Updates

It's been a while.

Been extremely busy the last few months. It's funny how on days like these, no amount of hours can ever be enough for you to deal with your life.

Things have happened in the last few months.

Deron proposed, so I'm officially engaged!

My friend's fiance died. Suspected suicide. :( It was grim, the funeral, with the grandma crying over the coffin.

Set my defense date.

Submitted my paper thrice. Still waiting on it.

Lost weight (Guess all the stress did some good).

Building talk next Friday. Guess who's presenting!

What happens to the days when you don't feel like doing work? I have this internal conflict where I am not inclined to do work but I have to, with this impending stress on my shoulders.

I worry.

I worry about Deron not finding a job in Singapore.

I worry about my defense.

I worry about my talk.

I worry about every aspect of my wedding.

I guess the last year of Ph.D is always stressful. No easy way about it unless you're Mike graduating so you can step right into med school (kidding if you're reading this, Mike.)

I have 5 months left here in San Diego. I might come back but it's so far in the future that I don't know. I want the 5 months to be happy so I can enjoy and cherish the remnants of the life I built for myself here. I can't. There's just too many things going on, too many things I need to tend to, too many things to worry about. Ay.

Romeo & Juliet's soundtracks cheer me up. It's nice to know that some things get frozen in time and don't change.

To be happy.

Today, I was in the mouse room when I ran into this guy who works at the mouse room. I know him because one time, I was going in while he was pushing the door to get out, and he pretty much slammed the door in my face. He kept apologizing for days after that, and obviously I hold no grudge. He's one of those happy-go-lucky simple guys who is nice to everyone and is always super cheery and happy.

Then I found out that he actually has multiple sclerosis when he had an episode one day in the mouse room and had to be sent to the hospital. It makes me sad. We study MS in the lab, but it's so detached from the actual reality of the disease that everyone conducts their experiments in a logical cool manner.

Today we were talking about how he has to shoulder the cost of the ambulance because the insurance might not cover it, and how he was forced to get on the ambulance because his manager said he doesn't want him "to be a liability to Scripps". It makes me sadder. How can colleagues be so cold towards him?

I started to put myself in his shoes. I can't imagine someone with MS being the person he is. So cheerful and so happy! He has to give himself shots every single day to prevent episodes from happening, and he was joking that he was sick of jabbing himself every day like a heroine addict. Not to mention that he is seriously compromised in the dating field. Not everyone would want to be with a person who is going to be severely handicapped in his old age. I have seen videos of clinical cases of MS, where a lady who is barely 40 lost all control of her limbs. How sad a life is that? The bad thing about MS is that after every episode, the condition gets worse, and there is no knowing when an episode will occur. And he is so cheerful still, and still working, cherishing every day he has. :(

Why does it take someone like that to make me realize how good I have it? I just wish that people in general are more content with their lives, me included. My new year resolution is to be content with what I have, and to cherish everything I have. Health, my lovely family, my education, my loving boyfriend and my great friends. Happiness... it's not as elusive as I thought.

2011

It'll be a year of changes, good ones I hope. :) I had a great countdown at this awesome club with a few of my good friends, at Filter. And the new year celebrations with girl friends at Wine bar, Zouk, butter factory and Overeasy. :) I was dead tired after NYE, but all my friends took naps before they came out so the whole time, they were trying to wake me up. -_- I had fun regardless, esp when Lifang got drunk and kept saying how cute I am. Lol.

Lately...

Lately, I've been kinda pensive. Maybe it's nearing the end of the year, and I don't feel good about starting a new year. I just feel so old! And I'm about to get older! Urgh. Deron says it's fine, and when I get way older, I will like it more than I think.

I doubt it.

I know I don't look old (yet), but I feel so old! I hear giggling young girls laughing about silly things and I go "man, they act so silly and immature". I just feel like a 80 year-old trapped in my body. I remember when I was 21, I thought people above the age of 25 were OLD. Like crazy old.

And I'm just so tired. Been having this pseudo-flu for the last two weeks, and it kinda sucks. It's nice how it came right after I felt better after my wisdom teeth extraction. The only upside of this is that I lost weight because of my suppressed appetite.

Have to start writing my paper so I can publish it for graduation. Graduation. Time flies so fast that I don't know how to react to it just yet. I have mixed feelings about going back to Singapore for the next few years. The obvious perk of it is that I get to be with my family again! I miss all of them soooooo much (esp. my sister), and I can't wait to be part of family vacations again! I just am so used to living here that I don't know if I can adapt back......

Sigh.

Sometimes I hate Singapore so much. It's so age-ist. At every age of your life, people find different topics to stress you up. At 10, they ask you what stream you got into in school. At 13 they ask you which secondary school you got into, and how you did on your PSLE. At 16, they ask about your 'O's, at 18, they ask about your 'A's. And just when you thought you're off the hook, between the age of 18 till 28 or 29, they start asking you if you found yourself a suitable partner for marriage and whether you want kids or not. Doesn't help that the entire population of your high school friends and JC friends start marrying in bulk and pumping out kids like there's no tomorrow. And I'm not even 28 yet!

It's not that I don't want to get married. It's not that I don't want kids. I just hate the idea of fitting in a mold that everyone assumes you're going to be in. This is the main reason why I like living here better. People don't give a shit what you do. There's respect in every profession, and every life decision.

Don't mean to rant. Just annoyed, and possibly PMS-ing.

On a bright note, going back to the motherland next month! I get to hug my little sister again. Woot! :)

Mai sista!!

My younger sister is coming to visit in less than two days now. Woot woot! I am soooooo excited! First of all, I can't even really believe this is happening, since she is NOT a fan of long haul flights. Second of all, I've been waiting since April, and the trip took a couple of months to come together, but it just feels like the summer months just whoozed by, and it's Sept already! :)

Happy happy. Sigh, now lab, if you could just buck up, maybe I can be the happiest ever yet.

Fremch Laundry

Just got back from Napa, and of course, a blog about French Laundry is in order.

I had my expectations up really high, because it was such a bitch to get the reservation. Recap: I read on the website that they only take reservations 2 months in advance, no earlier than that. So I called on June 14th, at 10am, when they open their phonelines. Busy tone. Tried redialling till 11ish, till I got through, and it was fully booked! Booked TWO months in advance! I couldn't believe it! So the next day, I got Deron to try calling the same time I did, and he was also clicking opentable with his right hand, and redialling his phone with his left (which was kinda comical, but we were too annoyed to laugh about it). He got through at 1030, and it was BOOKED FULLY again!

Finally I called my Nordstrom Visa Signature concierge, and got them to take care of it. They said so many people called in, they dedicated a whole TEAM to doing that! Can you imagine working in somewhere as glamorous as Nordstrom, and your whole career is dedicated to calling in for reservations at French Laundry? Man, that would be sad. Not that I'm dissing them! I heart them cuz they got me that reservation!

So there was only one menu - the tasting menu which consists of nine courses. I was so stuffed at the end of the meal, I wanted to roll over and faint.

Did my hair 5 min before the meal. Ghetto style.
Calla lillies. My favorite!

Excited!

Le Menu!

Menu (according to me, if you want the precise description, look at the pic:
complimentary

1) small puff pastry with aged gyrere cheese
Kinda boring, but tastes good, sorta like a cheezit, hot.

2) salmon tartare with red onion marmalade and creme fraiche on a sesame wrap
Amazing, the flavors of the salmon blends right in with the sweetness of the marmalade, and buttered by the creme fraiche.

1st: Caviar with Pearls: sabayon of creek oysters and stuargon caviar with tapioca pearls in a butter chive sauce
Tastes straight from the ocean, but not overpowering, all thanks to the butter sauce

2nd: Foie gras terrine with white honey glaze and hazelnut puree in an aged balsamic with figs, served with a brioche and Jurassic salt
The hazelnut was amazing with the foie gras, the overall taste was great, but for 30 bucks more, I'd expected more foie gras. The taste of foie gras was very faint, and not very satisfying.

3rd: Cucumber-cured kanpachi belly
This was very refreshing, but

Deron's sauteed branzino fish was way better. It was just cooked to perfection.

4th: Sweet butter-poached maine lobster tail in a vanilla-saffron emulsion with wilted arrowleaf spinach. My fav! The tail was cooked to perfection, very tender and very sweet. It was heavenly. I thought this was the only dish worth of a three michelin star.

5th: Veal heart with swiss chard and comte cheese "pain perdu".
Meh. The veal heart tastes like gamey salami, but not as salty as salami. Meh.

Deron's white quail was awesome, but Whisk n ladle's quail was on par with that.

6th: Lamb chops with pearl barley, summer squash, marinated toybox tomatoes in a spanish caper sauce.
Good, cooked perfectly, but boring.

7th: Boho Bel cheese with griddled cornbread, with pickled blueberries and australian truffle.
Cheese was good, but not exceptional.

8th: Watermelon Sorbet with compressed summer melon and garden mint and persian lime.
Very refreshing, the compressed melon had a crisp juicy amazing texture.

9th: Peaches and Cream dessert: Very ripe peaches coated in a sponge like cake, served with vanilla bean basil ice cream.

Marshmallow brulee tart.

The peaches were AMAZING. Nice dessert.

I'm not saying that it's not high-quality food, just that Joel Robuchon was way more superior in the presentation, and the decor of the restaurant was so much prettier. The more important difference is that for Robuchon's food, you look at it, and you imagine how good it will taste, and it tastes far better than your wildest imagination. For French Laundry, the taste falls flat. There was no imagination nor surprise in the food. I loved the imagination and creativity in Joel Robuchon's foods. I will definitely bring my folks there when I graduate, that's daym certain!

P.S: Sorry some of the pics are so dark. My camera is dying. :(
Happy! :) It's not an engagement ring, if you're wondering. Just a lovely present from a lovely person. :)

Dinner tapas

Did a small party a few weeks ago, for a keg opening at my place. Wanted to blog about the food I made before I forget...

Did a fresh avocado and grapefruit salad with arugula, fresh corn (off the cob) and lemon zest, in a blossom honey dressing ...

Everything was made from scratch, cuz I hate pre-cooked foods...

Bruschetta, also made from tomatoes, and basil (from my basil plant) with tons of garlic for a punch!

Brussel sprouts (farm-fresh) in a lemon white wine sauce..

Sautéed (three kind) mushrooms, with caramelized onions and a shard of parmesan for kicks.

Finally, a 2 minute poached egg in tomato consumme, topped with tomato jam, parmesan cheese, and basil. My personal fav. :)