Incidents for thought (2)

The following 2 incidents took place on different days.

Incident 1 :
At Seng Kang MRT station

A man was pushing a pram, approaching one of the bigger fare gates, when another younger man came in from his blind spot, cut into his path, and went through the fare gate.

The older man was immediately pissed. He turned back to his wife, and said in a loud voice, "Wah, like that also can. He cannot see I'm pushing a pram?" (which by the time, the younger man was already walking away, without even turning back)

I heard the wife muttered something, and the man continued loudly,"So inconsiderate one ah, these Singaporean people." Then he hurriedly pushed his pram and went after the younger man, which at this moment, I didn't know what happened since I was going in the other direction. But judging from his reaction, I won't be surprised that he went to confront that young man.

You know what I find most amusing about this incident?

"Singaporean people."

Incident 2 :
At a family clinic

You know how there are some neighbourhood clinics which share the area with a dentist, then all the patients will be seated together at one area? The family doctor I went to is in such a clinic.

There were about 5 more patients in front of me, and so I sat somewhere near the registration counter for the dentist, since the place was nearly full.

There was this woman with her baby, complaining at the dentist counter about how someone accidentally cancelled her 12 o'clock appointment (it was already 1:30pm at that time) and she had to wait for an hour before someone comes back to the counter after lunch. She was completely incensed, and she was not really a quiet one and the place was not that big.

So, she went on and on and on about how irresponsible that person who cancelled her appointment was, how she still called the previous day to double-check the appointment, how she had to travel and waited one hour, how tiring it was for her to have to bring the baby along, blah, blah, blah. You know how sometimes when people are angry, they kept repeating and repeating everything, until you know the whole story and can even anticipate what she was going to repeat next.

I could see that the dental nurse was ready to leap over the counter and tie the telephone cord around her neck. But she still tried to pacify her and told her to wait since her appointment was cancelled accidentally, and someone already took her time slot. But once again, that woman whined, "Wait?! I've been waiting for an hour, and you still want me to wait?"

Maybe she thought the dentist has two heads and four arms, and can check on two patients at the same time.

Anyway, she calmed down for a while, tended to the baby who was growing frustrated in her pram. Then she turned to the dental nurse,"Who is in charge here? Or do you have a manager? I want to speak to him. I want to complain how come you people can anyhow cancel my appointment." And there it started again.

The dental nurse told her that their HQ is somewhere in Ubi, and she demanded that she called the HQ now because she wanted to complain to the person in charge. While the nurse was making the call, the woman pushed the pram over, and sat on the empty seat beside me. As she prepared to pour out the porridge for the baby, I guessed I sniffed a little, and she immediately turned to me.

"Are you having a flu?"

I nodded.

And with one "aiyoh" that means a lot, she jumped out of the seat, pushed the pram to the corner and started in her not-so-soft voice. "This place ah, all these people... full of germs."

The air around suddenly turned awkward and I was very sure there was a full minute of absolute silence.

Anyway, she finished feeding her baby and the call to the HQ was through, and once again, everyone in the clinic got to hear her story for the 53rd time. Then suddenly there was a loud noise and I saw her kind of shoved the phone back at the nurse, and it toppled over the counter and hit the nurse's leg.

The nurse calmly picked up the phone and put it back to where it was. And the woman started again, "Why did you hang up the phone? Your manager wants to speak to you."

Like, duh, she didn't even say that the manager wanted to speak to the nurse!

I should have told her I got the bird flu.

Shrimp Wontons... from a box

After hearing some rave reviews about CP Shrimp Wontons from his colleagues, the husband decided to get a box to try it over the weekend.

Honestly, I'm rather skeptical when it comes to frozen boxed foods (except ice-cream, of course). I have the thinking that, if it is frozen, it will never taste as good as the real thing. Even if my cooking is bad, at least whatever I used is fresh. Maybe it's the constant influence from my mother. She was always talking about how frozen food will never compare to the fresh ones we bought from the market, blah, blah. When I was still living with her, I don't remember ever seeing any frozen boxed foods in the freezer.

Anyway, the husband was quite excited over these wontons and volunteered to cook them with some noodles for brunch.

I was quite surprised when I saw the cooked wontons. I didn't expect them to be so big, and from the looks of it, the skin was thin, and the shrimp inside was huge. There was absolutely nothing in the wonton skin except this big, fat succulent shrimp. I didn't think that once frozen and thawed, the shrimp could still remain so plump and juicy. Maybe some help came from the small packs of seasonings that came with the wontons to flavour the soup, but whatever it is, I'm sold.

Thought of the day

Why is it that, when the moment something becomes out of reach, you suddenly find yourself yearning for it? When in the first place, you never even thought about it...

More than words

Came across this very interesting article about the power of words from the Feb issue of Reader's Digest. Luckily the list is not too long, therefore, I can put it up here for you. :)

- Aegilops - the longest word with letters in alphabetical order
- Queuing - the longest word with 180-degree symmetry
- Stressed and Desserts - the longest words that can be reversed
- Esophagographers - the longest word in which all letters appear twice
- Strengths - the longest word that has only one vowel
- Stewardess - the longest word that can be typed with the left hand
- Dermatoglyphics - the longest word without repeating a letter
- Latchstring - longest run of consonants
- Screeched - longest one-syllable word
- Honorificabilitudinitatibus - the longest word to alternate consonants and vowels

Picture of the day

Just to share this picture I found from a website. I really like it. :)


Source : Etsy

Spoiler!

Somehow, days don't go by "normally" if THAT woman didn't do or say something stupid or insensitive. Her voice was loud enough for all the 9 people in the office to hear...

She : "Are you expecting?"
Me (a bit sheepish and lowering my voice) : "No."
She : (giving her trademark irritating laugh) "Oh... haha. I thought you were. Looks a bit like it." *and she went on to touch my tummy like she was my mummy!*
Me : (trying not to slap her while pretending to laugh with her) "No la... I just got fatter..."
She : (still laughing that witchery laugh) "No la, no la. Must be those tangerines that you've eaten these days. Must have at least 30 of them inside."
Me : (still trying to hold onto my temper) "Hur hur... must be."

And I left the office without looking back. (and feeling fat!)

新年快乐

祝 大家

身体健康

心想事成

恭喜发财

Salt and Pepper Chicken

The weekend marked the first time trying my hand at deep-frying. Ok, I think it didn't really amount to a really "deep" frying, but it was enough to bring out a slightly disgruntled "why are you deep-frying?" from the husband, and had the smell of fried chicken in my hair for the rest of the night even after a long wash.

Despite me carrying the fried chicken odour around for the rest of the evening, I was really glad that the chicken strips actually turned out to be quite tasty. The difference between this and my previous attempt of baking the chicken strips is that the fried chicken still remained tender and soft compared to the oven-baked one. I might try this again, maybe with just normal shallow frying and see how it turns out.

Salt and Pepper Chicken
(adapted from Quick and Easy Workday Dinners)

4 servings

Ingredients :

- 1/3 cup (40g) plain flour
- 3/4 teaspoon five-spice powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 750g chicken breast fillets, cut into thin strips
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) peanut oil

Directions :

1) Combine the flour, five-spice powder, sea salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss the chicken strips in the flour until well coated.

2) Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken in 3 batches and cook, turning, for about 3 minutes, or until browned. Drain on crumpled paper towels.

Aromatic Noodles with Seared Salmon

I've decided to give myself a treat by getting 5 tiger prawns for $2 to cook with the noodles, when in fact, the actual recipe suggests salmon. But as I was having brunch alone over the weekend, it was more practical to get prawns rather than a whole piece of salmon which I could never finish alone. I think it doesn't matter what kind of seafood you use. The main point is the noodles.

It might seemed a lot of ingredients just to fry the noodles, but it sure turned out good. I really like the distinct taste of ginger that comes along with every bite. However, I omitted the fish sauce as I didn't think it wise to buy one whole bottle just for this dish. So, I'm not sure whether there would be much difference with it or not. And I didn't buy soba noodles as suggested, but used my leftover noodles from a previous dish.

Aromatic Noodles with Seared Salmon

(adapted from Marie Claire : Easy by Michele Cranston)

4 servings

Ingredients :

- 7 ounces soba noodles

- 2 tablespoons olive oil

- four 6-ounce salmon fillets

- 1 teaspoon sesame oil

- 2 garlic cloves, crushed

- 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger

- 2 large red chillies, seeded and finely chopped

- 4 scallions (spring onions), finely sliced

- 1 teaspoon lime juice

- 1 tablespoon soy sauce

- 1 teaspoon fish sauce

- 1 bunch garlic chives (about 1 ounce), snipped into 3/4-inch lengths

Directions :

1) Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the noodles until they are al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water and set aside.

2) Heat a large frying pan or wok over high heat and add half the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the salmon, skin side down, and cook for 1 minute. Turn over and cook for an additional 2 minutes before removing from the pan.

3) Drain the oil from the pan and return it to the heat. Add the sesame oil and the rest of the olive oil. Add the ginger, garlic, chillies, scallions, lime juice, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Stir-fry for 1 minute.

4) Add the noodles, tossing until they are nicely coated. Remove from the heat. Add the chives. Toss again. Divide the noodles between four bowls and top with the salmon.

Getting fidgety

I'm not sure whether it's the relief of getting rid of year 2008, or that year 2009 has gotten a quick "bite" at me. I suddenly feel the need to get moving. There is this button in me that is just slightly out of reach, waiting to be pushed. And I'm pretty sure that once the deed is done, I'm soooo going to move, run, jump, roll... whatever.

You know what I mean.