Thursday, March 22, 2007

Joan in the Kitchen

Gabriel brought me to the German supermarket on Tuesday so I could get my fix of Schwarzwälder Schinken or Blackforest Ham, and while I was there I got a pack of cheese sausages too, and because I was too paiseh, Gabriel helped me ask the lady if they'd bring in fresh white asparagus during the asparagus season, and indeed they will from mid April to mid June, so mark down in my calendar (yea, right, like I have one) and I'll make yet another trip to the German supermarket and buy the fresh white asparagus and more Schwarzwälder Schinken. (phew, one long sentence, noticed that?) They'll cost me a bomb, but I'm sure it'd be well worth the price even if I've to cook it myself.

I miss Germany, I miss Freiburg.

It's been seven months since I last ate this man. And I used to like eat it every day for four whole months when I was in Germany. The Blackforest Ham was so cheap there, and it costs so much here in Singapore. One small pack which allowed me to eat four pieces of those bread costs $7+++, but I tell you, it was so good, so good, so good. Luckily I managed to save some butter if not I don't know how am I to eat those bread. Ya, I very seldom eat bread and I don't eat butter at home, I don't eat butter because I don't eat bread, so we don't buy butter, so, you get it la... Anyway, the butter I used was koped from the hospital when my grandfather was still sick. He never ate it, so I brought them back, cannot waste mah...

The main point today isn't about the ham, it's about my dinner. Knowing that I had sausages, I decided that I was going to cook tonight's dinner, after all the parents were out and I'm hungry, and it's been a long time since I last cooked. I really like cooking, but I hatehatehate the washing up part, which makes me often too lazy to even bother to cook. But some times, certain foods, I have to cook myself because nobody else know how to cook it. wahaha~

I came home to my younger sister who has already eaten instant noodles (how sad her life is) so she doesn't want anything else, so I started making the food I like. Seeing the commotion, the sister came in to the kitchen to watch me cook, and started bitching about everything possible.

Let's face it, everyone knows that I'm the most lup sup person on earth so that's no big deal, but but but the sister has OCD and is a cleaniness freak. The fun part about this mismatch is that everytime I want something from her, I just have to threaten to hug her (after she has bathed and before I bathed) and she'll agree to everything I want.

I took out the frying pan and heated it up on the stove immediately. "Why you never wash the frying fan?" screamed my sister. I ignored her.

I took out the sausages, opened up the package, took out some kitchen towels to dry them. "Why you never wash the sausages?" yea... That's something my mother always nags me for not doing but I've never had lausai because of this so why bother.

Then I clipped up the opened package with those handyclips and stuffed them back into the fridge. "You have to use rubber band for raw food!" screamed the sister yet again. "Mummy only use the clips for cooked food, raw food need to use rubber band."

"Why?" I asked. "I'm clipping only the exterior of the packet, not say will touch to food itself."

"Mummy say one!"

"Crap la..." then I ignored. Tying with rubber bands is so tedious, someone so lup sup like me won't do it lor.

*continued nagging from the sister*

Then added the oil, lowered the fire, waited for it to heat up. And I remembered why I don't cook as often as I'd like. I hate the smell of liquid gas. It makes me giddy. If I want to commit suicide it'll be very convenient, but as for now, I'd really want an electric stove. Can someone buy me an electric stove, and an electric grill? Pweety please~ My mother says we have an electric grill, but I think that she meant that we have a teppanyaki. We never used it anyway.

Then I added in the sausages. It splattered, but I siam-ed in time. "You didn't dry the sausages well la." the naggy person nagged even more.

"I did lor. I took two pieces of kitchen towels somemore."

"You should press it hard on the sausages, all over them rather than dabbing the sides only. You so lousy la you."

Crap... I'm not hurt and my sausages are cooking so talk so much for what, not as if that the naggy person is cooking instead, nor that she wants to help me cook instead.

Then I got a plate and likewise skipped the washing part and straightaway dished my sausages. "Why you never wash the plate?" Bah, I'm to tired to argue. The food goes into my stomach and not hers so why talk so much.

Seeing that I have some oil left in the pan, and two sausages doesn't make a dinner, I decided to fry some eggs. I took two eggs out from the fridge, out of politeness I asked the nag queen if she wanted any too, negative, so nevermind. Meanwhile, while I cracked the eggs in a bowl (I can't do it straight in the pan, I don't know why), I left the stove on with the oil.

"Why is this place so stinky ah? Wah lau... You didn't open the window! This whole place is so smokey lor. Go open the windows!" screamed the nag queen.

"You nothing to do you go open lor." answer me. Like I'd do something so out of the way.

Then after frying the eggs, I added the remaining two pieces of Blackforest Ham inside the eggs. I had wanted to scramble the eggs but forgot to shred the ham, so I thought I was going to make omelette, but well, my brain couldn't decide what I was making to the end product was scrambled eggs with the ham sticking out like a sore thumb. The omelette was an utter failure.

"You shouldn't stirfry the eggs la, you should let it harden then put in the ham then fold up the egg. Like that now the ham looks like shit like that..." yadayada on and on.

The end product.
Looks more like breakfast than dinner though. I can dish up loads of nice breakfast, and I really enjoy a nice breakfast be it western or chinese, but the problem is that I'm seldom up early enough for proper breakfast. diaoz... Actually on the bus I had wanted to make eggs in a basket but I had too much bread this afternoon so I decided to give the carbos a miss, maybe this weekend when there's not naggy people around then maybe I'll do what I want to the kitchen.

Really la, that stupid girl, think she's my mother or what, whole day nag nag nag. Oh yar, just now while I was eating, she was complaining that I didn't close the kitchen door, and neither had I opened the kitchen windows and those whole house is smokey, blah blah.

I ignored her and started telling her about this coming April when it's the Spargel (asparagus) season, I'd go down to the German supermarket and buy more asparagus and blackforest ham and will stirfry them with egg and some other ingredients and it's so yummy. My German housemate taught me that, and I've been so in love with that dish ever since. It's the only thing that I've cooked for people (two of them on different occasions somemore lor) and they said it was nice. wahaha~

This is how my favourite German dish looks like~

Can't wait for this April~
Anyone wants to savour Joan's lovely (unhygenic, but I assure you won't lausai one, I never had lausai from my own food ever before) cooking, please make prior arrangements with me. I only charge the cost price of the cooking ingredients~ wahaha~

8 comments:

Isabelle, Singapore said...

Hey, if you don't mind I wanna go buy the groceries with u! I never really know how to choose the good stuff because all the European words look the same to me, and all the big chunks of European meat also look the same to me. So in the end I always shop one round at there, buy only sausages (whichever that is cheapest that day) and head to the nearby cold storage for seemingly cheaper fixes that look almost equally alike. Hah!

Anonymous said...

?? there's a german supermart and i didn't know about it? I think I really have to see it for myself.. where is it at?

As for the naggy person, seems every house will have one.. =P

xxoos said...

sure, no probbie~
most of the stuff are imported from germany so they're all written in german, but i noticed that the meat were from a local swiss butchery, so they're labelled in english. gotta love the swiss man... hehe~

xxoos said...

argh aikhui! you posted a comment the same time as me!

yup... there's a german supermarket, at bukit timah, two bus stops away from the btc, near the ntuc there, can take 151. erm... i'm bad at these sort of directions, but i can bring you there~

actually hor, most of the time i'm also quite naggy at home, but more to my mother than to my sister. i nag at my mother so that she will become damn sian then won't nag at me. wahaha~ my sister is immuned to nagging, darn those teens, can't do the same thing to her, but she can nag at me to keep me from talking. grr...

hmm... seems like my house got three naggy people... sad sia... haha~

Anonymous said...

haz.. seems we are online at the same time.. wanna my msn?

nooneathome_84@hotmail.com

xxoos said...

i'm not on msn now leh... still stuck in school, wasting time till my next lesson. i add you when i go home ba~

Hermit said...

I want I want!!!

xxoos said...

okie~
next month ba... when the spargels come in~