Birthday Thoughts of the Christmas Baby

holy crap - same time next week and i will be 38. there i said it. can't deny it or i will be stoned to death by my friends and schoolmates on my facebook page.

the only consolation i have is i now weigh exactly as i did during sophomore year at university when i decided to lose all my leftover high school fat overnight by eating only a piece of toast in the morning and three tablespoons of food for dinner. i also had a carton of mango juice which i sipped on throughout the day if i felt faint. i did that for 8 months. and lost all the weight. kept it off for four years then gained it all back when i started working at the ad agency.

i discovered the joys of tequila, happy hour and vice-presidents who were only too willing to foot the bar bill to enjoy the company of an entire team of ultra mini-skirt clad account executives who would drink them down to the floor.

i started off with just beer then a tequila shot or two. then as the number of beer bottles consumed started to increase, so did the tequila shots. after that, the tequila shots completely replaced the beer. my liver swelled to the size of asia. at one point, i counted downing 12 shots of tequila, and i was still standing straight like i just had one.

we would run to the bar on the ground floor of the building at 5pm which was happy hour (buy one take one on all drinks! yippee!!!) - stagger out drunk at 12 midnight. go back to the office to work overtime til 2am. catch the last call at 3am at the bar and go home at 5am. shower and go to work at 6am. basically feel really sick, hungover and unable to work between 9-11am in the office. take an analgesic or two and start feeling better by 12 noon. have lunch, coffee then start to feel better so work starts to happen. by 3pm we are all feeling good and in great spirits and looking forward to 5pm and doing it all over again.

but i didn't care - frankly none of us did. we were a huge team of account executives who were having the time of our lives. in a sense we all grew up together and years later, many of those friends i made in my early years have become my family.

yes - eventually i got hospitalized for alcohol poisoning if you want to know.

and yes i grew up. moved up in advertising.

one day i woke up and thought - i'm going to work my ass off and won't stop until i become regional director! so i put my head down and worked, and worked, and worked like i was devil possessed. and i did become regional director. lived on planes and shopped like mad. totally fell in love with being on the mailing list of prada. forgot about loving and living - and basically just worked. popped pills to sleep, popped pills to wake up. popped pills to stop crying. popped pills to relax. ended up such an angry, burntout mess who was demanding an answer to the question 'if this is supposed to be the fabulous life, why the hell am i so miserable?!!!!'

quit advertising and just drifted aimlessly for a bit. realized i needed to heal my body and my soul and purge the anger that too long had become my life force. but i didn't know how.

i joined meditation classes. made friends with reiki healers. went to pujas at tibetan temples where i ogled the hot lama priest (one track mind this girl....) took long drives in my gas guzzling chick mobile...created this valentine's day campaign with lize size posters of half naked men in a conservative chinese department store. started writing again and still continue to do so.

my aimless wandering found me in london where finally the aimlessness of my wandering reached rock bottom. i met this doctor who told me to get off the pills and made me lay on a couch once a week in a therapist's office for two years. it was awkward at first and then one day i just started to cry. the minute i did, it became a tidal wave. i couldn't stop crying. and crying and crying. finally it seemed like the dam had finally burst and the more i cried, the anger inside me started to burn out. i started to feel better and lighter. the more i cried, the less angry i felt until one day i was all cried out. the anger was gone and for a time, i was just empty. i reckon if all you've ever been was angry, you forget how to feel all those other feelings.

got laid off when the recession hit. moved into a flat beside the river thames and walked by parliament and big ben on the way to work to sell overpriced makeup at this posh store. got into business school. saw too many museum exhibits and often wondered at the roller coaster that was my life.

what the hell was i thinking? i wasn't.

i was just doing what i wanted to do at the moment, whatever the moment was. while my friends were planning on getting married, having babies and buying houses - i was out buying shoes and bags and books and raising my golden retriever.

remember my friend who said he reminded me of dandelions? they grow where the dandelion seed falls from the wind. when they come out of the ground and flower, you can only admire them from where they stand - you can't pick them because the moment you touch them, the fluff will fly away. he was right in a sense.

my aimless wandering has reached rock bottom. i'm ready to stop being the dandelion.
besides, dandelion fluff gives people hay fever. who wants to give people hay fever?
not me.

i was very sad the past three years. i could not explain the why's and wheretofores. i was just sad. i actually forgot the sound of my own maniacal laughter. and unlike before where everything i touched turned to gold, it seemed like everything i touched turned to quicksand.

i thank my lucky stars i happen to have the luck of the devil. i was born with a caul. superstition has it that children born with a caul (known as 'caul bearer') are born with this lucky streak. no matter how thick the quicksand seems i am always, always able to get out. and i get out the winner. in a sense, i don't really know how to lose. life is more than happy to give me everything i want and need - even the ones that i didn't think i wanted but ended up needing anyway.

right - the quicksand episodes are fading. two months ago, i was alone in the flat watching this inane show on the telly. then i heard this maniacal laugh. it was so strange i thought it was coming from somewhere when i realized it was coming from me.

my body felt lighter than it ever had in years. and i laughed and i laughed. alone but the memory of that afternoon with the first genuine laugh i had in three years still lights me up. there are still many things i need to deal with that we must do because we are adults and we have to mind things like rent and bills and sleeping.

its an incredibly creative time now for me as i re-shape and reclaim my life.

i realize, i may be turning 38 but in reality i am still just 24 with the whole world at my feet and the magic wand is still in my hand. and just for spite, let me tell you that i am re-shaping my life in the best shape i have ever been - fucking skinny as hell and the legs are still as hot as ever.

i am also still ever so feisty and funny and you guessed it - still ever so slightly bat-shit crazy.

i take comfort in the fact that life has always been and always will be on my terms. i don't think a lot of people can make that claim for themselves.

so looking forward to more adventures in my life. i look forward to living, eating, laughing, working, creating and loving and being loved.

happy birthday you christmas baby you!

happy birthday to me.

Bitch Humor

i've always been leery of disneyland and mickey mouse. even when i was a kid. the only ones i ever really liked from disney were the villains. i remember watching sleeping beauty at age 5 totally unimpressed by the princess - if i had the vocabulary then i would have called her a fucking dipstick.

i thought however the witch queen was FANTASTIC. she was glamorous, wore a giant crown, exuded power and had incredible presence. princess sleeping beauty was lame - she should have been kicked in the head while she was sleeping. she would've woken up retarded which would not have made any difference because she was retarded to begin with anyway.

back to mickey mouse and the happiest place on earth. WHO IN HELL IS HAPPY EVERY SINGLE MOMENT ANYWAY?!!! wait, i know - the perpetually stoned that's who. which leads me to believe that mickey mouse is on drugs. i mean, if i were a mouse forced to wear nothing but red underpants for the whole duration of my 120 years on earth, i'd be on drugs too.

and snow white? the disney spin doctors conveniently covered up the fact that she was really an albino. who lived with 7 dwarves.....if they looked anything like gimli did ...yikes! it gives me the creeps thinking about an albino princess who lived deep in the woods with 7 versions of gimli...

and mulan. she's the poster child for the cross dressers and tranny wannabes. 'who is that girl i see, staring straight back at me. when will my reflection show..'

ok for someone who really isn't into disney, i've spent too much time on that topic already. obviously i won't be the first to take my kids there but listen, MY kids wouldn't want to go there either if they turn out to be anything remotely like me which is highly likely.

hey its a sunday and i'm waiting for the sun to show. it better show up soon - or its next on my list. after disney.

Bob's 3am Tomato Sauce

this is the long awaited tomato sauce recipe that bob caught me cooking at 3am on a friday or rather early saturday morning.

i'm an old woman now. i don't hit the clubs anymore. i am revoltingly unable to hold my drink anymore like i used to when i was a kid - as evidenced by the damning photos that jen took when i was crawling on my carpet and rob was sitting over me laughing like a hyena. but jill and her lost ability to hold her drink is another chapter altogether.

back to being an old woman - my sleep patterns have altered. sometimes on a friday or saturday night i am hit with this supernatural inspiration and i just start taking out pots and pans and before i know it, i am slicing, dicing, sauteeing. i find that the deeper i am in thought about the state of my life, the better my food comes out. sometimes in the middle of slicing onions or finely chopping herbs, i find myself awash in a tangle of emotions and the different thoughts that come to mind.

cooking for me, is the opportunity to ponder my life and the day's occurences. i sink, into this oblivion and my movements are automatic. my hands, my nose and my taste buds have a life of their own.

i don't measure anything. i just know exactly how much to put because i've been cooking for so long i've learnt how much is how much by eyeballing everything. it's like riding a bike or driving a car - you learn to move with your bicycle or handle your car the more you ride or drive it. and after you have learned all its little tics and tricks - you can then safely say, this is MY bike or this is MY car because by then only you will have the answers to the little tics that surprise other people when they try to ride your car or your bike.

same with cooking - you have to understand how the tomatoes look, how ripe or underripe, how sweet the variety is or how acidic. if the basil is no good or lush and aromatic. then you have to adjust accordingly to what you have and because you are caring for nature's bounty, there is never any predicting the state you will find tomatoes in.

to be honest, i don't even remember everything that happens consciously when i am in that cooking haze. time disappears and the whole world stands still for me in that moment. nothing is alive except me and the fire. the world could crumble at that moment and i would be left in front of my stove, ladle in hand, pot at the ready.

and this is why it took me so long to try and remember that 3am tomato sauce haze. this is the best i could remember it to be bob - your visit to london is one of the best chapters in my london book, so in your honor, it shall forever be known as Bob's 3am Tomato Sauce. thank you for being such an incredible friend forever.

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you have to cook this using a wooden spoon.



first heat up some regular olive oil in a heavy sauce pan. tip in some anchovies - i prefer those canned in olive oil with garlic. if so, i tip in the whole small, flat tin, olive oil and all. the heat must be soft and you have to wait for the anchovies to melt slowly and disintegrate into the oil.



once the anchovies have disintegrated, add the finely chopped head of garlic. again on slow fire let the garlic slowly color to a soft barely there gold.

then add one finely chopped very large white onion. if the pan needs more olive oil at this stage add more. once the onion smell has evaporated, start seasoning with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and sugar (but only a touch!). the sugar will help the onions caramelize. again do this on a medium heat - slowly let the sugars come out of the onion. once the onion starts to be slightly brown (which means the natural sugars have leached out at the onions are very sweet at this stage), add your cherry tomatoes. maybe a kilo.


toss the tomatoes in the whole garlic/onion/olive oil mixture but DO NOT crush them. just coat them evenly in the oil mixture. this is why it is important you use only a wooden spoon.

if the mixture seems dry, add more olive oil and a tablespoon or so of fish sauce. again mix gently. then cover the pan. RESIST adding any water. lower the heat and go away for a while but be on guard that the pan doesn't dry out. if the pan is drying out before any of the tomatoes burst, add a tablespoon or two of white wine. after a bit, some of the tomatoes will have burst. you then have permission to start crushing the ones that have burst. again season lightly with salt, pepper and sugar - not in equal amounts! and judge against how much salt you put in the onions, and if you put fish sauce.

eventually, all the tomatoes will have poppped from the heat and you will now have a pan full of tomato juice unadulterated by water. keep stirring. if the tomatoes aren't as red as you want them to be, stir in a tablespoon or so of tomato paste.

simmer over very low heat for 30-45 minutes stirring every now and then. check for seasonings (sugar to balance out the tomatoes if they are sour). if it needs more liquid, add some broth on hand. at that time, i had some shrimp broth which i made previously and was sitting in my freezer.

bob - the magic part of that sauce was that i used my home made shrimp broth which is a recipe in its own right =)

at this point, you should be happy with the color, the body and texture of the sauce. chop some flat leaf parsley, basil and tarragon - a good handful of each. then turn off the heat and stir in the herbs.



voila - Bob's 3am Tomato Sauce.

serve over pasta with some genuine parmigiano reggiano, crusty garlic bread and crisp white wine. or pour over fish and bake for 20 minutes. or mix with some double cream to cook some prawns in to be poured over pasta. or blended and sieved then served in a glass with some vodka, worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, celery salt and a celery stalk....3am Tomato Sauce goes a long way.

3am Tomato Sauce is a bit like life - it'll go for as long as your will and your imagination will let you.

Farroukh Bolsara - Now I Understand

i have been obsessing with Freddie Mercury in the past few days owing to the horror of watching x-factor wannabes trying to sing the songs of the man.

the whole show was a sheer, utter, absolute NIGHTMARE. NO ONE, i repeat NO ONE should ever be allowed to sing the songs of that man much less a group of wannabes. it was UTTER SACRILEGE. the only time it was acceptable for someone else to sing freddie's songs was during the tribute concert to him - where rock and roll royalty came onstage and sang his songs. i repeat ROCK AND ROLL ROYALTY ONLY. not some desperate hopefuls who couldn't even hit 3 successive correct notes on pitch (ahem: Lloyd) or some pretentious screaming twat always trying to display his wisdom teeth as he screams out every note (ahem: Danyl). i was shuddering at the horror of him trying to sing 'we are the champions'....NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

X-factor wannabes singing Queen, can you spell T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y...?

Freddie Mercury....Freddie Mercury.

i first saw him when i was watching footage of the liveaid concert in 1985. i was twelve or thirteen and i was a child who knew nothing. my hazy recollection of liveaid was that people were dying of famine in africa and all these rockstars were gathering together to sing and raise money for the dying ethiopians. the question in my head then was 'hey, did these rockstars hear about filipinos who were also dying from hunger?' but that was quickly eclipsed by my teenage crush on tony hadley who was in the liveaid single. and my crying over the footage shown of the african babies who were literally living skeletons and for once i thought 'filipinos are still lucky'.

liveaid 1985 - the footage i saw in bits and pieces because of the frequent blackouts. the philippines was on the verge of a revolution because in our midst, a tyrant was dying, his wife was hysterically trying to prop up the government while trying to choose which pair of shoes to wear that day, hyenas of all sorts and forms closing in, waiting to snatch the spoils that would be free for all once the tyrant breathed the third of the last of his sighs.

liveaid 1985 - i didn't even knew who bob geldof was! i was this stupid girl who was obsessed with reading books about hitler and the third reich at that time. my family was uber conservative who listened only to the likes of frank sinatra, matt monroe and the platters. the most liberal of them listened to good heavens: motown and the the beatles. i listened to spandau ballet (and never told anyone i liked them because of the connection to the third reich as the nazi officials were imprisoned in spandau prison - fucking GEEK GIRL). and duran duran. and wham. and boy george. and they were all at the liveaid concert except boy george i think?.

i did think though that 'we are the world' was lame compared to 'do they know it's christmas?'. the former was very american glossed over messianic saviour of the democratic world as the united states likes to present themselves. the latter was stark and raw 'where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears...well tonight thank god it's them instead of you...' either way, take your pick as both raised tons of money for good.

back to Freddie. i switched the channel on to mtv (i think?) and there it was. he came onto the stage wearing only a white tank top. and i was like 'what a strange man'. i wanted to see tony hadley and spandau in their suits for pete's sake!!!. no introductions, nothing, no opening remarks. just some waving to the crowd and then he starts playing the piano - the opening lines to 'bohemian rhapsody'. a song i hadn't even heard of but i was glued. the crowd just started to sing along with him. and then they moved onto 'Radio Ga-Ga' - now that was a song i knew. and i was 'wow so that's him mr. radio ga-ga'. and i sat there staring at the telly at this man in the white tank top wondering who he was, singing every note at perfect pitch and marvelling at the whole crowd who was transformed into this singular mass of worshipping, adoring, swaying, singing, clapping horde. tony hadley was suddenly eclipsed from my mind - i thought at that time: THIS IS A ROCK GOD and he is called....QUEEN? i was transfixed at that figure...then blackout...manila 1985

i fell back into the humdrum of my teenage life. the usual - terrorizing the teachers and nuns in my all-girls school because i bored to tears. then going back home to read certifiably strange books - i moved on from my third reich/anne frank obsession to 'sybil' and 'the minds of billy milligan' multiple personality phenomenon. then the horror of a super disease called AIDS arrived on the scene. everyone was writing about it like it heralded the start of the apocalypse, and that it was the scourge of god, and that people would start dropping dead from it like flies.

i was already in my third year at university when one day in the news i heard freddie mercury had died. who? they said he was the first casualty of aids and there was talk about his being bisexual, homosexual and asexual (NOT!)...then i read more about him..and realized 'oh no - this was AMAZING man in the tank top in liveaid!!!'

i realized there was this song which i loved 'love of my life' which i continue to love but learned very late on that Freddie Mercury sang it. when i first heard it, i was so young but i was captured by how sad it was, how heartfelt. somewhere in the back of my mind i was wishing someday i would find someone who would sing that to me if i walked away from him. i read somewhere he wrote it for mary austin - the one and only woman in his life. they met when he wasn't even famous yet, when Queen was starting out as a band and they were still arguing over what to call themselves. they were together for 6 years until he started an affair with one of the male executives at his recording company. they fell apart but freddie was adamant that mary was his one and only love. later on, he said to the world 'my partners always asked why they couldn't replace mary. and no one can. i couldn't ever fall in love with a man, the way i have with mary'.


i listened to 'bohemian rhapsody' and couldn't get it at all - i still couldn't to this day. until wikipedia happened and i read the critical analyses behind it.

even the elvis sounding 'crazy thing called love' was Freddie Mercury! and 'somebody to love' that the penguins sang (by the time the movie came out i knew whose song this was)....all this time, i had been loving songs without ever realizing they were queen's.

read through the history and analysis of their songs and you will certifiably be amazed. the man with a four octave voice who sang in perfect pitch all the time. their songs are considered the most melodiously complex - like riding a singing roller coaster from low to high with Freddie's voice easily rollercoasting along.

in the original recording of 'somebody to love' the 100 voice gospel choir you think you hear is nothing but freddie, jim, roger and brian singing different voices on different tracks. and this was before the time of digital recording. they used good old tapes then.

same thing with bohemian rhapsody. it took them 3 weeks, continuously singing all the parts and voices for 10-12 hours a day. the tapes were spliced and re-spliced that dubbing and layering all the tracks virtually erased the oxide off them and they had to resort to literally taping the tracks together manually to piece it all together. and yes - all those voices in the recording are only 4 people singing and playing all the music and instruments: brian may, john deacon, roger taylor and the genius driving force who conceptualized, wrote and masterminded the whole thing: Freddie Mercury.

nobody ever thought of and no one since ever thought of writing songs like these. you would have to have the originality, the genius, the musical mastery, the voice, a recognition of personal invincibility and the sheer force of will all rolled into one. you would have to be of persian origin, be born in tanzania and baptized farroukh bolsara, grow up in india and eventually migrate to the UK at age 17. and then, one day you would have to change your name to 'Freddie Mercury' and just happen to have buddies from art school called brian may, roger taylor and john deacon - master musicians in their own right.

critics bashed them at first and they coined a term for the music of Queen and their performances: Pomp Rock. they took what was Over the Top and well....made it even MORE over the top. lady gaga and madonna pale in comparison to the spectacle of Queen's concerts and Freddie's stage presence. and certainly, musically, NO one ever has come close to the magnum opus of 'bohemian rhapsody'.

liveaid 1985. journalists wrote about it as the gathering of rock and roll royalty at that time. all the stars agreed to do it because it was for a good cause and because it appealed to their feeling god-like: it was a massive competition amongst all the singers and bands at the same time. the only chance perhaps to once and for all show up everyone in the rock and roll world and prove who was The Best Band in the world.

they all had only 20 minutes to strut their stuff. no playback was allowed - the bands had to play LIVE. bob dylan, elton john, bono, david bowie, sting, george michael..they were all there. and then at 6:44 GMT Queen took to the stage. Freddie Mercury was on fire. when he took to the stage, the 80,000 strong crowd at wembley turned into one adoring, worshipping, singing, swaying horde in the palm of his hand that none of the other kings were able to do.

the day the kings of rock and roll gathered together was the day that The Queen showed them who was god.

bob dylan and elton john quickly conceded that liveaid 1985 was Freddie's night. Queen's twenty minutes onstage during liveaid 1985 has then since been voted 'Best Rock Gig in the World'.

i may have learned to love him too late and i was born too late to ever have had the chance to watch him and his band perform live. thank god for youtube, wikipedia and box set dvds. thank god for bob geldof for that moment in music history.

Thank God for showing the world that god is a Queen..and he is called Freddie Mercury.

PS - mary austin inherited half of his estate when he died in 1991. she also inherited all publishing rights to his songs. she continues to live to this day in Freddie's house in west kensington.

this woman, on the other hand is living in london and praying one day, she will find the Freddie to her mary. (PPS - as much as i love Freddie Mercury and all my queen friends, God please let my Freddie be straight).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtqADo-D3mQ

Flypaper for Freaks

my friend kumuda and i belong to the very rare group of people called flypaper for freaks. we both attract all sorts of weird people and weird experiences that can only be described as freaky and freakish. they say you attract who you are - i guess then we attract freaks because we are.

freakish in very strange ways - some just weird, some wonderful.

when i was on the make-up counter one day there was this woman with a very thick eastern european imperial accent. she had on this large leopard print coat, big blond hair (she could have come from texas), red lipstick, killer stilettos and slightly overweight by one hundred pounds. she walks up to me, i greet her happily 'hello - welcome to the dolce and gabbana make-up temple'. she imperiously declares 'i WANT this lipstick called passion. i WILL buy it now!'. i tell her politely 'i am sorry madam, you must want the lipgloss as we don't have it in a lipstick form'. she shoots me dagger looks, i am afraid at this point she will murder me by sitting on me. she starts screaming 'how dare you tell me no!!! my friend came here to buy it! she just bought it!!! i WANT the lipstick!!! I WANT the lipstick called PASSION!!!!'

at this point i could feel my alter ego called Ursula (if you don't know her she was cast as the evil witch in Little Mermaid) trying to come out to deal with this Texan haired woman with the eastern european imperial accent but i squashed the impulse.

i tell her 'ok madam, i might be wrong of course. shall we check the display to see if we have the shade you want?' so i walk her to the display stand. she suddenly declares angrily 'NO! NO! NO!!! I want Chanel!! Chanel!!!! Not Dolce and Gabbana!!!'

Ursula desperately wants to cackle loudly in this woman's face 'and what was it about Welcome to DOLCE AND GABBANA that you didn't understand???!!!!!' but of course not.

I simply politely look at the sign on the archway above her blond bouffant. She follows my eyes to the giant, golden, gleaming sign above our counter that read DOLCE AND GABBANA. I then look back at her and this time Ursula is in full force, staring at her eye to eye. Texan bouffant with a central european accent walks off in a huff.....

On another day, a woman keeps circling the make-up floor. each time she passes our counter, she starts looking more and more irritated. finally, on the 8th time she passes our counter, i smile at her and stopped her gently 'hi - do you need help to find a department?' she stops and angrily declares 'my god!!!! i've been walking round and round this shop trying to find the new make-up and i JUST CAN'T find it!!! you'd think they'd bother to put up signs!!!'

again, Ursula is desperate to cackle 'perhaps you just can't read?!!!' but again, i squash her away and summon my other alter ego Sedated Buttercup (who is ALWAYS NICE because she is perpetually on medication). Sedated Buttercup asks sweetly, 'which make-up brand is that?'. angry woman declares 'Dolce and Gabbana!!!!'

Sedated Buttercup (who was running low on medication at that time) promptly says 'Well Madame if you turn your head slightly one inch to the left, you will see their sign' the customer has the grace to look embarassed and i turn the situation around with the best, most cheerful, high on ritalin greeting from Sedated Buttercup 'Welcome to the Dolce and Gabbana make-up Temple!!! Shall we try a lipstick today?!!!!'

then i got moved to the fragrance counter. last week a woman came up to me with her boyfriend. she then declares 'i'm looking to buy myself a fragrance but i'm having difficulty. i don't want anything that is floral, fruity, citrusy, ambery, woodsy or musky and i want it to be light, refreshing, soft, strong, elegant, with impact and lasts a very long time.' this time, i cannot stop ursula.

ursula says 'i think you missed out on the 'it must also cure cancer and spread world peace' part of the fragrance'. her boyfriend laughs his head off at my quip. she however gives me the stare of death. he stops laughing as she shoots him a second death stare.

sedated buttercup quickly takes over from ursula. 'well we have the perfect new scent for you! from issey miyake called 'a scent' it's fresh and clean, like stepping out of the shower!'. i quickly hand her the bottle. she takes a sniff and is transformed....'OMG!!! this smells amazing!!!!' i leave the customer quickly in the hands of the guys at issey miyake.

sometimes, i myself wonder at the amazing team work of ursula and sedated buttercup.

there are exceptions though when ursula and sedated buttercup just shut up and wonder at the marvel of life being stranger than fiction.

on another day, a woman, who looked about mid 50s to me comes to the counter. she ignores my stylists (most of whom are gorgeous young girls with amazing hair and make-up) and makes a beeline for me.

she asks me to do her makeover. so i do so. i cannot help but feel this wave of sadness coming from this woman. as i start doing her make-up she starts telling me she is on the way to watch a musical and to a wonderful dinner with her daughter, that she rarely comes to london and that the only reason why she has come is she is sending her daughter off to heathrow tomorrow to university in san francisco. tonight is the last mother-daughter bonding session they will have as she will be away for three years.

we chat some more about her daughter and her son. then while i am doing her eyes,she reveals her daughter is 21 and her son is 23. she has been married for 24 years and when she sends her daughter off, she will be alone again in the house with her husband. she suddenly quiets down and her eyes start to water 'my children don't know i am divorcing my husband. i have waited to do this until my daughter left as i didn't want to break her heart. if i told her before she left, she never will go and i don't want her to sacrifice her dreams because i am leaving their father.'

'my husband won't touch me nor even look at me anymore because i am fat and old. when i touch him in bed, even the slightest, he is repulsed by me. i've put up with it because i didn't want to hurt my children but now that they have their own lives now, i'm going to take my life back. i refuse to be unloved. i refuse to stay with a man who doesn't love me anymore. that is why i am leaving him after all these years'. her tears starts to well in her eyes and i constantly dab the corners of her eyes with q-tips. my own eyes start to well but i hold them back. ursula and sedated buttercup are nowhere to be found. i excuse myself on the pretense i have to get another eyeshadow palette and use the moment to squeeze under the drawers to dab my eyes and quickly blow my nose from the tears i was holding back.

'when i made the decision to leave him two months ago, i kept remembering an old boyfriend i used to have for some strange reason. he was the greatest love of my life - but we broke up and i haven't seen nor spoken to him since for 18 years. but on the day i told my husband, i just thought maybe i would try and find him again. so i called an old friend of mine who knew my ex-boyfriend and guess what? she was living five houses away from him.'

'she gave me his email and phone number. i don't know why but i just picked up the phone and called him. he answered. and before i knew it, we met again. ironically, he and his wife were in the middle of their own divorce.'

'before i knew it, we started doing things together. two weeks from now, we're both going on a motorbike trip of europe. and we're also going to cuba three months from now. we're both doing things we've always wanted to do when we were younger and it's ironic that we've found each other again after all these years. strangely i think if we ended up together when we were young, we never would have made it. i don't know why but i have this strange conviction that we were meant to find each other again but this time, i know we are going to work out.'

i tell her how proud i am of her for being an incredible mother. i tell her how beautiful she is inside and out and that she is worthy of every single bit of happiness in this world. i tell her someday, i wish i will find a love as exciting and fulfilling as she has. i also tell her, nothing in this world is ever a coincidence. 'two people who are destined to meet do so apparently by chance, at exactly the right time' (ralph waldo emerson).

she pays for her makeover and leaves, somewhat a bit embarassed that she has told her life's story to a complete stranger. i run to the loo, sit in the toilet for a bit, crying and blowing my nose and ursula and sedated buttercup quietly sit and cry with me.

flypaper for freaks.....

Stories Which I Wish I Was Clever Enough to Write

below is a story which my friend kumuda emailed me yesterday. i cried when i read it. i didn't know why. maybe because again, it is one of those stories which i wished i was clever enough to have written but obviously i am not. i hope you like it as much as i did.

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once upon a time there was an island where all the feelings lived together.
there was a storm in the sea one day and the island was about to get drowned.

every feeling was scared but not love. love made a boat to escape.
every feeling boarded in.
but there was only one feeling that was left.
love got down to see who it was.

it was ego...

love tried and tried but ego wasn't moving...... .

also the water was rising.
every one asked love to leave him and come into the boat.

but love was made to love.

the rest of the feelings escaped on the boat and the storm took over island.

at last, love died with ego on the island...

love dies because of ego......

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Kitchen Thoughts Part Deux

the whole experience has been overwhelming. as i wrote down previously, if only i had an automated keyboard that would capture my thoughts and blast it all down on twitter.

certainly it has laid to rest any doubts about wanting to be a chef. i am too small, too weak and too old to put up with the blasted heat, hauling heavy things and the daily injuries you get like nicks, scrapes and burns.

i've seen for myself my previous theory about why most of the chefs are men. because frankly, girly girls have no place prissing about in a kitchen - specially not one which aspires to the kind of standard that pearl does.

while i love food and cooking - i want to do it in my kitchen, at my pace, in my somewhat meditative state, at leisure. and i want to serve food to my friends and family who love me so much they always marvel and tell me how good a cook i am, even if i have oversalted or oversugared or overcooked a few things. that is how i equate food with love.

don't get me wrong - the food at pearl is also done with love, albeit a different kind. it is the kind of love that is about artisanal craftmanship. the same way back on the olden days when people planned and took the time to carve, to sculpt, paint.

working in the kitchen, is like working with a bunch of artists. there is nothing glamorous i think about a sculptor facing a block of marble and there is nothing gentle about a hammer and chisel picking away pieces of stone. but you are left in wonder after the sculptor is done with his finished statue. he will stand there covered in dust, his hands will be red and raw, callused and before him will stand david. it is the same will all the chefs in the kitchen.

their hands and arms are seemingly to me permanently red and raw. or swollen from being constantly in touch with water and heat. their arms all bear burns in varying states of healing, healed and new. they have this constant sheen of sweat on their brow. they stand at the pass calling out orders at the same time, while juggling all the different items coming out like veg and fish and meat and micro herbs and sauce. plating each item, carefully laying them on the plate one by one painstakingly - creating edible artwork. and every day they do it.

i swear, if anyone tries to be a smart ass food critic about the food at pearl - i will hurt them. no one is allowed to say bad things about pearl's food in front of me. they don't know what it took richard, leo, ben, mickey, sebastian, dane, andy, ben, sarah, shelley, simon, suren and chef to get that kind of food out. those who critique food who can't cook aren't allowed to be a critic.

i an very grateful to be allowed this kind of experience. it put me back in touch with that side of me which is in love with doing things that mean much to me.

in the midst of that whirling dervish of a kitchen it also allowed me to collect my thoughts and re-think what i wanted out of my life.

a kilo of grapes to peel and de-seed takes some time, delicate handling and much patience. while doing it i would drift away into my thoughts. one time, i thought about someone who i thought i wanted...until someone else came into my life with whom i could not explain this connection to that i felt. it is true you know - you will know what you want when you find it.

slicing two and a half kilos of jerusalem artichokes on the mandolin. i thought, working with my hands helped calm my mind and centered me better than two years worth of therapy did. it occurred to me, this is why people in the olden days never needed shrinks, they could sort out their thoughts while working with their hands. these days, we've stopped working with our hands because machines are now available for everything. so i've resolved, i will take the time out to doing something with my hands - food is my craft of choice and writing. what's yours?

cracking walnuts. andy needed them in perfect quarter slices. i realized, in order to get perfect quarter slices, you need to get the walnut out whole. which is hard to do if you have to crack them open with a hammer. you can't pound the heck out of the shell because that would result in crushed walnuts. so i learned to gently pound the shell to get many, many little fissures which i would then gently peel away and voila - perfect walnuts. i never got perfectly shelled, whole walnuts all the time. i did learn though as i went along that walnuts have this natural four lines that if you cracked the top and ends, the walnut panels would fall away easily. it occurred to me, things in our lives are like walnuts. nature has them perfect wrapped like every single walnut has their four paneled shells. but not every walnut can be cracked perfectly. this is why when you do get one perfectly cracked - it becomes worth every walnut imperfectly cracked.

sebastian also asked me to dice some ox tongue for him. i was caught up in other tasks so when i was ready, i went to him and asked him 'sebastian where's your tongue that you wanted diced?'. i wanted to laugh my head off after i said that but blessedly he's french. and he was overly, overly swamped with too many things to think of he didn't get the joke.

leo - the gentle giant of the kitchen. the one time i had to help him out was to help him make labels. please, he asked, can you write down for me on these labels four rows of the letter P in 5 columns. then G, then JG, then Q and so on and so forth. to make the job quicker, i challenged myself to think of words beginning with the letters i was writing down. P, P, P, P...penguin, pare, pear, paranoid, psychotic...then i started to think perhaps my word choices mean something psychoanalytically? G, G, G, G - gaga, lady gaga, gaga pa rin, gaga ulit...gaga ka...tumigil ka na mukha kang tanga tumatawa mag-isa....F - F, F, F, foker face..F,F,F, foker face....

i haven't cooked a single thing by the way since i started apprenticing at pearl.....

Kitchen Thoughts

(this is the obligatory food shot to give credence that this blog is not just about my rants but also about food. it has nothing to do with the thoughts written down in this post. i also had nothing to do with the food in the picture. this is Chef and head chef in action, and this is only a partially plated food shot. these people are AMAZING.)

things i have been asked to do:
1. brunoise 3 shallots. this means ultra, ultra, fine dice. micro cubes. by hand. it took me an hour and the shallot dice was ten times larger than they should have been. and i sliced my thumb. ben brunoises the shallots in two minutes - ultra, ultra, ultra fine dice i.e. miniscule micro cubes.

2. clean cauliflower. this means separate the florets into equal sized portions the size of my thumb nail. and trim the stems. i try to do the damn thing and before i knew it, i had pulverized the two whole cauliflower heads and i had only three perfect florets to show for it. plus i stabbed my middle finger in the process. they never made me clean cauliflower again.

3. pick herbs. tarragon, mint, coriander and basil. basically the job is to pick the prettiest looking leaves and put them into tiny bowls. i was really, really, really good at this at the first try. this is why they make me do this everyday now. on my third day dane allowed me to finely chop the parsley. it usually takes him 2 minutes to turn the parlsey leaves into almost powder. it took me twenty minutes.

4. pick samphire. this is a weed which grows wild in the salt marshes which used to be poor people's food as anyone can forage for it for free. however, as the chefs have grown crazy about them, they have been elevated to designer swamp weed food status. it has a mildly, mildly, mildly salty taste. it looks like micro asparagus. basically i pick the nice looking ones and put them into bowls again. it's like being asked to go through this bunch of bermuda grass leaves and picking out the most perfect looking ones, of the same length and separating them from the ugly ones. again i am very good at this so everyday i do this.

5. peel and de-seed grapes. one kilo everyday. they must retain their shape and you have to keep as much of the white flesh on. they're muscat grapes and they taste amazing. i peel them one by fucking one. grape juice drips down my hands and knife handle and as they are amazingly sweet, turn my hands into one big sticky mess. to make the job quicker, i eat the really small ones and only peel the large ones of roughly the same size. and when i have only five left, i eat them all and declare the job finished.

6. segment oranges. i am really good at this. you peel away all the pith and peel and then go through the sections one by one to separate them. you must handle them gently lest they fall apart. this task will help you discover all the little stab wounds and flesh wounds you have sort of forgotten about. ditto when asked to squeeze lemons and limes.

7. make apple balls. first peel 12 apples. take a melon baller and turn out perfect apple balls. out of one apple, you will only get 8 balls. what do you do with the apples then that are left with all the holes? you eat them or throw them out. i eat one and then chuck the rest into the bin while praying 'please God forgive me for throwing away this food for they made me do it'.

(sarah the pastry chef plating the dessert. the apple balls are cooked in caramel)

8. cut the courgettes into perfect slices using a mandolin. PAY attention because if you don't the mandolin will slice off the tips of your fingers perfectly. it takes me five times longer than it takes dane but i don't fucking care. i'm not slicing the tips of my fingers for ANYONE. even for a hot chef. or gerard butler. or clive owen. and i MEAN it.

9. make ginger confit. slice the ginger into equal lengths. peel them and then again slice super thin with a mandolin. after that, slice by hand into perfect little strips half the size of a match stick. then blanch into boiling sugar syrup. then plunge into ice water. repeat process 7 times. then place ginger strips into container and cover with syrup. label properly. what do they do with the ginger? they place three of these strips onto the ice cream for one of the desserts. honestly i feel for ben and sarah - the pastry chefs.

10. wash off the salt and spice cure on the venison. with cold (i.e. freezing water) as the hot water will cook the surface of the meat which you don't want to do. doing this after peeling grapes will make your hands ache with arthritic pain. after thoroughly washing off the salt cure which takes about 5 minutes per surface of the meat, you have to pat the meat dry with paper towels. it takes about 10 feet of those damned industrial strength towels to dry them.

11. toast the bread. or flash it in the oven as they say. and rush the bread bin to the pass. i was alright at it and i have the oven burns on the back of my hands to prove it.

my feet feel like lead. my hands are covered with cuts, nicks and burns. and i still went back for the third day to face my first dinner service.....

i refuse to post photos of my kitchen wounds......

The Empress in the Kitchen

finally my fingers have stopped hurting enough for me to be able to sustainably type.

if you have been living under a rock the past few weeks, let me remind you that four days ago, i started work as an apprentice at Pearl - a french restaurant run by jun tanaka. i've been working there for four straight days and i've lost a pound since. the first thing you need to know about those chefs is that NO ONE eats or takes a break when they are working.

(this is shelley, shelling langoustines. she was also an apprentice like me but she's finished with her apprenticeship)

they work their ten, twelve or worse, 7am to 12 midnight shifts, on their feet, with only the occasional toilet break. they takes bites out of whatever it is they are cooking, slicing, dicing or pinches what the other chefs are preparing. if they are slicing carrots, they eat a few slices of the trimmings. from 630 or 7am, they are already slicing, dicing, sauteeing, grating, pureeing, braising, trimming, cleaning, sifting, baking and they end their twelve hour days day slicing, dicing, sauteeing....all they ever do is COOK and CLEAN. everyone cleans up after themselves - there are no people to hand you anything or clean up after you. you WILL get yelled at and WILL be told to eff off if you don't clean up after you.

my first day, first realization: dammit i am TOO OLD for this shit.

(this is sebastian, the french sous chef. Chef is in the background with Suren the chef de partie)

i had no expectations on my first day other than i would NOT be given a chance to cook anything or handle any of the expensive ingredients. i was fully expecting to be errand girl - like count apples, peel onions and garlic. and errand girl i was and continue to be and i am EVER so glad because i would either die of a heart attack or end up killing someone if i had to be put under the kind of pressure the chefs are under to deliver that kind of food.

one dish alone, easily has 20-30 different components. take the sea bass dish. it has fennel puree which is a separate recipe, cooked fennel which is flashed in the pan but must be trimmed and sliced properly, baby fennel which is again prepared and trimmed and cooked sous vide with herb oil (again a recipe), with a sauce which again is a separate recipe, foam which is another recipe, orange segments which are prepared by peeling and separating the orange segments PERFECTLY, crushed hazelnuts plus not to mention the sea bass which is gutted, cleaned and filleted into the perfect portions since the fish comes into the kitchen whole. and this is just one dish - the less complicated one at that in the different items on the menu. you don't want to hear about the partridge dish and what goes into it.

First day, second realization: I CANNOT COOK. You CANNOT cook. These people COOK.

all of these individual dish components must be prepped and done before lunch and dinner service because what happens during service is that the fish/meat get cooked and the vegetables done within two to four minutes by 2 sous chefs (one is assigned to fish, one cooks the meats, another the garnishes) to be plated by Chef (jun tanaka) and head chef (richard). the sous chefs hand the separate components of each dish to Chef and head chef at the pass, all in their correct portions, all perfectly cooked to be assembled or plated as they call it. the sous chefs HAVE to get it right EACH time because if Chef is not happy with how they are cooked, he will send them back to be re-done. this means, you will lose time and will back up the other orders AND you will lose one portion count which means if you run out of stuff while service is still on going, the whole team runs into trouble.

for every dish, it takes 8-10 people working separately on separate recipes for sauces, garnishes, marinades and prepping all the meat, fish and vegetables. and they do it ALL by themselves. all the meats and fish come as carcasses - the ducks come killed and plucked with their heads still on, the scallops are all in their shells which need to be cleaned, the potatoes still are dirty with their skins on. they do all the work themselves including Chef. they grab their own pans, haul stuff from the larder, run around like headless chickens, list down the items they are running out of to be ordered from the suppliers, cook, make their prep lists for the next day.

(this is Chef and head chef Richard plating at the pass)

First day third realization: I am TOO OLD, TOO SMALL, TOO SHORT, TOO WEAK for this gig.

on my first day, i was praying i would just get through the day without making myself look like a fool - don't slice any fingers off, don't drop any pans, don't burn yourself and make yourself useful.

within the first two hours, i sliced my thumb chopping shallots, stabbed my middle finger trimming cauliflower and burnt my fingers on the bag sealing machine. i also dropped the metal tray on the floor and in trying to save the bowl of stuff that the tray took down with it, screamed like the girl that i am. tray clangs to the floor in unison to the screams of the apprentice. nice.

First day fourth realization: Please God no more humiliation.

and then the second day came along.....

Even the Delusional Get the Blues

so here it is, autumn. colder days, rain, earlier nightfall and with all those again come my blues.
don't ask me why i get it. its also a puzzle to me. don't worry - i'm not about to slit my wrists, bash my head in or jump into the river thames which is across the street. all three forms of suicide result in horrifyingly ugly cadavers and i'd rather live than have people's last memories of me when they view my body 'goddamn...she probably didn't take the three hours she usually takes in the morning before she decided to kill herself because man.....she's ugly'.

i want to die when i am 70 years old, having exhausted my plastic surgery fund, my vital organs deciding to stop on their own after i celebrate my 70th birthday having drunk more than my fair share of pink champagne, eaten foie gras and hunks of apple crumble and madagascan vanilla clotted cream ice cream. i'm going to be 70 and i will look as fantastic as that woman called tina turner who is really 80 but looks like she's 40 and has a boyfriend who's 20. dang......THAT is a woman. madonna - have you heard of her?

when i get the blues, i don't know what the hell to do other than crawl under the covers in my bed, lie there waiting til the cows come home, looking like a drowned rat and giving in to the crying spells that come. i used to castigate myself when i would get the blues - because i was demanding to know why they were happening. now, i just let it happen. there is a song that pink wrote. i love pink. her song goes 'nobody knows, nobody knows but me that i sometimes cry...'it occurs to me that sometimes, your body and your brain is telling you it needs to crawl under the sheets, lie in bed for two days and let the tears fall freely without burdening yourself with why this is happening.

i feel a little better now. so this week i ended up cooking a storm. i made apple crumble because apples are now in season. i can make this in my sleep.

APPLE CRUMBLE - pick the kind of apple you like. it can be granny smith if you like tart ones but i prefer red delicious or pink galas because they are sweet. whatever you do, do NOT pick the british bramley apples because they turn to mush when they are cooked. bramley apples are fantastic for apple sauce. apple crumble however needs chunks of cooked apple. core, peel, deseed and slice the apples to the size you prefer. i like them in biggish chunks. and you need to focus and work quick when you do this or the apples will turn brown if you leave them alone unpeeled for too long. you can sprinkle them with a bit of lemon juice but this makes them tart and i like my apple crumble sweet. then sprinkle over the apples some cinnammon, ground cloves, grate a bit of nutmeg over it, muscovado sugar, a bit of flour, half a scraped vanilla bean, a pinch of salt then toss, toss, toss and pour into your baking tin! then mix some fine ground digestive biscuits, rough chopped almonds or walnuts, oats and brown sugar. work in some melted butter until the mixture kind of looks like peas. sprinkle this over the apples. you want to have a decent amount of this covering the apples. bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour in your oven.

i don't have measurements. i just learned this by reading a recipe and experimenting. now i have my own version which i can churn out in my sleep because i've done it a few hundred times. if you love cooking like i do, you can experiment so you can eventually come out with your own. that's how i perfected my adobo. i make the BEST adobo. lilit reyes, my former creative director, who is utterly a brilliant writer and lyricist, who utterly hates my guts for his own personal reasons actually told me when he came over to my house in bangkok for lunch that i actually beat his mother's adobo. and she's from batangas. THAT is high praise. if someone who utterly hates your guts can say you trump their mother's adobo. i'll take it lilit. peace.

if anyone is interested in an apple crumble or adobo tutorial, let me know.

this week i also did my version of potatoes dauphinoise. or simply, potatoes sliced thin, baked in cream with garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper. i do the whole thing but i also use some fine mince onion with the garlic, lashings of salt and pepper then seriously strong, mature grated cheddar cheese. my version will horrify the true blue frenchman but my brothers, my nephew and my niece, when they eat it with roast beef or roast chicken, their eyes roll in their heads like the child possessed in the exorcist but in a good way. so even if i horrify frenchmen with my americana take on dauphinoise, my family loves it and that's all that matters. je suis plebeian d'accord?

i went to the supermarket today to do our regular shopping. i had nothing to do and i was tired of sleeping and i was feeling better too.

so i prepared the ground beef for meatballs for spaghetti with meatballs what else? you simply mix ground beef with salt, pepper, eggs, breadcrumbs, minced onion, garlic, oregano, parmesan cheese and fine chopped rosemary. roll into balls on a baking sheet and when frozen dump them in a bag. when it's time to cook, saute some garlic and anchovies in olive oil, dump in some canned tomatoes then add your frozen meatballs. simmer over slow heat for an hour. stir occassionally to make sure it doesn't catch the pan bottom. then serve over spaghetti.

that's the quick way to make it. i however, make my own tomato sauce from scratch. and i tell no one how to do it. i make my tomato sauce at three in the morning - bobby caught me once when he walked into the flat, drunk and happy at 3am and there i was cooking on the stove. he literally screamed at me 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING COOKING AT 3 IN THE MORNING?!!!'

that's what i do. that's what some delusional people do. specially the ones who every now and then get the blues.

if i know what i need to do then why do i feel stuck?

on facebook during the early days when they still didn't have those stupid pseudo psycho babble quizzes (like what olympic sport best represents who you are? answer: underwater basket weaving), they used to have these random vote your friends as most or least likely thingies. the first one i got was 'most likely to own a pair of manolos' - ok, shoe addict we have got that down already.

the second of the answers i got was 'most likely to be the voice of reason'.

that's who i am known to be - to most of my good friends and family. everyone thinks i have a pretty good head on me and most of the time, when i deliberately focus on being lucid, i am very grown up and rational.

people can rely on me for being responsible, to carry out complex thinking and doing activities. someone actually called me 'sorter out' i.e. someone who sorts things out.

my life right now is a reflection of my brain activity. it is filled with a million blips and bleeps, of things that need to be sorted out. the daily things in life like bringing your mac to the apple store to get it sorted out, writing to the university to get my school attendance schedule in december, finding the funding for my mba, going to the store for rice......

and lurking in the background are all the other existential questions i am often plagued with that are related to happiness, connection, security, fulfillment.

my brain hurts....i feel like all my neurons are firing at different levels and it seems like my synapses are about to explode...and as a result, little bits and pieces of me are beginning to hurt as well. first its my head, then my neck, then my shoulders..on some days my brain hurts so much all the way to my fingertips and my nails.

i console myself that even if my brain hurts, i am still functioning and i can still sort out what needs to be sorted out. but it doesn't change the fact that my brain is hurting.

and that while i know what to do, there is this unanswered question: if i know what to do why do i feel stuck?

the third vote i got was 'most likely to bring sexy back'. i don't know who in hell voted me this - i think the person likely put it down as a laugh. probably someone who is masquesrading as a friend but in reality hates me because he wants to be me but is scared of me and wants to get one back indirectly hahahaha.......but in this 'my brain is hurting and i am stuck' mode i'll take it.
when you are in this mode, even i realize brain power isn't going to cut it. so yeah..i'll take it - most likely to bring sexy back.

i may be stuck but heck i'm fabulous. i'll bring sexy back you miserable sonofa£@~#!!!!!

I am Afraid My Brain is Going.....

nothing I just wanted to drop you a line. my brain is slowly going lifeless...if it were hooked up to a monitor the bleeps would come very faintly...with several long seconds in between each bleep... bloody hell I need a new boyfriend. haven't shagged since...i forget...brain cannot process too much... I am now aimlessly ranting. I need to meet a billionaire hunk who has a genius IQ and is 6ft 3inches to marry and spend the rest of my life with. Any suggestions? Argggh....help...i am hard pressed trying to be positive. Alternating between being angry, sad, happy, optimistic, determined and clueless. Autumn is here - but then again did it ever leave? I've done three makeovers today. I have 2.5 hours remaining on my shift to do a couple more. what are the chances I'll meet my billionaire in the next two hours? Maybe he'll masquerade as a drag queen. Or maybe he'll come in to buy makeup for his woman and he'll see I'm the better deal. Whoa - since when did I start think I was a 'deal'? Oh I think when I was 5 and I thought I was a pretty big deal after being awarded best in storytelling. Did I ever tell you at my nursery school graduation I was in the major dance number of the program? I was five and they thought I could groove which is why they placed me in the center of the group. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was but they dressed us in these long flowing gowns and tied ribbons on our wrists - to enhance the dance movements I suppose. Midway through the dance I slipped on my dress and fell with a resounding thud on the floor. The sound reverberated throughout the hall with not a few parental gasps and snickering from the seated children. I don't even remember being embarrassed. I distinctly remember being exasperated and quicker than you could say badoodlewhoopsie I stood up and resumed dancing like I was never even interrupted. To thundering cheers and clapping from the audience. I walked off the stage to a standing ovation. I think that was one of the best lessons I remember in my life. Life is a dance number. For sure there'll be gasps and snickering people when you fall. However there'll be people who will give you that applause and thundering cheers when you do get up. never settle for the snickering - walk away to a standing ovation. It's so much better. Ok gotta go back to the counter in a bit. Thanks for listening....
Sent via Facebook Mobile

Self Doubt

i got this message from this kabbalah website i subscribe to. message from the universe - from the universe to me and now to you.

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Sunday, August 30
Anybody who ever made a difference in this world went through a struggle to find their real purpose. Don't dump all over yourself if you are feeling lost and worthless. It's a sign you're looking for your path.
Today, don't run to fix yourself when you feel broken. Stay with the discomfort. Walk through the fire and you'll find everything you need inside yourself. And yes, you will survive.

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sometimes adventure can be kind of lonely

here i am one week away from starting my kitchen apprenticeship. i am quite excited, but yet again i am reminded at how lonely it can be starting another adventure by yourself in a foreign city.

i am reminded yet again of the distance between myself and everyone i hold dear to me. my family and my friends are all scattered in various parts of the globe. i have very few here in london with whom i share that sense of history with.

no one knows me here like my old friends and family do.

when i meet new friends, i have to hold back the compulsion to tell them as many things about me as i can in an effort to get them to know who i am. i know you cannot build these things overnight. these connections i have with the people i love - they are either built from blood or years and years of fighting, sharing, arguing, crying, winning and losing together.

right now, it seems to me that everyone is just so far away. and i am here typing my innermost thoughts out on my computer.

i recently saw 'adam' the movie and i was struck by how relevant it was to my life right now.

there is a part in the movie where adam reveals why he wanted beth to move with him to california and it wasn't the reason that beth was desperately waiting to hear. as a result beth refuses to go and adam is tortured at the thought that his life raft wasn't moving with him to california. in the end, adam simply decides to move, in spite of all of his fears. he moves to california. beth stays in new york. adam finds himself in california. beth also finds herself in new york.

i wanted to find myself again which is why i ran away to london. but in finding myself, i had to lose that physical connection - the comfortable availability of everyone i loved back in asia.

i think sometimes that is what we need - we need to lose the distraction of the 'beths' in our lives so we can focus on what it is that our 'adam' really needs.

but it doesn't change the fact that sometimes, finding our adam can be quite lonely, and that many times when you are alone, you just want, even if for the space of a few minutes to have one of your 'beths' sitting beside you to tell you it will be alright.

I Am Magic and So Are You

i am a magic dreamer. i believe in envisioning a life that is big, bright and full of life. i believe in big things. i believe that little things can contain big things and have big meanings - if you care enough to stand still for a moment and see them in the palm of your hand.

i am audacity. i ask for what i want and when i ask for it, i know i will get what i want. anyone can have what they want. as long as they are clear on what they want, they are willing to take inspired action and listen to messages from the universe. you don't have to give up anything to have what you want because everyone is entitled to have what they want. this is a generous universe presided over by a generous God.

this is why you do not have to covet what other people have. there is no need to be envious or jealous or harbor hatred in your heart that someone has what you think you also deserve to have. there is room for all your desires and wishes to come true - just like everyone else's.

we all find what we believe we will find.

if you believe that you have to cut off your arm to achieve what you want, then you will cut off your arm to achieve what you want.

i on the other hand, believe that all i have to do is hold out my hand to receive what i want.

receiving, just like giving, is an art. it is a virtue. in order to get what you want, you must know how to receive.

also, i like to give off the impression that i like to question everything in this world. in truth, i operate pretty much on blind faith. i question dogma, i question bigotry, i question intolerance and i question simply because i like to know facts and i like to reassure myself that my ability to remember things remain somewhat sharp. everything else i take pretty much on knowing that after all is said and done, everything will be alright. really, let me tell you, everything will set itself right.

my life generally, is one pretty much about operating on blind faith. instinct. intuition.

when i have an idea, i pretty much go with it and don't question why. it is only when i look back that i begin to see patterns - how i met this person who helped bring me to point b, that took me to point c and so on.

there is nothing such as coincidence in this world.

ralph waldo emerson said 'two people who are destined to meet apparently do so by chance. at exactly the right time'.

and i don't mean this purely in a romantic way, but life in general.

people who we need at a specific point in time will find their way to us when we need them exactly at the right time. we just need to recognize and accept that whoever is in our life at this time, whether we like them or not are meant to be there. everyone in our life is a messenger bearing a note from the universe. we cannot discount nor question - is it a big message or small? the bottomline is - it is a message. if you can't understand it now, keep it in the back of your mind and when your soul is ready to listen to the answer, you will understand without having to expend the effort to do so.

i understand now what eckkhart tolle was trying to say about the power of now.

take heart - for what you are looking for is also looking for you.

Rant-i-sode 1.0

it's a friday night and instead of going out to drink with friends, i decided to just head on home. i had a healthy dinner of broccolini and chestnut mushrooms with oyster sauce. and my ubiquitous bowl of honey cheerios eaten without milk. i also stood over the packet of snickers on the kitchen counter, listening to the chocolate bars snickering at me 'you know you want me, you KNOW you want me' and me chanting 'i can resist...i will resist...' an hour long bath, jammies and into the bed with my laptop. and i can still hear the fucking packet snickering all the way from the kitchen.....yes you damn snicker bars...i WANT you like i WANT clive owen but it doesn't mean i'm going to have you.

once upon a time there was a woman who always ordered only ceasar salad in every restaurant she ate in. she had virtually eaten every version of it available - with grilled shrimp, with iceberg lettuce, with bottled dressing, with freshly prepared dressing, with grilled chicken, with romaine lettuce, with and without croutons, tossed in a wooden bowl, tossed in a glass bowl, with garlic, without garlic... you name every version of it and she had eaten it. ceasar salad. that's all she ever ate. the weird thing is that, she always wondered at the other stuff that people ate. and why they enjoyed eating them so much. she even said she was envious at the stuff that other people ate and sometimes jealous that they were enjoying all different sorts of things. when asked however to try other things, she always said no and proceeded to order ceasar salad yet again.

hey - if all you ever want to try and eat is ceasar salad, don't wonder why ceasar salad is the only thing you know.

i keep thinking about someone who i recently met and keep wondering at the reasons why we met. i tell myself there is never such a thing as coincidence. ralph waldo emerson said 'two people who are destined to meet do so, apparently by chance, at exactly the right time'. i love that line because it hints at the magic of two people meeting - and not just romantically but that every person we meet on this earth is a magical moment. i keep wondering why. it is never apparent to us why we meet people, sometimes it comes later, sometimes never. this one....i am waiting to hear why...because it felt magical when we met and i am sad if the story of how we met has met its end.

cheetos. i am desperately craving cheetos. and cheese flavored doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. i am desperately craving the ones made in the states because they taste the way cheetos and doritos and pringles should. full on sodium shock. the ones here in london taste like sawdust - i have never tasted blander junk food in my entire life. bland junk food is the worst in the world. when you eat junk food like cheetos, it should rightfully taste like you just ate five years worth of salt in one packet all in one satisfying go. and end up with your fingers coated with cheese powder that you lick off after you lick the wrapper of the remaining powdered cheese dust. otherwise, what's the point? please God...someone, anyone ship me some cheetos. and cheese doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. and while they're at it, tell them to include poppycock popcorn with almonds and skippy super chunky peanut butter. i swear my kids will be allowed all of these as much as they want. sodium authorities - go stuff it. sodium - i want to be full of it.

the five building blocks of essential nutrition for women's health and happiness: salt, sugar, fat, bags and shoes.

Good Eats in London 2

i just realized my memory is not as good as it used to be - i realized i left out quite a few of the places and things i like to eat in london. or maybe, it was masked by the fact that i wrote it in a flu haze.

whatever, these are the other places i remembered i liked:

Kulu-Kulu Japanese Restaurant - i discovered this when my good friend arnold took me. somewhere off a back alley on regent street. it's like upmarket yo-sushi (yo-sushi is a place to go to ONLY if you are in between life and death i.e. I NEED sushi and I DON'T CARE if it's semi-bad). the sushi though are puzzlingly huge. it's like japanese tasting sushi for the size of big white people. at very friendly prices. try the spinach bundles with sesame seed butter as it is very good.

nagomi - round the bend on a back street from bond street tube station. they do japanese home cooking style food so for idiots who think all japanese food is raw, this is a good place to get yourself un-ignorized. or rather educated. (why am i inventing words? because this is MY BLOG)
the fried rice with slivers of pickles, the aubergines, the stewed pork belly......i swear every child whose mother can cook like this needs to give their mums a five carat ring of their mum's stone of choosing every christmas. my friend makiko took me here. and guess what? she said her mum cooks WAY better than nagomi does. i believe her.

ashish' lamb taxi driver curry - i tasted this once and only once when my bestest friend kumuda was living in thailand. her husband ashish learned this from a taxi driver in india. i can only remember that you first make a paste out of chilis, shallots and ginger as i was the one who chopped them all up. and that you don't trim the fat from the lamb (who is the idiot who said you MUST trim fat from lamb?!!!! die idiot! die!). we ate this with potatoes sauteed in butter which kumuda then sprinkled with salt and gram masala and rice. ABSOLUTE HEAVEN. i tried replicating the bloody thing and frankly couldn't get it right. this is why i am saving up to go to goa this christmas. first to finally kiss kumuda's super baby twins in person (and hug and pinch and spoil and play boo with) and second to eat more of this curry and hopefully learn how to do the dang curry right. ok i didn't eat this in london but again - this is MY blog.

waitrose roasted chicken - they always get it right. ok sometimes the chicken is a bit overdone from the rotisserie but that's why you should only ever eat the thigh and leg portions. if you're too lazy to cook, get one from waitrose with some of their cheese tortellini spinach salad and a tiny tub of haagen dazs. you're set then for a good dinner. if you have leftover chicken breast meat, chop it roughly, nap it with some mayonnaise, throw in some fine chopped gherkins and onion, salt, pepper and voila - chicken salad for a sandwich. you can top it with some arugula and tomato.

theo randall - at the hotel intercontinental in mayfair. rustic italian food at non-rustic prices but oh so UBER yummy.

sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream - when i first tasted this i thought 'God save the queen'. i like it really soaked in toffee with some of the dates still in the mixture. i am such a sticky toffee pudding whore i order it all the time when i see it on the menu and even the supermarket ones from sainsbury's and m&s can never escape from me. every winter, i stock up on m&s (my favorite supermarket brand for sticky toffee pudding) plus their madagascan vanilla clotted cream ice cream. as long as i have both, i can be snowed in till kingdom come.

the great british strawberry - served with mounds of whipped chantilly cream. again, God save the queen for this annual wimbledon summer treat.

leong's legend - i discovered this place walking around in chinatown for a new chinese place to eat at other than gerrard's. try the pork with sticky rice and the stewed pork belly...they do pork right and trust me that is high praise for a filipina who is obsessed with piggy things to eat.

the blueberry pie at paul's - i usually eat only blueberries out of a box, fresh. i can't stand them baked into pastry but this one i make an exception for. oh and blueberry cheesecake. and blueberry muffins. (ok i may have been too hasty at saying i hate them baked into things...)

there is also this vietnamese place arnold also took me to. the name escapes me. EVERYTHING on their menu is EFFING GOOD and AUTHENTIC and CHEAP. again home style. i will write about it again when i remember the name. i know how to get there if you were with me but i can't remember the name of the place!

olympic cafe - this is a small, cheap and cheerful place on lower marsh street about 5-10 mins walk from the waterloo tube station. they sell home cooking style chinese, singaporean, malaysian and thai dishes. again, EFFING GOOD and CHEAP. the thai dishes are authentic tasting i can certify. the rest...i don't think are authentic but are good anyway. the spicy singaporean noodles and the duck on rice hits my spot every single time. and each only costs £4.50.....

pearl restaurant and bar - oh so pretty french food. this is where i first tried the leek terrine (kind of like a lasagne made of spring onions) and i couldn't understand it. i also had the rabbit ballotine (a bit dry if i remember it right) but this was saved by the molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and the caramel sauce that was painted onto the plate. i remember thinking (as i was trying to scrape as much of the caramel off the plate onto my fork to eat with the cake) 'why couldn't they have just slathered this on the whole cake? it would've made my CENTURY.' but i quickly banished my plebian thoughts...and admired the million pearls strung out on strings dangling from the chandeliers....ahhh....i felt when i walked in, this is truly a restaurant for an empress....hehehehe......if i were to be honest, i was more admiring of the decor and the prettiness of the food than the taste. however we can fix that since i'll be working there soon.

hmm...i think i need new discoveries for my list. time to find more good eats!!!!

The Rise of The Empress Apprentice

no - i am not about to face the squadron of alan rice nor donald trump.

i haven't written anything in my blog of late because i have not been in my head as much or as my good friend cathy says about me, i didn't have anything torturing me so i felt i could not write.

which isn't necessarily true because on a daily basis, i encounter my daily angst in varying degrees of why am i here and what am i doing the rest of my life.

i guess to some extent - cathy is right. i don't write if i don't feel like it. when i am in the mood to write, it's as if something takes over me and i am not really lucid, but i feel like some otherworldly being in someone else's body typing away.

when that happens, i end up writing something really funny or quite good judging from my hopelessly supportive and encouraging friends' reactions.

anyways, i've changed my blog's name.

last thursday, i interviewed with chef jun tanaka to apprentice in his kitchen for maybe 1-2 days a week. he invited me over for an interview. i guess what i said suitably convinced him of my desire to learn to cook professionally - so he accepted.

chef jun tanaka runs pearl restuarant and bar which is an uber hot french restaurant with an award winning wine cellar. he was trained by albert roux and marco pierre white among other 3 star michelin chefs he trained with.

starting september, i will be working in his kitchen 1-2 days a week. if i don't kill myself with exhaustion that is, as i will still be doing my 5 days a week job which pays the rent and the bills (well barely).

it is an unpaid apprenticeship. even freshly graduated culinary students are unpaid - how much more someone completely untrained?

i can hear all your various reactions now. from 'well finally! you're going to do what you've wanted all along' to 'huh? i never knew she wanted to cook?'. hey, i've been with my therapist for a year and a half now and i just told him last week i wanted to cook.

how does that connect with studying for my mba and selling luxury make-up in the middle of a recession? i don't know really and i don't care to try and make sense of it.

all i know is i am so grateful for all these opportunities, which seem far and few during regular times, much more in the midst of a recession where unemployment has risen to levels higher that post world war 2.

and all it took was one email. and one interview - where i told him that a preserved human brain has the consistency of foie gras and that cat protein fibers look exactly like chicken (a throwback from my days when i thought i wanted to be a doctor). and that after working for 10 years in advertising, i looked around me and discovered i had 4 advertising books - and 163 cook books and a collection of food magazines lovingly preserved and stashed in order of publication. i also go around telling people that the top three chefs in order of number of michelin stars are: alain ducasse (25 stars), joel robuchon (18 stars) and gordon ramsay (12). the only american on that list comes in fourth - thomas keller of The French Laundry (7) and he trained under alain ducasse. i am designated chief family cook during holidays and whenever i am at home in manila. my friends always want to come to my house when i tell them i am in the mood to cook. i love going around markets - when i travel that is all i want to do. beautiful eggplants, dirt encrusted mushrooms, cheese and meat displays excite the hell out of me. i can tell you about the differences in beef in america, europe, australia and asia arising from their feeding process. what is my passion? no shit sherlock.


i wanted to hit myself 'why didn't i even bother thinking that before?!'. i guess though, when you are ready, the teacher will come. when you are ready, the universe will show you how.

i think what happened to me was that i never thought that a job was something you truly loved to do. somehow, i had it in my head that a job was supposed to be something you worked at, not necessarily what you loved. you could like it, or maybe even love bits of it but it didn't necessarily have to touch your soul or turn you on so completely you could talk about it till the cows came home. so that's the role my jobs took in my life.

i also thought a job, as long as you were climbing the ladder, you were getting a promotion, getting more people under you, more countries under your responsibility, you were getting more money, you drove a fancy car, it allowed you to shop like a mad woman - that was what a good job was. well okay - i had a good job. i had many, many good jobs. but i NEVER loved any of them.

because i didn't love any of them - i took them all for granted and even hated them because some of them made me hate myself because i knew i was just doing those jobs because of the money, the title and the sheen of grandeur those jobs gave me.

they fed my image but not my soul.

and it is amazing that i had to run away to london and learn to realize that for myself. somewhere, sometime during my stay here, i finally had the courage to start doing something i truly LOVE.

i think it also wasn't just that i had a different perception of what a job was.

i think i was also afraid of what i loved. many of us, know what we want, what we love, but we are also afraid of going for it for whatever reason. i was afraid because for too long, i thought i was going to be less if i didn't have what i previously thought i needed to have.

anais nin said 'And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'

i am living proof that you can convincingly tell many people one thing, when in fact in my heart, i was holding onto something completely different.

why i kept holding it inside for so long - i don't know. and i don't care to rationalize why it took me this long.

i know now, for sure, i want to cook. just like i want to write.

i wrote once in my facebook headline 'If it's not mad, passionate, addictive, life changing, spiritually uplifting love that makes you believe you can change the world (or something like it)....it's not worth it.'

cooking here i come. The Empress Apprentice is here.