Gong xi gong xi gong xi ni

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Prosperity, peace, and puppies for all!

It's been a quiet one here, and what with being stuck in Sydney and turning 26 today, I got birthday presents instead of ang pows, except Bear's mum gave me an ang pow as well, because she thought I might like it, and i almost cried man... wah lau, all the homesickness and thesis-stressing and birthday bluesing and chinese-new-year-ing got to me i think. I did have a nice weekend though, especially dinner on Saturday, at this neat little restaurant in Newtown called Oscillate Wildly, with Adrian and Bear. I even got pictures! (hooray for cameraphones!) Sorry about the quality. :P

I'd heartily recommend this place, I'd go back again with any excuse! The menu changes every fortnight or so, and you can order what you like, or have an entree, main and dessert for $45. Considering the quality of the food, the presentation, the way you can see how carefully they prepared it all, maaaaaan it was SO WORTH IT!

For an entree, I had scallops dressed with truffle butter and dill, and these were the best scallops i've been served in Australia... plump and succulent, nearly translucent inside, they were perfect! and so sweet. *rave*



Adrian had the prawn ceviche with some cucumber salady thing, which he said was nice, but maybe a bit too mild. Maybe because its only cooked in lemon and lime juice, the prawniness wasn't brought out enough or something? *shrug*



Bear had something that was called "shredded pork with something mustardy something and polenta". It was yummy! very tasty. Bear liked it very much. Also, the polenta was really nice, quite unlike our miserable failure when we tried making it at home before (gluggy).



Apologies for the blurry and grainy photos. T'was but a phone camera after all, and we did have drinks.

For a main, I had kingfish with lemon aioli and sweet potato chips. This was, again, really really good! Fish can be difficult to do well, but this was cooked just right, flesh falling off the fork, and just cooked through inside with crispy skin outside. The aioli and sweet potato were nice too, and everything made friends with everything else, and there was nothing extraneous or unnecessary. *nod sagely*



Adrian had the venison with charred broccoli and something, and man, it was really tasty. Like a really good cut of beef but with more complex flavours. Mmmm...



Bear had the poached chicken with prosciutto and something and a skordalia puree, which apparently is some sort of mashed potato mixed in with yummy stuff. Bear enjoyed this a lot and so did i. :P



Next, dessert dessert dessert!

My beautiful baked peach with butterscotch schnapps and pistachio crumble (started eating it before Adrian reminded me to take a picture):



Adrian and Adrian's very nummylicious cheese plate:



Bear's perfect chocolate and Almond torte:



Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum.

Next time anyone comes visit (Qiao!) I'll take you there. Saturdays need to be booked about 2 weeks in advance though, it's such a tiny little space and so justifiably popular!

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum.

I'm 26 now. mwah.

Before I go and have my mushroom soup lunch, here are some random links to some things Bear put together:

Bear's new toy (or Why Suyin is broke)

The rattieboys' birthday card to me! (Awww...)

Some people just shit me

I cannot abide animal cruelty.

I don't understand how people can harm, with purpose, a creature who is harmless, tame and trusting towards them. It just fills me with pain and disbelief, and a need to punish. To hurt their cruel heads till they see sense. Except that it wouldn't work, that much I know. It would be much better if they simply learnt that such behaviour is inhumane. No, inhuman. Except that it isn't, is it? It's human because we're all really animals of course, but "thinking" animals, allegedly, and all that thinking can really mess with the simplicity of primal needs and desires - I mean, how does an animal handle the complications of right and wrong in human society? It's so much harder to know what you should or should not do when it's not life or death - where is the guide within you, and where does it come from anyway? The fully-aware conscience, I suspect, was not included in the basic human package, and so people develop one as best they can, with as much imagination as they can muster, or borrow (or adopt) them from bibles and creeds. Either way, they don't come up the same, and who's to say which is more righteous and superior?

The thing is, though, if we don't think hard, and I mean really hard, about right and wrong, and question ourselves and take responsibility for our thoughts and actions, instead just... living, as it were, blaming nature, we waste so much of the potential we have for protecting and nurturing the preciousness of every fragile little life, starting with those who depend on us.

Sigh.

Failure to process the idea of panadol

This morning, Suyin wakes up uncharacteristically early, to give Kimi his meds. Afterwards, she sits on the bed and contemplates the right thing to do.

Suyin's brain: ergh.

Suyin's brain: mleargh.

Suyin's brain: Hey! Owie!

Suyin: What?

Suyin's brain: I hurt. mrahgh.

Suyin: Come on, stop hurting, I gotta stay awake - gotta become diurnal again!

Suyin's brain: well I need them pancake things then.

Suyin: Pancakes?

Suyin's stomach: You know, I don't feel so good either.

Suyin's stomach: but I don't want any pancakes. Not hungry.

Suyin's brain: Not that stupid Food stuff! Pancakes, you know? Pancakes? for headaches?

Suyin: I'm going back to bed.

Bake these cookies

There was this one week in December, in which it seemed that everyone was baking Korova cookies!



I think Bear and I must've made more than 6 batches of these, including some in our christmas cookie baking extravaganza. Basically, these are the yummiest chocolate chunk cookie I've ever eaten, much less baked myself. And they're so easy! The essential thing of course is that you must use quality ingredients. We used valhrona cocoa powder, which is super powderful cocoa, and also valhrona block chocolate for the chocolate chunks. In fact, my favourite thing about this recipe is the potential for using different kinds of chocolate to change the flavour. For example, we've used the orange flavoured valhrona to make really really yummy dark chocolate and orange cookies, and then we did some with white chocolate chunks and macadamias (see picture). I think hazelnuts and milk chocolate might go well together... and there's this pink peppercorn bar from Dolfin that might be.. interesting, not to mention the beautiful earl grey bar they offer too....Or even almond and dark chocolate and nougat! Mmm!

After all this extensive chocolate eating, I have come to the conclusion that a 60-ish percent dark chocolate is my favourite sort and that the best expensive chocolate to purchase, value for money, is seldom the sort that comes in fancy boxes wrapped with ribbon and filled with all kinds of strange liquers...although those can be very very nice, they're just not as much value as the sort which comes in a bar, has a reputable name on it, specifies the cocoa content and sometimes says it comes from a particular region alone. That is, specialty (there is a name for this but i forget) chocolate. Sounds fussy and posh, but is a really sound idea yummywise!

Anyway, the best thing about making these cookies is that the dough, once made, can be kept frozen in one's refrigerator in happy anticipation of future cookie cravings! Just slice, and bake!

If anyone would like to make these cookies, the recipe can be found here, although I would advise chopping the chocolate into chunks rather than small bits, and baking them a minute or two longer, say about 13 minutes if room temperature, and 15 minutes if straight from the freezer, especially if you don't have a fan forced oven. I like my cookies with a bit more crunch than brownies, but obviously you should do as you like. :)

Must thank Su-Lin for first describing and recommending said cookies. Su-Lin is a yummy friend!

I'm going to eat cookies now.

Why aren't you married?

No one's actually asked me that, but considering the way I live in isolation and try not to consort with any likely nagging sorts, perhaps it's not surprising. It seems, however, that many of my friends are being asked that very question, and increasingly often, and even being asked it by peers! What, does coming into one's mid-twenties automatically mean you get married?

Right. So I actually did think/feel that way a year ago, but that was some sort of mania brought on by imminent birthday panic and well... I don't know, some sort of imprinted switch went off? But I'm not getting to my point... and my point is, why does that question assume that Everyone wants to, and should, and has to get married? As if it were the default state and everything else was merely striving towards it or insufficient?

I mean, finding people you like is hard enough, then getting them to go out with you is harder, getting along with people with whom you'd like to keep going out is harder even, and then what.. living with them, yes, okay... but for The Rest Of Your Life! It's a big deal! Getting married is fraught with all sorts of things that can go wrong - everything can go wrong. If you have children, then by all means, marry - you need all the help you can get.* If not though, I think there would have to be A Lot of Good Reasons to do so, to counter the emotional and physical leashing to another person in such a major way that you have to involve the Law to break it off.

Someone I know just got engaged - or rather, her most recent boyfriend gave her a ring and I suppose she said yes, but at least she's going to have a long engagement first... because you try not to rush into these things. I know marriage sounds exciting (to some) and I know there are those who dream about their weddings and dresses and white unicorns and whatnot but no matter how much weddings and finery cost, divorce costs more, and living in an unhappy marriage costs even more then that.

So, if someone decides to bind themselves to another for life, I rather think other people shouldn't celebrate it immediately, but consider how likely the marriage will make both people happy, and then celebrate accordingly, or...well, not. It shouldn't be a happy announcement by default, because it so often doesn't stay happy.

Of course, there are those who take neither marriage nor other people's feelings too seriously, but I'm not talking about them.

Oh I don't know. I know we all need other people and love and companionship and intimacy and security and families and hugs... but maybe marriage isn't the answer so much as becoming nicer to one another and taking care of each other - if we all became genuinely concerned for the welfare of others, and sensitive to other peoples' needs as well as our own... and stopped being so selfish and stupid, maybe everyone would be happier, and marriage would be more fun for everyone!

Blah.


*I get headaches thinking about people who have children carelessly and with utterly unreliable people, so I don't want to talk about that.

Fun With Mullets!

More aussie vernacular today, ladies and gentlemenny. The mullet, my friends, is not just a type of fish, but is also a hairstyle - short everywhere else but long on the back. This hairdoodydo is commonly derided but nonetheless proudly worn by those who don't care, or don't know that its funny!

Hence, because it is a funny hairstyle, wigs are made of it, and apparently distributed to staff at expensive architectural firms' christmas parties. So, thanks to Adrian, I bring you....



Bear! mit Hair!



Also known as: See how gorgeous Bear is even when wearing a wig of hilarity?



This is Bear, pretending to look thuggish but really coming off as pretty darned good looking!

heheheh. I won't tell Bear about this post so he can discover it by himself, and in the meantime he'll still love me.

By the way, apologies for the scrappy photo quality - those photos were taken with my Next Best Christmas Present! from vodafone! They sent me this for free, something to do with having subscribed to them for many years and paying my bills... and I don't want to hear about how ugly it is - its new! and free!

I'm pretty sure it's really a cunning plan to provide more of their subscribers with upgraded phones capable of all these new-fangled (and costly!) services like 3G and whatnot. I don't care! There's no 3G new-fangled coverage at our house anyway, hahahahah! thwarted!

Best Christmas present!

Due to the sheer audacity of actually asking for one, Bear and I were the most delighted recipients of the Krups GVS2 Ice Cream Maker from Adrian!

Here is a picture of the ice cream maker the very first time we used it, making (super powerful valhrona) chocolate ice cream. Bear and I were transfixed - we pulled up chairs and watched it do its thing for about 30 minutes or so... so fascinating!



So far, we have made these flavours (in order): chocolate, strawberry, vanilla bean, chocolate (with soy milk - for Bear's mum), passionfruit, almond and macadamia. Yum!

I think we have also refined our recipe somewhat. Basically, you make a custard with about 3 cups of milk and cream (ratio according to creaminess desired), half cup of sugar and about 3 eggs, flavour with good quality ingredients, then chill then make ice cream! We still have to sort out flavouring the nut ice creams and the straining thereof of bits of nut but the almond one was something fantastic. Mmm.

We are very happy with this present!

Kimi the battler

I'm so proud of my ratties.

When I get sick, i'm all mope mope woe is me bleeaaaaaargh dribble snot run, but my ratties? They're so... stoic.

Linus and Kimi are both old old boys now... at about 2.5 years each, they've basically done well to come this far. Over the last few months we've battled a head tilt in Kimi (where he kinda leant sideways all the time and fell off soft cushions), and then the very scary sudden occurrence of Linus' big knee tumour - what looks like a malignant tumour the size of his head, very firmly attached to his knee, such that we couldn't remove it without amputation of an entire leg - not something lightly or easily done... and then the very heart-stopping lung infection incident with Linus looking utterly miserable, wouldn't eat, coughing up gunk, gurgling and wheezing and acting like he was just about to give up. He soldiered on though, my brave ol grampa boy and thank goodness it wasn't the tumour spreading to his lungs so he improved with medication - even though he's pretty much on antibiotics on and off for the rest of his life.

And then on Boxing day, when Kimi started with his laboured breathing, we didn't panic, but man it didn't help that it was a public holiday and so was the next day and vets were closed. We decided to wait the night out since Kimi was still breathing, still able to move around slowly, and would at least lick yoghurt off our fingers. I have to give credit to the Connoisseur brand of vanilla yoghurt (the very best of course) for being so yummy that even sick ratties who want nothing to do with anything will have some.

The next day, we went to the emergency vet, who charged us something special for an appointment on a public holiday. Sigh! It was so drama though - kids crying, police bringing in stray dogs, people with a beautiful great dane they were putting to sleep, someone's cat who decided to come back home after going missing for 6 weeks(!), and various other emergencies. The vet came and looked over Kimi and basically couldn't do anything. He did suggest that the anti-inflammatory medication we had started him on recently for his arthritis might have caused it, so we stopped that, and kept him on antibiotics for a bit.. The vet also injected some fluids into Kimi. This was to be the first of many vet visits and injections that week - I think 4 in 4 days! and then a few follow ups afterwards.. Kimi was a real champion. We went back to our usual vet clinic and finally after each successive vet ruled out this and that, the last (and most experienced) vet agreed to treat for heart problems (which we'd suspected from the start).

For us, that was about a week of 24 hour nursing care - I rearranged the cage to be single level easy access and as comfortable as possible, and then Bear and I would feed Kimi by hand every few hours or so - because he would only take yoghurt, we tried mashing up banana in it... and then blending some muesli in as well, which he also took. We normally give our ratties a pre-dinner yoggieball treat every night, and a freshly cooked bit of corn on the cob with their hot dinners - they usually devour this before anything else*. Even while Kimi was ill, he fully expected the yoggie, although he'd just sortof hold it and then put it down... and once, he grabbed his bit of corn with almost normal enthusiasm and carried it away, but he didn't eat it and slept with it instead.

When the heart meds finally took effect and Kimi started coming round slowly, it could have been sooner but I was grateful no less. It's very distressing to watch your pet suffer and being only able to wait. It's very important to me that my ratties never suffer - Kimi had to, in order to rule out all the other possibilities before he got the right treatment, but in the case of Linus' tumour, for example, if it gets into his lungs or kidneys or other major organs, he is going to be in pain and we're going to have to stop it.

So anyway, that is why we didn't go back to Singapore... and the fact is, now that Kimi's stabilised and everyone else is too (we had one super extra drama night in that super drama week where Kimi was still ill and Linus had a lung infection relapse AND we rediscovered lice on Monty and Alfie - Bear almost gave up, or did, for about half an hour)... I still wouldn't feel comfortable leaving their care in the hands of others, plus I would worry So Much about them. It's so unfair that such amazingly bright and loving personalities with all their capacity for affection and humour and appetite for food and life and learning should live such short lives.


*Sometimes, they'll have chicken first if there is any, or hard boiled egg, and there was that one time Monty picked up a large prawn and proceeded to confound Bear by eating nearly all of it before he stopped... but otherwise, the corn is the definite favourite.

Holiday excess!

I think I am now sufficiently recovered from the Holiday Period to finally discuss it. To explain why we didn't go back to Singapore despite the lingering heartsickness - I haven't been home in a year! That's the longest time I've ever spent away.

So anyway, as I mentioned before, my brother was coming down to visit over the Christmas period. Now this would be an unremarkable occurence in and of itself.. Relatives often come and visit and stay over and all that sort of thing but my brother, no... my brother had to come with drama attached. Not much baggage, but drama! Argh family. What can you do? Or as I said to my mum, your progeny lah! what did you do to him? But I think she knew I was just kidding around in exasperation. So anyway, in preparation for my errant brother's imminent arrival, we had to Clean The House. It is just as well that no one apart from Bear and myself knew exactly what an undertaking that was. Practically heroic I think - especially the episode with Bear and the Bathroom. Bear is my hero! Also, it probably didn't help that our guest room was then being used to house Monty and Alfie, who'd come here to escape life with someone who was using them to breed little baby ratties for snakefood! *aghast* Anyway, they got their own room, and as may be expected, they made it their own.

So that took a weekend, and that's when it started I suppose, the ohmigod we only have 24 hours in a day and we have to do this and this and that and drive here and pick up that and call so and so and... Amazing the number of things we accomplished in the week up till Christmas. Thank goodness we were both on leave! We even forgot to eat dinner a few times... It would be like midnight and Bear would say Hey I'm Hungry and I'd be like, Hey We Haven't Had Dinner.... Have We?

Even when Qiao came down from Dubai (yay!) and I tried to cunningly include her arrival into our tightly packed plans - i.e. "Come over and help us bake cookies!", it was only because it was Qiao and she was hungry and not one to be polite for the sake of nothing that we actually went to dinner that night! And she paid - Qiao is also my hero! heheheh.

But yes. Somehow, we cleaned up a rather large house that was in a bit of a state, hosted a brother (who was intent on carrying out his unpopular plans), drove him around without imposing our judgement upon him, made plans for imminent post-Christmas trip to Singapore, tried to collect items requested of us from parents in Singapore, purchased ingredients for and baked 5 different types of cookies (thank goodness they were all yummy!), sorted out undelivered packages, bought appropriate presents for all of Bear's family and friends, fixed Bear's car for registration, purchased and picked up large second hand cage for Monty and Alfie from really-far-away-place, organised rattie sitting for Singapore trip, organised tickets for Singapore trip, planned Christmas dinner (with Qiao and Gloria and Adrian!) and bought all the food in preparation for it and then actually got through Christmas Day without exploding...

I promised Bear he wouldn't have to do anything on Boxing Day. And I mostly kept my promise - he only had to sit in the car as I drove my brother to the airport, and when I drove over to send Qiao off and pass over her beanbag (which we had both forgotten about but that's what cleaning up is all about!)... and then we went home. To rest.

That evening, we noticed that Kimi was uncharacteristically lethargic, and his breathing was awfully short and sharp, and that you could see his body heaving with every breath.