Cooked a last minute dinner for us. DT wanted to eat at home and I panicked for awhile. We didn't do any grocery! So I looked through the kitchen cabinets and fridge and these were what I found:

• 1 packet of minced pork
• 2 pieces of deboned chicken breast
• Half a packet of tagliatelle pasta (one of my favorite pastas, looked like fettucine but are packed in cute balls)
• 1 carrot, 1 potato, 2 tomatoes (extras from last week's ABC soup)
• Onions, garlic, etc

Tagliatelle (pasta) topped with hot sauce of teriyaki-marinated minced meat and chicken fillet

The funny thing is, the more I DO NOT follow the recipes, the more compliments on the taste of food I get from DT. Like this dish, he loved the sauce that was cooked from the minced meat and cubed chicken breast, both marinated with Teriyaki sauce + pepper + a little oyster sauce. 2 min before turning off the fire, just drop 1 teaspoon of thick soy sauce. I just dumped anything I could get my hands on from the kitchen! Talking about easy to please! Heh!

And this, I don't really know what to call this. It consists of the extras from last week's soup. A carrot, potato, 2 tomatoes, big onions, garlic, oyster sauce and minced meat. All stir-fried together. Yum ~

Simple and fast. And now, excuse me while I go do the dishes. Apparently, The Breakup didn't help much, the boy still never volunteers!

Boy: Always tummy problem. I think your tummy has worms. So we need alcohol to kill them.
Girl: *yippee!*

DT had an invitation for a wine appreciation dinner. So, off we went to kill worms.

Date: 25 August 2006
Venue: Restaurant 18-20th Centuries, TTDI
Theme: Wine Appreciation Dinner
Style: Fine dining
Photos: Taken from my phone, so they are a bit quality-challenged

Free flow of red and white wine - some most are quite yucky. I'm not really a wine drinker but I must say the welcoming white wine, Le Mire was yummy. So I stuck with this the whole night.

1st course: Pan Seared Scallop on steamed daikon radish
Verdict: Excellant! Loved it, loved it, loved it.
Wine: Rossestate Riesling - ewwww, tasted like kerosene I swear!

2nd course: Grilled Stuffed Tenderloin of Chicken with hongkong kailan on shitake reduction
Verdict: Yum! But I thought the chicken could use a bit more spice, a bit bland to me
Wine: Some red wine which I hated as well. Went on slurping my Le Mire. Heh!

3rd course: Slow Braised Lamb Shank with red curry braised vegetables & wild rice
Verdict: OMG, absolute heaven! I loved it! The lamb melts in your mouth and the rice was beriani-ish but better.
Wine: Another red wine which I hated too.

4th course: Moist Chocolate Cake with warm chocolate sauce
Verdict: Can literally die from blissfulness-overdosed! It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream by the side. I took a picture of it but don't know why, I can't seem to find it.

End of meal: Bazilo Coffee or Jasmine Tea
Verdict: DT and I both wanted none, but just plain water to wash it all off.

Then, we realised there were journalists from The Star covering the event too. One of them came to take a picture of us and interviewed us a bit and hehe, you might just see us in the papers next week

And me is no more going to the loo after each meal. Dr Tay gives GOOD advice

No dreams last night. You know why?

Because I didn't sleep at all. AT ALL. And why so?

Because my yesterday's lunch decided to make a pact with whatever bacterias that were in my stomach, which THEY then thought it would be majorly fun to super-process themselves to give me a nightmare from 1.30am - 7++am.

Total loo trips made = 5 times
WORST times = the 1st two trips. I teared because it was so painful

And I've always thought I have emetophobia. But according to wikipedia:

Emetophobic Habits

Avoiding sick people not true

Avoiding overeating not true

Compulsive hand-washing definitely not true

Compulsive expiration date checking not true

Avoiding long car trips or long means of transportation also has to be close to a bathroom totally not true

Cannot fall asleep unless hungry not true

Become very nervous when going to public places (mall, movies, etc.) in fear of seeing someone vomit or vomiting themselves are you kidding me? One Utama is like my second home! 

None of the habits stated are true for me. I am only afraid to vomit. VERY afraid, that's all. So what am I?

I remember my dreams pretty well these days.

Last night, I particularly remembered this segment of my many mini-dreams. My mom brought this little girl to our house, about 8 yrs old I'd say, into her care for a few days.

This girl was EVIL. She tried to kill me! I knew something was not right with her when my family was around. To me, she was rather strange.

Then one day, my whole family went out and I was alone sleeping in my room. I went, "Oh shit, the door's not locked! I better get up and go lock it." I got up quietly, walking slowly towards my door and pressed on the knob to  have it locked. And I remembered I even closed my windows.

Then, as I was lying on my bed, I heard the windows slowly opened, making a slow creaking sound. I panicked. I got up and saw HER face staring into my room. Smiling.

She was going to pour it in. A bottle of what I could only decipher at that moment as kerosene. I screamed.

Then, I got up. Heart beating as though I just did a 100m sprint.

Evil girl kinda looked like Emily.

Star article:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/22/nation/15207018&sec=nation

Starpoll: Malaysia wants the Jimmy Choos to come home

Come home - that is message the Government wants to send out to those who have ventured abroad and made names for themselves internationally in designing, modelling, singing and acting.

Because it's stupid. They are not offering enough to attract them back.

And it's not only about the salary my dears. The totality of the whole industry matters as well. Let's just look at the fashion scene. Ling Tan, for example, a Malaysian-born and established model in US now. Do you honestly think she would come back? Fashion scene is much more diversed there, opportunities are abundant. And you want to compare that to Malaysia's fashion scene? If Amber Chia were given a chance to go over, I bet she would grab it and STAY put there. I know I would.

I must be reading way too many magical and fantasy books. I dreamt I was whizzing around in a flying broomstick last night. You know, just like Harry Potter on his Nimbus 2000. Well, I was on MY Nimbus 2000, flying around searching for DT whom I found later on, at some garden in a tuxedo, mingling around with JC and some other friends! WTF!

And then, catch this. I was dreaming about Britney bathing her baby, Sean in a bath tub and moments later went off to do something which led her to forget about him and left poor baby Sean to drown!

OMG, I sure have weird dreams these days.

Anyways, I caught The Break Up over the weekend. Can't say I love the movie as much. I absolutely hate cliff-hangers! This is a Hollywood movie and Hollywood movies ALWAYS end with "... and they lived happily ever after." And wth was that?!  So they get back together or what? I actually liked that guy who was hitting on Jen towards the end. That tall guy who initially asked her out in the art gallery but got turned down and then went to her house to look at an art piece which she was selling off to him. He's darn cute

And oh, The Dresses. I'm sure by now, you would have read about the raving reviews on her wardrobe in this movie. Two-thumbs up! Love all her black numbers especially the one she wore in the art gallery with a bare back and ohhhh... The White Dress which she wore to a date with this weirdo was absolutely to die for! And no, no one can own that dress because, apparently the dress, by Calvin Klein, was made specially for Jen in that movie.

At the end of the movie, I looked at DT and thought to myself, "OMG, what have I done! I've just put him through a 2 hours torture!" Hahaha, yes the boy got dragged by me to catch it at the cinema

And lastly guys, men, males, it's NOT about the lemons. Think out of the box!

All of a sudden, I missed playing Ballade Pour Adeline on my piano.

I love these.

Presenting...

ACME Bags and Totes for your Macbook (which I love to death!) and laptops such as Dell, Compaq, Sony, Toshiba, etc.

http://www.acmemade.com/bags.html

Go knock yourself out

They are divided into a few sub-categories, The Slim, The Designer Slim, The Slim Cargo, The New Tote, The Slim Pack and The Clyde Messenger.

These are the ones I like:
 

These are from The Designer Slim range

This is from The Slim Cargo range

The ones I would MOST likely buy/own/have/possess: 

My #1 Favorite: From The Designer Slim Range: Bloom White

My #2 Favorite: From The Designer Slim range: Plaid Tan

My #3 Favorite: From The Designer Slim range: Quatrefoil Silver

The price? Hee hee, I just took a peep at the price list on the bottom right.

And oh, my eyes then quickly darted away *whistle*

It was indoor lunch today. Today, it was just DT and I, so cooking for two can be quite tough. (I have the tendency to overcook, according to DT). I prefer cooking for 3 or more actually. Hehe.

So just him and I, I only boiled a soup - ABC soup and did a black pepper chicken dish. Anyone knows why is it called as ABC soup in the chinese community? Well, I don't know, my mom has been calling it as that since I was a kid. ABC soup basically consists of potatoes, carrots, tomatoes.

My version of ABC soup consists of:

• potatoes
• carrots
• tomatoes
• big onions (to bring out the sweetness in the soup)
• some dried oysters (to bring out flavor)
• some dried red dates (also for flavoring)
• and some soup bones

Tip: When boiling soup, always remember to boil soup bones in separate pot first, before dumping into the boiling pot with the rest of the ingredients. This, is to remove excess oil from the meat, and also the yucky raw meat smell.

My black pepper chicken consists of:

• big onions
• garlic
• deboned chicken breasts (marinated with pepper and salt)
• sliced button mushrooms
• black pepper sauce
• soy sauce
• oyster sauce
• and a dash of sugar

Parboiled chopped carrots can also be added into this dish, but I omitted it seeing that my soup already has carrots in them. Soy sauce and oyster sauce are to be added last minute, 2 min before turning off the fire.

Burp!

I know I know, it can be annoying when you load up a page and suddenly some music pops out oh-so-suddenly. By now, I'm sure you must be hearing the sweet voice serenading Chocolate Ice. I love this song.

Just picture this: Sunday rainy morning - tea brewing - bread toasting - still in pyjamas - curled up on the couch reading newspapers. And all this, while Chocolate Ice is playing at the background. Heaven 

Will remove the auto-start music playing after a couple of days. By then, music playing will resume only when you click the 'play' button. For now, just wanted you guys to hear this song out. So, bear with my auto-play for awhile 

Meanwhile, sing to these cute lyrics

Bring me to the sea of sugar and spice
Reminiscing through some chocolate ice
Tick tock take time to be gentle and kind
You sweat coz you run and run all day in my mind

Fly to the moon and the sun
And lets go have some fun
(Come and take my hand and free your soul again)
Fly to the moon and the sun
And lets go have some fun
It's 1, 2, 3 my love is plain to see
What I do for you baby do for me

Let me serenade your soul
When you're feeling down and low
Let the music come alive
Let tenderness arrive
Let me serenade your soul
When you're feeling down and low
Boy you make me feel so high
Together we can fly