October 2009
21 posts
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Early morning fishing
I went to Billingsgate Market this morning, early this morning; Evonne picked me up at 5:15 and it took about 45 minutes to get there even though it was only around Canary Wharf and there’s hardly any traffic in the early mornings. It wasn’t very crowded, wasn’t dirty, but my coat does smell of fish and I need to dry clean.
I didn’t buy anything because I don’t...
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Il est arriveé!!!
Mon nouveau livre de recette Laduree Sucré est arrivé hier.
My new recipe book Laduree Sucré arrived yesterday. It’s beautiful. It has its own gold-embossed Laduree box, like the ones the macarons come in. The book is wrapped in lilac tissue paper and covered in a light sage green velvet with gold embossing on it, the pages are edged in gold.
I can’t wait to try out the recipes....
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What makes Chinese cooking Chinese?
Stir fried glass noodles with bacon, sausage meat and veggies. I had some leftover bacon and sausage but didn’t feel like eating ang moh food. I also had siew bak choi leftover from a previous steamboat dinner. So I mixed the two and the end result was a rather Chinesey noodle dish with bacon and sausage meat. Hah! I think it’s the soy sauce, sesame oil and sesame seeds that make the...
Gifts from home
I received my care package from home today. EL and gf came over for dinner and brought 2 bags of goodies from my parents and my twinnie. (No prizes for guessing who got me the shoes!) My dad got me the M-mount adapter so that I can now use my Nokton 50mm f1.5 lens with my G1. I got Famous Amos cookies and bak kwa as well.
The shoes are beautiful. I was just thinking recently that I needed a...
my own space
So I’ve finally bitten the bullet and bought myself a domain name. It didn’t cost a lot - about two large coffees for two years - and I thought it’d be cool. Some studio company in LA bought all the kayspaces - .com, .net … so I bought myself a .co.uk one because I really liked kayspace. So my new home is
kayspace.co.uk
but you needn’t bother about typing coz it...
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Cocktails & company
Entertaining and having friends over is easier with experience. Last week, we had a night of cocktails to celebrate a host of events - the weekend, great company, a late mid autumn festival and Sue’s birthday. Just a few days before, we decided to make it a cocktail night! Saturday morning we went grocery shopping for a champagne glasses (which we didn’t end up using), alcohol,...
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I WANT this!
I cook a lot and sometimes my hands get dirty. Lever taps are great. They are a huge improvement over traditional turn taps which you need to grasp with your (dirty) hand/fist. But these touch taps - perfecto!
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Lille: for the love of food
They don’t have lattes in France. They call em café au laits.
Our first proper meal in Lille. We’d been walking all day and snacking along the way - pain au chocolats, macarons, tartes de pomme and loads of coffee. When we finally decided it was time for lunch, many restaurants had closed after the lunch hour. I really wanted crepes so we went round looking for some. This place...
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The Icecreamists
We didn’t plan on going to The Icecreamists, a guerilla ice cream installation only at Selfridges (at least until 1 Nov or till they move on to another location or open a permanent shop). But we were at Selfridges, in the basement, shopping and saw a small queue forming outside the entrance to a dark space. We’d known about them for a while and decided to give it a whirl since it was...
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Catch up at the Coach & Horses
We caught up with Sam and Winnie at the Coach and Horses last week! Even though Winnie came over two weeks ago it feels as if I haven’t seen her in ages! And Sam had just returned from his round the world trip so it was a good catch up over great food.
Chatting with Sam on IM one day, we realised that both Andrew and he had the Taste London card, won from a Time Out draw where 1000 cards...
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Windows and doors
Walk through Lille and you’ll see a great many interesting building facades. I, particularly, like windows and doors with interesting detail.
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Cold autumn days
Crowded and cold today. The warmer days of summer just disappear into colder autumn ones; it didn’t seem like a smooth transition this year. Even daylight seemed to have disappeared suddenly with 6 a.m. starts now shrouded in shadow.
The. 8.10 train is strangely packed though maybe there isn’t a ‘normal’ on the TFL. People in grey and black coat uniforms, expressions ...
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Lille: people people people
Although the weather wasn’t great when we went (lots of rain, we had to take out the umbrellas), people shots were quite interesting. And colourful.
My parents on our first day in Lille. The ground was wet and the rain had just stopped after our mad dash from the train station to the apartment where we were staying. I love this shot because my parents look so small in a large space. My...
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Lille: window shopping
Also known as “lèche-vitrines” which literally translated means “licking windows” for obvious reasons. My pictures and posts on Lille have are long overdue and the initial thought of writing in French is now only a mere thought from a faraway place. So not in chronological order at all, Lille - from a window licking perspective
The frame shop was closed but hanging in...
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More rituals
Over the weekend, I added lots more vegetables to the meals that I’d ordinarily have. Today, I put into practice more of what I learn at the Energy Project.
Exercise more - I went to the gym, ran 4km, 3 of which were run non-stop and the 4th on an incline
Breakfast - I had a bacon & egg on toasted brown bread. A ‘reward’ for having woken up at 6 am when it was still dark to...
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A ritual: eat more vegetables
I went to “fat camp” last week. It was actually a 3-day workshop/programmme, sponsored by work, that’s all about “fuelling sustainable high performance.” The objective is to increase productivity/performance at work but as people are an organisation’s biggest resource these days, sustainable high performance starts with you.
One of my rituals was to eat more...
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New camera weekend and miscellaneous stuff
With my cake and photography money, I got myself a new G1. My ex-boss who was travelling to London helped bring it over from my dad last week and this week was a G1 weekend. I’m still using the kit lens (f=14mm to 45mm, F3.5 wide - F5.6 tele) but I can’t wait for my dad to send the adapters over with EL that will allow me to use my Nokton lens with it.
Here’re a few shots at...
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My London
London is pretty amazing. Some days like today, when it’s grey and chilly, there’s still something that makes London amazing. One of those things is sunshine. Everything looks better in the sun. And on nice fall days (I detest the word “autumnal”) even cold London days seem okay.
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Woodbridge in the fall
Beauty in the English countryside.
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A mid autumn streamboat dinner
Two of the things surrounding the mid autumn festival are lanterns and togetherness. We did that on Saturday night over a steamboat dinner (thanks to Winnie and her travelling electric steamboat pot), with Christmas lights adorning our make shift sideboard where all the food was placed because the table is really meant for 4 but sat 7. I made lanterns, like the ones we made in primary school...