i wish i knew how it would feel to be free

I came to this song by way of Lighthouse family and only later heard the Billy Taylor original. In my university days, it was constantly on my playlist. This Nina Simone version is one of the best so far - I like how she starts quiet and then builds up to this crescendo at the end. If you search for it, there's a live version where she improvises on the piano as well.

This song is such a standout though - whichever version of it. Every so often, a song comes along that perfectly encapsulates some part of the human condition - music mood lyric and talent all coming together.

The lighthouse family version might not be the best out there but because I listened to it so much during my university years, it's the most memory laden one.

Music has been good medicine this week. There have been terrible happenings and I have no words to describe or talk about what's going on in the world except to say that this is a world yearning to be set free.

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From the liturgy of the hours:

 Save us, Lord, while we are awake; protect us while we sleep; that we may keep watch with Christ and rest with him in peace.

G. Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue, FORTISSIMO FEST 2010

The last few weeks have been filled with work and it's likely to continue for some time. But earlier this week, I ran to the bathroom during the session break and realised that the bathrooms have piped in music from 92.4 FM. I was just washing up when the familiar squeal of the clarinet curled its way into the bathroom and ended up standing there for another two minutes, smiling. Rhapsody in blue is such a favourite - at turns grand and thundering but so full of sly humour at the same time. It's a piece that doesn't take itself too seriously. This rendition on youtube is especially good I think. The clarinet bit I alluded to earlier is at 0:55 and I also liked the pianist's smile - he was listening to the clarinet (at 1:02?) and looked like he was loving it.

blueberry syrup and wholemeal pikelets

Recently, I got around to youtube-ing some of Nigella's cooking show snippets and was really surprised by how much I liked her style and her recipes. Mainly because she seems to have a commitment to producing straightforward non fussy recipes which are the kind that you will end up pulling off again and again.

Therefore it is with much happiness and gratitude that I bring you this Nigella non-recipe for blueberry syrup which I've already made twice despite the relatively high cost of maple syrup.  I'm also reproducing a wholemeal pikelet recipe that I've made a few times; I haven't used Nigella's pancake recipe only because this recipe for wholemeal pikelets got to me first.

The pikelets can be made on a weekend morning then frozen for quick weekday breakfasts. The blueberry syrup can be concocted while practically asleep.

Nigella's Blueberry syrup

1/2 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 cups blueberries

Place blueberries and maple syrup into a small saucepan then bring to boil. Let it simmer and bubble for a couple of minutes then serve. If using frozen blueberries, the result may be slightly more watery.

Note: Leftover syrup can be stored and it either turns into this soft set jammy mess that's great on toast, or if you've got a more watery version then simply store and reheat to turn it back into warm syrup again. I haven't tried replacing the maple syrup with honey yet but given how expensive maple syrup is, I will probably try out that substitution at some point.

Wholemeal Pikelets

(Recipe from here)

125g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp raw sugar (I used muscovado)
1 egg
170 ml milk
butter for greasing pancake pan

Place flour and baking powder into a bowl and whisk to mix. Add sugar and stir. Add the egg and milk and whisk till smooth.

Heat a non stick pan and grease it with butter. Spoon the batter in with either a tablespoon or a ladle.
Cook each for a couple of minutes until bubbles appear on the surface. Then flip and cook for another 30 s.

Serve.

Note:

The original recipe has you sifting the flour and baking powder together but whisking works out fine and cuts down on the number of things to wash.

spaghetti al pomodoro

Recently I've had a yen for really simple Italian home food. In the last few weeks, I've been making simple lunches with bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil (best trick ever), salami, cherry tomatoes and cheese - a lunch that brings Italy and Melbourne back to me in equal measure.

Dinners at home have been equally simple. Mr Grey and I have made this pasta twice already and because it is so criminally fast and easy, it will probably become is now a week night staple. This gets dinner on the table in 20 minutes flat and only uses 2 pans.

Spaghetti al pomodoro is a classic and easy Italian dish. There are a few variations of it but all of them will call for the unbeatable trifecta of good tomatoes, olive oil and garlic. The recipe below is my favourite kind: a recipe that is not really a recipe. I adapted it from here

Spaghetti al pomodoro (for two)

Ingredients

extra virgin olive oil q.b
2 cloves of garlic (smashed and peeled)
 250 - 300g cherry tomatoes
salt q.b.
a few leaves of fresh basil
enough spaghetti for two people

Method

Boil the spaghetti in salted water.

Warm the olive oil in a large saute pan. Make sure you use a fairly large amount of olive oil. Fry the garlic gently in the oil until golden but do not allow garlic to brown.

Halve the tomatoes and add them to the pan with a pinch of salt. When the tomatoes start to soften, use a spatula or wooden spoon to squash them so that their juices run into the garlicky olive oil. Add basil and cook for a few more minutes. Lower the flame.

Once pasta is al dente, drain and add to the tomato pan. Remember to reserve some of the pasta cooking water.

Mix the pasta together with the oil and tomato juices, add a little pasta water if the mixture seems dry. Serve immediately.

This can be eaten with parmesan cheese or without. If using parmesan, add it to the last step and stir.

Roasted tomato variation here.

P.S. Do not use store bought sliced bread when making that sandwich I described above. Use good bread in thick fat slices. Panini would work, focaccia already has olive oil in it so you could opt for less oil. The salami (so expensive, I know!) can be swapped for any kind of sausage or ham or simply omitted. It's painful, but simple meals like that only work when using excellent ingredients. I nearly always use my weekly splurge money on good tomatoes (and cheese) - tells you something about my priorities!

quanto basta, agak-agak and aggaration

Frantically busy week - even the piano lessons were postponed - but I thought I'd pop in to share this little gem.

This week, I came across the Italian phrase "quanto basta". The literal translation of quanto basta is "how much is enough" and apparently means (for Italian cooks) 'what you think is the right quantity', 'as much as is needed', or 'to taste'. It appears in older Italian cookbooks and it just means that the cook should use whatever quantity of whatever (oil, salt, sugar etc) he/she thinks is enough.

I was delighted to come across this phrase. Truly, if there is one motto I cook by, it would be the Singlish phrase - aggaration. It's a phrase that is really and truly Singlish - an Anglicized version of the Malay phrase "agak-agak" which is generally taken to mean "just go estimate it to your liking". Quanto basta sounds just like the Italian phrase for the exact same idea and I love it. It's so nice to know that cooks everywhere kind of do the same thing, tasting as they go along and fiddling about with the dish.

Bearing that in mind, I shall now reproduce here (for the second time) my youngest Aunt's recipe for ginger dry rubbed chicken wings which is a pretty perfect example of a recipe that is simple and short on ingredients but is all about the aggaration.

Ginger chicken wings

Ingredients

1 kilogram chicken wings, drumsticks
Ground ginger powder (you should probably aggarate it to your liking. I use about 3-4 tablespoons)
Salt (Q.B.)

Method:
Rub the ginger power and salt into the chicken wings, taking care to massage it into all parts of the wing, especially the tips.

Refrigerate for a few hours or over night.

Roast in 200 degree oven for about 20-ish minutes - go and agak-agak the timing yourself.

Important Note:

Aggaration is a technique probably best used for cooking. Now baking is a different beast altogether. Whatever you do, do not attempt to "aggarate" a baking recipe unless you are an experienced baker. Some things can be adjusted without affecting the overall result much (e.g. reducing the amount of sugar used by about 20-30%) but some things cannot be adjusted as easily (e.g swapping plain flour for other kinds of flour).

On baptism

Most Christians today, at least in the developed world, are baptized in infancy; and even those whose traditions delay the rite until adulthood are, for the most part, children of Christian families and have grown up in the faith, and so their baptisms merely seal and affirm the lives they have always lived. This was obviously not the case, however, for most of the Christians of the earliest centuries; for them, baptism was of an altogether more radical nature. It was understood as nothing less than a total transformation of the person who submitted to it; and as a ritual event, it was certainly understood as being far more than a mere dramaturgical allegory of one’s choice of religious association. To become a Christian was to renounce a very great deal of what one had known and been to that point, in order to be joined to a new reality, the demands of which were absolute; it was to depart from one world, with an irrevocable finality, and to enter another.

A convert to Christianity from paganism somewhere in, say, the greater Byzantine world, within the first few decades after the Edict of Milan, would not in most circumstances have been granted immediate entry into the community of the faith.

Catechetical and liturgical customs varied greatly from place to place, but certain aspects of Christian baptism were very nearly universal. In general, if one sought to be received into the  church, one had first to become a catechumen, a student of the church’s teachings….. one might typically be required to depart from the congregation on Sundays after the liturgy of the word, before the Eucharist was celebrated. And one could remain in this liminal state, in many cases, for years, receiving instruction, submitting to moral scrutiny, learning to discipline one’s will, and gradually becoming accustomed to the practice of the Christian life. Whether brief or protracted, however, the period of one’s preparation for baptism could not conclude until one had been taught the story of redemption: how once all men and women had laboured as slaves in the household of death….. and how Christ had come to set the prisoners free and had, by his death and resurrection, invaded the kingdom of our captor and overthrown it, vanquishing the power of sin and death in us…

For it was into this story that one’s own life was to be merged when one at last sank down into the “life-giving waters”: in the risen Christ, a new humanity had been created, free from the rule of death, into which one could be admitted by dying and rising again with Christ in baptism…..

-- David Bentley Hart in "Atheist Delusions"

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It is a peculiarity of our modern age that many people who identify themselves as Christians actually know - and understand - very little about Christianity. They enter churches singing along and smiling amiably but the reality is that their grasp of even the most fundamental tenets of the faith is weak, even tenuous. 

Part of the problem is this: in the rush to be inclusive and welcoming, many churches make the mistake allowing newcomers into the life of the church without first ascertaining their understanding of Christ and his redemptive work. 

This typified by practices such as allowing non members into service and participation in nearly every part of the church's life and a very truncated period of teaching and preparation for baptism. In at least one church I attended, preparation for baptism consisted of a 2 hour session, half of which was taken up by an explanation of the logistics of the actual baptism service. There was no inquiry into the life of the candidate save for ascertaining that the candidate had attended the church regularly for at least 6 months. 

It is unfortunate, but in most cases, a newcomer's willingness to be of service and friendliness are mistaken as conversion and transformation when it is possible (or even likely) that neither have taken place. 

Irregular frocks

Lately one of my friends posted a cry for fashion help on FB and bewailed the fact that she can't fit into a lot of the clothes at blogshops.  I felt for her. I was a very very large teenager and finding clothes in Singapore was an impossible task (this was before a great many European/American brands set up shop here - hello Mango and Dorothy Perkins!). I hated shopping and lived in jeans and oversized t shirts.

So... this post is just to link people to Frocks and Froufrou, a fabulous and cute fashion blog run by Lilli, an Australian blogger who lives in Melbourne (only my favourite city!). She's beautiful, smart, she can sew (real skirts and things!) and she features a lot of links on her blog to fashion resources for girls who may have trouble finding clothes at regular stores. She also shows you how you can adjust regular store clothes so that they fit better (eg, she has a tutorial on how to prevent blouses from gaping around the bust) and even turned a dress from Gorman into a really gorgeous skirt. I wish I'd had an older sister like her when I was 14 :)

It made me miss Melbourne even more - there are so many people there who love dressing in a really offbeat style and it made people watching at cafes so much fun. I'd regularly see this lady on the tram with a perfect cat-eye and dressed beautifully in retro/vintage fashion and I would just sneak admiring looks at her out of the corner of my eye....

I will also add that while it is true that clothes may not occupy a terribly important place in the grand scheme of things, it is important for everyone (girls or boys) to learn to dress smartly, modestly and appropriately. It is part of mindful living, part of being a Christian.

Yes, modesty. I actually said that people should dress modestly. It's really a topic for a whole other blogpost  (or book) so I won't go into it here. I will just say that yes, I know it sounds old fashioned, prudish and over-conservative. But I would like to just put it out there that clothes do make a statement and what you wear reflects the state of your heart.

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness--with good works.--1 Timothy 2:8-10'