sunday cooking 10

my entire family sans me were invited to a wedding lunch, so I decided to cook myself a feast in their absence. (havoc in the kitchen without anyone’s interference!)

this is the first time I bought (half a) fresh chicken from the butcher – usually I’d only order the breast, thought I’d try something new. marinated in salt, pepper, italian herb mix and a splash of orange juice.

I oiled the pan with the chicken skin before sautéing the onions, followed by the peppers (I like my peppers very soft). next came the potatoes and the chicken, and a can of lager.

chicken stew! the recipe asked for stout, but I substituted it with a strong brew in my possession that I didn’t enjoy. great way to use up unwanted alcohol.

my sister ate my leftovers for dinner and she liked it! hooray. but she prefers last week’s egg-tomato dish haha.

sunday cooking 9

I tried my hand at a basic shakshouka of chopped tomatoes, sausages and runny eggs.

definitely an all-day breakfast dish I’d repeat!

What is Arcadia, anyway?

From Ben Okri’s In Arcadia

“Arcadia is our secular Eden…A place of dreaming, and songs, an oasis, a refuge from the corrupting cities, a semi-ideal landscape, a qualified paradise. A place with the quietly troubling presence of death, and exile, and stony mountains, and suicide, and sinister shadows, a place that cannot be dwelt in for ever. Then, with the passing of centuries, something happened to Virgil’s Arcadia. It became transformed into a terrain of the mind, a terrestrial paradise, a place of tranquility and rural calm, the domain of the yearning spirit.”

* * * * *

The images that the phrases ‘terrain of the mind’ and ‘a place of tranquility’ suggest to me is that of church, followed closely by the sea, and then, quite oddly, a hotel room. Prayer and meditation sometimes bring peace – i am no stranger to kneeling in a pew and crying to God in desperation and loneliness. The seaside always feels romantic and relaxing; there’s something about the swish of the water that brings balm to the troubled soul. The hotel room, well, I love staycations. I live with a lot of clutter, and a hotel stay is a reprieve from my mess, even if just for a day.

What is your earthly Eden, your secular Arcadia?

Holidays of the Spirit / The Arcadian Dream

From Ben Okri’s In Arcadia

“‘Even if we don’t believe in it, we need the Arcadian dream,’ Lao said suddenly. ‘If only as a place where the spirit can rest. In life the body can have many holidays, but the spirit has so few. The body’s holidays are simple: sex, sun, beach, sea, sleep. But the spirit’s holidays are rarer: they are ideas, inspiration, Arcadias. The holidays of the spirit are more important than those of the body. The body has lots of holidays while it’s alive, and a long one when dead. The spirit has few holidays when in life. The holiday of the spirit replenishes civilisations, makes spiritual evolution effortless, and makes it possible for us to go up to the higher levels that we despair of reaching. Holidays of the spirit help us assimilate faster and more thoroughly all that we are and have been, they help the inner distillation, and they make us grow faster, greater and more organically. Holidays of the spirit are what bring about our true transformation from chrysalis to butterfly, from weakness to wisdom, from saplinghood to strength. We need Arcadia, for without it we will die of our neuroses.'”

* * * * *

Holidays of the body are sometimes already lacking in our frantic, hectic lives. It was merely a month ago that I was on holiday, and already I am tired and in need of another. But it is true that vacations also make me restless, feeling rather like I am wasting time when I could be catching up on some reading or personal projects.

Perhaps it is the holiday of the spirit that I am looking for during the holidays. The practical question for us, then, is how to experience a holiday of the spirit. Reading and meditation come to mind. Possibly attending workshops or conferences where the exchange of ideas happen, poetry slams and book recitals, or indulging in a fine arts performance, ruminating over something watched at the theatre. Furthering one’s studies.

Noting even as I create this list that these will likely interfere with the ‘holiday of the body’; case-in-point being that the most satisfying or thought-provoking reads are rarely ever easy, popular page-turners.

Sunday cooking 8

My niece demanded to eat my cooking, and then I was informed to ‘might as well cook for everyone’…so here’s the result…

Beehoon (rice vermicelli) in soup with minced chicken, diced carrots, sliced onions and button mushrooms.

Sunday cooking 7

prepared a snack: honey roasted macadamia nuts

wanted it to be a healthier version so i decided to skip the last step of rolling them in a fine sugar and salt mix. it still tastes good, for sure, but they now clump together in a rather irritating fashion.

then there was the basic brunch: omelette and chicken.

i think I’ve about perfected the art of pan-frying chicken breast slices…they come out really juicy and tender. however, that effect doesn’t last, and when they cool they become the regular dry slices we too frequently associate with the chicken breast. wonder if there’s a way around that.

The Brothel of Avignon

Picasso’s love affair with women –

Picasso’s Le brodel d’avignon

“…women are machines for suffering.”

“For me, there are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats.”

I feel like a doormat. My colleague (whom I’m beginning to look up to as a life coach) went, ‘Who is Picasso to you? Why do you set store by what he says?’ Perfectly logical questions for which I have no decent reply, particularly when I am not all that familiar with Picasso’s oeuvre.

Perhaps, perversely enough, I don’t mind being a doormat. I want to be a doormat. I loved him enough to make sacrifices, even forgoing my pride to, well, send him gifts for his birthday. Twice. Having to admit that brings an odd sensation to my tummy, which perhaps is what embarrassment feels like.

Nevertheless, the common assumption that people treasure what they worked hard for probably holds much truth, yet I threw myself at his feet like a loser, knowing full well I wasn’t much of a prize to begin with, what with being bipolar and all. I can’t channel my inner goddess, so I guess I’ll never be a goddess to him.

you of my heart

i miss him terribly today, so I’ll share another poem by e.e.cummings that brings me a little comfort: it may not always be so; and i say

monty halls’s dive mysteries

I’ve been watching the bbc series, monty halls’s diving mysteries. there are only four episodes which can be found on YouTube.

click on the following links to watch!

the driver’s graveyard (blue hole dahab, egypt)

japan’s lost atlantis (yonaguni, japan)

the ghost ship of thunder bay (lake huron, michigan, usa)

the kaiser’s gold (lake otjikoto, namibia)

what i dislike about it:
it is a critique common to all infotainment documentaries – how can a team hope to solve, in the course of a few days of filming, what academics have been studying and debating on for a great many years? this was particularly obvious in the yonaguni and the lake otjikoto episodes. it feels almost disrespectful, and yet this is the easiest way for the academics to earn some recognition for their many hard years of research.

why i watch it anyway:
because, as infotainment, it is entertaining and educational. it summarizes the arguments and/or conspiracy theories succinctly, and there is unbeatable underwater footage.

i genuinely appreciate how halls explicitly role-models safe diving. he explains quite clearly why he is functioning as a safety diver for a particular dive as he lacked the relevant training or equipment. another time, he explains that he injured his ear and thus had to sit a dive out and presented via a voice-over. this self-control is something all aspiring divers must learn!

book haul: aug 2014

i have a great many books that I’ve been trying to declutter, supposedly to make space for new books. the following quote sums my predicament up nicely:

yet, before I’ve even decluttered satisfactorily, this mailer from book depository made me go weak-kneed in excitement –

book depository, why dost thou torment me so? i cannot pass such an offer up! (i gave up buying books for lent this year – it would really have been a great temptation had this been held during lenten season)

well, here’s what i ordered this time –

been a fan of carlos ruiz zafon since i read the shadow of the wind, and the premise of marina sounds enticing enough.

neil gaiman and eddie campbell’s work is subtitled ‘a tale of travel and darkness with pictures of all kinds’. 20 pages in, so far, so interesting. looking forward to my bedtime reading after this post!

picked up yoko ogawa’s the diving bell during my recent trip to tokyo, enjoyed it, and revenge looks as disturbingly promising. or should that be, promisingly disturbing?

am currently reading julian baggini’s succinctly written ethics, lent to me by a very sweet colleague. the collection of essays in the virtues of the table will hopefully be just as illuminating.

am off to read, goodnight!