A weekend in the city.

Last weekend my friend Vane came from Madrid, and we spent last saturday walking around the city. We ate with Micky and Vic at Sushi-ya, a japanese restaurant.

(more of my weekend here!)

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And then we walked through Barcelona...

Vic took me a picture with my camera, I'm waiting for it!

Then, by night, we went to Undead Disco for a special party: Retropolis, a Cirque du Freak night... so great!

Lis as The Bearded Lady

The Woman Snake Charmer

The Half-human (half man, half woman)

There I met my friends Madelain, Arashi and Vane... and I took some pictures from the people who was there; a great night!

mimik muka memikirkan kawan

masa : malam kelmarin

punca kejadian : monolog + menunggu

motif : tiada apa kepentingan, cuma berfikir sendiri.

tempat ; 1706, kuching, atas kerusi dpn laptop.

tenang. tarik nafas, hembus. hurmm... tak pe lah. masalah tak dtg kalau kte x cari.

so, ape yg jd skrng, dtg dr diri sdiri, aqilah.

ok, senyum. ye, begitu. belajar bersyukur. org yg bersyukur tak rugi.

malah Allah tingkatkan keimanan & rezeki. tp, tayahlah lebeyh2. hukk.

ok. sudah mula senyum kambing. hurm... dlm hati duk pk,

ape patut buat? kalau perasan senyum ke mane, mate ke mane.

ok, dah gila. kenapa harus buat bibir camtu? dah org selalu ckp.

bibir sy mcm angelina jolie an --which is sy xnak, ha ambik ambik.

dah mereng nih...

ok ok. tutup mulut. bnyk ckp. tp, org tua ckp, jgn dipendam ape2.

luahkan, buka mulut. tp jgn lupa, kerana mulut badan binasa.

pulak dah. serba salah. ok. buat muke apam je lah.

tp, ape pun, semua terpulang pd diri sendiri kan?

ok. salah sy, maaf. sy lepaskan semua -- lepaskan kawan2. lepas lepas.

minta maaf salah silap. moga berjaya dunia akhirat!

setiap masalah berpunca dr diri sendiri & apa yg kita lakukan. maka itulah org ckp, kita hidup atas risiko pd diri sendiri, risiko atas tindakan. sy? sy cuma nak ckp dkt cni, terima kasih tak terhingga pd kawan-kawan yg ajar sy the other side of life -- selfish, hypocrite, dan maju ke depan tanpa fikirkan org lain.

sy lepaskan hari ni semua kwn2 yg lepas tgn, yg guna sy bila perlu dan penting, yg asyik ingt sy berubah sedangkan diri sendiri yg dah berubah. sy lepaskan semua. terima kasih sgt3. sy harap siapa yg mmg sengaja lupakan sy, terlupa, sbb ye lah, kepentingan diri, sy harap awk kekal berjaya.

kalau sy tak tanya, tak reti nak ckp. kan? semua sy lah kena tanya, kena buat, kena handle? sy tnggu atas dasar kwn. sy tlg atas dasar kwn. tp dah kwn yg ditlg dan ditnggu tu lupakan sy bila ada kesenangan lain, maka, tak pelah. sy lepaskan lah. pergilah pergi. cuma ingt sikit. hari ni awk buat dkt org, esok, org buat dkt awk.

dan berhenti menuduh org lain je yg salah, sedangkan cermin patut diberi pd kau.

don't ask me what's wrong -- when i left u today & never looked back.

The Soup Man draws a crowd

July 20

Whenever you see a big mob of professional camera-wielders, you can bet that that’s not where the news is. What you have here is not news, it’s a media event — scripted, predictable, usually boring, but in this case irritating because it was about 88 degrees out and muggy and I didn’t want to be there.

This particular media event was the re-opening of the soup shop that became famous in the Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” episode. Al "The Soup Nazi" Yeganeh capitalized on that episode and now there are 21 "Soup Man" restaurants, because you can’t call yourself a Nazi, across the country. Well, now 22 with the reopening of the original shack.

Why should you care? I don’t really know. I took my pictures and left. I'm not standing in line for soup.

But a lot of people apparently do care and will stand in line for soup. Because below, on the left there is a picture of the end of the line of people waiting to get their soup, and next to it is a picture of the line as it continued around the corner to the actual entrance of the restaurant, where they could buy the soup.

Now, although as a customer I’m not going to stand in that line, as a restaurant owner I’d sure like to have people doing that outside my restaurant. At least I’d like it to be an option.

The key to making that happen, it seems, is to be featured on a massively successful situation comedy, spend a decade or more milking that and hiring a good PR firm to promote the reopening of your spot.

Oh, it also helps if you get Reggie Jackson to show up to promote the event.

Did the people in line think it was worth it? Feast New York asked some of them. They seemed fine with it.

bold my iris garden to say i miss you

Dear my beloved fellas, please hype me! Just press the button to hype me.
And enjoy every looks of me. Thanks a lot. Spasiba!

Let's Be Realistic

Let's be realistic. If a recipe calls for Mexican oregano and I've got a bag of plain old oregano bought in bulk, am I going to run out to the store? If a recipe calls for sweet Hungarian paprika and my bottle has no affiliation with an eastern European country, am I going to abandon ship? And are panko breadcrumbs really far superior to other breadcrumbs?

All this time I've been preaching about cooking things yourself. But cooking it yourself is not about cooking it Top Chef style with a million ingredients, most of which are packaged in large quantities but only required in 1/4 teaspoons. It's about being realistic about what you need and what you don't need, and knowing what tastes good enough to eat at home because this isn't a restaurant and you don't need to put parsley on the plate so why buy a bunch for a recipe that requires five leaves?

But enough of that tirade. Let's just take a Top Chef recipe and see what we can make of it. A couple weeks ago, the recipe for Sesame Lamb Meatballs won the elimination challenge on Top Chef and I was all about making it at home. I figured it had some lamb, some sesame paste, salt, pepper, olive oil. You know, the basics. Then I looked at the recipe and counted 17 ingredients, or 18 if you want to count the lemongrass skewers the meatballs are threaded on. There were two kinds of meat! There were two kinds of sesame seeds!

I nixed the ground beef right away. These were lamb meatballs, I was sold on lamb meatballs, and I wasn't going to buy ground beef just to use 4 ounces of it. Next I nixed the parsley because, as mentioned above, I have no use for leftover parsley and my fridge is getting tired of the mess it leaves. Next I addressed the roasted garlic oil. I'm not sure if one can buy roasted garlic oil. I'm certain that I could make roasted garlic oil, but did I really want to make it? So I resigned myself to just adding roasted garlic, and then at the last minute just added chopped garlic and nixed the roasting altogether.

Next on the list was sherry vinegar, which I never have around but see in recipes all the time. I decided I would buy sherry vinegar, but then I didn't see any at the grocery store and so I used my standby substitute, cider vinegar. It works just fine. Mexican oregano = oregano. Smoked paprika = paprika. And black and white sesame seeds would have to be just one or the other, whatever color I spotted at the supermarket first. But here's a hint - don't skip the tahini or the chile paste. Because these meatballs taste like sesame and chile, and everything else just adds deliciousness. Maybe I'm sacrificing a little bit of deliciousness, but I'm getting a lot of darn good meatballs either way.

The moral of the story is, make decisions about what's realistic and make the recipe work for you. You're eating it - not some judge. And it's okay if the meatballs end up being flat instead of round (ahem).




Top Chef Sesame Lamb Meatballs (from Bravotv.com - but edited)

Ingredients:

• 16 oz ground lamb
• 1/8 cup chopped fresh cilantro stems
• 1 Tbl chopped garlic
  
• 2 Tbl cider vinegar
• 1 Tbl sambal (chile paste)
  
• 2 Tbl Tahini paste
• 1/8 cup chopped shallots
• 3 Tbl bread crumbs
• ½ tsp oregano
• ½ tsp paprika
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• 1 whole egg
• 4 Tbl sesame seeds
• Salt & Sugar, to taste

1. Distribute all ingredients evenly.

2. Form patties and wrap around skewers.

3. Grill to desired doneness.