It's been a while...

I don't even know how long it's been.

Between now and the last post, uni's started, I've been out to eat a few more times, tried some of the food on offer at campus (thanks to my generous friends) and been coursing along the daily tumults of life.

(Nope, this little baby wasn't from uni or some eatery.)

It's been good and busy; time just passes so quickly. I doubt I'll bother posting about the restaurants I've been to - I'm really not all too great at 'reviewing', and I probably can't remember all too much about them either.

I've tried my hand at cooking and baking a few more things, but I really want to get into the kitchen more - be a bit less anxious about the end result and be more intuitive.

And really I should be going to sleep now. (I also don't like starting sentences with conjunctions, but it just seems right.)

I hope I can post again soon - these past two weeks especially have been choc-full of uni work, so maybe now I can spare a bit of time to write up about some recipes I've tried. Or maybe I should study instead... How do people manage everything so well?

Thanks for reading and I'll try to get another post up in the very near future!

Brown sugar roasted figs with oatmeal from 'Joy the Baker'

With a bunch of fresh (well, not so fresh anymore) figs in the fridge, I scoured the interweb for a recipe which used them but also had ingredients that I had at home.

After skim-reading numerous ingredients lists, I'm guessing that figs pair well with goat's cheese (apparently, they also make a mean sandwich or salad), but there's no goat's cheese - or much cheese in general - at home, I'm afraid. So I decided to go with Joy the Baker's brown sugar roasted figs with oatmeal.

Life without Facebook

Sometimes I get asked why I don't use Facebook and what usually comes out of my mouth in response is this semi-formed, jumble of words which try to explain why.

It's difficult to say exactly why and though not all of it applies to me, Leo Babauta's post "Walled-in: Life Without Facebook" expresses his reasons for quitting Facebook beautifully. I couldn't have said it better myself.

New Shanghai, Ashfield

Having been my first time walking around Ashfield (unless I've forgotten), I was bombarded with all the signs emblazoned with "Shanghai".

I probably would have forgotten the name of the restaurant had I not picked up a business card. It's not exactly the best for differentiating your business (not all of my Commerce knowledge from junior high school has escaped me).
I can just imagine a conversation...
"So which place did you eat at?"
"Umm... it was something to do with Shanghai"
(In fact, I actually started typing this up using the wrong restaurant name, thinking it was Shanghai Night instead; lucky I checked!)

All that aside, we stepped into the busy New Shanghai and waited for a small amount of time before we were seated. While we waited, we got a chance to see the dumplings being made through their open kitchen. It's definitely a winner way to get me on side when I'm eating out. The women were so deft and skilful, but I guess that's expected with their (most likely) years and years of practice.

We had to place orders and eat promptly because they were closing soon, so I didn't really get a chance to savour my meal. I wasn't and still am not 100% sure of what we ordered, because the adults handled that, and it was done in Mandarin. I'm pretty sure that what follows is right though.

 

Just my thoughts

Starting this blog has been a strange experience. At the same time, I want to express what I want to say, yet I feel like I'm always holding back and in a way, I suppose I am.

I don't know if many of you notice, but my writing sometimes just seems very ... formal and over-thought. I fear offending, of stirring trouble, of posting something or saying something which might cause people to comment in an unpleasant manner.

And that fear really affects how I type up my posts and what I say.

Don't get me wrong - I'm open to constructive criticism and I'm aware that not everything in the world is  happy butterflies and fairies prancing around, but I'm scared. I'm not completely sure what of, but I guess mostly of being the target of angry comments (not that anyone's posted any). Despite the fact that I don't really post anything controversial up here, I've heard of news stories where people on the web aren't so pleasant and that compounded by the idea that the internet is such a wide, open and free environment makes me feel as if, for some reason or another, I'll be the butt of some hate mail or something like that.
And I don't handle stuff like that so great.

But I've got to learn to be less worried and more trusting in the general good of people. So hopefully, I will pore over my drafts less and learn to be a bit more expressive - a bit more me.

Holiday part 1: Taiwan

A two-week absence on this blog probably doesn't seem very unusual, but for a while in January, I was away on a holiday to Taiwan and Hong Kong.
I took way too many photos, but I've cut back and I'm going to share some of them (and my thoughts) in two posts. Taiwan first!

Chinatown and N2 Extreme Gelato

I'm not very good at starting off my posts, as you may have already noticed, so I'm just going to jump straight into it.

Chinatown was the destination for lunch and in the Sussex Centre building, there's a great range of Asian eateries once you head up the escalators. It can be a nightmare for someone as indecisive as me to decide what to have for lunch. Actually, make that a nightmare for the people I'm with. I knew I wanted to spare some room for gelato from N2, which I had been hoping to try for quite some time, so I shared a dish instead.

Okay, so that probably just looks like gloop on a plate and me trying to persuade you that this was actually a pretty fine dish would probably do better without that photo, but ah heck, I'm including it anyway. My mum's choice was the fried noodle with beef and scrambled egg, one of their specials for the day, at $9.80, I think. It might look ... not-so-tasty to put it nicely, but I really enjoyed this, probably eating more than my share of it. The beef was tender, soft and not chewy, while the 'wok breath' that's not so easily attained at home, was noticeable, I thought. I have to remind you at this point though that I'm no expert - to someone more discerning, this may have been some less than ordinary stir fry, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My sister had the kaarage chicken from Motto. She happily nommed down her dish. The little bits of chicken tasted like nuggets to me.

After more walking around, the heat bore down on us, so cold drinks were in order!