Hmm, alot has happened in the recent week(s?), especially foodwise-all good!
There was that Sunday where I went out with friends and ate linguini at pasta mania…
then this wednesday when i had a meal at my friend’s house plus peanut butter no-bake dessert…
AND thursday when i went to Shanri-La’s Rose Veranda for a High-Tea buffet with my mum :) totally amazing! we sat there for 3.hours chatting and drinking tea from pretty pots and cups (i had 2 pots-spicy vanilla black tea and ‘equilibrium’ which had rooibos and ginseng etc!). Oh and the scones and fruit cakes…I tasted EVERY SINGLE DESSERT they had to offer (except the cheesecake-gelatin).
Best part? No guilt. Only happiness. I left feeling just right and joyful :)
I’ll be off to Spain in -7hours…so exciting! I feel a wee bit anxious though, for several reasons:
a) Language barrier
b) Racism
c) Veggie options? Compounded by the language barrier.
d) Crime rate (especially on tourists and Asians?)
One of my friends almost got scammed when she went there! So scary!
Well, wish me luck!
<3 Magdelene
:)
oops, haven’t been updating in a while! truth is, i’ve been pretty busy with real life, and I’m leaving for Spain next week!
I’ve been out with friends, to church, going out with my family and all sorts of stuff!
Will probably update again when I get back from Spain! With lotsa photos, of course :D
<3 Magdelene
people have found myblog by searching: ‘Calvin and Hobbes onlyone waffle’ Hmm.
I seem to be in love with shopping, having gone out 3 days in a row to shop! On one of those days, I had lunch at Cedele with my mum.
She ordered pasta (ehh, why do my parents always order pasta? It’s the dish I normally ignore on menus.) I ordered a Sweet Potato Sandwich on Sunflower Seed Bread.
Totally awesome. The bread was toasted just so, and spread with plum chutney. Inside were layers of soft roasted sweet potato slices, onion and red pepper. MMM MMM.
I tried to eat it sandwich style, but then gave up and attacked it with my fork and fingers after the first bite.
The bread was so luscious that I was tempted into buying 2 buns to go: One walnut raisin and one sunflower seed ( I think?)
Had them as part of dinner:
Course Numero Uno:
And dessert: With St Dalfour’s Four Fruits Jam of course ;) Love the jam.
Night time held a surprise when dad returned home with a bag from my cousin:
Holding exqusitely wrapped goodies! The boxes were wrapped in pretty paper :)
Ooh, goodies from Japan! My cousin went to Japan and got us wafer thin butter biscuits with milk/ white chocolate sandwiched in between. Individually wrapped and so pretty! Thanks dear cousin!
The day after that was literally a bar day. I had a grand total of THREE bars! A Larabar Jocolat German Chocolate Cake, a Fruitus Apricot Oat bar and a Mojo Chocolate Peanut :)
The Lara really tasted like a decadent moist fudgy cake! Although I wasn’t too sure about the coconut oil overkill. It put me in mind of nyonya desserts. But still good :)
Couldn’t resist an offer on the Fruitus bar, so I bought it, ate it and LOVED it!
probably because I love apricots :D
My last bar of the day was a mojo, and boy, was it delicious! Peanuts, chocolate, pretzels, sweet and salty. I put it in the fridge a bit as the chocolate was melted, so it became dense and chewier :)
I’ve also just recieved bars from Nat!!! WOOT! No pictures though.
And in other news, I’ve finally bought a WHOLE KABOCHA SQUASH!!!
I’ve already prepared lovely meals with it, although the initial step involving cutting the squash in two had to involve the floor, a chopping board, newspapers and a large chopping knife:
Had that for lunchy yeterday: Roasted kabocha with hoisin glaze, sprouts, roasted onion and broccoli drizzled with spicy Tahini sauce. Uber good!
After lunch, I went to the Mica Building to attend a sketching lesson. For my first lesson I….sketched a cube. Haha, I know, a cube? But I learnt some sketching essentials from the lady instrutor. Don’t know if I’ll be going again next week, we’ll see!
Now I’m signing off to go read my latest book buy-The China Study. Very informative and interesting, not boring at all! Then I’ll need to get ready to go on an outing with my friends! I MISS THEM SO MUCH! And one of them is leaving Singapore this year and probably never coming back :( She’s a scholar from overseas you see.
Ah, that’s life. Anyway, I was supposed to wake up at 8 to go to the gym, then go to church at 10, but I was so tired that I woke up at 10. Oops. MUST WAKE UP EARLY TOMORROW.
New greatest oat find of my life week: Miso Soup Oats!
Simply empty a miso soup packet with accompanying condiment packet (with the puffed tofu squares and seaweed) into a bowl of oatbran, add water and nuke for 3.5 minutes! Add egg if desired 2 minutes in, sprinkle pepper and EAT!
yes, i had that for breakfast.
doesn’t look very good, but of course it was yummy!
I’m leaving for art class in a while, so here are some random photos for your enjoyment!
soba noodles with chinese white cabbage, shrooms and tossed in a chilli bean sauce.
pesimmons with cinnamon :)
mum bought gingerbread men for me and my brother. one arm was consumed. cute, but not very tasty.
hi little pumpkin plant!
Isn’t this T-shirt so CUTE?!
Wrap creation that I’m going to have again for lunch today! Marinated sliced white mushrooms with mashed avocado and alfalfa/broccoli sprouts in a wrap, with a side of lentil/sprout salad. I’m startingto love sprouts! The mushrooms are raw,btw. mmm.
Hmm, it looks so…brown. 
Part of mum’s lunch: tofu with amazing peanut sauce. The sauce was fantastic. Thank you Ken Hom! I had to request for her to make the sauce for broccoli dippage during dinner.
That’s all for now! Ta ta folks!
<3 Magdelene
:)
Tweezers saved the day.
Yes, I used medical tweezers to extract the jammed memory card from my laptop. Turns out that i have to connect the camera to my com via a USB cable. troublesome, much? (also, the photo above took forever to load onto wordpress. go figure.)
But at least I have a camera now!It’s a striking shade of red and came with a free DVD player. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with the DVD player. I have no idea.
And look, mr doggy wants to play with mr camel!
Frisky’s really intrigued with the toy. We have to take care to leave it where he can’t reach it, or else we’ll just end up with a slobbered, chewed up plushie!
I’ve had 2 rather strange encounters recently. No, not of the alien kind ;) Couple of days ago, I was at a bookshop browsing the cookbook section and nibbling on a bar when I wasapproached by a girl about my age. She looked at me and said ‘Hi’ quite seriously. My first thought was ‘ohshitohshit, am i in trouble’ had I done something wrong, was i not supposed to eat in the store? (actually, yeah, no eating in the bookshop. but whatever, haha)
‘I want you to have this’ She extended her hand grasping a small piece of paper.
I stared.
‘Here, have it’
Um okay. I took the paper, and she walked away.
Here’s what was written on the paper:
Below, she signed off with her name and her handphone number.
Wow. I was shocked. On one hand, I was exremely touched by this girl’s bravery and kindness, how she was willing to extend a hand to those in need. On the other, I was mollified. Did i really look like I needed help from an ED? I guess I did…eating a bar, in the cookbook section-I was picking up a raw foods cookbook when approached, not because I want to eat a raw foods diet (NONONOOOOO) but because I was curious.
Well, for the rest of the time in the shop, I became rather self-conscious and asked my dad to leave soon after. Back home, I sms-ed the kind soul, thanking her and reassuring her that I was A-okay.
I’m so going to wear jeans when I go out today. ( I was wearing a skirt when I had the encounter.) And maybe a jacket. Or maybe not.
Well, the 2nd encounter which took place yesterday was less scary. Long story short, I was walking home from the mall when I was ambushed by a group of Republic Polytechinic students duing a project. They wanted to interview me ON VIDEO. They had the whole set up, video cameras, furry microphone and everything. Being nice (haaah) I obliged.
That ended up with me spending 10 minutes answering questions about a piece of graffiti on the wall and repeating the interview again ( their microphone wasn’t working properly). I’ve never been interviewed on video before! Strange, but they were nice folks :)
Well, before I sign off, I’ll leave you witha photo of my hummus wrap. MMM. Was too lazy to use a blender, so i mashed the chickpeas with a fork instead, added less tahini and no olive oil, so it was less a dip and more of a filling :) Will make again for sure!
ps: The news article in the photo is publicising afternoon tea at the Greenroom cafe (veggie cafe in the park!)!!! Scones, ‘wiches, pastries… And wait, there’s even vegan options? I am so dragging my mum down there.
muahaha.
Have a lovely day dear bloggers!
<3 magdelene
:)
Okay, so I just got my new camera yesterday. Took some photos this morning. Decided to upload them and write a post. Slotted the card into my com’s SD card slot. It didn’t fit.
As in, the card went in the slot (which was bigger) and stuck.
Oh. Shit.
Sony should just use normal SD cards like the rest of the world does, srsly.
I think i’ll have to turn off my laptop and try to shake the damned card out of the slot.
Woopee.
Greetings everybody!
Yesterday was quite busy-in the fun way of course. With my brother away on a 5 day camp on Pulau Ubin (a tiny island off Singapore filled with sandflies and jungle) my madre (like mother, except cooler) and I ventured off to Orchard Ion once again.
We shopped shopped shopped till we so nearly dropped, emerging triumphant nearly 4 hours later with a dress for her and 2 pairs of shoes for me! Oh yes, and a can of soup and muesli.
Oh I’m in love with my shoes! They’re ballet flats, one is striped blue and white and reminds me of a nautical theme. The other is brght red, so ‘Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz’ -esque! The bubbly cashier also persuaded me to buy 2 coloured wristbands to support charity-I chose a pink one which reads ‘follow your heart’ and a light blue one: ‘ Think wonderful Thoughts’. I have them on right now :) Positive cute wristbands=win!
Almost similar to my shoes, but different :)
Some way through, I bumped into 2 of my friends from secondary school! Ohmy, I was so excited to see them, but kind of sad as well, since we’ll probably not meet up very often anymore. They’re both not Singaporean so they’ll probably be leaving Singapore in the next couple of years. But, I guess that’s life right? Some friends are for life, some aren’t. To digress though, these 2 friends happen to be around my height (so rare!!!), which is probably why we clicked so well. The encounter reminded me of how we were emerging from teen-hood and pretty soon would have to go on our own seperate paths. Sigh. I can no longer sing ‘Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen’ anymore. Or ‘I am sixteen going on seventeen’ (Sound of Music!) either. And one day, I wouldn’t feel young when I step into Forever 21. Gwah.
Okay okay, stop digressing. Haha :D For dinner, I ate out! At this AMAZING VEGAN RESTAURANT LIVINGREENS (link).
(note: all images from google!)
It’s located in a shophouse, ironically next to a Bak Kut Teh (Pork Rib Soup) shop, and in the Kampung Glam area. Love the area’s bohemian vibe at night! There were many restaurants and cafes and even a cafe where you could smoke the hookah!
The ambience in the restaurant was casual, more of a cafe than a restaurant actually. They sold organic things as well, including Agave nectar and get this, MACADAMIA NUT BUTTER AND PISTACHIO NUT BUTTER!!! gasp. Anyway, to the food. One word. DIVINE. We waited quite a while, probably because there was a lady who had a huge take-out order. But the food came pretty quickly after she left. We had baked tofu goreng (not my order, so not my fav) and mango sushi rolls to start. Sushi rolls had no rice in them, so they were really light. Then the mains. My dad had some spinach pesto spaghetti thing which was al dente and competently done, but boring (He likes to order Aglio Olio and many restaurants. And this was something similar).
I couldn’t decide between lasagne or the brown rice set, so my mum ordered the set and I ordered the lasagne. The brown rice set was simple and comforting. Also super healthy. Nutty brown rice, blanched kangkong(vegetables), salad, clear soup and some yummy yam dish. My irrational part (you know…) was contemplating switching my dish with my mum’s, since it looked so clean. But whatever. I can always order it the next time I visit! (And there will be a next time!)
Oh my, my lasagne…NOMNOMNOM. no regrets at all.
There were layers of eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers and stuff layered with a more-ish sauce and a creamy ricotta like topping. The topping was really good. Like ricotta or tofu, but vegan and without a tofu taste.
The side salad stood out too because of the shredded carrot and beetroot( I dislike huge leaves in my salads) and this UBER YUM dressing. I just had to ask what it contained-pumpkin seeds? I wouldn’t have guessed :O
Oh, and what I love was that the lasagne wasn’t oily or greasy. You would expect cooked eggplant to be soaking in oil, but this wasn’t. My lips didn’t have that greasy layer after the meal! YES!
I even ordered dessert to share-Banana Chocolate pudding that has no added sugar! I reckon they blend nanas with cocoa and soymilk. I ate more than half. Hehheh :D
The evening rounded off with a nice walk around the neighbourhood. I felt really good, comfortably full and rather happy :] I think vegan food is actually helping me get better and remove my fear of eating out! I mean, I wouldn’t usually eat a starter, a main AND a dessert in a normal restaurant (unless they have a special vegan menu! OH THAT WOULD BE SO COOL). And for my birthday next year, I’ll probably be getting one of their cakes (vegan!). Yes, a whole cake. I think vegan food makes me feel good, both physically and emotionally. Nope, I’m not a vegan, but I can definitely enjoy the food!
Well, I might be going to SITEX (year end tech fair!) at the Expo to pick up my camera later, and maybe pop into the Art fair tomorrow. That’s the good thing about living so near the expo, I guess :) Oh, I love love love the holidays! Although I am missing my little brother a tich right now.
<3 magdelene
Hello all!
(so sorry for lack of photos…I promise there will be photos galore when I get my camera next week! There’s this SITEX tech fair coming up :D )
Tuesday rolled around again, the day of my weekly art class!
I woke up especially late-10:30-which is quite unusual for me. Guess it’s time to start going to bed earlier then :) My late rising kinda disrupted my meal times, by the time I had done with brekkie (OATBRAN IN ALMOND BUTTER JAR!), it was already 11 20! Shocking, I know. Lunch was merely an hour later, but I was hungry, so no probs with that ;)
After lunch, my mum jetted me off to taka where I arrived on the dot to start…
A NUDE DRAWING CLASS?!
(nah, I wasn’t the model ;) )
Yup, you heard that right. NUDE. It turns out that my tuesday time slot makes way for a nude drawing session once a month. Before the class started, I was worried that it would be uber awkward, or I would burst out laughing. Or start turning beet red. Something like that. But nope! In fact I enjoyed the lesson so much!
We were given charcoal and large sheets of paper. The model would pose for 5-10 minutes to allow us to sketch and then change poses again when the timer rang. I nearly wanted to ask her to hold her poses for a few more minutes on too many occasions! Wait! Don’t move! I haven’t finished yet!!! Ha, I draw too slowly sometimes ;)
An hour in, we had a little break. We sat in a circle and the teacher (Miwa-san) gave us hot green tea and banana cake…it was like an all-girls tea party! Except they sometimes chatted in japanese, and I couldn’t understand :( The environment was so warm and cosy though. I chatted with the model (clothed in an oversized army shirt) too…she’s a Singaporean artist who models part time to pay for art classes. I told her she must be very ‘brave’ to model :D I actually thought she was japanese too, because she was conversing in jap with Miwa-san ><
Oh and what really made my day was when she thought I was an art student! As in, studying art in uni or junior college. She said my lines were really bold and etc. And to think it was my first time doing nude drawings and using charcoal! But of course I still have like UBER tons more to learn. Learning art beats learning science by a gazillion miles lol ;)
After the break, she posed for 10 minute sketches and finally a 20 minute drawing where I employed pencil and pastels on watercolour paper. Eh, first time evar using pastels (if you discount primary school, haha) so I was trying to do some smudging/blending things, basically experimenting. It was so therapeutic and eye-opening.
This session really helped me, both in art and body-image wise. It showed me that one needn’t be skinny to look good. The model was petite and slim, yes, but not skinny. No scary protruding bones, no backbone sticking out sharply and such, but her body was a thing of art. Like all our bodies are :) As I started sketching and focusing on the structure and form, I really started to appreciate the female human body. WE WERE MEANT TO HAVE CURVES! Not be weird stick figures with angulated joints and sunken cheeks. We have to take care of our bodies, to nourish it and make it beautiful. When I came back, I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw how scarily different I looked from ‘normal’. I used to think that my body is already at a ‘non-skinny’ weight and silhouette-how wrong I was! Yes, I can gain more weight and look like a beautiful woman! (Although, I did experience a minor case of boob envy. Mine are basically non-existent. Oops, you didn’t need to know that. my bad ><)
Thank goodness for the opportunity to go for today’s class! Thank goodness that I forgot to mention the ‘nude’ aspect of the class to my mum till after! (She would have dissuaded me from going lol. Anyway, she was shocked, but got over it later. Although she did warn me about the dangers of working as a nude model ;) ). And thank goodness for getting the opportunity to chat with the lady model-she gave me her card with her artist website on it! Oh to be an artist…
Well, I just had a lovely dinner of lentils, vegetarian sausages (YOU HAVE TO GET THEM! THEY ARE TINY ADORABLE MINI SAUSAGES!!!), kailan (like swiss chard/kale) and kashi pilaf in tomato sauce. Scrumptious.
Going to have my snacky and a chat with mum, then off to bed it is for me! Sweet dreams!
Love, Magdelene
<3
Oh how I adore quizes…they make me feel so productive ;)
favorite foods to crunch:
Crisp apples! And crunchy PB <3
OH! And nuts in general. Love me some nuts!
favorite comfort foods:
pumpkin, oatbran/oatmeal, wholemeal bread
favorite picnic lunches:
The only picnic I had was in primary school, on an excursion to the zoo. We sat in an air conditioned pavilion and ate our lunches/snack(?) that our mums had made-mine had a kit kat bar inside (the one with the paper sleeve and foil packaging, before they changed the wrapping) that had half melted :]
favorite food related lyrics:
Uh. The only food related song I can think of now is Hot Cross Buns.
best food smell memory:
Waffles fresh off the pan!
best summer snack:
Hey, it’s always summer here in Singapore (except for this crazy rainy month). Anyway, it’s probably iced milo in little paper cups from the milo van! We always had those vans during sports days, and me and my friend would totally have cupfuls of the stuff.
favorite winter snack:
WE DON’T HAVE WINTER. BAH. But I like drinking a hot Starbucks drink when overseas in the winter.
foods that remind me of the ocean:
Seaweed? Haha.
most likely to eat for lunch:
This question is silly ;)
least likely to eat for lunch:
Dessert. lol.
food that makes me gag:
Meat. And soygurt.
food tradition i love:
Chinese new year meals! I love how we meet up with our relatives yearly to have a nice meal and chat. Oh and the goodies on the tables when we visit.
food tradition i loathe:
Got to be the use of meat in celebrations. Bak Kwa? Turkey? WHY?
Meh.
favorite wild foods:
sushi, hummus, falafel, and wild mushrooms? idk what a wild food is!
favorite medicinal foods:
those chinese herb things you find in herbal chicken…wolfberries and thingums.
food that reflects my heritage:
everything chinese(hakka especially) and singaporean lol. just google.
OHOH! Suan Pan Zi (Abacus) -A dish of flattened chewy flour discs stir fried with mushrooms, fungus, optional meat and other stuff I do not know. So yummy.
food most like me:
WUT? hahaha :D Banana? Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Geddit? Haha. Nah, not really. I’m slightly yellow on the inside too.
soup or salad:
Soup!
favorite breakfast foods:
OATBRANNN.
favorite ethnic cuisine:
EVERY TYPE.
favorite type of chocolate:
DARK DARK DARK. Maybe with nuts. Bittersweet.
favorite beverages:
H20. So refreshing.
smooth or crunchy peanut butter:
Munch crunch ;)
foods i hated as i child but love now:
Possibly most vegetably things and fruit. And any flavoured ice cream besides chocolate. Ha, I was a chocolate fiend!
foods i loved as a child but hate now:
Well, obviously anyhing meat based. I’m not really a picky eater.
weirdest food habits:
Ketchup with anything always sounds good! And I like to mix stuff together.
Fun eh? The quiz is from honeynutlo :)
Feel free to fill it in too!
<3 Magdelene
Hola Amigos!
(Wow it’s currently raining BUCKETS over here)
I’ve just come back from visiting the Body Worlds exhibition with my dad and little brother! For those who have yet to see it-SEE IT! It’s really meaningful and educational. Once you get over the initial queasiness of course. You get to see how the body looks like inside and how amazing it truly is.
There was a quote put up along with one of the exhibits that I would like to share:
Your body is the harp of your soul.
And it is yours to bring forth
sweet music from it
or confused sounds
Khalil Girbran (1883-1931)
Lebanese American Artist, poet and writer
It really served to remind me that our bodies are our responisbility. Treat your body right, for it’s the only one you have with which to express yourself and live life!
Well, after the exhibition, I am POOPED. It’s been quite a long day for me. I had to go down to the ICA (Immigration Checkpoint Authority?) to collect my new passport! My passport photo doesn’t look very amazing, but it is at least more presentable than my previous photo, which I took when I was 8. Notice how most passport photos look kind of washed out and unflattering? Or maybe it’s just me :/
We’ve actually planned on going to a plant nursery to get some planters so I can grow pumpkins(!!!) But it’s raining, so hopefully it’ll clear? Hah, I doubt it-it’s the height of the rainy season here in Singapore. The idea for pumpkin growing came about when I pressed a pumpkin seed into the soil of a potted plant in the kitchen a week or so ago. Then, yesterday, I realised that the seed had actually sprouted! There’s now a vine with a cute furry leaf creeping out of the pot :) Hopefully, I can start harvesting pumpkins by next year! Or however long it takes pumpkins to grow.
Well, onto the ‘oat bran’ in this post’s title. Okay, confession: I AM IN LOVE WITH OAT BRAN. Seriously. I had it for breakfast yesterday and my initial impression was like ‘ummm…’. BUT by the end of the bowl I was absolutely in LOVE. I had it for lunch. Then as part of dinner. And night snack. And for breakfast today. It’s like crack! I swear the manufacturers placed drugs in the package. It’s crazy. Omnomnomnomnom.
Have any of you gotten hooked on a type of food before? I had a weird kashi golean cereal craze a couple of months back where I could go through a box a week.And then there was that nut butter addicition…oh wait, that’s still going strong.
Oh, the rain has stopped! YESYES! DO THE HAPPY DANCE! Okay, technically, it’s still drizzling. But whatever. I shall now wake my dad from his slumber and away to plant land we go!
(I shall go to bed dreaming of pumpkins and oatbran :) But hopefully not about the Body World’s exhibits coming to life. Eeee. )
Have a sunny day!
<3 Magdelene
HAPPY DANCE!
