( - though I probably shall not exclaim as I die - )

- "oh willow, LoudTwitter, tit willow."
[stereophilic twittery.]

[DJ is attempting to form a lattice on top of home-made cheesecake with chocolate sauce.]
D: Man, I'm sorry, this looks like s**t. It looks like someone doesn't even know what an edge is.
M: No, dude, it's okay man, it's chocolate sauce.
D: It's a member from U2 who's not Bono.
M: ...
D: ...the Edge, if you wanna know.
M: [laughs]
D: I can't believe it took you that long to get it.
M: No, I was contemplating whether there was a guy in U2 called 'Chocolate Sauce'.

It's been a bit and I have lots of food to talk about. Uh, first off, our first attempt as chicken adobo :



It was pretty pleasing, though - gasp, we shame our Azn heritage by thinking there was a bit too much soy sauce. I'M SORRY MY AZN HERITAGE. With a bed of fungi. We kinda scrimped on presentation for this one because we were eating on our own, as opposed to with Dad.

Then there's Father's Day, whereupon we gave up giving him things he wouldn't use and cooked instead. So cue Asiatic music here, and enter loads of saltiness and garlic. Bastardised chicken adobo, which as the title might tell you, was vastly changed from our prior attempt; my dad's favourite food [prawn] in a post-humous drunken state and boiled vegetables with garlic sauce :



( Details, details... )

You know, nowadays [past the crepe...] I'm quite pleased with Djinn's cooking, because I like knowing what's in my food and somehow I feel terribly, terribly healthy! Particularly since I actually eat more than usual when she does. Unfortunately this ended when she decided to do peach cobbler for Father's Day dessert.



AAAAAAAA.

( Just another shot of the peach cobbler in the pan, very yellow lighting. XD; )

I am a sucker for peach cobbler, with both a soft crust, a crispy top, and streusel over the top. Crunchy, sweet and very very bad. DDD:

Also, one more before I go, baked dory with aubergine pate and grilled carrots.



Dory turned out faboo and soft, the aubergine pate the first aubergine dish I've ever been willing to eat [done by Djinn in the traditional Chinese style - i.e. THROW EVERYTHING AT IT] and the carrot is the first carrot dish that Djinn has been willing to eat. Done to approximate Chef Rob's grilled carrot recipe. I can't tell you how much I love his show. XD

Okay, I've finally caught up on food. Now let's see how long it lasts...and let's see how many postcards I can drown under before I post them. XD;;;

So yesterday's dinner was fish – expensive cod, really, because my dad is picky and doesn't like salmon, which is somewhat less expensive. No matter, Djinn [ostensibly, we XD] set to work, and then all of a sudden seasoned cod and peach chutney came to be!!



Very tropical. XD That's guava orange juice. As terrifying as it sounds, it's not too terrible.

( Closeups of chutney and fiiish. )

Going to make midnighting crepe! This is a really bad habit.
[PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUTHIE. LAVA LAVA.]

Just as the above says, honey mustard chicken grilled, with garlic butter [without the butter] sauce on the vegs. It was good! [I'll omit Djinn's panic, shall I? XD] Flavaful, particularly when cooked. I foresee this in our future.

We had an extra piece, so it became 'savoury crepe' the next day for lunch:



- which was also very nice! It's a good way to get rid of leftovers in a light fashion. Me thinketh that more cheese, however, is required next time.

I'm sure you peeps are gonna get sick of me sooner or later... XD;;;

But tonight Djinn decided to attempt crepe in the middle of the night, so we did. It was a vaguely 'cooking with kids' session because I was in the way all of the time and futilely shaking flour from the sieve all over the place. XD Nevetheless, it proved quite interesting and sumptious in the end - it's the soft type of crepe, with some vanilla essence thrown in that gave it a nice taste on its own.

But crepe isn't really meant to be eaten by itself, so we basically abused whatever fruit and sauce we had in the house.
Actually, I forgot to mention that we did make some sauce, a honey cinnamon syrup. Other than that, we abused strawberries and bananas, promptly making it completely unhealthy with chocolate sauce and whipped cream [and the honey cinnamon syrup].





The one with honey cinnamon syrup drizzled all over it is mine, the one with chocolate drizzled all over it is Djinn's. I later spread some of that largely caramelised condensed milk on one, put banana in, folded it up and drizzled it with more honey cinnamon; it was quite successful. [We also tried some cream cheese with it, and concluded if we left out the sugar from the crepe it would be pretty suitable.] However, geh, no more than two crepes each. Now we're all deaded from being terribly full.

Well, crepe.

It's only fair to warn that I'll probably be updating with a lot of food because Djinn has gotten very culinary active this month. XD;;

On the morning of the 24th, Djinn decided to embark on scrambled eggs and pancakes since I'd bought some buttermilk pancake mix the other day. Accompanying the pancakes was some largely caramelized condensed milk, and apple slices.



They're small, gourmet pancakes. XD Our first ever!! [Pathetic city folk!!] The kitty cup holds extra caramel dip with a slice of apple fast-sinking into it.

( Another of the pancakes with a new serving suggestion, and the scrambled eggs. )

Then today, the 26th, Djinn set to work on beef stew after some heavy research and modification of recipes. We bought the cheapest beef we could find [which doesn't mean much, because it still came up to about $8…] and threw in a lot of red wine, and other various things. All I can really remember is being agitated cutting onions, which I hate doing and dislike eating anyway. Oh, and carrots flying about the place.

After a lot Djinn panicking [there's kind of a trend here, isn't there…] about whether the beef was going to be soft after a couple of hours, my dad hopped in the door cheerily and I picked up a chunk to taste. I was really astonished by how tender it actually became, just how I like it. [I'm pretty picky re: soft meat in stew, because I love things like beef rendang and other meaty soup/stew.] And it had a very flavourful sauce that thankfully thickened in the end. The vegetables were pleasantly soft as well.



Beef stew with largely carrots and potatoes [the juices are all below the surface XD], sprinkled with parsley.

( Just another one with a chunk of meat cut open. )

I'm not sure what Djinn has planned next, but I'm sure I'll find out soon. I just hope it doesn't have too much onion in it for me to deal with. D: Otherwise, I think it's pretty much guaranteed that anything we eat is going to have some wine in it. XD

So Djinn made an inspired dinner on Thursday, encouraged by the peeps on the Asian Food Channel who do a world of good to the [what I've experienced] Asian culinary world of ingredient estimation. We basically went out and armed ourselves with chicken, fruit, vegetables and God forbid - herbs - the day before, and then I spent most of Thursday prepping and Djinn does what the cook does: slack until everything is prepped. XDDD Well, no, she did other un-cook-like things, like skin potato and carrot.

After some estimation, two oranges, a bunch of herbs, wine, olive oil and I don't know what else later, Djinn turned to anxiety after marinating the chicken and we proceeded to do the rest with her being anxious over everything, but really, what's new? XD



The garlic butter rice and vegetables in cheese sauce! The vegetables consist of boiled potato, carrot and broccoli. That's about all we can tolerate, really. Except Djinn can't tolerate the carrot either. I boiled these! Except I think I made the potato a bit mushy.

( We ended up with…DINNER! Because I'm not quite sure what to call it. Zesty chicken with garlic butter rice and cheese-sauced vegetables? That really should be the description… )

And that concludes our kitchen experiment - for that day!!!

In other domestic news, the cat has been taking to my pillow next to sleeping Djinn after I wake up. Whenever he can get it, [with Djinn there] he'll be there. This of course, only happens when we let him in – we don’t let him in when we sleep, but often when he's let in he sleeps at the foot of the bed. Now he has migrated to doing what he did the very first time he slept in our bedroom; moving to my pillow and occupying my space.

I think…I think my cat wants to be me.
Henceforth he shall be dubbed, 'Personcat'!!!!

So I'll attempt to be a little less tardy and do the play-by-play of my big day right now.



( It really started at 12am. )

Prologue:
Thanks to –
♠ Joanne [fascimility]
♠ Bern [mushrooms]
♠ Feli [starsthatshine]
♠ Boudicca [pumabaerchen]
♠ Nat ie. Kiddo [bluestraggler]
♠ Phoenix/Nadia [pho3nix]
♠ Melissa [night_child80]
♠ Joyce [wispen]
♠ All my Gaia harem
- for extending my birthday another three days or so. XD

And an anecdote I must keep: On Saturday, the day after armed with my new garb, we went to HMV where Mainey works, and with the new Elbow album in hand, decide to go and coerce Mainey to use her employee's discount. She ducks out to assist someone, catches sight of us and exclaims to me, roughly shoving me to a side: "Did you see the guy wearing a Cech jersey?" She looks beyond me and says in disappointment, "Damn! He's gone!" She turns back and raises a hand to about my head level. "He's about this short –"

As the sinking feeling settles in both Djinn and my minds, Mainey squeals in deep and genuine surprise. "Oh!" She says. "It's you!"