Poems: qlrs

The Day You Told Me You Were Tired of Things That Break

Ask me what material I'd use to make
a human being and I'd answer:
glass. Ask me what shape
I'd mould it into and I'd reply

a cup – the ones that have felt the light
press of lips on their collarbones, or
the gentle caress of fingers easing
the soapbuds off their backs after
every meal. The ones that brim
with liquid light in a room gone
quiet after the candles are lit.
Ask me if I'm scared of the
thought of them breaking,
and I'd ask you to imagine
how easy it would be to
neglect the one thing
you thought was
shatterproof.

By Mary Jean Chan

From qlrs vol 12 no 1. 

This latest installment from qlrs is especially good I think. I liked this poem best - interesting but not gimmicky. 

Paperman

There has been a lot of unhappiness in the air lately. This is a little bit of cute in the middle of that. Happy Friday!

1 January 2013 - Meatballs

The meatball making frenzy all started when I was shopping for dinner ingredients one evening in December and I picked up a package of frozen Italian meatballs thinking it would go well with my main dish for the night. But then when I flipped it over and looked at the ingredients list, my heart sank. It started with ground meat, parmesan, herbs - ok fine - then descended into a list of chemicals with unpronounceable and un-spell-able names. I put it back. And I thought to myself: I can do better.

So on the first day of the year, Mr Grey cleaned house (yay!) and I made meatballs. It was sort of a mash up of this recipe and this one. I'm actually kind of blown away by the scent of nutmeg - it somehow brought out the flavour of the meat in an wonderfully savoury way - can't believe I've never cooked with it before. We ate some of the meatballs for dinner then froze the rest in meal sized batches. I went to sleep on 1 Jan 2013 feeling satisfied; the house was clean and I had meatballs in the freezer.

You know something? It was a great way to start the year - like making a gift for my future self and I plan to do more of this make ahead stuff from now on. We ate the meatballs with pasta after having a squash lesson earlier this week, Mr Grey ate them with other leftovers one night when I got home late. We ate another carton of the meatballs last night with cacio e pepe and curried carrots (both recipes can be found on this blog) and only spent 20-ish minutes in the kitchen. The cacio e pepe and carrots were made from scratch but the meatballs? We just popped them into the microwave for 4 minutes and that was it.  

Oh 2013, I think you will be the best year yet. I have my own kitchen and so many recipes to try! :)

P.S There's an alternative cacio e pepe recipe on ChubbyHubby's blog - it looks beautifully easy and there's only one pot to wash up.

2012: through the wardrobe

2012 has been a very very good year. It started busy, what with two large work things in January and February then moved into hyper busy, with a Big Work Thing coming in the month before the wedding. Because of that, because of work, there was very little time to put in personal touches for the wedding. Time - or the lack thereof - was the reason Mr Grey and I pared the wedding down to its bare bones while still trying to incorporate the Chinese tradition of the tea ceremony and the reception and have a church ceremony on top of it all.

I only just told a couple of friends last night, just how much I loved the way Mr Grey and I arranged our wedding. It was over a weekend - with the church and traditional chinese ceremony on Saturday, then a lunch reception on Sunday. I told my friends how much I loved having dinners alone with Mr Grey - just sort of absorbing the events of the day and talking. But I left out my favourite part.

My favourite part of the whole wedding weekend was when the reception and ceremonies were all done and Mr Grey and I had a quiet dinner then took the rented car out for a drive - the first drive of our married lives.

We drove through NUS, around the west side of the island, along winding roads, up a hill then down another hill.... held hands in the car and talked. There was no planned route, nowhere we had to get to. It was just us and the night and the road ahead and for half an hour, that was all there was to the universe. No one else existed.

It's hard to explain how or why the drive felt so unreal and beautiful....but

Perhaps, just perhaps, that drive is like the first magical quarter of an hour through the wardrobe - when it dawns that this is Somewhere Else, that this is a different world, with trees and snow and a light.

Then you step out, all wondering amazement and of course, the faun appears and life is utterly and irrevocably changed.

So maybe, just maybe - in the new year, in this new life Somewhere Else, there will be Spring and talking cats and bears and Lions and witches too.

Happy new year to all :)

O Holy Night

Blessed Christmas to all and sundry.

Veni veni Emmanuel

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."

Ordinary Monday pasta

Mr Grey was sick and sniffling. I was tired from work and in my hurry to get home, I forgot all about the supermarket stop I was supposed to make..

Edible contents of fridge (excluding chocolate and fruit): half an onion (a bit sad looking), one left over sausage and garlic. There was butter, olive oil and tomato puree. Oh and some cheese – thank goodness there was cheese!

So I threw together whatever we had and it was surprisingly tasty. 

(Recipe is very loosely adapted from this one.)

To cook the sauce:

Slice the onion and garlic. Doesn’t matter what size, just chop it to whatever size you like. I like the onion pieces large enough to eat, so I didn’t chop it too finely.

Melt butter over the stove in a heavy pot. Add some olive oil.

Saute the onion and garlic in the butter/olive oil over medium heat.  Cook, stirring from time to time till the onion is soft and slightly translucent – 10 minutes at least. Do not skip this step. Do not fry onion/garlic over high heat. The idea is to let the onion release its sweetness by cooking it slowly.

Slice the sausage up and add it in, stirring a bit to release the smoky flavour. Add tomato puree and some water then let the sauce simmer. 

If you have it – add a few pinches of Italian herb seasoning or any other dried herbs - dried basil, thyme etc. (If you have fresh herbs, so much better but I'd forgotten to pop by the supermarket, remember?) Add about 1 tsp of sugar. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in a small amount of butter at the end if you want; it makes the sauce more delicious. Finish the pasta by stirring it into the sauce so that the pasta absorbs the sauce then add cheese.

(Mr Grey is always in charge of boiling the pasta; I never get pasta al dente. Leave it to me and you’ll get over cooked pasta and a very unhappy Mr Grey.)

As an addendum:

Months ago, I was chatting with Ms E and she said that she didn't know how to cook the tomato sauce for pasta and always bought the sauces from jars. 

Well, for a basic tomato sauce, all you really need is a can of tomatoes -doesn't matter whether its diced, chopped,whole, puree - it all works. Some olive oil and garlic. Salt and pepper and that's all. 

Brown the garlic in olive oil, dump in the tomatoes - if using a can of whole tomatoes, you can use a fork/spoon to tear/mash it up. Cook over medium low heat - about 15-25 minutes? Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Some tasty additions/variations:

Toasted pine nuts/almonds.

Herbs, fresh or dried.

Meatballs.This is an easy recipe. Cup of Jo has a not as easy but very delicious recipe in the 'best of' section.

Minced meat.

Sausage

Ham/pancetta/bacon - any kind of smoked meat. 

(If using bacon, go easy on the oil. Bacon does release so much oil!)

Mushrooms.

Um. If there is leftover tomato paste and one is sufficiently ambitious, one may try Zia Nerina's Ragu alla bolognese.