not in the right frame of mind.. too free.

The recent garmen land authority $11.8m fraud sent chills down my spine. It's freakin' eerie that with such mountainous bureaucracy in garmen sector, people still have the audacity and free time to commit fraud. These people are MAD. Everyday I'm already so busy fighting the bureaucracy at work, can't imagine people have time to analyse and think of how to make money out of it.

Makes me feel that perhaps all the super layers & weeks I have to go through to get ONE freakin paper / email / memo /whatever, approved... is not that foolproof. If men is determined to cheat, they will be able to find loopholes to do that. Greed will help them. Systems and processes are man-made afterall.

And yes, it's testimony to my belief of 'you spend what you earn'. The more you earn, you also will spend more. Fraudsters can never resist the temptation to splurge their ill gotten gains on material wants, even knowing it'll draw unnecessary attention to that criminal acts.

Now... I'm just praying fervently that this idiotic incident will not affect the processes at work. I can imagine agencies starting to relook into their processes and reving up measures in view of lessons learnt from this incident. The snowball effect of such incidents can be scary. LTA's system is really robust I assure you. I seriously do not need a few more layers to further make the already decade approving process even more agonising.

We're over-worked. Who says garmen work is slack and not challenging. Come join me. We have LOTS of vacancies.

new gears

A steal! A steal! $120 NETT for a pair of NB running shoes, a stylo top and a pair of shorts with a slim pocket for my nano! A steal a steal! happened to see a NB booth at wisma and thought it was really value for money. Motivated to go for a jog immediately! nice sports gear really energizes me. yay....

Minced Beef Shepherd's Pie

Me and ES are trying to break the mochi's guinness record. We've been spending every weekend cooking! yes. amazing. I hope we keep up this passion and soon before you know it, we'll be competing in iron chef. woohoo.

Anyway, we've been attempting western cusines due to the influence of all the american culinary shows. Should try whipping up some simple homemade dishes soon which is less time consuming and more practical as daily meals. My dream is to be able to serve my mama san a real chinese homemade dinner. Akan Datang!

I've finally fulfilled my dream of making shepherd's pie. Beef is usually used for shepherd's pie. But I'll attempt chicken next time. ooohh.. and guess which part of the pie I love the most? The mashed potatoes. I'm a carbo fanatic. It's nice though. Loved the texture and it was pretty flavourful coz I used lots of herbs, black pepper and thyme for the beef.

~ furla...I kept this much for U! too bad....lalalala.~

~ ES boiled these crayfish which we caught the other day and stir fried it with butter and salt. really high in sodium but really tasty. Great appetizer.~

Easy Shepherd's Pie Recipe (courtesy www.simplyrecipes.com)
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 lbs ground round beef (marinated with salt, black pepper, thyme and italian herbs)
1 onion chopped
1-2 cups vegetables - I used peas
1 1/2 - 2 lbs potatoes (3 big ones)
8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup beef broth (I used chicken broth in replacement)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (omitted this coz I didn't have it! but still taste pretty ok)
Salt, pepper, other seasonings of choice

METHOD
1 Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes).
2 While the potatoes are cooking, melt 4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick) in large frying pan.
3 Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat (10 mins). If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

4 Add ground beef and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper. Add worcesterchire sauce. Add half a cup of beef broth and cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, adding more beef broth as necessary to keep moist.
5 Mash potatoes in bowl with remainder of butter, season to taste.

6 Place beef and onions in baking dish. Distribute mashed potatoes on top. Rough up with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. You can use the fork to make some designs in the potatoes as well.
7 Cook in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minutes if necessary to brown.

Serves four

more rooms pls.

the end of an eventful week. and end of a successful event on wed. but before that, I'll have to cross this hurdle called Friday. It will be a full day of meetings from 8.30am onwards. I very reluctantly squeezed in a last minute meeting at 5pm on fri. What can be better than to end the week with a late meeting.

Seriously, we need to build MORE meeting rooms. Supply do not meet the Demand. At ALL. either we cut down on meetings or build more meeting rooms. Since most meetings are usually verrrrry important and reaaaalllly urgent, that leaves us with the only choice of building more meeting rooms...which aint happening.

First lesson at hip hop and my greatest takeaway was the song!! N-Dubz - We Dance on. Googled and found out that it's the OST from Street Dance 3D.

A good song always saves my week, anybody's week.

Chicken burgers with garlic rosemary mayonnaise

ES was so determined to make our own burgers for Sun lunch that we spent Sat night fantasizing what burgers to make, what ingredients to buy and how tasty it would be. We finally chose this burger as it was aligned to our weekend theme - couch potato slackeee weekend. Took only about 20min to make, easy and tasted really good. Well, I guess anything with that dollop of mayo cannot taste that bad. Yep, quick recipe from FoodNetWork Asia. good for a lazy meal at home.

(Serves 2)

For the mayonnaise:

100g mayonnaise
10g chopped fresh rosemary leaves (or use ground italian herbs)
1/2 clove garlic, minced

For the burgers:
225g ground chicken
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 burger buns
2 tbsp olive oil (I prefer butter)
4 butterhead lettuce leaves

1 tomato (4 slices)

Method
1) For the mayonnaise: In a small bowl, mix together mayonnaise, garlic, and rosemary; set aside.

2) For the burgers: Preheat a griddle pan over medium-high heat. In a large bowl, add the ground chicken, salt, pepper, and 1/2 of the mayonnaise mixture. Using clean hands, gently combine the ingredients and form the chicken mixture into 2 patties. Place the patties on the pan and cook for about 7 mins on each side. Transfer to paper towels and let them rest for a few minutes.

3) Brush the cut side of each bun with the olive oil/butter and 1 tsp of the mayonnaise mixture. Toast for 1 to 2 mins until slightly golden.

4) Spread the remaining mayonnaise mixture on the tops and bottoms of the toasted buns. Arrange them according to your preference!! Top each with lettuces and tomato slices.

looks totally intentional..

This happened sometime ago but was probably too shocked at that time to bother about posting this. But yes, jaw-dropping kind of shock. I've got a nice little surprise from our very home-grown C&K brand when I bought a bag back some months back. First time buying a bag from there since they are more known for their shoes.

On the ropey strap was a strap pad to make carrying more comfy. Nothing was fishy till one day I noticed that the pad started moving alittle out of place and I gave it a hard push to move it back so that it fits nicely on my shoulder. It was pretty stiff and I gave it a harder push and I was appalled by what I saw.

Masking tape was coiled around the strap which showed the broken rope beneath it. Manufacture error? I don't think they programmed the machine to mask the strap as part of the design lor. And now the pad which I thought was meant to make it more comfy seemed more like was to cover up for the broken strap. What was more incredible was that when I went back to the shop for an exchange for the same bag (coz I really liked the design!!) thinking that ONLY mine was faulty, the salesgirl took the same bag from the display shelf and upon sliding the pad, I saw the familiar masking tape staring at me. She was shocked too and told me that she'll call other branches to check if they have the same bag and to check if they are alright. And yep, they were all faulty.

They offered to allow me to change the bag to another design which I wasn't appreciative of at all since none of the bags really appealed to me. They gave me 2 weeks to do the exchange. Trying to act like a mystery customer audit shopper, I went to almost any CK store I happened to pass by during that 2 weeks to see if they have removed this bag from display. For 2 weeks since my complaint, the bag was still happily on display. I approached a salesgirl and told her that the bag was faulty (I showed her the broken strap) and asked why was it not removed. What if another customer buys it?? She told me in a matter-of-fact manner that they KNEW about it but have not received OFFICIAL instructions to remove it from display. "After 2 weeks???" I asked her. She said, "ya, so we cannot remove. M'am, would you want to choose a replacement bag?"

I was grossly disgusted but just didn't bother anymore to argue with her. Shouldn't store managers be given the empowerment to remove goods which could potentially invite complaints from customers? At least customers like me who already became victims can receive some consolation that they are minimising the damage. The damage wasn't just a broken seam or a stain. It seemed like they had produced 1,000 of these bags, found that the straps were damaged and then mass rectified it by masking taping it and added a pad to cover it up. Cheaters.

I decided to boycott their bags ever since. My first time and last time CK. Thanks for the wonderful experience. Think you've made enough money from the blisters-inducing rock hard shoes you make. A better idea would be stop producing bags and to direct more resources to making your shoes more comfy. Better than selling bad quality shoes AND bags.

I am proud to be a SG

Specialist Generalist. How a fellow SG friend described himself. He's in the midst of job hunting as his contract has ended. I could totally identify with him. He articulated the words with lots of conviction, even seeming a little proud, but the strength gave way to a cynic smile that followed.

To put it in layman terms, we specialise in being general. Everyone can be a specialist! Yep, back to to the term, I feel the same. Never regretted taking arts in Uni. I enjoyed it. It is the frustration of job hunting which really strangles and I wished to see more of "Degree in any discipline" in those job adverts.

Sometimes I think that it's as good as it gets. I've survived 3 years and there must be something that keeps me going. It might be corny but I suspect that it's coz of the bigger purpose in what I do everyday, knowing that my work would indirectly, in some remote way or another, bring about a better life for everyone. I think this bigger purpose is probably what attracts a SG. SGs are emotional people I think.

I'm in one of those positive, life is good moods again. Could it because of the short week ahead? High chance.

Selamat Hari Raya!

Chestnuts 2010

Caught 'Chestnuts' over the weekend. Thanks Matt for recommending this really hilarious play. I liked it! Mirroring our little red dot politics, the latest craze, the hottest national events, pop culture and hit right on bull's eye, what it means to be singaporean. This year, being roasted were Glee, Nightmare on Elm street, NDP, iphone craze, the controversial YOG cheer, fried rice paradise, the flooding, Inception, lady gaga and the return of Wrist Low's sister, Ivory Low Ai Q.

Though the parodies might not come through for some of the themes (e.g. I don't watch Glee and nightmare...), the casts' commendable acting pulled off, making the show as enjoyable as it was to others who could relate to the stories.

The play of words, the witty humour, the clever exchange of expressions, the chemistry among the casts, the carefully choreographed dancing with the right music, and behind it all , a great scriptwriter. Enough reasons to keep me in anticipation for next year's show.

Kudos to the team!

Sausage Risotto

Finally, we made risotto after getting the aborio rice from holland V cold storage. Yep, not all cold storage sells this italian short grain rice since it's not really commonly used. Includes ingredients like white wine, green peas,thyme etc. stuff really exotic to me. First time doing this and I suspect that I did not use enough chicken broth hence, the taste wasn't fantastic. It took some time to cook down the broth as well and I added in a bit of water since the rice wasn't cooked well and I've ran out of chicken broth. I don't really like sausage in it and if I do try making it again, I'll probably replace it with ham or bacon. Cooking is all about improvising it to suit your tastebuds.

The recipe if you would like to try. We scaled it to 2 pax portion but it was still a bit too much rice for us. Asians really eat like birds.

Risotto Recipe (serves 2)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 (16 ounce) package al fresco® All Natural Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage
• 1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
• 1-1/2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup Chardonnay or other dry white wine
• 1-3/4 cups chicken broth, low-sodium
• 1/2 cup frozen petite sweet peas

1. In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Saute sausage and onion until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and thyme and cook until garlic is fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add rice and wine; stir 1-2 minutes or until wine is absorbed.

2. Stir in 1 cup broth. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until broth is absorbed, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Continue adding stock, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring until liquid is adsorbed and rice is tender and creamy, about 5 minutes.

3. Stir in peas and 1/4 cup Parmesan; cook 1 minute or until heated throughout. Season with 1/4 tsp black pepper. Garnish with parsley and remaining cheese. Serve immediately.

Cha Cha Cha @ Holland Village

I'll be back. With more friends. To share! Just like most mexican restaurants, the portions are generous. Definitely not for those who just wants a snack. Cha cha cha is located at holland village and I think one of the better restaurants there. I'm a fan of mexican food, which essentially also means I'm a fan of carbo, starchy and beans stuff.

It's a pity that only ES and myself were there coz the portions and variety on the menu means it's perfect for large group gatherings.

~ our main course.. love the beans~

~ sweet strawberry margarita...my fave alcoholic drink~

~ the nachos were really finger lickin good! this is just the appetiser..huge.~