The Field Marshal

I miss my Blog Yes, it has been 2 weeks since I last laid eyes on my blog. Doesn't feel that long to me since I have been up to my neck with housing stuff and the wedding. Caught up with the happenings with the rest of my fellow bloggers via their blogs. Glad to see that they are all alive and kicking. My life is just a blur of making arrangements for deliveries and running all over Singapore looking for the furniture to make my house a home. Glad to say that the effort made were well rewarded. I am happy with all the stuff delivered to my place so far. The only disappointment is perhaps the microwave oven with the biggest and fattest arse I ever seen. Darn! But it still serves it purpose lah. For that I forgive it for it big ass. Apart from these mundane happenings, Mydaemon and I have been attending the Marriage Preparation Course conducted by the Catholic Church. Being the lazy, skeptical and efficient me, I was not really interested in it. But marrying in the church requires a certificate, a la COE style, for the non-Catholic partner, we have no choice but to sign up for this course. Conducted at my old school, SJI, the talks were pretty ok lah. Nothing new that I have not heard of. But there are still gems of wisdom in the sessions we have attended. Perhaps the one thing that caught my imagination thus far is that fact that, "Love is not a feeling", but "A Decision". Hmmm, being the slow ponderous thinker, this statement baffled me for a while till good old Mydaemon enlightened me. And who says that guys aren't creatures of logic. Whatever. Anyway, I think love is in itself a feeling. But the act of loving another person is a decision. Love doesn't just well up at the sight of a loved one. If that's the case why do we feel anger, hurt, jealousy, among other feelings, even when we relate to our loved ones. Yes, love is a conscious decision, a reality that has been lost through countless celluloid depictions of this venerable emotion in Hollywood. I, for one, can attest to the above. On many occasions when I don't feel all lovey dovey to Mydaemon, a contest of wills take place in my mind. On one side, my mind is telling me that I am a nasty person if I take the hurtful way of handling things. On the other side is the prompting to do it the loving way, even though ego is bruised and pride is hurt. I have to admit that on many occasions I chose the hurtful way of doing things. For that, I am very sorry. But as I grow older, the strength to do the right things is stronger. Is it because the root of our love has taken a stronger hold of my heart? Or is it because I learnt from experience? I sincerely hope it is the former.

Cooking Porridge Living in this modern day and age, cooking dinner is something which a lot of couples dread upon reaching home after a hard day's work. Well that doesn't really apply to Mydaemon and I. We enjoy cooking nice dishes for dinner, as a sort of a reward, after a tiring day in office. Yes, we are actually working hard nowadays. Anyway, dinner would usually consist of a vegetable, soup, and meat dishes. Top it off with a bowl of rice and we have a nice hot meal. But I cannot deny that working life really restricts our creativity in our meals. Since we usually reach home around 7pm or later, it is often difficult to prepare the ingredients and cook them thereafter. Thus dinners could start as late as 7.45pm on some days. Something which I don't really relish since I am more often than not hungry by then. I found one way of circumventing this. The solution is simple. Just cook a huge pot of porridge. Being an advocate of healthy and easy to cook meals, let me share with you Fieldmarshal's very own chicken porridge recipe. Fieldmarshal's Favourite Porridge Ingredients 1 Chicken thigh (remove skin if one is in 'healthy' mood) 4 Cloves of garlic Half carrot (big) 1 Stick of celery 4 Slices of ginger (skinned) 6 Mushrooms (dried or fresh) Hua Diao wine Sesame oil Dark soy sauce Fish sauce White pepper 1 Cup of fragrant white rice 2 Cabbage leaves or 1 '高山娃娃' 3 Tablespoons of dried shrimps Preparation Season the chicken with 2 tablespoons of wine, 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, put in the ginger slices, 2 to 3 dashes of sesame oil and pepper. Stir the ingredients with hand till they are evenly mixed. Leave seasoned chicken in the fridge, for 2 hours or more, to let it absorb all the seasoning. Cut the carrots into cubes. Size is up to you. Slice the celery into small pieces. Just cut across the celery and you have a beautiful 'U' shape. Soak the mushrooms (if they are dried ones) and slice them into thin strips when they are soft. Cut the cabbage into bite-sized pieces. Cooking Instructions Bring water to boil. Put in the chicken and garlic. Once the water boils again, put in the rice. Washed mind you. You do not want to eat rice weevils and what not. As there's already seasoning in the chicken, make sure that you don't put in too much of the other seasoning. The amount of seasoning will depend on the amount of water and rice. Pour in the rice (washed) and stir. Make sure that you stir regularly as the rice will get burnt if you let it settle on the bottom of the pot for too long. Once the water boils again, put in the carrots as they take the longest to cook. Also add in the mushroom at this point of time. Keep stirring. Now you will put about one tablespoon of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon hua diao wine, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and few dashes of pepper. Taste to add more if necessary. Bring the water to boil again. Add the celery into the now boiling porridge. Continue stirring. The process above takes around 20-30 minutes. The porridge gets thicker as the water evaporates. As I prefer to eat porridge which is gluey and dried, my advice is to keep stirring till you achieve such a nice texture. Add more water if you prefer the watery sort. The cabbage is added around 10 minutes before the porridge is ready. By this time, the rice is all cooked and the porridge is quite 'thick'. Don't forget to keep stirring it! The porridge is ready to be served once the cabbage is cooked. Enjoy!

ToTo Hong Bao Draw With 10 million bucks at stake for this Friday's ToTo Hongbao draw, everyone just wants a piece of the action. Thought that by leaving office slightly earlier for lunch would allow me a quick sortie into the Singapore Pools outlet near my office. Alas, how naive I was. There was already a long queue snaking from the outlet way before I can actually see the shopfront. With that, my dream of being an instant millionaire went up in a puff of smoke. Being a non-gambler, one that bets less than 5 times a year, I have to admit that I was all caught up by the allure of this upcoming Hong Bao draw. Yeah, I am a greedy bugger. But hey, find me someone who's not greedy. The rich wants to get richer while normal blokes like me just can't get enough moolah for daily expenses. Actually, I have enough lah. Just that have some spare cash lying about ain't that bad an idea. Well not all hope is lost. There's this Pools outlet near my place...

Shopping for Home Stuff You know what? Shopping for home stuff is one of the exhilarating activity one can engage in. It is the one point in our lives when we can spend as if there's no budget. It's like a neverending dream for me. Let me repeat it again. It's THE experience of the lifetime. While I ain't no millionaire, it is darn satisfying to splurge spend hard earned budgeted money on lots of fun stuff. Boy, I feel like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory! Try it and you know what I mean. It's like buying an Ipod again and again and again. My most satisfying purchase to date is the 40-inch Sony Bravia V-series LCD TV. While it did put a dent in my wallet, I consider every cent well-spent. Being a movie xiao, a large screen will do justice to all the dvds I have collected over the last few years. I can't wait to see Frodo and company journey once again in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Throw in a decent Pioneer home entertainment system and I have a mini movie cinema in the middle of the living room. Sigh...