Saturday Ramblings

Lazy Saturday and I am spending my time pondering about reading the humongous text of Francis Fukuyama's Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity. It seems like a perfectly readable book, if I don't think about the thickness of it.

This morning when I was flipping through TV channels while eating eggs and garlic bread for breakfast, I caught a small sliver of a programme about Samurai Bows. The advice dispensed by a master archer was intriguing. He says that one should not focus on the bull's eye when one shoots the arrow. The more you focus on it the more distracted you will be. You will just have to practise until you hit the target without thinking about hitting it. Fascinatingly counter-intuitive. Maybe that's the same case with the research that I'm doing. I should just enjoy reading and writing, hosting and meeting people, without putting so much pressure on myself. And at the end of the day, voila, there's my thesis all written and bound, and I wouldn't know how it happened. I wish.

Yesterday I had Jia Ling over for dinner and cooked two dishes for her, which she absolutely loved. And Jia Ling's not the type who would give false compliments so I feel extremely gratified. And it was a vegan meal too, score!

The first dish was brocolli + chick peas + tomatoes in a pot. I came up with it purely by chance the other day, as I was planning to heap some pasta sauce on random vegetables that I had in the fridge and a can of chick peas (aka garbanzo beans, which is such an ugly name) for dinner. Everything was simmering nicely in the pot when I found out that I couldn't open the damn pasta sauce jar, so I simply had to have it without the sauce, and I found that broccoli and chick peas go pretty well together by themselves. Jia Ling heaped high praise on this one, although I thought it was a little overcooked, but since she liked her broccoli soft I was in luck.

The second was mushroom tossed with pine nuts, extremely simple, and it was the first time that I've made it. Pine nuts are yum, even when they are burnt. I had a stroke of genius and put in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in with the soy sauce for seasoning, inspired by a mushroom salad that I had once with balsamic vinegar which was really good. I personally like this one better than the broccoli and chickpeas. We had hash browns and bread as sides.

An inventory check of my fridge shows that I have an eggplant, two green capsicums, tofu, mushrooms and some Chinese vegetable which I don't know the English name of. I also have some baby potatoes. It is mysterious that an entire bag of carrots has disappeared. Maybe I dumped them into the rubbish chute while sleepwalking because I secretly hate carrots, or maybe Housemate David ate them all to avenge his stolen bread. In any case I don't have carrots now. I am looking forward to putting together random stuff tonight again.

My parents brought me this vegan recipe book Veganomicon - The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, when they came last week, and I will try out some of the recipes in time. Although I do enjoy working without recipes it is probably better that I learn through some guidance. I feel like making hummus this weekend, with the recipe that Val gave me some time ago, but it remains to be seen if I can get my hands on tahini (sesame paste) at Fairprice Xtra. Or if I can actually drag my lazy butt out of the house to get it.

I also feel like experimenting with wine. According to The Veganomicon, the vegan cookbook for Transformers, "there's really nothing like wine when it comes to drawing out the flavours of seared and sauteed vegetables (particularly mushrooms), herbs and oils." It recommends white wine, red or sherry. I think I'll get a bottle of red the next time I go to Fairprice. Will also get a couple of wine glasses just in case =D

Ah. Leisurely Saturday afternoon just thinking about nothing in particular but cooking. At some point I'll have to pick up the big fat Francis Fukuyama, but now I shall be content with just sitting at my lounge corner typing absently, wondering what Housemate David is up to in the kitchen with the clanging and banging. We're getting along great, by the way. He's amazingly cool and very supportive of my academic needs (i.e. to host strangers in our home in the name of research). I put up a calendar on our fridge showing when my surfers come and he never questions anything. And we give each other loads of space, which is something that I appreciate very much. Half the time it's like living alone. Great stuff. About 40% of my stipend goes to my rent and utility bills but it's worth every penny.

Raining cats and dogs out there, like it does, every afternoon. Hello Mr. Fukuyama.