Al Dente! Sugo alla Bolognese

Woke up at about 9 am this morning, after downing a small marble cake (not too bad tasting) from Prima Deli for breakfast, i proceeded to my laptop to surf the net and check mail. Was surprised when Cherine logged on 5 mins afterwhich and i said “Hey”, and she went “I skipped school HAHA”.

Quite worried to see juniors starting to pon school (okay she had an MC actually, you know 2 days, and supposedly by day 2 probably would be in the mood and health condition to attend school…) But, i guess, she can score still, so it really ain’t matter.

Went over to tiong bahru place after which and got scolded after i was late for about 30 mins. Supposedly to reach my mom’s place at 11.30 am but got there only at 12. And the reason (which i told her and made her more furious), was that i was attracted to window-shop the new japanese snack shop Yamakawa (they have a small suupaa(maketto) at clarke quay central) which opened recently at the basement of tiong bahru plaza. Looked out for dorayaki, but they only had chocolate biscuit (under a doraemon brand…) shaped like dorayakis. Though there was indeed a wide selection of Kakimochi (fried mochi crunch) and those japanese nut balls.

Had some natto with rice at my mom’s place, and the rice was a organic brown variety (no doubt, since my aunt and mom are both organic eaters…). It wasn’t too bad, i was think it didn’t taste “brown” enough for brown-rice (or nutty, in that sense). Added some Otohime (dried anchovy and prawn mix flavour with some soy sauce and sugar) into the rice while it was boiling. You can get that at Isetan over at orchard. Not only good as a snack, but very very tasty to go with rice.

http://helios.cx.shopserve.jp/SHOP/mitoya-otohime.html scroll down to bottom to take a look.

But today was mainly a cooking endeavour over at jiaxin’s place. Though i was supposed to be at st gabriel’s primary sch teaching robotics (With little prior knowledge), passed that over to Jasper Loong and went over to meet jiaxin at about 3.00 pm and went to Tampines Cold Storage/NTUC (can’t remember which it was…) to purchase ingredients for today’s dish, Sugo alla Bolognese (bolognese pasta, basically lol).

Insist on Barilla, their slogan, and no joke about that, Barilla produces very tangy pasta(especially goes well with tomato-base sauces).

Today we purchased Fusilli (which is not the most suitable pasta for bolognese actually, i’ll explain later).

For the sauce, ground beef, celery, onions, carrots, canned plum tomatoes etc…

The resultant sauce, which also used milk, butter, olive oil and white wine, was only describable to be: Simply marvelous. Food for thought, its non-kosher (jewish version of halal), since milk and meat is used in the same dish.

Preparation time: About 3 hours, if you plan to cook bolognese, do simmer it as long as possible (but not till it turns too chunky). It brings out flavour, and without the simmering time, bolognese will not taste savoury enough.

Why not fusilli in usual cases? The shape just doesn’t hold the meat sauce well. Today it was fine, and with more self-served dashes of olive oil, the bolognese sauce will moisten and impart a greater aroma, holding onto the fusilli better. Penne and spaghetti are common pasta for bolognese actually!

I’ll be cooking the non beef version (with almost identical ingredients for vegetables) for band batch bbq on 16th June. So see you then!

 

Labour/May Day

Actually it was yesterday, and i remember having a discussion with cherine on wednesday, regarding whether it was Labour Day or Labour’s Day. To avoid any confusion, lets call it May Day.

SDP was having their “Tak Boleh Tahan!” event over at Toa Payoh central. And i practically spent my an entire afternoon with my video camera, patiently waiting for some action to happen. However, perhaps you might be disappointed, but there were no policemen (or women, as we can see from the parliament/funan incident last march) sent to disperse the gathering.

Basically began at 11 am, and i took a bus 153 directly down to toa payoh blk 177 and walked no more than 100 m to the toa payoh community library. Saw Mr John Tan and and also Chia Ti Lik getting ready for the event. As i was preparing my camcorder beside the local bakery, Miss Chee walked by and said hi to me. As Dr Chee arrived, they began setting up a makeshift stall (comprised of 2 plastic long tables) selling badges, t-shirts and SDP publications (i believe you can also purchase them from Kinokuniya, if you’d like to).

I remember i was with yinzuo and DJ in 2004 when we saw Chee Soon Juan advertising his book “Power of Courage” infront of Tampines station. They were selling that classic over there yesterday.

Before i furthur ado, i’ll post my youtube link without delay, yep got it uploaded pretty fast this time round.

So the new guy in the scene with Dr Chee is Mr Chia Ti Lik. People in the east coast region (including ahs friends, since ahs belongs to east coast constituency), would know him as one other guy who ran for elections with the worker’s party. Interesting tidbit, he graduated from Anglican High in 1989, making him an old alumni…

The topics covered at the mayday event included, outrageous minister paychecks, ever rising cost of living, GST hikes, Wong Kan Seng etc…

There were two petitions offered for the public to sign. One called the “Tak Boleh Tahan” petition, against increasing cost of living, and one calling for the resignation of Wong Kan Seng (due to the kastari incident).

They were collecting donations as well, i personally contributed $2. I mean, its not easy standing under the sun for 7 hrs shouting quotes against bad-governance (i’m not saying there definately is bad-governance in singapore) and giving out flyers.

Oh yeah, remember the Erhu Uncle who frequents tampines last time outside the interchange (ok he also plays yehu and zhongruan)? He was basking right outside the library for 4 hrs and i spent some time talking to him about his past livelihood playing and singing for Hokkien opera. He was telling me most modern hokkien suona players use plastic reeds, and that they sound lousy. Then he demonstrated (and i filmed) 2 traditional hokkien pieces that they would play at funerals. Later on he bought liam teh for me from the kopitiam, i drank it, and stuffed $2 into his box as i was feeling guilty having used the old man’s cash. Probably bump into him again sometime pretty soon. He is everywhere!

Tagged along with Dr Chee, Ms Chee and Francis (the older guy from SDP i believe) as they went around toa payoh central to give out flyers at kopitiams. Its interesting when random people will go “Hey, Dr Chee! How are you!” and willingly shake hands with him. Whether its sarcasm or real enthusiasm, some people are obviously aware of their existence. At the MRT station plaza, they were asked to leave by the personal.

Something weird happened today. Chia Ti Lik was talking to me about AHS teachers, and suddenly, Boon Suan Loy appeared with an unknown guy from behind. I was taken aback and told Chia that “Hey, thats the current AHS principal!” He was pretty shocked and suggested that i should have said hi to her, lol. Apparently she was returning books at the library…

Doesn’t matter, enjoy the video and do comment if your fingers feel funny/itchy.

 

Happy belated birthday Jasper Loong

Only reached home at 4 am this morning, from jasper’s bbq party, to think i started e food prep. at about 9 am yesterday morning.

Sean reached pasir ris mrt quite on time, whilst yinzuo was (again) late for about 10 mins. No grudge against him this time, he had to buy bread from delifrance. Reached shimin’s house at about 9.30 am and began the day chopping vegetables. Sean started with the chicken membrane buisness (chicken thigh has this layer of membrane under the skin which would taste funny after bbqing) and clearing e tendons of the meat. Then i marinated some remaining chicken mid-joints with heinz bbq sauce (shimin said it was cheapskate, well true, but there was already other chicken marinated by jasper). Shimin was stirring the teriyaki sauce we cooked in a pot. Then had to also skewer chicken to make yakitori sticks.

The vegetables were then used for the pasta sauce, i and yinzuo’s ultimate target dish for jasper’s party. Made from hand and scratch with tomatoes, carrots, celery, olive oil and spices, the resultant dish was really quite good (painstakingly complete with much skin damage from erupting sauce). After chopping up 3 kgs worth of tomatoes, 10 stalks of celery and 5 onions, we boiled that down for about an hr. After squashing e tomatoes, the juice formed a stew with bits of celery and carrots (the onions apparently disintegrated). Added 3 cans of plum tomatoes and 2 cans of tomato paste. Then used a strainer to removed those solid portions and finally completed the sauce at about 4.45 pm. With the pasta not done, we were obviously going to be late for the dinner to start at 5 pm…

Then sean made chicken balls by hand (looked like factory made balls). We packed up with dominic and weiwen’s helped and rushed over by taxi to pick up curry and fried rice cooked by sean’s grandma over at his house. Finally reached pasir ris park pit 52/53 at 6.30 pm. And wow, the only people there were ruixiang, jinjia, verlyn, james, jasper and lynnette. Apparently the “reinforcements” from shimin’s house didn’t arrive with the other stuff yet.

Then ruixiang was funny, he was complaining about how hungry he was, so since the utensils didn’t arrive yet, he took the delifrance baguette and took a bite rite out of it! Spent time talking to jinjia as well about CO stuff, he was asking what SYCO was going to play for june’s concert.

Started e fire finally at about 7 pm. Andy Ng and some others had also arrived by then. I guess the greatest disaster at the bbq was that the fire was pretty stubborn (not strong enough for my liking) and the chicken needed much more time to cook. Menu besides pasta, fried rice and curry included yakitori, satay (apparently left with 50 out of 100 at the end of the day), otah, chicken wings and fish (sambal cod and grilled mackerel). There was the cheesecake as well. The sambal cod was nice, sean used the chilli from Lee Wee’s Otah and wrapped the cod in alumnium foil over the fire (works to clear any sort of food you can’t finish at bbqs, cooks damn fast!) We did that to the satays as well. Now to admit that i wasted an entire mackerel (that cost $4 each) by dropping it on the ground, and before anyone noticed, i stuffed it into the bin which was right behind me. There was duck as well, yinzuo’s mom treated us to it. Abit salty but was quite savoury. Didn’t use the sweet sauce that came along with it.

Hanhui, rebec and xinni also came for the party, glad to have seen so many old classmates. Rebec was quite shocked or traumatised about my weight loss. Actually its really not that drastic imho.

Lynnette’s parents came for the party as well and spent time with their daughter and jasper. Then helped jasper’s serve up some pasta and curry in a way that was presentable.

The others were playing frisbee the entire time when i was cooking with various helpers.

By the end of the endeavour, it was already 1 am and sean took out his hw and sat beside the table and mugged.

Got to thank shimin lots who repeated responded to my calls to help me cook e unfinished chicken. I feel about guilty, you’re were supposed to be enjoying! (And all the containers and pots you washed after we cooked, not to mention we used YOUR place)

Then we sat down together with elisha and andy, they were discussing guitars with Gary. (Various cliques meet at parties, good means of expanding your circle!) End up singing gospel and worship songs with them. Then i asked elisha to play “One Way” and he asked “Which version?”. He played the simple one without the rhythm improvisation in the end. Didn’t know gary played acoustic and electric guitar till today. Then elisha had this fantastic guitar which sounded super clear in the high register (usually they sound thin and dun resonate well or long enough). They were then discussing about how taking out guitars at the beach was actually a bad idea for expensive guitars (sea breeze, moisture, etc).

Ruixiang left on his extremely flimsy bicycle, the handle portion had a lose nut. Yinzuo went with him too.

Elisha was trying to roast 2 marshmellows over a weak flame. “Mervin i know why you gave up trying to start another fire, cos you were doing it alone! Come, lets do it together!” Finally managed to get another flame moving with him around. Its interesting how elisha’s voice and language inspires people so quickly. He has that charisma, and his relationship with god must have something to do with it.

Finally they sat at the breakwaters and had a “emotional” time, as described shimin. While i walked around e pit and also chatted with andy and his friends a bit. Andy was actually hoping i could go to his place and stayover, but i was just too exhausted to do so already! Perhaps i should go cornerstone to catch up with them a bit. Remember the last time i went over was to sell my clarinet to carol (isaiah’s wife).

With all the budget problems and stuff, things still went out to be quite good. (Albeit a bit messy).

Until now, i still can’t get the yakitori to match up with standards that were acheived back in march last year… Maybe next time (reluctantly, i’m getting tired of organising bbqs, i should think of alternatives like catered dinners…but what venue?)

Oh darn, just realized the pictures are with sean for now. I promise to update with pictures asap!

Finally went home after going to shimin’s place to pick up the pasta strainer and pot (which actually belongs to gilbert, my landlord).

Bathed and slept at 5 am.

See you soon.

When you don’t blog enough, you end up having to blog more…

A few things have been done and accomplished recently i guess! Mr Wan’s video has finally been submitted, probably with even any changes left, absolutely minor ones (i hope…).

Starting with last saturday, SYCO members (including me) helped out at seng kang for SCO’s outdoor outreach concert. With my video cam and some speech and presentation skills, i was incharged of introducing what a suona was to the public. And for godsake, we were given 2 hokkien funeral (yes) suonas as display instruments. Upon putting the reed on it, i discovered that that instrument certainly could not be used for any form of demonstration (70% out of tune). Then tingkai, who was beside me and jun an, did a very good job with talking about various types of dizis (bangdi, qudi, xindi) and demonstrated on each of them. Nonetheless, he is a talented dizi individual from VJC. Then there was the catered lunch bento, which i had mixed feelings for. It was certainly delicious, we had sweet and sour fish fillets, chicken nuggets and even curry chicken thighs, but i was sort of complaining deep inside down about the absolute scarcity of vegatables (only a few cabbages in the corner where usually same side dishes of meat would occupy, the curry chicken took the square for the vegetables…)

Then jun an, ker yih and tingkai performed Long Teng Hu Yue for the member of parliament who came over to visit. Got that on video as well, Ben Boo was soloing. Yes i admit, my musical memory (probably my biggest issue, the only song i remember by heart is shan chun) certain impaired me from performing that piece and i gave my D diao suona to ker yih to do the job. Moonlighting did happen, and i purchased a tenor suona reed from Mr Jin Shi Yi (With Liu Jiang starring while smoking right from the other side of the performer’s tent)… Ending the day off eating carls jr with my mom at Far East. Too much for a day really, of food.

On sunday, the only buisness was with Moulmein band helping Mr Lin Ah Leck out, they did recordings of “Danceries” at NAFA end of that day. I supposed my sight reading has improved, 1st day on the 2nd trombone score and i feel like i’ve prepared enough to perform it (yes complacency here.) Jie Yuan seemed to certainly handled the 1st trombone part. I guess 3rd trombone part was indeed boring enough (a tuba dublicate) for Sanjoy to have fallen asleep during the recording, fortunately i woke him up in time. The recording personal, a flautist at NAFA showed off his perfect pitch talent…

“Okay guys… just my 50 cents, as you all know, the variation here includes a Eb Minor chord, and it would be good if you would to play the 3rd of that chord more outstandingly, yes i mean those playing the Gb, to emphasize the change from major to minor.”

Certainly perfect pitch is to a great extent useful.

Oh yes i forgot to mention i and sanjoy went over to Weiqiang’s house to chill out a bit, just a short walk away from the Community Centre at Toa Payoh South. And i have to say that he has a small, but one of the most (no joke) cleanest homes i have ever seen. The floors are sparkling clean as well as the entire kitchen. Then he had a dog as well, certainly more disciplined (weiqiang says she behaves infront of strangers.) then Bonus in my rented house.

Coming to Monday, no choir but i skipped SYCO to attend one last prac at TPJCO for saturday’s concert preparation. I and Mr Liu Bin seem to meet frequently at bus stops and buses, and saw him once more on 293. We were then discussing e prospects of saturday’s performance and he was perplexed about why his St Nicholas alumni CO girls seem to have became hostile towards him after departing to VJC. Lol, no comments about this one.

Met this guy called glenn a J1 who currently plays cello in TPJCO, apparently he used to play trumpet and saxophone back in secondary school (forgot which school oops) and was a member of SOKA wind! I always thought Mrs Chua had stopped going to SOKA but apparently they still had a combined concert with SOKA strings last year. Then he told me about a TPJC alumni trombonist, who went to soka for a while, and was a girl. Oh god, i then realized it was Suki who played 1st trombone with me for last year’s TPJC concert. She has her own VB strad 42BO silver plated trombone (from sweelee)….

Tuesday was once again skipping music appreciation and went over to glasgow instead to submit the videos, but to my horror Mr Wan apparently changed his mind last minute and didn’t head over to the office due to some emergency meetings. Cynthia was very nice and we sat down to discuss the font and text to be used for some subtitles in the video, pretty much the only thing left to finalized. I spent the next 2 hrs at the office sofa and chatting on skype with, japanese people and also shimin/jonathan. Oh yes, to mention shimin has started skyping!

About japanese, i went over at night to Tea Chapter (Yes! That teahouse that AHS students perpetually visit for SPHERE projects with the elderly and also chinese appreciation, i remember eating tangyuan over there for one CNY and playing trombone for the elderly there). Hasumi over at Japanese Meetup organised another chat session and over 30 people attended, and this was the first one i went for officially (excluding natsumatsuri last year at changi japanese shogakkou). Many interesting people, including shingo-san himself went, and most interesting was this Indonesian chinese (been in singapore for the last 20 years) named Mr Yopi. We were discussing about ramen, japanese food, robotics, music (yes there was this taiwanese ex-NAFA music student as well!). Then we got on to talk about politics also. Great stuff!

But we had to pay $5 a person for “Tea Buffet” (That was the way i put it forward for shingo-san!) Free flow Tie Guan Yin Tea.

Then coming to just yesterday, wednesday. I attended (was late again) for aural class and Mr Lim was going through dictation of “pop” music, practicing how to write out chords and melodies from random CDs he brought over. And his taste of music was a chinese oldie. Well not a bad choice, simple chord progression and not too difficult rhythmic and phrase patterns.

After class was lunch of wanton mee with the others and i and sanjoy began to practice (rush) for trombone PS coming up next. Apparently fredi was not very happy with me, speaking mostly about my overly tense breathing and posture, which he feels totally impars me from effectively playing and improving. Okay i agree to about 35%.

After which, met up which Yinzuo at funan where we had subway (pretty much the only fastfood that is tasty to me now and which i eat regularly) and we concluded that double chocolate chip cookie was the classic top choice and peanut butter was slightly too, excitingly flavoured. Went on to marketplace at Raffles City to source for ingredients (tomato, cheese and puree) for preparation of the pasta sauce on 26th. Apparently the pasta cookbook he purchased at the popular clearance sale early this month came to good use, and there were more than a couple of recipes for good and popular pasta sauces (they have virtually recipes of every type, including pages on the physical and biological properties of wheat, and i discovered the endosperm is what is made into flour. Come on i’m not a bio student, now you know what the scientific word for rice grains is.)

There was tomato hatred from us today. From the book, roma style tomatoes are deep red in colour, as contrast with horrible supplies of malaysian “The Pasar” tomatoes we consume in singapore. And it just had to be the day that subway served us green tomatoes. No joke, green.

Lycopene? Probably not much in singaporean tomatoes.

 

Performance at Marriott Hotel, wait a moment… sounds familiar

Tuesday started off with me skipping music appreciation (once more) and reaching NAFA at exactly 3.30 pm, right on time for the open rehearsal for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony concert (actual concert on wednesday, today effectively).

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai only did a very short warm up with us, not more than 10 mins, and when the basses were told to sing alone, i and sanjoy discovered we really could NOT sing properly. Hutch was going:

“Wah lau, you all really any-o-how zham siaaah”

Okay true, i’m certainly not a choir type of person.

Rehearsal began at 4.00 pm, and since the ninth symphony had 4 movements, and only the last movement required a choir to sing. The first 50 mins were devoted to sitting down on the paquet floor and waiting. Today they had a contrabassoonist (for those not musically informed, a really low-voice and huge double-reed instrument, i think its lowest Bb is sitting rite beside the lowest A on the piano…), some girl (i think from china, no offence).

She played more intune than the japanese guy in Osawa Seiji’s performance video i think.

After the rehearsal, i was informed abruptly (reminded) by Laurel that the Marriott performance was up next at 7 pm. And he was flustered as well as he forgot to inform us about the change in attire, but it was fixed quickly as Goh Toh Chai just told us to wear what we were already in (black and black, supposed to be white and black with a suit).

Accidentally missed the warm-up rehearsal while stuffing (not eating really) down lunch at fong seng nasi lemak stall with the other access course friends. We took a chartered bus over to marriott. As we approached e banquet hall at the 3rd level, i realized….

Hey! Isn’t this the place we had our Sec 4 prom?!:

I remember i went severely underdressed from work at sim lim (in the company blazer), when everyone else were dressed in suits (till this day it puzzles me, even pass batches had people not wearing suits). And sean was the ONLY person, along with me, not wearing a suit. Then i could remember yinzuo and his “confessional” song dedication to brenda ong. Apparently after that incident he was nicknamed “20 balls”…

Ok nevermind lets get back to NAFA buisness. I was scheduled to play only 1 song piece, the NAFA anthem in swing form, arranged by Zechariah Goh Toh Chai.

We were expecting some form of dinner, but all we received were about 2 pieces of high-tea sized sandwiches (you know, small triangles). And then one other NAFA guy went abit violently angry and adams had to do something to stop him. Eventually i figured that they gave us a $20 voucher for marriott hotel as a conpensationary act. Better than nothing, i already smsed cherine and jiaxin about whether they would like to have cake/coffee with that voucher. Then again, this dinner was organised by NAFA themselves for the NAFA committee. For the instrumentalist to be neglected, well, it tells us abit… No offence. Hartung (orchestra conductor) was quite fed up about it as well i heard.

After i finished the piece, i went off to meet my mom over at takashimaya. She took awhile, so i went to cold storage to check out pasta pricing (jasper’s chalet). Apparently san remo brand pastas were going at $1.80 per 500g, i would say affordable. If cold storage can sell at $1.80, certainly elsewhere it must be cheaper!

Then i saw the $2.98 per 100 g tiger prawns. An overkill.

Today was late dinner at mos burgers. Not very healthy. Furthurmore, the yakiniku beef rice burger, had really tough and not very savoury tasty beef. The fries were starting to deprove, perhaps it was the hour when it was served?

Anyway, see you soon.