Find myself in constant daydream these days. I’d be able to sit down and stare into nothingness and just think about things.

There’s not terribly much to get me excited over these days. The days are routine and with the sun rising earlier, I get up earlier as well, but there feels like a lack of accomplishment. I recall when I used to be able to turn ideas into form and function. Now the ideas just get lost in a sea of other ideas. Maybe I’m a little tired out, wanting some totally different experience altogether.

Was at Borders reading about Tobie Puttock and his background as a chef. He is currently famous for getting Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant running in Melbourne. What fascinated me was the idea that one could go to a provincial town, and work cooking shifts as an apprentice while spending his free time snowboarding off the snow mountains nearby. I think he stayed there for 6 months, and left the area proficient in pasta making as well as speaking Italian. The head chef there told him he’d speak to him in English for two weeks, after that, he’d only speak to him in Italian. Heh, the only way to learn a language is to use a language.

Food and cooking fascinate me a lot these days. You can see it from what I keep in my pantry, from cumin powder/garam masala to dried shitake mushrooms/five spice powder to capers/olives and basil etc. Heh, applying all my learning skills to understand how cooking works. Lament at my kitchen for lacking a proper gas stove. Electric stoves just don’t generate the kind of heat needed for certain dishes (especially Chinese ones where you quickly toss the food up, it’s the uber heat that cooks it quickly while retaining the flavours/juices of the meats/vegetables). Just last night I tested adding corn to the soy soup base and it really enhances the taste. The idea was taken from seeing corn added to miso soup noodles in local Japanese restaurants, so the idea had some merit. Heh. Also made tonkatsu with some Japanese breadcrumbs and premium pork eye fillet (alas, no pictures, was hungry!). Had a disaster with meat a few weeks back when I bought the cheapest cut of meat available. There was a big chunk of it, but it was intended more for stewing and no amount of chewing reduced the meat into small sizes possible for swallowing.

Cooking is very much a trial and error process. Heh, but as long as there’s someone to eat my cooking (me and Vyanne, who also gives me interesting ideas when I see her cook) I am quite motivated to learn new dishes. Heh.

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My friend’s shoes, so tidily lined up on the grass.