F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

I love house parties - so I have realised about myself. It is really fun to invite friends over and have a meal or just drinks and a good chat.

The Yeti was finally home safe last Friday, and we also found out that one of our friends recently found a new job, so I decided I wanted to throw a party to celebrate Julien's home coming and Jimme's new found job. And I wanted to make it a surprise!

I could tell I was an amateur at this because I called my friends Gen and Yihmay, and told them about this concept on holding a surprise party.. so Yihmay went, "Okay so when are you going to hand us your house keys and when should we come by the house?" - I have not thought about that. Since it was a party for both Jimme and Julien, it was going to be a tricky situation to make it a surprise for the both of them..

First, Jimme was Yihmay's boyfriend, so if Yihmay was coming to the house, then Jimme would have to come along too, and he would know there was a party going on. Second, there was no way I could take time off Julien to buy the food for dinner. Even if I managed to sneak some time off to buy enough food for 5 people, he would know straightaway once he opened the fridge. I had thought up an excuse to tell him it was just groceries that would last a week... but I didn't believe myself even. So I canned the whole idea of making it a surprise. I told Julien the party was for Jimme and I told Jimme the party was for Julien. It was starting to get too complicated.

As usual, the other hiccup was that we had to change the party day to a Sunday instead of a Saturday, because Julien and I had forgotten that we had booked tickets to a piano concert on Saturday evening, before he left for France... how silly of us. So everyone was asking if they could come earlier since Jimme was starting his first day at work on Monday and he didn't want to be late for work from a hang over.

Overall, the party was GREAT! I was really happy with how the food turned out. We had Feta cheese and cherry tomatoes as a starter, and steak as a main course. Julien was initially suggesting that I made chicken instead since he had the privilege of having lots of red meat while in France. But we got good meat so the steaks turned out really well. I was really surprised myself. Steaks are really easy to make for parties in my point of view. They cook really fast and are easy to marinate. In Singapore, we usually marinate our meats. We hardly have them plain most times.

So that's what I did. We had salad, then I made the steaks on the spot so each guest had their steak fresh from the pan. They all enjoyed it I guess, since everyone finished their food. There was no left overs. Which is great! As the chef or the cook, the satisfaction comes from when people appreciate the food you make them. Gen bought two huge tubs of ice cream, so that's what we had for dessert. Ice cream with the chocolates that Julien brought back from France!

The evening was just perfect! Lots of talking and laughing. I felt really happy after. I was on an all time high....

Here's to more house parties!

Evil Dinner

I just had the worst dinner in my life. I had been wanting to make myself a meal for sometime now since Julien had left for Paris. So I decided to do so today. There was this packet of herbal satchets for making pork rib broth (very popular asian dish) that didn't sit well with Julien's acute sense of smell, so I thought I should take advantage of his absense at the moment and make myself a bowl! The menu I had in mind was steamed egg, rice and pork rib broth. That sounded really good (in my mind).

First mistake I made was to tear open that satchet. I had realised after that the ingredients in the satchet were not solvable in liquid and were meant to just flavour the pot of water that it was put into. Kind of like a tea bag. But the asian in me decided it wasn't a good idea to waste so i popped it in the pot of water anyway with that tiny opening thinking it wouldn't do that much harm.

The second mistake I did was to put the satchet in that pot for way too long. Like tea, the longer it stays in the pot, the stronger it flavours the water.. I had left it in there for about an hour, and the flavour of the herbs were overwhelmingly... bitter. So I had to correct it by dumping in spoonful after spoonful of salt to balance the taste out.

Next mistake I did was to choose to steam an egg than to fry the egg. I would've been eating it within 5 mins. But because I chose to steam it, I ran into this trouble of trying to find a bowl structured to fit the steamer (which we obviously do not have). I ended up trying to put that bowl over the pot of boiling broth which did start cooking the egg a little, only a tad too slow. After what seemed like 30mins, the egg was still retained it's liquid texture. I was starting to get frustrated and hungry. So I decided to change bowls or try to find a smaller one to fit the steamer.. that was when I tipped the bowl by accident, and lost my egg custard... half cooked at the bottom of the bowl. In the end, I made some sausages and had them with overly bitter broth and rice.

The good news was: I managed to feed myself still.

I miss my yeti....

Bachelor's party

Hi all,

As my beloved Tinker mentioned, I'm in France at the moment... I can't wait to be back in Singapore to give a big hug to my sweetheart.

And as was said in the last post I was cornered this week-end and boy it was fun.... for the others!

9.30 am Saturday my brother storms into my bedroom (I'm staying at my parent's place) and tells me to get up and dressed... I was really shocked but I managed to negotiate a shower and I stuffed my bag with different clothes. I even took my coat because I remember my other friend who was taken one week-end with only the clothes on his back almost died of cold on the beach in Dieppe. I didn't want that to happen to me.
We took the road and Matthieu asked me to set the GPS to Valmondois, a place where many of my friends live. I used to go there often when I lived in France. So I thought my friends were just going to get me drunk 2 days straight. But we took a turn and here we were in a paintball terrain in a forest... The first joke was that I was going to be sent in a field naked with a boulder tied to my leg and would have to run for my life. I wasn't naked, it was worse they gave me a bunny suit... I was going to be a target.
So here we are all geared up, them in military style green suits, and me in my bright white rabbit suit. They did gave me a gun and no boulder, I was lucky.
The paintball in itself was fun, but to all people who play it WEAR THICK CLOTHES! I still have nice round bruises all over my body. They're going to stay a while I fear.

After the game we had a nice lunch copiously topped with red wine and here we went to L'Isle Adam a town not far to which I'm familiar as well. I thought I'd be off the hook and just peacefully drink all the alcohol bought to me, but Thomas had a surprise for me...

He pulled out the same bunny suit out of his bag and a sign saying in French "I'm getting married, it's the crisis, help me". They gave me a basket full of condoms and I had to go sell them in the street... With kids running around me thinking I was the new clown in town. I forgot to say that my totem was a mop.
Some people were laughing a lot, a few completely ignored me, and a some men (usually the ones walking around with a woman roughly their age) told me I was insane to get married, and that I should run away while I still had time. I'm going to put that on the account of sarcastic jokes, but there were quite a number of them... Not very reassuring.

Anyway, this lasted a while with the highlight of a drunk Yeti moping in front of a blue car and then as he was going to the window to ask for a reward realised it was full of policemen. I wasn't arrested but they didn't give me money too used to give fines they are.

The afternoon was still young and the heat was getting unbearable so we decided to go for a fresh beer in a bar. I had to go to each table of the bar to get money by selling my condoms again. And after that I was given a rest until after dinner which we had in Paris.

The rest of the evening was a lot easier, I didn't have to wear my bunny suit anymore. I was so drunk at that point that it wouldn't have changed much.
The fun parts were when Thomas took out red cover with useless items that I had to sell. I didn't do very well, and the tourists around were not very receptive.
Then I was asked to play the guitar in front of a crowd gathered to listen to a real concert... I was way past any playing skills by the alcohol in my blood and I'm not sure if the crowd actually applauded...

The rest of the evening is a blur. A portrait of me was drawn, and more drinks were pored... I ended up in a bad state that I shall not recount here.

I would like to thank all the people present a the paintball and during the evening, I was glad to see you all even if we didn't manage to talk a lot. My special thanks go to my witness Thomas who organised all of this great day (for them!), mec fallait pas abandoner tes recherches d'appartement pour organiser tout ça. Finally, thanks to the photographers. You will find all the pictures here if you wish to see them.

Je vous kiffe tous et je vous fait une Henorme bise à chacune et à chacun. Désolé si j'étais vraiment trop bourré ce soir là.