Cooking!

Argh! The diary of an occasional cook 😜 

The “Fall/Thanksgiving” work competition called for a pumpkin dish and I was the only entrant 😂 with U.K. chef Nigella Lawson’s Pumpkin & Goats Cheese lasagne (with roasted pine nuts on top (one of these photos has pre-nuts)) and so work gave me a $30 Starbucks gift card anyway!! The occasion called for a potluck so I also made U.S. chef Samrin Nosrat’s almond and cardamom tea cake which was a screaming success. 

Tales from the kitchen - there’s very valid reasons why I eat out two meals (sometimes three) a day!! Ingredient sourcing, preparations, and cooking are work work work!!

1.  Cutting the pumpkins took hours. Fortunately The Crown Season 3 has dropped so I was able to binge on that while chopping.

2. Had to dash out for ANOTHER pumpkin as two didn't cut the weight required. This is what makes food preparation so time consuming too - the actual ingredients shopping.

3.  Zachary was after a blow by blow as I made the dish, so I sent him this pic - lol. Chopping chopping. When I wasn't watching The Crown - I was listening to Eddie Vedder's cool tunes from the "Into the Wild" soundtrack.

4. Simmering.

5.  Had to make another cake as I bungled the first one by adding baking soda when the recipe called for 'baking powder' - OOPS!

6.  The dud that Zach and I will still try tonight (and we did! it tasted fine but the inside was a lot darker than the one made according to the recipe). Notice how it sunk in the middle.

7.  Second attempt at the cake and success - I made double sure I added Baking Powder and NOT baking soda - lol. The ingredients in this cake are not cheap either. Mistakes can be costly.

8. Nigella Lawson's Goat Cheese and Pumpkin lasagne just out of the oven sans the pine nuts which are toasting now.

9. Nigella called for some crusty bread too - which I sourced this morning to ensure its freshness. The idea is you dip it into the tomato sauce of the lasagne : )

10. And my cake - as you can see, I supplied icecream, cream and sugared strawberries. Again, thanks to Lorien (who sublets her place to me) for the cake dish and apple dish.

Calling for good theatre in LA

I am struggling to find good theatre in LA. 

I’ve seen copious works and the best was a production of Euripides’ The Bacchae at The Getty, Malibu last year. Mainly because the lead actress was phenomenal. 

Zach and I went to actor Tim Robbins directed play, “1984” an adaption of George Orwell’s novel last night at “The Actor’s Gang” - a theatre house founded by Robbins. 

The production was so bad I (along with others I spied) left at intermission. I never do this - I am a theatre buff! Zach would have stayed, but he too saw its limits so came with me. 

Bereft of the quality theatre we just came to take for granted in Oz. 

Still think the Europeans do it best - saw quality productions of Ibsen’s “Ghosts” in Oslo/& “Hedda Gabler” by a German company as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. 

I guess LA is more film/TV acting. To that note - stumbled on a lovely piece of film trivia. The hotel we had a drink at prior was the one used by all the munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz” - they slept three to a bed. 

The film was being made at MGM Studios around the corner (now Sony Studios). The Wizard of Oz would be in my top five favourite films.

Photos:

1. The Actor's Gang theatre space. 
2. Cocktails prior at The Culver Hotel
3 & 4. Window display at The Culver Hotel - Wizard of Oz

First overseas trip with the boyfriend!

My young Zachary and I went to Tokyo, enroute to my seeing my father in Singapore, this September. This post and the one beforehand run a bit backward. Zach and I were in Tokyo and then he jetted back to LA and I kept going on to Singapore. I've been in Singapore since Saturday and today is Wednesday. My Singaporean adventures are much different to the Japanese ones, as it was go, go, go in Japan and yet in Singapore, I'm living a very lazy existence, just a huge amount of reading (of the internet gossip variety mainly) and lazing about. In the afternoons my dad and I get going for a bit of Singaporean exploring.

Zach and I spent about six days in Japan - visiting both Tokyo and Kyoto. It was whirlwind but definitely worth it. Three photos as follows from Tokyo to cap off this post.

Singaporean adventures

Reposting a facebook post:

16 September 2019

Dad and daughter’s afternoon in Singapore - culminating in two Singapore Slings each at ‘Raffles Hotel’.

“My God! All he does all day is make Singapore Slings,” said Mal James (as we watched the barman prepare his umpteenth Sling).

And after dad’s first Singapore Sling, “I reckon I can go another one...” and so it goes.

Chasing for connection

Responding to an article I read about single people actually being the less lonely:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/07/case-against-marriage/591973/

This article rang true for me - when I am single, I am constantly out there seeking connection, and quite frankly this process can be exhausting. Sure, you’re meeting many ‘new faces’ and making your own fun - but inevitably, for me, having a good partner means I can kick back and relax, knowing that I have some easy company without chasing it. But yes, this process too can be lonely - as the article suggests. Because it can then become all about the partner. Just you and the partner. And sometimes, just about you because the partner is busy - or needs time out. I know I can rely on my partner to “show up” and thus I don’t take the risk on having others “show up” too. It’s time efficiency. So yes, I can see how ironically single people are not the lonely ones - but many of us in this single state would prefer not to have to go to such lengths just to be that way.

Yoga, yoga it becomes your life!

I never met Maty, but she was one of the practitioners in the primary series youtube videos I used to watch for Ashtanga yoga home practice, and so I took an interest in her thereafter. She had a profound impact on the LA yoga scene and the community here is in mourning. Glad to see the New York Times and LA Times has acknowledged her significant role in raising the profile of yoga’s benefits to the West.

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/health/maty-ezraty-dead.amp.html#click=https://t.co/ywKbTh4dNE

LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2019-07-19/maty-ezraty-yoga-instructor-dead

The years keep rollicking by

Responding to this Modern Love article I read today: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/style/modern-love-egg-freezing-fertility.html#click=https://t.co/XmFxOZ4YOK


My experience losing my mother at 21 (five days shy of turning 22) - resulting in being emotionally damaged in my 20s carried into my 30s (not good for healthy romantic relationships) - and not having a sister (sisters make good aunts 😊) lessened my desire to procreate. Raising kids is hard and relentless - it takes a village they say; and I did not have the ideal support group. So when the wrong men wanted children with me - I chose to keep striving forward for a better match. Then I turned 37 and thought - well, I’ll look into egg freezing. And I did (look into it but for similar reasons that this article describes of the outcomes - did not pursue). The fertility specialist recommended giving up the baby dream at 42. I turn 45 this month. It’s an interesting one - so long as a healthy woman is fertile, you always have children on the mind (and in body) as a consideration. Until you don’t. So I guess my message is this - for women you know who don’t, or didn’t have children, it does not mean at some point or for a lot of those points - she considered it, and perhaps the reason she didn’t is just that life circumstance was not on her side.

I wrote on this blog in 2011 about seeing an egg fertility specialist: https://ordinarypeopleeverydaythings.blogspot.com/2011/08/ill-take-my-eggs-frozen.html