to open any lock or door at home. So Oskar sets out to find the lock to which the key belongs to. In his quest, he meets different people and embarks on a journey of healing for himself and the people he encounters.

The plot is quirky with a few odd characters, yet it also manages to explore and bring out the emotional distress and hurt experienced by the families of the 911 victims. The narrative structure of the novel is very innovative and it's been a long while since I came across a book like that.

Highly recommended!

Disillusioned Females

Even female Komodo dragons have given up on their male counterparts!

A Life in Words

When I was in my twenties, a friend in her thirties said to me, "I wasted my twenties." I found that a shocking and memorable sentence. How could you waste ten years of your life, especially when you hadn’t been alive that long? But now, at the end of my thirties, I too, see that I wasted my twenties, not in a fug of drugs or in the stupidity of beer, but rather just by being lost. Or not even being lost, just not knowing how to get to where I wanted to go.

Literary Recipes

Friends are sometimes surprised to spot, lodging among the cook books in my kitchen, Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday. “But surely,” I say to them, “you know that it contains the most brilliant recipe for fish stew?”

about competition

about competition

the higher you climb
the greater the pressure.

those who manage to
endure
learn
that the distance
between the
top and the
bottom
is
obscenely
great.

and those who
succeed
know
this secret:
there isn't
one.

~ Charles Bukowski from the Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line the Way.

The Big Over Easy

If you fancy a funny and intelligent detective story, I suggest you pick up Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy.

Humpty Dumpty has been found scattered into pieces over the wall and foul play is suspected. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division and his assistant Mary Mary set out to uncover the cause of his death. In the course of their investigation, they meet with familiar nursery rhyme characters who are all part of this world where nursery rhyme characters co-exist with fellow humans.

The book’s a riot – bringing in your knowledge of nursery rhymes and combining it with your knowledge of the ways of the modern world, all the while laced with satirical wit and intelligent humour. A recommended read.

The book is available from the National Library.

Ex-boyfriends in Heaven

Ex-boyfriends never go to hell,
no matter how many times
you suggest it. No, they ascend straight
to heaven, where they speak French,
wear matching socks, and always,
always arrive on time, with a full
tank of gas and a bottle of wine.
They never curse your cat
or your mother, never call you up
drunk doing Arnold Schwarzenegger
impressions, never say Hey Rita
if your name is Tammy,
never say Hey Tammy
if your name is Joan.
They're better trained than dogs
and they smell better, too, better
than Twinkies or camellias, better
than anything on earth. Once
in a while, they take a holiday,
drive their Porsches down
through the clouds
in one long line and ring
the doorbell in your dreams,
offering tender apologies, tender
chicken cutlets, tender love.
But before you take one sack
of groceries, before your lips
graze a clean-shaven jaw,
before you let one polished
Oxford loafer through your door,
remember that as soon as they cross
the threshold, the truth will slip
in behind them: ex-boyfriends only
exist this way in heaven, or
whatever you want to call it,
their new lives without you.

~ Gwen Hart from Lost and Found

Food Vocabulary

Something I learnt from Germany in my recent trip there:

In Germany, a Bratkartoffel relationship refers to a relationship based purely on sex.

Brat = fried
Kartoffel = potato

Apparently, it's so-named because fried potatoes are so common in Germany, thus alluding to the casual nature and the frequent occurence of such relationships in society.

Interesting. And I suppose it's a good thing (or not?) I don't like eating potatoes! ;p

Sunday Reading

Every Sunday, I look forward to surfing by two websites. The first being Postsecret where people send in postcards anonymously bearing their deepest secrets. All of the postcards are creatively made, and the messages can really tug at your heart. Some confessions are funny and cute, others are beautifully tragic. Some make you smile as you identify with them. Some make your eyes water at its sad message. It must be cathartic and therapeutic for the individuals who send their secrets, and most of all, when reading it, it reminds me life is about these myriad of emotions and situations.

The second website I surf to is the Weddings & Celebrations section of the New York Times. Every week, a wedding couple and their love story are featured. There's nothing like a good love story and I'm a sucker for it even though my own love life is in the doldrums. And perhaps that's exactly the reason why I need to read such things to not give up on love.

It's just nice to read how real people (and not characters in novels) meet, fall in love, and decide to spend the rest of their lives together. What I like about it is it features people from all walks of life and situations. Gay and lesbian couples are also featured as just another love story, with no emphasis on their sexuality. Something like that would never happen in Singapore's media, I'm sure. Singapore's media is just too straight-laced for this sort of thing. Blah.

So yeah, that's Sunday reading fodder for you.

Hug

Hug

The older I get, the more I like hugging, When I was little
the
people hugging me were much larger. In their grasp I was a
rag
doll. In adolescence, my body was too tense to relax for a
hug.
Later, after the loss of virginity—which was anything but a
loss—the extreme proximity of the other person, the smell
of
hair,
the warmth of the skin, the sound of breathing in the
dark—these were mysterious and delectable. This hug had
two primary components: the anticipation of sex and the
plea-
sure of intimacy, which itself is a combination of trust and
affection. It was this latter combination that came to
character-
ize the hugging I have experienced only in recent years, a
hug-
ging that knows no distinctions of gender or age. When this
kind of hug is mutual, for a moment the world is perfect the
way it is, and the tears we shed for it are perfect too. I
guess it
is an embrace.

~ Ron Padgett

----------------------------------------------------

I thought the poem was lovely, so decided to put it up and share it. Indeed, a hug can be something so reassuring. That touch, with another human, or animal (e.g. a dog--I love hugging my dogs), just makes you feel like you DO exist in this world. Know what I mean?

The Definition of Me

Merriam Webster's Word of the Day for June 02 is:

foodie \FOO-dee\ noun

: a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads

Example sentence:
A serious foodie, Beryl reads cookbooks like novels and scours specialty shops in search of exotic ingredients.

Did you know?
"Foodie" is a relatively recent addition to our language (dating from the early 1980s), but it derives from a much older word, "food," which has been with us for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. "Food" can be traced back through Middle English to the Old English form "fōda," which is itself related to Old High German "fuotar," meaning "food" or "fodder," and Latin "panis," meaning "bread." "Panis" is the source for "empanada," a Spanish turnover with a sweet filling, "panatela," a type of cigar, "panettone," an Italian bread containing raisins and candied fruit, and "pantry," a room used for the storage of provisions.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Chinglish

Just so you have an idea of the type of English I have to correct in the course of my work:

At the Cambridge School, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed the companionship of seeing and hearing girls of my own.

~~~~~
So this sad experience may have done me some good and set me thinking on some of the problems of composition.

I'm given these sentences by Chinese teachers in China who teach English. If this is the sort of thing they're teaching their students, they're really screwing with their students' English.

Ex Libris

To book lovers out there, are you the sort who expresses your love for your books by maintaining them in pristine condition? Or do you scribble notes and highlight paragraphs to show your fondness?

Do you have this compulsive urge to buy books? Are you the sort who can't tear yourself away from a bookstore and the sight of books excites you to no end? Is your home filled to the brim with unread books?

Is there a favourite pen you write with? And why is it so special?

Are you a compulsive proofreader such that restaurant menus, newspapers, advertisements and all sorts of printed matter don't escape your eagle eye for correct spelling and grammar?

If you marry a fellow book-lover, how are you going to marry your libraries as well?

In Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman explores these various situations in her witty essays revolving round her love (obsession perhaps?) with books. Coming from a literary family, Fadiman had grown up among books, and it's no wonder, too, that her better half is a writer. Book lovers are always suckers for fellow lovers of the written word. And yes, DSD digs literary men too. Very much so. Unfortunately there aren't many around in the sunny little island of Singapore. Hmm.

Ex Libris is an extremely enjoyable read for bibliophiles. You can identify with pretty much everything Fadiman writes about. Her wit and succint writing is a textbook example of what good writing should be. Her voice shines through and you feel like you've really gotten to know Fadiman (just in terms of her love for books) at the end of it. Each essay is a few pages long and the book's really thin, so it's a great one to take along for that bus or train ride.

Many thanks to d who lent me the book. I was tempted to hijack/kidnap the book, but of course I won't 'cos I'm always respectful of books and their rightful owners. :)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

The ancient ritual of foot binding is the focus of American novelist Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. The novel revolves around the central character who's also the narrator, Lily, and her laotong (老同 Old Same), Snow Flower.

"A laotong match is as significant as a good marriage," Lily's aunt explained. "A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity. A marriage is not made by choice and has only one purpose ? to have sons."

Set in 19th century China, the two girls are bound together for life from the day they have their feet bound at age seven. They are taught the ancient women's writing called nushu (女术), and this is their only way of written communication. They inscribe their messages on a fan and this fan becomes a journal of their lives as they each embark on their own paths when they of marriagable age.

See brings her readers into the inner realm of women and the horrific ritual of foot binding where the bones of young girls' feet are crushed to make them resemble lily flowers. Ancient marriage rituals are also brought alive in this book and the lowly status of women in that time period is starkly obvious in the picture that See paints.

The novel provides a fascinating insight into the rituals that govern foot binding, marriage, and the status of women in 19th century China. It is available at the National Library.

Comfort Me With Apples

With a title like Comfort Me With Apples how could I possibly resist picking up Ruth Reichl's book? This book picks up from where Tender at the Bone leaves off.

In Tender, Reichl writes about her childhood and her first marriage, skilfully interweaving food into her narrative. She does the same in Comfort where readers get to know of her early career as the food critic of The Los Angeles Times.

Reichl also writes candidly of the breaking down of her first marriage, the infidelities on both her and her first husband's part, her subsequent meeting with her second husband and the struggles they faced with adoption. Major milestones in her life are laid out for readers as we are subsciously drawn into her life as she weaves in her vivid descriptions of food.

The book's enjoyable enough but it's not great. Suitable for some easy weekend reading.

The book is available at the National Library.

Word of the Day

esculent \ESS-kyuh-lunt\ adjective

: edible

Example sentence:
Sonia is a chef at The Wild Asparagus, a top-notch restaurant whose claim to fame is that every dish on the menu features an esculent native plant.

Did you know?
One appealing thing about "esculent" is that this word, which comes from the Latin for food ("esca"), has been around for 375 years. If we give you just one more tidbit of etymology � that "esca" is from Latin "edere," which means "to eat" � can you pick which of the following words is NOT related to "esculent"?

~ from Merriam Webster

To Die For

Perhaps all foodies should be like Australian food critic Stephen Downes--write a list of 100 gastronomic experiences to have before one retires six feet underground. In To Die For: 100 Gastronomic Experiences to Have Before You Die, he does exactly that.

The book is divided into three sections: Eating Out, Eating In and Worth the Effort. In the first section, he chronicles best meals he's had in restaurants and anything that's not homecooked food. From the three-star Michelin restaurants to the century eggs in Hong Kong, he whets your appetite with every word.

In the Eating In section, he writes about the best homecooked food he has eaten. Can't quite remember what the items were. Worth the Effort is about food that is worth putting in the effort to make. I remember Eggs Benedict as being in either one...can't remember which one!

In his introduction, Downes writes that in writing this book, he wants to share with people how to eat well and how to recognise good food. There are no recipes in the book and it really is a book about the art of eating well. It's an easy and pleasant read which is great for that short bus/train ride as the book is really made up of short articles.

To Die For is available at the National Library.

Kitchen Confidential

Now that Mr. B has been dumped into the "Reject for all Eternity Bin", we're ready to move on.

Now, the one man that has captured my imagination recently is celebrity chef Mr. Anthony Bourdain. I've just finished his book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

In this autobiography of sorts, he writes about how he came to become a chef. We read of his stints in dodgy bistros, restaurants, his dabblings with drugs, and all the shady characters he worked with. Through his eyes, we are given an insight into the inner workings of a testosterone-filled working environment.

But of course, he's quick to point out that not all restaurants are as boisterous as the ones he's worked in. Still, it's a fascinating portrait he paints of the kitchens and the people inside it.

Foodies and industry professionals will love this book with its honesty, dark humour and wit. His very conversational style of writing is thoroughly engaging and it's as if the guy's really talking to you, the reader, in the flesh. Bourdain's love for the cooking trade and all his good friends in the industry transpires through and it was a very delectable read indeed.

A highly recommended dish for the brain. Something light and easy on the brain's palate for the weekend. The book is available in the National Library.

Are Men Necessary?

In the jacket blurb of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's latest book Are Men Necessary?: when sexes collide, it says that the book looks at the sexual politics between men and women.

It makes the book all very intellectual and I was inclined to pick up the book after seeing the book on New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2005 list.

However, I was rather disappointed at the read as she doesn't seem to be exploring new ground with her observations on the gender situation in dating, the home, workplace and politics. OK, probably she makes a case for the fact that men are really the ones responsible for screwing up the world (main target of bashing being Bush Junior) and that the world would probably be better if women ruled it. That is, Condi Rice (as she likes to call the US Secretary of State) would do a much better job had she had the reins. OK, perhaps I might just go with her theory on this. Haha.

No new ground is broken in this book and I think it's a book you could pass on if you chance upon it.

Tender at the Bone

If there's one food writer I want to write like, it'd have to be Ruth Reichl. She has the amazing ability to draw readers into her life and her anecdotes are so interesting.

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table takes us through her childhood to early adulthood and all the experiences she had had with food which has helped shaped her career.

She skilfully weaves the theme of food around her life as we learn of how she had to cope with her mother's maniac depressive tendencies, her three years of boarding school in France, her dealing with the awkward teenage and college years, her hippie lifestyle in the 60s and 70s, and her first marriage.

Another delectable read by Reichl. Please taste it if you come across it!

Fork It Over

With a title like that, Alan Richman's Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater is a book waiting for me to take a stab at devouring its contents.

The book is a compilation of essays written by him over the years as a food critic. These essays have previously appeared in various publications he has written for such as GQ, Cond� Nast Traveler, Food & Wine and Bon App�tit.

His anecdotes on the restaurants and cities he has been to, dining with Sharon Stone, going to a French cooking school etc, all make for easy reading and are all pretty interesting. Something you might want to pick up for a weekend read.

Garlic and Sapphires

Ruth Reichl, the present editor of Gourmet magazine, has the ability to draw people with her easy and friendly writing style. In Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise she writes about the different personas she adopted when she was the New York Times food critic.

To avoid being recognised at top restaurants in New York, so that she wouldn't get preferential treatment (which would render inaccurate reviews), she often donned different wigs and make-up to conjure different personas. She took inspiration from people she met or saw along the streets and this book about her experiences when she dined as these people.

Reichl must have had a penchant for acting, as she seemed to be able to construct very full and rounded characters. She slips into her roles like the way a chameleon changes its colour. One moment she's her mother who's loud and demanding at restaurants (very prima donna-ish), and the next she's a meek old lady who squeaks and is utterly forgettable, then she's the hot blonde who sweeps men off their feet with her beauty, or she could be the charming brunette who's everybody's darling just 'cos she's so nice.

It's fascinating to read how she describes her transformation not only in outward appearance but also in psyche whenever she puts on a disguise. Reichl's very personable writing makes the reader feel as if you know her as a friend. One feels she's accessible and I think that's an important thing to note when writing a memoir or autobiography.

A recommended read for easy reading. Definitely goes down well with the stomach!

Top 10 Books of 2005

As usual, I haven't done as much reading as I wanted to, I mean, if time permitted, I would devour every book on my wishlist! So anyways, here are the top 10 books for me this year (in no particular order of preference).

1) Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

2) Stalking the Green Fairy: and Other Fantastic Adventures in Food and Drink by James Villas

3) Between Bites: Memoirs of a Hungry Hedonist by James Villas

4) The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

5) The Perfectionist: Life & Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski

6) With Love & Irony by Lin Yutang

7) Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

8) Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life by Mimi Sheraton

9) A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain

10) The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer

Word of the Day

voluptuary: a person devoted to luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites.

Sensuous vs Sexy

I�ve been reading Stalking the Green Fairy: and Other Fantastic Adventures in Food and Drink by James Villas, who�s an American food writer. The book contains his essays on various types of food like the meat loaf, chicken salad, pumpkin pie, and he muses about his love for peanut butter and canned tuna.

In his essay on onion soup, he writes that there is a big difference between foods that are sensuous and those that are sexy. This got me piqued. To Villas, sensuous is: foie gras, truffled eggs, sea urchins, Stilton cheese and white peaches. Sexy is: oysters, braised beef cheeks, roast grouse, gumbo (it�s a type of stew originating from New Orleans containing many types of meat and vegetables).

He writes, �To be sexy, a food must awaken certain primal instincts, stimulate the id, and inspire a little recklessness.� To him, onion soup has �the earthy allure, the wanton charm, and the saturnalian ability to seduce�.

And I just love the way he personifies the dish��Like the bohemian lady she is, onion soup is neither trendy nor sophisticated, but she is irresistible. Dressed in her golden mantle, she is most often spotted in the dark, romantic Left Bank bistros of Paris, but wrapped in any number of other dazzling guises, she also haunts the tascas of Lisbon, the wood-paneled pubs of London and Copenhagen, the smoky stuben of Munich, and even the rutty cafes of Buenos Aires. In these places, the nocturnal courtesan is still not only greatly appreciated but respected as the fickle creature she is."

To me, the two words didn�t seem tttoooo different from each other. So I went to check up their meanings on dictionary.com. The given definitions were:

Sensuous (adj): appealing to or gratifying the senses

Sexy (adj): Arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest.

And then I was enlightened.

So here�s my list:

Sensuous
- Warm apple pie with old-fashioned vanilla ice cream
- A crisp 油条 with warm soy bean milk
- Moist carrot cake (the English kind)
- Carrot cake aka Cai Tau Kueh
- Claypot rice aka Lap Mei Fan which is probably best eaten in HK at this time of the year!
- Good Cantonese porridge
- Smooth, silken beancurd dessert
- Roasted chestnuts
- 合桃糊，栗子糊

Sexy
- dark chocolate
- a tasty steak done rare to medium-rare
- tiramisu
- any good Cantonese soup
- grilled oysters with generous amounts of garlic
- any yummy stew
- chocolate dipped strawberries

OK, brain is not working very well at the moment, and of course I�m sure I have more to add to the list. But time�s not on my side for me to mull over all the cuisines of the world. Would love to hear what others consider as �sensuous� and �sexy� food too!

The Historian

After all that hype about Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel The Historian, I was very eager to read the book to see what it was that seemed to grip people the world over.

If you haven't already heard, the book is about the history of Dracula. There is a great amount of research on eastern European history and one is impressed by the efforts put into digging up all that history.

A young lady finds a book in her father's study which will lead her and her father on a quest to hunt down Dracula. The suspense is intriguing for the first 400 pages or so, and the book is a real page-turner. But three-quarters into it, the novel is let down by a too-lengthy account of Turkish and Bulgarian history, making it read more like a history textbook. The pace is slowed down at this point and the ending wasn't that satisfactory.

Certain aspects of the novel also seem somewhat improbable as the novel unfolds in the form of letters from the lady's father to her. To have someone writing that much in the space of such a short time is rather far-fetched an idea and it certainly had me raising my eyebrows and question marks popping up in my mind.

Overall, it is a pretty good read but I would have to admit I was a tad disappointed.

Word Challenge

Help. My sister needs examples of a plural regular noun inside a compound.

Examples given to her were:
- 6-inches-long-spider (quntificational compounds)
- Publications research, finals week ('heteregenous' class, mostly denoting organizational units, fields of study etc)
- Equal rights amendment, new books shelf (an adjective modifies the plural noun inside the compound)

Word geeks out there, please crack your brains! Thanks!

Writing

The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters
these by themselves delight, even without
a meaning, in a foreign language, in
Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve
all day across the lake, scoring their white
records in ice. Being intelligible,
these winding ways with their audacities
and delicate hesitations, they become
miraculous, so intimately, out there
at the pen's point or brush's tip, do world
and spirit wed. The small bones of the wrist
balance against great skeletons of stars
exactly; the blind bat surveys his way
by echo alone. Still, the point of style
is character. The universe induces
a different tremor in every hand, from the
check-forger's to that of the Emperor
Hui Tsung, who called his own calligraphy
the 'Slender Gold.' A nervous man
writers nervously of a nervous world, and so on.

Miraculous. It is as thought the world
were a great writing. Having said so much,
let us allow there is more to the world
than writing: continental faults are not
bare convoluted fissures in the brain.
Not only must the skaters soon go home;
also the hard inscription of their skates
is scored across the open water, which long
remembers nothing, neither wind nor wake.

~ Howard Nemerov, from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov. � University of Chicago Press.

Sybarite

That's a new word I learnt today and it refers to a person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

I wanna be that.

The Perfect Day

You wake with
no aches
in the arms
of your beloved
to the smell of fresh coffee
you eat a giant breakfast
with no thought
of carbs
there is time to read
with a purring cat on your lap
later you walk by the ocean
with your dog
on this cut crystal day
your favorite music and the sun
fill the house
a short delicious nap
under a fleece throw
comes later
and the phone doesn't ring
at dusk you roast a chicken,
bake bread, make an exquisite
chocolate cake
for some friends
you've been missing
someone brings you an
unexpected present
and the wine is just right with the food
after a wonderful party
you sink into sleep
in a clean nightgown
in fresh sheets
your sweetheart doesn't snore
and in your dreams
and old piece of sadness
lifts away

~ by Alice N. Persons from Never Say Never � Moon Pie Press.

What would make a perfect day for me?
1) I don't have to wake up to the ringing sounds of an alarm clock
2) Freshly squeezed orange juice made by my mum
3) A nice and sunny day
4) My favourite music playing on my stereo
5) warm and fresh soya bean milk from the market
6) crisp and warm 油条 to go with the soya bean milk
7) A day spent canoeing and hanging out at the beach
8) Reading a good book
9) Talking to good friends
10) Snuggling into nice pyjamas and the warm familiarity of my bed

I could think of more, but for now this is it. What constitutes a perfect day for you then?

The History of Love

This is a cop-out but I'm just too lazy to write a review of The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (mainly 'cos I find it very difficult to write!!!), but I have to plug this book 'cos I really enjoyed the read. So I'm just going to type what's on the book jacket.

"Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive. drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And although he doesn't know it, that book also survived: it crossed oceans and generations, and changed lives.

Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book. She has her hands full keeping track of her little brother Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah) and taking copious notes in her book, How to Survive in the Wild Volume Three. But when a mysterious letter arrives in the mail she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family."

Krauss cleverly weaves together different characters and time periods in this story about love in its various forms--unrequited love, puppy love, parental love, friendship and romantic love. Put together in an interesting narrative structure, this is one thing that sets this book apart. Krauss sensitive portrayal of the characters coupled with her acute understanding of human feelings and behaviour tugs at your heartstrings, making this book a delight to read.

The Perfectionist

Avid followers of the French culinary scene will no doubt have heard of the suicide of French chef Bernard Loiseau two years ago. The book The Perfectionist: Life & Death in Haute Cuisine is a biography of this celebrated chef, giving us an insight into the events that led to this tragedy.

Written by Loiseau's close friend and veteran journalist, Rudolph Chelminski, the book is a fitting tribute to a man who was so obsessed with achieving perfection in his craft.

However, one cannot speak of Loiseau without also mentioning the other great French cookery maestros and wizards from whom he had learnt his craft from. Chelminski writes of how cookery masters like Fernand Point, the Troisgos brothers and Paul Bocuse influenced Loiseau. Vivid descriptions of French food and its preparation are a constant throughout the book as Chelminski describes each chef's speciality. You can almost see the dish being prepared right in front of you and after that sitting right under your nose.

Anecdotes from many of Loiseau's family, close friends and acquaintances add depth to the caricature of his character, allowing readers to understand the man behind his cheery facade.

Readers are also given a glimpse of the intense competition in the French culinary scene and the often symbiotic relationship between the media and restaurants. Loiseau often courted the press to promote his restaurant the La Cote d'Or in the small town of Saulieu. In a way, he had to ensure the survival of his restaurant as it was tucked away in a small provincial town.

While playing up Bernard's strengths as a man who was warm and generous to all around him, and one who was ambitious, the book also leads us to know that Bernard was, in actual fact, a highly insecure person. He needed to be reassured of his ability all the time. We soon learn that this insecurity stemmed from a medical condition called Bipolar Disorder, also known as manic-depressive disorder.

Eventually, it is this condition, went unrecognised, that led to his death after his restaurant was demoted by two points in the GaultMillau 2003 food guide. Even the retention of his three stars in the revered Michelin guide wasn't enough. A demotion to him meant his failure as a person as his restaurant was everything to him. Unable to face the situation, he shot himself in the head, leaving behind a wife, three children and 65 staff who were thoroughly devoted to him and La Cote d'Or.

This is a recommended read for all, especially foodies. It makes for an interesting read with its thorough research on the French culinary scene. Chelminski's writing is clear and succint, and his descriptions of food are an absolute delight to read. But most of all, it is a book written by a person who obviously knew the man and this gives it some degree of poignancy.

*This book is available for loan from the Singapore National Library.

The Star

Almost every one of us would have sung or recited the first stanza of this poem hundreds of times ever since we were kids. But I think few have actually come across the entire poem. At least I didn't until quite recently, so I thought I'd just share it with others who haven't.

The Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the trav'ller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveler in the dark�
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

~ Jane Taylor.

With Love & Irony

I can't believe it has taken me this long to discover the writings of Lin Yutang.

Born in China's Fujian province in 1895, he was one of the earliest Chinese intellectuals to write in English. Written in simple everyday English, his prose is charming, humorous and witty, often taking a satirical stance on the political situation during his time.

The book I'm reading now, With Love & Irony, is a collection of his essays which were published in newspapers such as The New York Times. Even though the essays were published in the 1930s, many of the things he writes about still resonates very much with the world in its current state of affairs. His astute observations of life, from simple things like the Chinese people's fascination with birds to more profound topics like Sino-Japanese relations, the East-West divide and the political unrest in China, are always tinged with a touch of humour, even though a more serious message lies beneath. Absolutely brilliant.

Lin also lectured in English literature and often translated classic Chinese texts which has remained popular in the West till today. His most famous original works are My Country and My People and The Importance of Living. Definitely worth checking out I'm sure.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Since it's International Woman's Day today, I think it's quite fitting to put up this post. If you're a woman and you love literature, you HAVE to read Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi .

This book is a true life account of how this group of Iranian women meet every week to discuss literature. We are given an insight into the tyranny of the totalitarian regime these women are forced to live under and how they seek to escape from this cruel reality (albeit only for a few hours a week) through literature. Most interesting of all is how the author has dissected Lolita and other works by Nabokov and linked the themes to their situation. Other writers and their works discussed in the book are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and Jane Austen.

Nafisi, who now lives and teaches in the US, is a literature professor who spent her growing years in the West and returned to Tehran , full of dreams, to teach literature at the University of Tehran. After a couple of years, she is disillusioned with the regime and their controlling ways. She then quits her job and withdraws herself from academia. In doing so however, she finds herself withdrawing from society and becoming increasingly isolated.

She then decides to set up a small class with a select group of students she once taught. The critieria on which she bases her choice centred only around one thing--that they have a genuine love of literature. The women, ranging from their early 20s to 30s, are all strong individuals who are vastly different in characters. Brought together by their common love for literature, we learn of how the totalitarian regime has impacted their lives.

In a country where intellectual life is suppressed and where women are treated as second-class citizens, we get a glimpse of how the women cope with the restrictions imposed on them. What women in more libertarian regimes take for granted, like the painting of nails, the freedom to dress and go whereever one pleases, these Iranian women will never know in their country.

I think this book resonates more with the female rather than male reader. As a
woman, I really felt for these women who are being made to live in a society that oppresses women. Many of Nafisi's students grew up not knowing what love and happiness were. Freedom and liberty also became foreign concepts. So much so that when an opportunity comes up to taste these forbidden fruits, Nafisi writes of the 'ordeal of freedom' and the 'burden of choice'. Ironic, isn't it?

Perhaps it's true though--those of us living in more libertarian societies DO suffer from the ordeal of freedom and the burden of choice. We have so many options that we do not know which to choose and end up being lost sheep.

Nafisi's succint prose emotionally engages the reader with her heartfelt descriptions of her personal struggles as well as those of her students. Her dissection of the great literary works brings the reader into her classroom, making one feel like one has just attended one of her literature lessons.

The book's an extremely compelling read and one which I highly recommend.

And yes, let's celebrate womanhood!

The Da Vinci Code

I finished The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown over the weekend. Like finally read it after half the world has read it and lauded it to the skies.

While I don't share the enthusiasm and view of some readers who have proclaimed it the best book they've ever read (frankly if this is the best, I shudder to think what they've been reading so far), I must grant Brown some points for his brilliant idea of stringing research done by historians, archaeologists, astronomists, scientists etc, into a mystery novel.

While I'm skeptical as to how much of the so-called "facts" presented are truly facts, it does make for quite an interesting read at some points. I mean, some of the puzzles are pretty clever.

However, Brown's style of writing is to me, just mediocre and really, just plain bad at some points. The language isn't compelling and there were times I found him to be overly descriptive. Like I would find myself thinking, "I didn't need to know THAT." or "I could have figured that out for myself thank you very much."

Overall though, a passable read but it definitely won't be on the list of my Top 10 books of the year.

Crossing Time

We are each the love of someone's life. ~ Max Tivoli in his confessions

A beautiful opening sentence to the novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. But while we may be each the love of someone's life, it doesn't follow that we are, in turn, the love of THEIR lives. And so it is with this novel which is heartache personified.

Set in San Francisco and spanning the later half of the 19th century to the mid 20th century, this novel, written in the first person, reads like the diary of Max Tivoli, a man who ages backwards. That is, he is born looking like an old man. But as he grows older, he looks younger. It's a curse and a blessing really, depending on how you see it.

He finds the love of his life when he is 17 but looking like 53. He doesn't get his girl. Later in life, he's given two more chances to win her love. Max's heartfelt accounts of his emotional and physical ordeals touch the heart.

The theme of unrequited love runs through the novel as the main characters in it find but struggle to be with the ones they love. A tragically beautiful story.

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, a novel I read last year but didn't write about, runs in a similar vein. A cleverly crafted love story bringing in elements of science fiction and time travel, this story revolves round a couple who have to deal with the anxieties and anguish arising from the husband's ability to travel through time.

Written in the first person from the two protagonists' point of view, the novel plays out the love, intimate thoughts and feelings between that of a married couple. While Confessions is about unrequited love, Traveller is about finding that love and hanging on to it no matter what happens.

Both recommended reads and copies of both are available in the Singapore National Library.

Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

Poem: "Nothing is Lost" by Noel Coward, from Collected Verse, edited by Graham Payn & Martin Tickner � Graywolf Press.

A Writer's Accessory

A Spiral Notebook

The bright wire rolls like a porpoise
in and out of the calm blue sea
of the cover, or perhaps like a sleeper
twisting in and out of his dreams,
for it could hold a record of dreams
if you wanted to buy it for that
though it seems to be meant for
more serious work, with its
college-ruled lines and its cover
that states in emphatic white letters,
5 SUBJECT NOTEBOOK. It seems
a part of growing old is no longer
to have five subjects, each
demanding an equal share of attention,
set apart by brown cardboard dividers,
but instead to stand in a drugstore
and hang on to one subject
a little too long, like this notebook
you weigh in your hands, passing
your fingers over its surfaces
as if it were some kind of wonder.

~ "A Spiral Notebook" by Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows � Copper Canyon Press.

While still on the subject of diaries, I love this poem about the spiral notebook. I think it's something every writer or anyone who loves to write should have. I usually buy spiral notebooks 'cos I just like turning the pages over. :p

Dear Diary

What's in My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

Poem: "What's in My Journal" by William Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow � University of Michigan Press. Reprinted with permission.

I love this little poem 'cos I've kept a diary since I was 12. I used to scribble a lot as a teenager and the scribblings got progressively less as I grew older. These days I have two diaries. This blog and a hard copy one which I reserve for my deepest thoughts and feelings.

My first diary was given to me by my mum when I was 7. It had Hello Kitty on its cover. My first entry into it was made in the same year I got it. I wrote about my mother, father, sister and cousin, and drew a few pictures. Then I stopped there. I only started writing in it again when I was 12. It probably got lost amongst my toys in the intervening five years.

Anyway, I love spiral notebooks for diaries or leather-bound ones, or a Moleskineus notebook. Or any pretty diary really! My one critieria is that the pages are not ruled. I like plain pages so that I can doodle whenever I want to.

I keep all my diaries and sometimes I think maybe I should start a bonfire and burn them. But I think they're special memories (if only to myself) and I'll just keep it for my own reading pleasure when I'm old and greying so that I can laugh at the foolishness I displayed in my youth. :)

Kitchen & N.P.

"No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive. That is what makes the life I have now possible."

~ Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

In Kitchen, Mikage Sakurai is a 20-something orphan whose grandmother, her only living relative, has just passed away. Having always loved being in kitchens, she finds herself having no will to live after her grandmother's death and ends up sleeping in the kitchen all day and night.

She is brought out of such an existence by the arrival of Yuichi Tanabe, a young man her age who worked part-time at her grandmother's favourite flower shop. He suggests that Mikage move in with his mum and himself as he thinks she needs some help. Yuichi tells Mikage that her grandmother was always nice to him, and he thought that it'd only be right to extend a helping hand to her.

After some contemplation, Mikage decides to move in with Yuichi and his mother, Eriko, who is really his father. Eriko underwent a sex change after the death of Yuichi's mother and is now one of the top hostesses in a club. The story offers a charming but bittersweet look into the lives of these three individuals who learn to live and love one another in their own ways.

Moonlight Shadow, the companion story to Kitchen, deals with the grief and the overcoming of loss of a loved one. Satsuki, a young girl on the cusp of adulthood, has just lost her highschool sweetheart to a motorcycle accident. A beautiful and moving story which touches on love, tragedy and the supernatural.

As mentioned in Yoshimoto's Afterword, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow are about growth and the overcoming of obstacles. In both stories, we see how the characters become stronger and wiser after they've learnt to deal with their losses.

N.P. is a little darker in tone. In this novel, a celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind his work N.P., a collection of short stories written in English. Translators who have tried to translate the work into his native Japanese inevitably stop short at the 98th story as after that they choose to take their own lives too. This includes the protagonist Kazami Kano's boyfriend, Shoji.

Having never been able to fully get over Shoji's death, Kazami is drawn to three young people whose lives are initimately bound to the late writer and N.P. Love found, love lost, incest, friendship and mystery are things that Kazami finds having to face over the course of a summer where she will discover the truth behind the 98th story and have her own life bound to these people she has gotten acquainted with.

The beauty of Yoshimoto's writing is that her characters are always flawed which truly reflects on all of us as humans. Her characters are also quirky and interesting because there's always something bizarre about them. Veering on the side of alternative perhaps. Her language is sparse and simple, yet leaves the reader wistful with her astute observations about human existence.

Wok

An apt article and poem (below) to complement this photo of mine.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~ Robert Frost (1876 - 1963)

Hungry For Words

"I have since come to recognize that men and women generally write differently about food and perhaps about everything else. Men tend to express their opinions in a brasher, more confident or even conceited tone, although those opinions rarely prove more reliable than the carefully couched and subtly appeasing assessments made by most women. Men and women usually draw upon different frames of references, thereby coloring the copy."

~ Mimi Sheraton in Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life

When I read this, I was struck by this astute observation and felt that Sheraton's description rang true when I compared her writing to that of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. In Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life, Sheraton's writing is elegant as opposed to Bourdain's brash and rather "laddish" form in A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines.

Both books are written in the first person, engaging the reader personally in a conversational style. While the core subject of both is food, they are quite different and both make for delectable reads.

Eating is akin to going to a posh restaurant where the interiors are immaculately done up, cultery is nicely laid out, chairs pulled out for you and napkins are folded every time you leave your chair. A Cook's Tour on the other hand, is like your favourite neighbourhood bistro--casual and where people come round to say hi and pat you on your back, and not just exchange air kisses. Though the two places are on extreme ends of the spectrum, you get the same kind of satisfaction from the food served in each place because both are good and unique in their own way.

In Eating, we learn how Sheraton became the foremost food critic in the United States when she became the food reviewer at The New York Times in the 1980s, staying there for eight years. A strong, spirited and opiniated woman, she is not one to mince words or shy away from controversy. Her words, like the knife of a top sushi chef, are razor sharp when she writes about people she doesn't like. Her writing is succint, compact, and like wasabi, manages to pack a punch with very little.

Sheraton brings us back to 1960s New York and paints a charming picture of Greenwich village filled with artists, poets and bohemians, a place where she has been residing for the past 40-odd years. She brings the reader into many restaurants around New York and around the world. Once, she even makes mention of the streets stalls, Satay Alley and chicken rice stalls along Middle Road in Singapore back in the 60s--stalls I didn't even know existed at that time.

I love her description of the durian--"a stinking melon that looked like a giant grenade and when ripe smelled like a mix of rotten cheese and overcooked cauliflower."

Realising that her reviews could make or break restaurants, affects livelihoods, families and sometimes even lives, Sheraton took her job very seriously and therefore was very intent on keeping her anonymity in order to maintain objectivity and do her job well.

What's most interesting is how she went about it. She resorted to buying an assortment of wigs and only putting them on in the taxi on her way to the restaurant so as not to be recognised by office personnel and people on the street as she stepped out of her office. The wig was accompanied by tinted glasses so as to allow her eyes to roam about the restaurant freely without being discovered (as she once had been). Other methods, amongst many others, include only paying for meals in cash or with the credit cards of her dining companions. She also turned down invitations to all events, business or social, if anyone connected to a restaurant or a related establishment was expected.

After reading of Sheraton's efforts to remain anonymous, I'm convinced that food reviewers/critics in Singapore lack the professionalism Sheraton has. In Singapore's national newspaper, The Straits Times, the food reviewers have photo bylines (this now sounds so sacrilegious compared to Sheraton)--something which Sheraton would never EVER have in her piece!

Like Sheraton, Bourdain regales us with tales as he eats his way around the globe, camera crew in tow, from Portugal, France, Russia, Vietnam, Morocco, Cambodia to Japan. While not a memoir like Eating, A Cook's Tour is more of a food travelogue interspersed with other interesting facts which highlights facets of the cultures he comes across. While his writing is far less elegant (very bloke-ish), it is still pretty enjoyable. Not one to mince words either, he is as frank with his opinions as Sheraton is of hers.

Bourdain is like the brash American who annoys people with his typical brashness and loud attitude. He however, has a healthy respect for other cultures. For example, the full weight of America's involvement in the Vietnam war hits him when he sees a man badly disfigured by Napalm in Ho Chih Min City. He becomes reflective and pensive, giving us a glimpse into the sensitivity that lies beneath the man. There are several instances like this in the book which doesn't make him as annoying as he sometimes comes across. But soon you realise that this is just him--exuberant, loud and laddish, ultimately though just one of the good blokes in your friendly neighbourhood.

In A Cook's Tour, be treated (or maybe not) to descriptions of drinking cobra bile in Vietnam, the slaughtering of a pig in Portugal, the eating of sheep's testicles in the Sahara desert , and various other weird cuisines. Bourdain described the durian as "a big green menacingly spiked football--only it exudes an unforgettable, gassy, pungent, decomposing smell". Though the smell irked him, he surprisingly loved the taste of it.

One reason why I like food is because it's so entwined with culture, a subject which I love. Food varies from culture to culture, and it is interesting to learn about how various factors like religion, climate, geography and economic status influence the things people eat and the ways in which food is prepared. For example, in Morocco, stews are prepared because the women can afford to leave the food aside for many hours while it is cooking so that they have time to take care of other chores. The desert's climate also dictates drying and smoking as methods of food preparation because of the lack of refridgeration in the poorer regions. Meat also has to be cooked well-done as it is easier to peel and separate the meat. The lack of cultery like forks and knives otherwise needed to cut meat that's cooked just rare to medium dictates such a practice.

Anyhow, if you're interested in knowing more about food, run along and pick up these two books. But if you just want to read one of them, Mimi Sheraton's Eating My Words is a better read.

FYI readers in Singapore -- Kinokuniya doesn't stock Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life. I haven't tried Borders, but I got my copy from the library. As for A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines, take note that it also goes by the title of A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, so don't be fooled by the different title!

Haha! :)

By the Shores of Pago Pago

Mama's cooking pots of couscous,
Papa's in the pawpaw patch,
Bebe feeds the motmot bird,
and I the aye-aye in its cage,

Deedee's drinking cups of cocoa,
while he's painting dada-style,
Gigi's munching on a bonbon
(getting tartar on her teeth),

Toto's drumming on a tom-tom,
Fifi's kicking up a can-can,
Jojo's only feeling so-so
and looking deader than a dodo,

Mimi's dressing in a muumuu,
Nana's bouncing with her yo-yo,
stirring batter for a baba,
Zaza doesn't make a murmur,

Kiki hopes her juju beads
will help to ward off tsetse flies,
Lulu's looking very chichi
in a tutu trimmed with froufrou:

does all this mean our family's cuckoo?

~ "By the Shores of Pago Pago" by Eve Merriam, from Rainbow Writing � Atheneum

Small Things

Snowflake

Timing's everything. The vapor rises
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
then freezes, suddenly, and crystallizes
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
for countless miles, drifting east above
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.

~ William Baer, from Borges and Other Sonnets

I love the poem above as it has brought such beauty to something so small we hardly think about. I imagine the writer when he wrote it--it must have been one of those savouring-the-simple-pleasures-in-life kind of moments for him. The imagery the poem conjures is lovely and one day I would hope to see snow fall (so far I've always visited temperate countries in summer) with that special someone...

Top 10 Books of 2004

Well, there are definitely more but I just can't remember what I've read! I remember having read lots of good books this year but off the top of my head I can't quite recall every one of them now. So here's the off-the-top-of-my-head list.

1) Only a Sandpiper: Appreciating Classical Chinese Poetry by Li Lienfung -- Thanks to overacuppa and Fatgirl, I now have the book sitting nicely on my shelf!

2) The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

3) Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

4) Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

5) Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

6) French Lessons: Adventures with the Knife, Fork, and Cockscrew by Peter Mayle

7) Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto

8) Toast by Nigel Slater

9) Battle at the Red Cliff: A Guide to Three Kingdoms by Li Lienfung

10) Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies: A Lighthearted Look At How Foods Got Their Names by Martha Barnette

Gatecrashing

A delightful article that appeared in The Guardian which brings together some of literature's best parties. Go here for a read.

French Lessons

Just like his Provence series, Peter Mayle delights his readers with French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Cockscrew. In this book, he moves away from Provence and takes us to different corners of France, in search of culinary delights.

We are brought to nondescript little eateries to Michelin-starred restaurants, to seaside resorts filled with sun-kissed babes in bikinis, wineries, an escargot fair and all sort of quirky festivals in food-loving France. In the last chapter, you'll also learn how the Michelin guide came into existence and the exacting standards with which the publication abides by.

Mayle excels and is clearly in his element when he writes about food and wine during his travels. He paints his characters with humour, has a knack for searching out the unusual and manages to bring all these across to his readers in a conversational and engaging manner. I wished I could write a book like that one day. It'd be my dream come true--getting to travel, eat and write about it! And get paid to do so too!

An enjoyable and delectable read. Definitely one for that relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Coma

Alex Garland's latest novel Coma certainly lives up to its title. It nearly left me comatose, but thank goodness I extricated myself in time from the spiralling vortex of boredom by cutting short my read.

The protagonist Carl (we never get to know his last name), while trying to help a young woman who was being disturbed, is attacked by a gang of thugs in the underground in London one night. When he awakes, he finds that he experiences lapses in memory. We never get to know whether it's reality he's experiencing or whether it's just a figment of his imagination. Is he still in a coma or is he not? Go figure 'cos I gave up halfway.

It's a very short book and doesn't take too long to read. I was 3/4 way into the book but it became a bit of a drone for me. It might prove different for others.

One thing I liked though, were the pictures that are in the book--it's been a while since I last read a book with pictures! The 40 woodprints in the book are done by Nicholas Garland, the political cartoonist, who also happens to be the author's father. Even if you don't read the book, it's nice to have a browse just to have a look at the pictures.

Best Friends

Three pairs of feet
Two beings walking
Side by side
In companionable silence

They speak not each other's language
But no words are needed
Nor do they exist

They are bonded
Through a leash
That stretches
From hand
To head

They are bonded
Through a love
That stretches
From heart
To heart

A poem composed while out walking my collie, Rex, on Monday night. For some bizarre reason, I was in a whimsical mood. The night was lovely with a cool breeze blowing and the stars twinkling on the black canvas.

As I walked along, leash in hand, words just started forming in my head. Anyway, sounds a little cheesy, but what the heck.

Life & Death

No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive. That is what makes the life I have now possible. Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that.

- Banana Yoshimoto in Kitchen

A Good Year

In his latest novel A Good Year, Peter Mayle brings readers back to his beloved Provence which fans of his, having read the highly successful A Year in Provence, Encore Provence, and Toujours Provence, should be familiar with.

The story revolves round high-powered British financial executive Max Skinner who in the course of one day, finds himself out of a job, and also the inheritor of a 20-hectare vineyard and large country house in Provence left to him by his uncle who has just passed away. Having nothing left for him in London, he decides to pack his bags for Provence to oversee the running of the vineyard and the house.

He soon grows to love the Provencal sun, the unhurried and relaxing pace of life in the French countryside, and the warmth of the people in the village. Amidst all these, a little scheme is brewing in the vineyard. Discover what Max unearths in this breezy book which is befitting for a light summer's read.

Only a Sandpiper

For anyone who's interested in learning more about Chinese classical poetry, I highly recommend Only A Sandpiper: Appreciating Classical Chinese Poetry by Li Lienfung.

It's a great book which is aimed at bilingual readers who are more proficient in English. It gives the uninitiated a good and simple introduction to the basics of classical Chinese poetry. Explanations are written in English and there is hanyu pinyin to help the reader when encountering a word that one does not know how to pronounce.

Li Lienfung, now in her 80s, is an effectively bilingual scholar in Chinese and English literature and she peppers her explanation with personal anecdotes of her learning experience. Her easy conversational style of writing makes the explanations go down like a fragrant cup of tea.

Learn how the structures, cadences, and the choice of words make a good poem. She introduces several famous poets in Chinese history like Tang dynasty poets Du Fu and Li Bai, Song dynasty poets like Su Dongpo. There are several others like Li Yu and Liu Yong who are mentioned.

In order to appreciate Chinese classical poetry, it is also important to learn about the circumstances surrounding the poet when he/she wrote it. For example, it might have been because of some existing political situation, or a personal tragedy which sparked off the poet to pen the poem. In explaining each poem that is mentioned in the book, Li Lienfung gives all these background information in order for the reader to fully grasp and appreciate the poem. The reader is often given snippets of Chinese political history as it is often the situations which arise from the political happenings which are written about.

After reading the book, one is able to better appreciate the implicit meanings and nuances that are so inherent in Chinese classical poetry. The biggest difference between English and Chinese poetry is the subtlety of the language. In Chinese, one character embodies so much meaning. There are so many connotations, underlying meaning, and conclusions that can be drawn from one character. Therein lies the beauty of the Chinese language.

I think schools in Singapore should teach such things to students to make Chinese lessons more interesting. I only wished I had such lessons in school last time!

The Food of Love

That's it. I'm determined to marry a chef. An excellent chef. I want to be romanced with food--good food.

And what sparked off this bout of craziness? I've just finished reading The Food of Love by Anthony Capella. It's a romantic comedy about a young 22-year-old American woman on a one-year art exchange programme in Rome. While there, she falls in love with an Italian guy, thinking that he's a chef. Little does she know that it's actually his good friend, who's really a chef, who's been helping him to romance her with all his wonderful culinary creations. As expected, the chef also falls for the American signora, and a love triangle starts brewing...

Though the plot is somewhat trite, and the writing of the main story itself isn't what one would term as literary genius, Capella excels when he writes about food. One can almost taste the delicious flavours and smells he is describing. His extensive knowledge on Italian cuisine and the research put into the book is evident.

I love reading about the intricacies of Italian cuisine which are cleverly weaved into the story. Learn what type of pasta is suited for certain kinds of sauces, get introduced to the completed world of coffee drinking which the Italians seem to have turned into an art form, learn about traditional Italian cooking, 'savour' the cuisines from the different regions of Italy, and be thoroughly seduced by all the wonderful food that are dished out.

Be seduced also by the descriptions of the quaint villages of Italy, the romanticism of Rome and the many art galleries that dot the city.

So if you're in for some light reading which makes for easy digestion, this is one delectable read. Buon Appetito!

South of the Border, West of the Sun

Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun was a much more palpable read compared to Sputnik Sweetheart and The Wild Sheep Chase. While the latter two had bizarre storylines which included metaphysical happenings, South of the Border, West of the Sun is much more down to earth, with a storyline that many of us can relate to.

The novel traces the life an average Japanese man from childhood to adulthood. When he is twelve, Hajime, an only child, meets Shimamoto, a girl of the same age. Being the only two only children in their school, they become good friends and develop a special bond to each other. However, they lose touch when Shimamoto moves to another town with her parents.

We then learn of Hajime's years as a teenager and young adult where he parties a lot, sleeps around, and breaks girls' hearts. While in his 20s, Hajime feels lost and directionless, and it's as if he is sleepwalking through life. Later, he meets, falls in love with, and marries Yukiko with whom he finally feels a sense of belonging to. Together they make a good life for themselves with Hajime becoming the owner of two jazz bars and Yukiko being the virtuous wife looking after their two young daughters. [Incidentally, the title is taken from a Nat King Cole song.]

However, this nice equilibrium is shaken when Shimamoto walks into Hajime's life again after 25 years...

This novel depicts a thoroughly believable situation which many will find themselves caught in. Lost loves, missed opportunities, and the inevitability of some things in life are written in a wistful style which characterises Murakami's novels.

A nice read on a wistful rainy day but not recommended for the chronically depressed!

Chick Lit

Do you agree that books have snob appeal too? I mean, there are some books which we wouldn't want to be caught dead with, e.g. trashy romance novels with Fabio on the cover. *puke puke puke*

Hence publishers play on this snob mentality of consumers and package books in different covers and different titles. I�m now reading a book from what is known as the "Chick Literature� genre. It has quite an embarrassing title�How to Meet Cute Boys: a novel by Deanna Kizis.

I mean, the title certainly is an attention-grabber for their target audience, i.e. swinging single women like moi, but to be seen toting it around is a different matter. I mean, yes, I do want to meet cute boys (who doesn't??? Don't lie now!) but I don't need to be so blatant about it ok. SO I only read it on the bus and train (where no one knows me. I hope.) with the book cover parallel to the ground, and stash it in my bag the moment I enter the office. :p

Anyway, the book's all very tongue-in-cheek and it makes for a fun read. It's about this 27-year-old female journalist who's the dating scene authority for LA's Filly magazine even though her own love life is nothing too boot about. So the book brings us through her ups and downs as she struggles to survive the perils of the LA dating scene.

An interesting feature of this book is that it is interspersed with magazine articles (e.g Five Dates from Hell) and several quizzes (e.g. Is it a Love Connection?) supposedly written by this journalist. It's very Sex-&-the-Cityish, which is what characterises Chick Literature. Us intellectual women don�t like to flex our brain muscles ALL the time. Heh.

I haven't reached the end of the novel, but I'm enjoying the read so far. It's like junk food for the brain--you need some of these things once in a while.

Other Chick novels I enjoyed are the Shopaholic Trilogy by Sophie Kinsella and the ones by the author Jill Mansell. I suppose this genre owes its origin to Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones fame. Her most recent novel Olivia Joules is ok....not fantastic but readable. It's like Bridget Jones meets Austin Powers.

Chick novels aside, I�ve also recently finished Sputnik Sweetheart by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. This book is so weird that I don�t even know where to begin talking about it. Maybe I�m just dumb, but I didn�t really get the message behind it. It was a mix of mystery, love, lost souls and a little of the metaphysical. Go here to read an extract of it.

His writing style and the things he writes about are very similar to Banana Yoshimoto. I don�t think I got a good introduction to Murakami through this novel--it probably isn�t his best. I�ve heard that Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun are good. I will try to get hold of those two books. Meanwhile, I borrowed another book of his called The Wild Sheep Chase from the library, and I�ll start on it once I finish that bimbotic read of mine!

Lizard

Reading Banana Yoshimoto's works never fails to please. She has the uncanny ability to articulate profound thoughts in unadorned yet beautiful prose--it certainly takes a skilled writer to do that.

In Lizard, she confronts the despair and loneliness that plagues many in urban living. Through the six short stories, we're presented with six different protagonists who form a microcosm of the problems that people in urban societies face.

In the first short story Newlywed, a 28-year-old salaryman is taking the train home as is his usual practice. He is, however, reluctant to alight at his stop as the train pulls into the station. What awaits him at home is his dutiful wife who has made the home her universe, busying herself all day with finding trinkets for the home. The honeymoon stage is over and he finds himself lost--is this how it's going to be for the rest of his life? His wife forever mulling over the house and him just bringing back the dough? At this point, a stranger appears and helps guide him back to his station through an interesting conversation.

If you--or anyone on this train, for that matter--thought of life as a kind of train, instead of worrying only about your usual destinations, you'd be surprised how far you could go, just with the money you have in your wallet right now.

Incidentally, this short story was serialised in the Tokyo subway system. I wished we had something like in Singapore!

In Lizard, a male medical officer realises that he is in love with his female friend of many years. He calls her "Lizard" because she has "round, black eyes that gaze at you with utter detachment, like the eyes of a reptile. Every bend and curve of her small body is cool to the touch, so cool that I [he] want to scoop her up in my two hands". Both lost souls, the reader is led to see how these two find solace in each other.

Helix is written in a somewhat similar vein to Lizard. A writer finds himself unable to tear himself from his on-off girlfriend. He resigns himself to the fact that it is "an infinite helix, the chance of two souls resonating, like the twist of DNA, like the vast universe".

The protagonist in Dreaming of Kimchee gives a voice to women who find themselves as the third party in relationships. Her insecurity and despair tugs at one's heartstrings and to me, serves as a reminder to never tread in such waters!

Blood and Water will resonate most with people who have left home to work in another country or city. The protagonist has left the small town she was from for several years. When she first arrived in Tokyo, she found everything fascinating but eventually realises that wherever one goes, there're always "escapists who just can't cope than healthy people who live their lives to the fullest".

Though she finds herself sometimes wanting to go home to her parents and small town who will always love her for who she is, she is unable to do so. She does not like the small town mentality and Tokyo has become her home despite its occasional alienating environment.

No one else could go home again, even if they wanted to. For lots of people, in fact, the impossibility of return only intensifies their yearning.

Personally, I liked Blood and Water best as I could relate to some of the protagonist's feelings.

Indulging in orgies was the protagonist's way of deriving pleasure in A Strange Tale from Down by the River. Another lost sheep, she soon finds it all a very empty existence. Like a lone leaf that falls into a flowing river, she finds herself being swept along with no sense of control. Thankfully, there is hope for her yet...

Unlike the river I had seen moments before, full of chaos and anxiety, the water now appeared calm and powerful, like an image frozen by a camera lens. It was peaceful, like the passage of time, flowing by, gentle and unchanging. It amazed me how utterly different things can look, just with a change of heart.

In her afterword, Yoshimoto said that in writing this book, she wanted to explore time, healing, karma, and fate. The characters in the six stories are lost and lonely souls encountering hope for the first time.

A recommended book for those of us in need of some reflection but are sick of those Chicken Soup for the Soul series which are, in my opinion, too feel-good and Oprah Winfrey-like for my liking.

The Humdrum Stops

At 6pm each day, the airconditioner in my office makes a loud rumble and then shuts down. Suddenly, the already quiet office space becomes even quieter. It then becomes eerily quiet without the humdrum of the aircon. Every day when it happens, I am reminded of the short story The Machine Stops by E M Forster. I first read this story when I was in secondary 3 (or was it 4? I can't remember! My fellow secondary school classmates please help me out here!) and it left a very deep impression on me.

Set in a dystopic world several thousand years into the future, The Machine Stops depicts a world in which humans live under the earth's surface because the surface is no longer inhabitable by humans due to destruction caused by the latter. Blue skies, the sea, and green grass are alien to the people of this civilization. The "outer air" on the surface of the earth kills, because their lungs are so accustomed to breathing air that has been generated by the Machine which controls every single aspect of life.

There is no face-to-face interaction, instead human 'interaction' takes place through the Machine with its screens and other technological contraptions. People see the Machine as being omnipotent and every single being relies on it for his existence. No one can seem to function without it. All these sound scarily akin to how dependent we are now on computers!

First published in 1909, this short story presents lessons that are still applicable to us today, almost a century later. Though dystopic, the story ends on a bittersweet note, reminding us that there is still hope for us yet. I shan't say anymore but shall instead let you read it for yourself here.

*muah*

An interesting question answered.

I Want This Too!

I want a city apartment and a country house. A lazy bull-dog and striped pajama pants that are weathered and fabulous. I don't want a cleaning lady or a gardener to plant the flowers in the front lawn. I'd like antique typewriters with silver keys for tired fingertips, and I'll blast music in the kitchen, making omelets, swinging my hips until I decide it's time to stop. I want friends over at least once a week for wine and remembering. Books by the dozen on my nightstand. An award-winning novel with my name on the spine. Maybe two. A lover curled up against my back. Passion and romance and picnics on weekends and walks around museums and adventure. I won't care how tired I get. I'll never stop running.

Love this May 1 blog entry of this Emerson College graduate from Boston. Her writings titled "I Hope I'm OK. I'm OK. I Hope" are found online on The Boston Globe magazine. Many thanks to monomania for the recommendation!

Clouds

Sydney's skies, Dec 2003

I'd have to be really quick
to describe clouds -
a split second's enough
for them to start being something else.

Their trademark:
they don't repeat a single
shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

Unburdened by memory of any kind,
they float easily over the facts.

What on earth could they bear witness to?
They scatter whenever something happens.

Compared to clouds,
life rests on solid ground,
practically permanent, almost eternal.

Next to clouds
even a stone seems like a brother,
someone you can trust,
while they're just distant, flightly cousins.

Let people exist if they want,
and then die, one after another:
clouds simply don't care
what they're up to
down there.

And so their haughty fleet
cruises smoothly over your whole life
and mine, still incomplete.

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.
They don't have to be seen while sailing on.

~ Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - )

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

~ Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - )

Le Petit Prince

The plane wreck of Antoine de Saint-Expury, the author of one of my favourite books The Little Prince, has been found after six decades. As a little tribute, here are some excerpts from the lovely fable that was his legacy.

If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $20,000." Then they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!"

Just so, you might say to them: "The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists." And what good would it do to tell them that? They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. But if you said to them: "The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612," then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions.

They are like that. One must not hold it against them. Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people.

"Then you shall judge yourself," the king answered. "that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."

But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise.

The grown-ups, to be sure, will not believe you when you tell them that. They imagine that they fill a great deal of space. They fancy themselves as important as the baobabs. You should advise them, then, to make their own calculations. They adore figures, and that will please them. But do not waste your time on this extra task. It is unnecessary. You have, I know, confidence in me.

When the little prince arrived on the Earth, he was very much surprised not to see any people. He was beginning to be afraid he had come to the wrong planet, when a coil of gold, the color of the moonlight, flashed across the sand.

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..."

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has eaten a rose... Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no?

Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes... And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance! This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared. Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.

Date-the-Dolly Quiz

Q1. Cr�me brul�e is
a) a moisturiser
b) a facial wash
c) a dessert

Q2. Saut�ed chicken feet served in dimsum is a
a) delicacy
b) unheard of dish
c) disgusting, how-can-you-think-of-eating-it dish

Q3. Dessert is
a) fattening
b) something that doesn't exist in my lexicon
c) a necessity

Q4. Calzone is
a) an X-Box game
b) the name of a games arcade
c) an Italian pizza turnover

Q5. And finally, (the coup de gr�ce for some) - What is the correct pronunciation of the name 'Joan'?
(no options here....either you know it or don't)

Contest is opened to all single, eligible and straight* men. Winners will be notified by e-mail.

*Gay men already win by default 'cos the Dolly is a self-confessed faghag.

Pitter Patter

Oh North East monsoon,
why must you always come in the afternoon,
when tis the time,
for me to head for the classroom????

Do you...

...know how to read?

Punctuation

I love this article that appeared in the papers today. You'll certainly be more careful with your full-stops, commas, inverted commas and all other sorts of punctuation after reading it!

To All The Teachers I've Hurt Before

To be sung to the tune of Willie Nelson's "To All the Girls I've Loved Before"

To all the teachers I've hurt before
Who travelled in and out the classroom doors
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the teachers I've hurt before

To all the teachers I once ignored
And may I say I feel remorse
At reading mags in class
I owe a lot I know
To all the teachers I've hurt before

The winds of change are always blowing
And justice has made its own way
To pay me back my just desserts
And now I understand the pain

To all the teachers who shared my life
Who now are just retired wives
I'm sorry I stoned in class
I dedicate this song
To all the teachers I've hurt before

To all the teachers who taught me once
I now know how it was for them
When faced with a blank stare
I'll always be sorry
To all the teachers I've hurt before

The winds of change are always blowing
And justice has made its own way
To pay me back my just desserts
And now I understand the pain

To all the teachers we've made fun of
Who travelled in and out the classroom doors
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the teachers we've hurt before
To all the teachers we've hurt before
Who travelled in and out the classroom doors
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the teachers we've hurt before

Goodbye Tsugumi

Goodbye Tsugumi is an absolute charm of a book! Written by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi examines the relationship between two teenage cousins in a seaside town in Japan. Tsugumi Yamamoto is the chronically ill but extremely feisty and insolent cousin while Maria Shirakawa is the cousin who develops a special bond with her as they grow up together in the Yamamoto Inn run by Tsugumi's parents.

After 19 years at the seaside town, Maria, together with her mother, moves to Tokyo to attend university and also to reunite with her father who has finally managed to divorce his first wife. During the summer vacation after her first year at university, Maria returns to the town for a final summer at the Yamamoto Inn before it is demolished.

The story centres on the adventures, friendships formed and the events that take place over the summer. Told through the eyes of Maria, the beauty of Goodbye Tsugumi lies in its simplicity and its charming portrayals of life in a quaint seaside town in Japan. Readers are brought to a place where life goes by at an unhurried pace, where Japanese traditions are observed and where the ocean is so much a part of the lives of the people living there.

It's been a while since I read a book I really enjoyed. Even the award-winning Life of Pi which I read recently, failed to touch me though I must admit I did like its quirky storyline. Goodbye Tsugumi however touched me with its unadorned prose, honesty, and keen observations of human nature. Kudos too to Michael Emmerich for his translation.

I thought I'd share a couple of excerpts which I really liked:

Maria: It's a marvellous thing, the ocean. For some reason when two people sit together looking out at it, they stop caring whether they talk or stay silent. You never get tired of watching it. And no matter how rough the waves get, you're never bothered by the noise the water makes or by the commotion of the surface - it never seems too loud, or too wild.

Tsugumi: Whenever you get something in this world, you lose something too - that's just the way things work.

Maria: Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight ourselves.

Maria's father: Maybe one day our inner workings will get out of sync, it's true - but even if that's going to happen, precisely because that might happen, it's better for us to make lots of good memories for ourselves now, while we can.

Maria: I guess when you're out on the ocean and you see the piers way off in the distance, shrouded in mist, you understand this very clearly: No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

Maria: The sense that the three of us were becoming friends seemed to saturate the air between us like a kind of instinct, a pleasurable premonition. People who are going to get along really well know it almost as soon as they meet. You spend a little while talking and everyone starts to feel this conviction, you're all equally sure that you're at the beginning of something good. That's how it is when you meet people you're going to be with for a long time.

Maria: It's impossible to remember the air of a festival night - you have to wait until a festival actually rolls around to get it back. Maybe you're only missing one tiny detail, but that's all it takes to keep you from reliving the perfect image, calling up the sense of being there.

Low/High Maintenance

Going by the June 2003 issue of GQ, I'm a Low-Maintenance kinda gal. I've come to realise that men's magazines like GQ are actually pretty interesting to read. Anyway, page 235 lists 25 signs for guys to gauge if the lady in their life is Low/High-Maintenance. I thought I'd just put the list here just for fun:

25 Signs she is Low-Maintenance:

1) She eats anything. (That's me! Well, I eat almost anything.)
2) She doesn't keep a journal. (NA - I've kept a journal since I was 12.)
3) She doesn't talk baby talk. (Pet peeve of mine.)
4) She can navigate for you - and she knows how to read a map. (eerrrr....maybe not...I'm still perfecting my navigation skills)
5) When you mention camping, she doesn't groan. (Anything to get out of the urban jungle!)
6) She'll never ask a waitress to bring the salad dressing "on the side". (What's salad without dressing??)
7) She happily meets you at parties (in other words, she doesn't require breathlessly attentive chaperoning for her big entrance). [No big entrance to make so no need for a chaperone.]
8) She's asleep when you come home late.
9) When you are tired or tipsy, she offers to drive. (The only logical thing to do if you ask me!)
10) She doesn't mind if you see her before her morning ablutions. (It's all part of the package! )
11) When you travel, she doesn't have to cart her makeup around in a separate bag on wheels that's bigger than a marine's field pack. (Don't have or use a lot of makeup to start off with)
12) She thinks that going out on Valentine's Day and New Year's is overrated.
13) She hates bed-and-breakfasts more than you do.
14) She only screams when she's having fun.
15) She drinks beer from a bottle.
16) She has a nursing degree. (Errr, does a mass communications and teaching diploma count?)
17) She doesn't see the point of sending flowers, since "they just end up dead and in the trash." (Totally disagree 'cos i'm a sucker for flowers.)
18) She's OK with peeing on the side of the road when there's no rest stop in sight for fifty miles. (When Nature calls, Nature calls.)
19) She never says "Hold me."
20) She cleans up after her dog. (I do this everyday for TWO dogs.)
21) She cleans up after you.
22) When she's pissed off, she tells you why. (Why bother bottling it up?)
23) You don't need to make a thirty-minute PowerPoint presentation in order to have sex with her.
24) When the remote isn't working, she knows it the battery. (Duh.)
25) She's not a cat person. (Definitely not! My dogs would get jealous if I were.)

25 Signs she is High-Maintenance:

1) She won't do a summer rental with your friends because it requires sharing a bathroom.
2) For her, complaining is a form of conversation.
3) She won't take public transportation.
4) She travels with her reflexologist.
5) She immediately accepts your offer to drop her at the restaurant while you crisscross the county looking for a parking place.
6) Her idea of a sexy Saturday involves you following her around while she shops.
7) If she has blemishes, she won't go out in public.
8) She won't drink beer.
9) She rips you a new one if you happen to leave her side for more than a minute at a social engagement.
10) She carries her new handbag for one season only, then torches it.
11) She never carries cash.
12) In anticipation of your three-day business trip, she lines up a spa day, a girls' night out, a shopping date and a pajama party during which she and her friends drink Cosmos and watch Sex and the City DVDs.
13) She wears jewellery to the beach.
14) Her dad calls her Princess.
15) She has a purse dog named Dior.
16) She's a failed actress.
17) She likes gin.
18) She speaks with a European accent - even though she grew up in Omaha.
19) Her monthly grooming bills are higher than your car payments.
20) She has more women's magazines in her apartment than she has novels.
21) She has a publicist - even though she doesn't work.
22) All her friends are married to bankers.
23) All her relatives are bankers.
24) Her last three fiances were bankers.
25) She refers to her mother as Bitch Face.

So guys, time to take a tongue-in-cheek look at the lady in your life!

The Hours

The problem must lie with me - I didn't really enjoy the Pulitzer prize-winning book "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham. The novel was adapted into a film of the same title which won Nicole Kidman a Best Actress Oscar.

The narrative structure is interesting enough with 3 parallel narratives of the lives of 3 women going on at the same time. I shan't go into the telling of the story due to my lack of time. Most of you have probably watched the film anyway. Even if you didn't, you have probably read some review or another and know a little about the story.

The whole book describes a day in the life of these 3 women who exist in 3 different time periods. British author Virginia Woolf in 1923, Laura Brown in 1949 and Clarissa Dalloway in the 1990s. These three women are linked to the novel "Mrs Dalloway" in some small way or another.

So the book just plods along, describing every minuscule detail of everything that goes on in the characters' minds, their surroundings, where they go, what they do, how many steps they take to walk to the door etc.

I mean, it's pretty amazing that an author can flesh out his characters so well, making them into extremely real people. It was also interesting to note that Cunningham follows the same style as Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" where the entire novel is set in the day of the life of the protagonist Mrs Dalloway. It seems an appropriate salute to Virginia Woolf since Cunningham was obviously inspired by Woolf in writing this novel.

But still, I didn't enjoy the novel 'cos I felt that the pace was too slow for me. It doesn't seem to move along. However, I would really like to watch the film just to see how the novel has been adapted. When the film was released, I remember I didn't watch it because I didn't feel like watching anything too serious at that point in time.

Anyway, I will have to stop my reading for a while and now start concentrating on finishing my assignments. There's a whole lot of them screaming for my attention! Argh!

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) is one playwright I really enjoy reading. I love the satirical nature of his plays on the society he was living in. The wit and humour of his writings are still so relevant today. Some of the things he had said are hilarious as well.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from Oscar Wilde:

Advice
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
(An Ideal Husband)

Exercise
I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.

Excess/Moderation
Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.
(A Woman of No Importance)

Experience and Mistakes
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
(Lady Windermere's Fan)

Fair play
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Genius
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
(at New York customs)

Love
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
(An Ideal Husband)

Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot.
(The Picture of Dorian Gray)

Men/Women
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
(The Importance of Being Earnest)

Talked About
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
(The Portrait of Dorian Gray)

Temptation
I can resist everything except temptation.
(Lady Windermere's Fan)

Values
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
(Lady Windermere's Fan)

Oscar Wilde had only one novel published which was The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). He also wrote several poems. He is however most notably known as a playwright. His most famous plays are Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Almost French

I've just finished reading the book "Almost French". Yep, I was reading two books at the same time. "Crimson Petal and the White" was read at home 'cos it was too heavy to bring around. "Almost French" was a much thinner and lighter book, so the reading of that book took place during train rides.

I enjoyed "Almost French". It's written by Sarah Turnbull, an Australian freelance journalist who lives in Paris. She writes in the first person and tells us of how she came to live in Paris all because of a chance encounter which has sinced changed her life forever. I shall not let on too much in case my friend Vanessa accuses me of spoiling the story for her! :p

We get to see Paris and Parisian society through the eyes of one expatriate. She describes the struggles she went through and is still going through sometimes, as she tries to adapt to the Parisian way of life. The many faux pas which she has committed, especially in the initial years, are quite funny.

Turnbull manages to appreciate Paris for its beauty, quirks and idiosyncracies. I enjoyed reading about the odd characters in her neighbourhood, the Parisian obsession with fashion and style; their obsession with their pet dogs; their cool veneer and aloofness towards strangers; their insistence on perfection and impeccablility when it comes to wining, dining and entertaining etc. Turnbull describes many facets of Parisian life and I think she gives a rather well-rounded picture of the French.

She also writes about how she misses Sydney, and she sometimes makes references to places in Sydney. That was one reason why I enjoyed the book. I know what she's talking about when she writes about Sydney. I could relate to what she was writing, and I think this element of being able to relate to the material you're reading is what makes the difference between a good read and an extremely good read.

It's a story about French culture, people and society and the struggle which expatriates face. But at its heart it's a story about love. Love of one's homeland and adopted home, love of one's family, love of one's friends and the love of one's soulmate.

The Crimson Petal and the White

Just finished reading "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michael Faber. The novel is set in Victorian London in the second half of the 19th Century. It tells the story of a prostitute called Sugar and how she extricates herself from the hell-hole she was born into. Her very own mother is what we call in Singapore, the mama-san, that is, the Madam who's in charge of the girls. So poor Sugar was forced into prostitution by her biological mother.

Faber manages to paint a very vivid picture of the streets, fashion, attitudes and society in London. It's obvious that a lot of research went into the writing of the book. The characters are fleshed out well, giving readers a keen insight into the psyche and mental tickings of the various characters.

It's interesting also that Faber writes as if he's this omnipresence. It's quite unlike the usual third-person narrative 'cos this third-person narrator actually addresses the reader directly.

Before reading this book, I had read many reviews which raved about it which was what made me make a grab for it when I saw it in the library. Personally, I didn't find the book fantastic. Faber writes well and paints vivid descriptions as previously mentioned, but I guess the storyline just didn't appeal too much to me. Some parts were rather wordy and a tad too descriptive. If not for the fact that the book had gotten such rave reviews, I would not have ploughed through 835 pages of such a big book. I wanted to know what the fuss was about.

Nevertheless, it was not too bad a read. It gave me a vivid mental picture of life in Victorian London. That's to me is the beauty of books. It lets you "travel" to all these places and times which you would never be able to do so otherwise.

Possession

"So what's new?" was my friend Xiaohui's response when I told her over the phone that I was reading a novel before she called from Singapore, instead of working on my assignments. ;p

The novel in question is A.S. Byatt's "Possession". I only had a little more to go, so I was eager to finish it. Byatt won the Booker Prize for it in 1990 and in my opinion, deservedly so. It's an extraordinary piece of literary work. This is the first time I'm writing a book review so do forgive me if it's really awful!

The story is about an academic Roland Mitchell, who stumbles upon two letters by Randolph Henry Ash, the poet he is researching on. These two letters are drafts of letters written to an unknown woman. Roland then sets out to uncover the identity of this woman. In the course of it, he gets to know Maud Bailey, an academic who is an expert on the poetry of Christabel LaMotte, the woman whom they suspect Ash was writing to. Together, Roland and Maud set out on a journey to uncover secrets that have been unknown for many years.

The novel was adapted into a film of the same title, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow (Maud Bailey), Aaron Eckhart (Roland Mitchell) and British thespians, Jeremy Northam (Randolph Henry Ash) and Jennifer Ehle (Christabel LaMotte).

I love the unique narrative structure of "Possession" because A.S. Byatt weaves other sets of literary works within a literary work. The story is told through a mixture of letters written by the different characters in the plot, diaries, poems, and prose. It's like a play within a play. As one progresses through the novel, one also can't help but notice the parallel between the Roland & Maud's relationship and Ash's relationship with LaMotte.

A.S. Byatt is so amazingly prolific in the amount of poetry that she writes in "Possession". According to the film's website, the characters of Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte are both ficititious amalgams of a number of poets. British poet Robert Browning has been cited as a basis for Byatt's Ash poetry. LaMotte is supposed to be a fusion of Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The latter of "How Do I love Thee" fame, is particulary influential in Byatt's conceptualisation of LaMotte's character because of her famous love correspondence with her husband Robert Browning.

Though I admire Byatt's prolificacy, I found that it soon got very tedious to read through every single one of the poems that were written in the novel. One would do fine just skimming through the poems and concentrating on the main prose.

Romance, passion, love, betrayal, mystery, human emotions, sexual politics, Greek & Norse mythology, beautiful language and an unexpected twist at the end, all lend themselves to a novel which is definitely worth all the laurels and accolades that have been heaped upon it!

Meeting & Passing

As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.

~ Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

I discovered this poem by Frost only recently when I was browsing through Frost's poems on the web. One of his most famous poems, The Road Not Taken is one of my favourite poems.

For some reason, Meeting and Passing strikes a chord with me. We meet and pass people all the time and in some small way, we do share something in common just by the mere fact that we're part of the same environment at that point in time. Maybe Frost is also trying to say that we do not take enough time out to talk with others. To share. To exchange pleasantries and experiences.

There seems to me to be a hint of wistfulness in this poem. As if Frost were unwilling to let this lady go, and now all that he's left with that reminds him of her are the things and places she had walked past before she met him.

Hints of Spring

The sun's out a little longer,
So it's safer to return home a little later.
The air's a little warmer,
So the sleeves get a little shorter.
Starting to adorn the maple trees' naked branches
Are the young leaves which have appeared in clusters
I find myself admiring
Cherry blossoms that have begun blooming.
Other flowers will soon follow,
People will then wallow,
In hayfever sorrow.

Bookcrossing

Bookcrossing's something interesting I read about in The Guardian today.

Bookcrossing first began in America in April 2001 and has now taken off throughout the world. It is now hitting Manchester, England. According to The Guardian, "almost half a million books have been 'released' and there are more than 146,000 members worldwide. Books are left behind (or released into the wild). They contain a unique identity number which is registered on the website (bookcrossing.com)."

When someone finds a book, they can register on the website and track the journey it has taken before it reached them. Online reviews can also be left. The process is repeated when they finish the book and leave it somewhere else.

Emails will be sent to them informing them of what happens to the book after it leaves them - provided someone who finds it registers with the website.

The books are left all around the city - in taxis, buses, restaurants, cafes etcetc. The books carry on them, messages such as "Take me home", "Read me", "Look inside", to indicate that it's a bookcrossing book.

I think it's a really cool idea! I'm not sure how people in other cities behave, but I wouldn't have this in Singapore just yet. Knowing how typical Singaporeans are, the books will most likely never pass through more than one hand!

Debut

Hmmm....i don't know how this will turn out but i'll just try my hand at this. My very first blog! My mind's in a bit of a blank at the moment...obviously not off to a very impressive maiden effort. haha.

Maybe it's because it's slightly past 12midnight at the moment and I have spent the past two days reading "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". I finished reading the book about 15 minutes ago. Well, I can't say I enjoyed this book as much as I did the previous four. I just find that the fifth book has lost that element of fun and childishness which I enjoyed so much in the previous books. Harry is filled with so much angst in this one and is always in such a foul mood that it makes it rather depressing to read.

Alright, I shall now try to upload this entry and see if I can get my blog on the way!