Food Art

Before we gobbled everything down…

There was a starter. I can’t remember what it was. It looks like a piece of meat, methinks.

Seared, prime steak.

The piece of unagi you will ever eat. And smell.

Bursting the with yummy goodness.

Of Tacos and Relocation

At the supermarket this evening, I came across this shelf of Old El Paso products at the NTUC supermarket. I was surprised because NTUC doesn’t usually strike one as a gourmet store that sells Mexican staples. I use the term “gourmet” to describe Mexican food in Singapore because it’s about as a rare as seeing a well stocked “Asian” food aisle in your average, East Coast, supermarket chain store. Whatever Asian is supposed to mean.  Anyhow, I picked up the packet of tortillas at the bottom and marveled at it for five seconds before placing it back as my eyes darted over to the price. $7.80 for a pack of tortillas. I think they were on sale 2 for US$4 at Harris Teeter last semester.

The Old El Paso Tortillas have a special place in my heart. You see, I used to hate Mexican food. Like all other cuisines I disliked, my dislike stemmed from either consciously pyscho-ing myself into thinking that a dish I’ve never tried must taste gross or, I had a terrible tasting and vowed never to eat that food again. Unfortunately, Mexican food took the former with my memories of the most gross looking pile of cheese fries from Taco Bell in Singapore, while it still had a decent amount of stores around the island until Singaporeans realized their palates didn’t quite like Taco Bell (I’m still waiting for the day when everyone realizes Taco Bell and Wendy’s should banished to food purgatory). From that fine experience, I somehow developed a dislike for the burrito bar at the dining hall and frowned incessantly when friends offered me Guacamole. Oh and the sight of beans. Bleh. When Chipotle opened in Charlottesville, Russell tried to get me to eat there and failed on many accounts.

Then on spring break in third year, I joined an Alternative Spring Break trip to San Diego, which is located close to the Mexican border. On our first night in town, our group walked to a local Mexican ‘diner’ and I ate the most amazing enchiladas in the entire world. That it came with a dallop of guacamole on the side, was cherry on the cake. As I dug into dinner (we hadn’t eaten since our 5 hour flight from Virginia), I kept thinking how damn pissed I would be if we had to eat Mexican food the whole trip considering I paid almost a thousand dollars in hopes of eating some seafood and whatever California was famous for (you realize I had no idea Mexican food is a food group in most of California and Texas). But, biting into that fresh, homemade tortilla, I realized what an idiot I had been. We ended up eating tons of Mexican/Tex Mex the entire trip because it was easy on our budget and convenient to assemble in the middle of a dessert.

When I got back to Virginia, there was no turning back. Chipotle became my (and Russell’s) only fast food joint of choice and better yet, I started making quesadillas on my own and hence, the affair with Old El Paso. To top it all off, I went to Acapulco the following year for Spring Break. But that’s a whole other story for another day.

Back to the NTUC food aisle. Seeing that shelf of Mexican food brought on a wave of nostalgia. Well, I had also seen cartons of Soy Milk in the organic aisle that I used to drink in the dining hall, so its not like I was going crazy. It occurred to me that three months into relocating back to Singapore, I am still psychologically displaced. When I moved to Virginia four years ago, that displacement lasted a whole semester. I wondered if I am an overly attached person who experiences an unnatural amount of inertia towards change. When I talk about my travel experiences and time spent in the U.S., people here tend to judge quickly and equate my difficulty in adapting to Singapore as the “grass is greener on the side” syndrome.

But I beg to differ. Moving is hard. Moving to a foreign country and reshaping your life there is hard. Living in a new place at a time in your life when you are questioning yourself and your purpose of existence, is ridiculous. It is ridiculous on your physical and mental health and your social sanity. For someone to leave 19 years of friendships and familiarity to start a new social circle, a new comfortable routine, is difficult to say the least. Having to leave four years later and return home with maturity and an additional view on life (at least I hope that’s what I achieved with university, if not my education has failed me), is heartbreaking. I left some naive career aspirations and a boyfriend, who is trying so hard with me to be reunited. I left great friends (I have great friends at home too, but it always hurts to lose friends), a lifestyle that was a change from what I had known all my life, and 600-channel cable tv for goodness sakes.

So maybe life is all about discovering and falling in love with Mexican food. But while you wait for that day when your taste buds light up with joy, memories and self-induced fears can keep you in a state of inertia. I’m still trying to figure out if this inertia is a good or bad thing.

Bop Bop Bop

When I get home from a long day, I feel like an old lady. My face is gross with gunk and the handbag is dangling off my arms like a dead chicken. My eyes feel dry. The shower seems so inviting. The mirror insists that I go for a jog.

All I want is to be clean and crash on my bed.

It Rained on Hallows

Halloween was rather subdued for me this year. The absence of the boyfriend, familiar faces and locale, got to me a lot more than I would’ve liked. Still, I tried my best to make merry and invited CC and Shups over to my house to help give out candy to spoiled little ang moh and Singaporean kids. It was a fun evening although the rain literally put a damper on things. It rained from about 6.30pm to 7.30pm  and midway, we had a bunch of kids at my door trick or treating for candy in the pouring rain. Amazing. Here are some of the ghoulish delights…

The cutest green monster ever. I wondered if she meant to dress up as envy or as some new cartoon character I’m unaware of.

This kid was literally a zombie. His dad had to remind him to put up his arms!

Sweet young  ’un’s that were all for candy. They didn’t even know how to say, “trick or treeeeeat”!

This kid scared the crap out of me. You’ll see why in the next photo.

Overall, it was a pretty sweet Halloween. We saw the most adorable silent ghost, a boy that was dressed as his best friend, two naughty school girls and a whole lot of Scream reapers. It’s strange that not many kids dress up as cute animals or fairies here, opting instead to be dead creatures of the night. Oh well.

Haha London, Eat Dust

So Bloomberg users (aka anyone who works in the Finance and Banking world) voted Singapore second in the “world’s leading global financial center” poll. New York got first place, no surprise. But hey, we beat London by 1%. Not bad for a little kampung city with kick ass tax laws. I think our proximity to ahem, the next hugest economy in the world, and our convenient time zone definitely helped in the grand scheme of things too.

Now all the MAS needs is to figure out a good balance between regulating the financial industry, while keeping the money coming in. That and, deciding on the best way to maintain banking secrecy while screening out those cheap-but-rich-tax-evading-rich-folks.