Baked salmon topped with dijonnaise and bread crumbs, with garlic rice and baked cherry tomatoes.



Way too salty due to butter overload and my sprinkling of additional salt. Didn't manage to get the bread crumbs to brown nicely either, otherwise the salmon came out tasting pretty good.

Finally got the time to try this out:

The potato wasn't mashed very well so moulding it with the boiled egg into a ball had catastrophic results initially (the yolk broke). Thankfully(!) they stayed in one piece in the pan =p

To Da Paolo Gastronomia for making possible 30-minute home-cooked pasta that actually tastes decent! The magic's all in the sauce.

Salmon cream	Seafood marinara

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While last year was a year of challenging my limits and stretching boundaries (and I still intend to continue doing so), things have seemingly reversed themselves this year as I find myself being delivered healthy doses of humility, in the realization that outside my strength in academic studies, I am merely average or below average in many other aspects of human capability - physically, in leadership etc. And I've been forced to accept that for some of these things there is absolutely *nothing* I can do! Yet I find this extremely liberating, because it focuses the mind on what can actually be done, and insecurity fades into self-acceptance.

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None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

Does anyone know the context of this quote?

( cooking )

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Anyway, leaving for Indonesia in 5 hours. Paiseh, I'll be missing the ispark chalet again =p To those who're going, enjoy!

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At least in my case, I've come to the conclusion that there's no point to emo posts filled with long and vague ramblings more incomprehensible than an RJC GP passage. For me, it suffices to say that I've walled myself up over the years, and walls sometimes project an aloof image to mask the fear that grips the soul within - this is my regret.

Alright, flu medicine's kicked in so I'll surrender to the drowsiness now. Actually it kicked in 4 hours ago so everything above was written in a near-comatose state and probably doesn't sound usual.

Where are you now?
I'm trying to get by
With never ever knowing at all

I would have sworn that I saw it in your eyes. Perhaps I was wrong. And the rest is a rock and roll cliché, so I'll skip that.

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It's hard to be despondent after good food, so I suppose that's the reason for the absence of emo-ness now. Despite being described as a "culinary wilderness", Biopolis actually has a few restaurants serving good food. The plus point about the whole wilderness thing is that the places there are so deserted that one can actually have a quiet dinner in peace without screaming kids, loud family gatherings, or noisy traffic outside. But they're strictly drag-your-parents-there-to-pay-the-bill sort of outlets, unless you go to the food court, that is -.-

Tried this Indian vegetarian restaurant called Raj today. Surprisingly, even with a complete lack of meat, the food was rather tasty and filling. The spices used in Indian cooking brought lots of flavour to the food and kept it tasting like authentic Indian food, I think. (It serves both North and South Indian food.) I can't remember the names of the dishes, so I'll try my best. Started with some fried flour with vegetable starter. I think it's most similar to Ngoh Hiang - fried and longish in shape, except the meat is replaced with vegetables (not the leafy type; some kind of lentils or beans I think) That was good. That was followed by garlic naan and Kashmiri naan (the one with sweet dried fruits - the nicest type of naan, IMO), with palak paneer and mushroom masala dip. Palak paneer is basically a curry of spinach (palak) ground into a gravy, with cottage cheese (paneer) cubes inside. Despite its greenish glow, it turned out to be rather appetising - you don't get any raw vegetable or cheesy taste, but something quite rich, especially with the moderate spices inside. The mushroom masala was also good: lots of button mushrooms cooked with masala gravy. Arg, I dunno how to describe the taste, but if you've tasted chicken masala gravy before, then it's like that la. Except with mushroom; the chicken doesn't really contribute much to the taste of masala I think. And lastly there was some thosai filled with potatoes and the mandatory spices. Which was really filling, and which my parents didn't really like. Lol. So despite the nice tasting food at the start they were left feeling sick of the food in the end =p

There's also this place called Infuzi over at Biopolis. I think the food is described as fusion, but the food was pretty much Western. Ooops I can't really remember much of the dishes except that they were small, so don't let the set dinner menu (choose 6 courses out of 8) scare you. Oh, there was a rather sinful duck liver (not goose liver; though it tastes rather similar) that was fantastic. And the steak was quite juicy and tender. One of the courses was listed as lobster, but it turned out to just have one measly piece that you can eat in one bite hahaha. Yeah, that's what I mean by small. Lots of emphasis on presenting the food daintily on oversized plates, so definitely not the place to eat like a pig =D Much more ex than Raj though - not my type of place. Hrmph. Given my shallow pockets, give me Adam Road nasi lemak anytime hahaha.

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I'm curious. General question to anyone reading: what drives you in life? Love (romantic, familial, religious, etc)? Lust? Material wealth? Recognition? Intellectual stimulation? Altruism? Don't know quite how to phrase the last 2, and there's probably stuff I've missed out.

It's not accurate to say for myself right now, at such an impressionable age. But one thing I'm sure of is that I'm not driven by money. Which is why I'll never be a successful entrepreneur, no matter how many entrepreneurship programmes the gahmen throws at me =p Maybe it's to do with my pretty comfortable childhood, material-wise. And no, by that I don't mean that I live in opulence. And I think I'd pick love over recognition and intellectual stimulation: given a strictly either/or choice between a happy family and a Nobel Prize (not that I actually have any chance of winning one lol), I'd pick family in a heartbeat. Although seriously that may change over time I don't know.

Also can you truly consider altruism to be selfless? Without intending to demean their actions I suspect altruistic people are just wired in their brains to feel satisfaction from helping others, just as businessmen must have brains that feel high after making $$$. Read the wiki article, which differentiates altruistic behaviour from altruistic motivations - people can behave altruistically (seem to help others without benefit to themselves) but their desire to help others ultimately derives from selfish reasons (feeling good). The wiki article is interesting but too brief. Sigh. I guess it depends on definition - if altruism is charity without desire for material reward only, then the personal satisfaction bit doesn't detract from it. My bigger question: is it ever possible to have altruistic motivations?

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In less relevant news I changed my dp. It's now the head (well, a picture of the head) of some hilarious camel doll/dude that my mom got back from Dubai. The camel has such improbably long and fat legs that it can't fit into a square pic for the dp. But it's the only soft toy I think I'll ever think is cute. Damn. I feel bimbo >.<

And I miss my ipod. Argh. It refuses to work most likely because the hard disk failed. Stupid Apple will only repair / replace ipods spoilt within their 1-year warranty period. After that they won't repair it even if you try to stuff money up their mouths to get them to do it. All they'll do is sell you a replacement at slightly more than half-price. Might have to go Sim Lim to see if any shops can fix it.

Crap, I'm still stuck on econs. Good luck, dear math, bio and chem :) :| :(