Mondays
A shaver just for your head
I know a lot of useless things and it boggles me that I’ve never heard of a shaver dedicated to the human head until now.
And to think that I’ve been shaving my head for as long as I can remember - well, not technically shave, but actually cutting the hair using the lowest setting on a trimmer. So this leaves me with hair that grows back in about five days, and this is my trim cycle. I trim on Sundays to welcome the new work week.
I’ve been wanting a new trimmer since last year and I first looked at Manscape, but found that it was too focused on trimming your pubes and with the magic rabbit hole that is Google search, stumbled across a (local) site dedicated to just shaving and barbering implements.
And there it was, a device shaped like a flower or like a garlic bulb sliced neatly across that was just dedicated to shaving your head. The product I found was $140+ (the brand was Braun), but then I came across one being sold at Kmart for just $47, so I got the latter.
And it really sort of shaved, not trimmed. As it glides across the contours of your head, the multiple rotating blades spin, cutting hair as they make contact through the openings in the foil. The rotary design allows the shaver to follow the contours of the head closely, reducing the risk of cuts and providing a smooth shave. And it does this so closely, that you achieve the same effect as if you used a razor.
Detachment
At the gym, I’ve developed a habit of not putting my glasses on when I work out, and this is what the world looks like.
It’s funny to think that the last time I was at the gym, my eyesight was actually normal; and now I’ve discovered that the glasses get icky when you sweat, and it’s so much trouble wiping them off every so often.
So they stay inside my bumbag until I’m done and then I need them to do the NYTimes Connection game, which is enough time to cool down before heading home.
But this is not the only time that I deliberately choose to look at the world around me through blurred vision; I don’t use my glasses when cleaning the house, the kitchen or when I wake up at 5:15 am and stumble my way out of the bedroom to go upstairs for a cup of coffee.
It actually helps that during these moments, I don’t see things with clarity because the truth is, I don’t need to.
I don’t need to make eye contact at the gym, because I’m not there to make friends. I don’t need to see that we need to repaint the walls because that would mean doing it ourselves or paying someone $15k to do them, either of which we’re not prepared to do just yet. Same with the kitchen. And I don’t want to scroll through my phone so early in the morning to read about Palestine or another guilt trip that we’re not doing enough for climate change (sorry, it’s actually too late at this point).
Another long weekend
But this one falls on a Tuesday, so there’s work on Monday. Nearly everyone else has taken leave of course starting Friday so they get five days off. I have heaps of work so I haven’t, but it’s the kind of work day that feels leisurely; the weather is perfect, people are away relaxing and emails are few. What’s the hardship in that?
It’s so chill that I decided to treat myself to eat something even if I normally don’t eat anything until much later in the day. I also remembered that I had impulsively bought bread so I can’t have that go to waste. It’s good bread though and a sourdough. I normally trim off the crusts from supermarket loaves, but I make an exception with sourdough. The chewy, nutty crusts make for good sopping which in this case, are the tomato juices and the olive oil.
I grill the bread on a pan with butter on both sides; the topping is just sliced heirloom tomatoes, roughly chopped basil, more olive oil, pepper and plenty of sea-salt flakes.
What I ate (over the long weekend)
All Indian restaurants in Auckland seem to use the same recipe for their dishes which doesn’t really matter because 99% of the time, it’s good. It’s the kind of goodness that’s impossible to replicate. And don’t bother with pre-made mixes or sauces; they never come close to the real thing. And because the dishes seem identical wherever you buy them, I don’t quite remember where we get our favourite curries - mine is ALWAYS a lamb madras - except that it’s local. This is the one time I go all out on carbs - basmati rice and three garlic naan - because the sauce is so rich, that one serving (at less than $20 for the whole combo), lasts me THREE meals. People always joke about Filipinos eating a whole pot or rice with one cup of gravy and well it’s true. Very satisfying.
There’s a Malaysian restaurant that serves crispy chicken skin, but theirs is battered which in my mind, probably doubles up the fat content. Occasionally, I save the skin from my chicken and cook them in one go, but in the oven at a low temp until they’re completely rendered. I just season it with sea salt and pepper; dipping sauce is Pinakurat vinegar.
For Sam’s birthday dinner, we went to the most basic French restaurant there is Le Garde-Manger. But basic probably works because it has outlasted every other fancy French resto since opening in 2010. It probably defies trends, but the menu has changed very little; the same old classics are there with occasional specials written on the board. While not French, I ordered the fish special which was a perfectly cooked piece of snapper fillet. The accompanying side of ratatouille was so good, that I replicated it the next day. Just don’t make the mistake of having them make a cake (which turned out to be a tiny, dry forgettable chocolate cake) and order their desert crepes instead.
For Sam’s birthday cake, we decided to make Ina Garten’s (in)famous Mocha Icebox cake.
It's happy hour
Back when I was still living in the Philippines, I drank alcohol whenever the opportunity presented itself. If there was a drinking session every other day, I did it. I enjoyed it. I loved making pulutan. The company I believed, were my friends for life. For better or worse.
When I left for New Zealand and went home for Christmas nearly every year, things inexplicably changed. I couldn’t find my friends. Texts went unanswered. It dawned on me later that for reasons still unclear to me to this day, I was actually ghosted. And whatever part of me that wanted to stay in the Philippines died. I know it sounds melodramatic, but that was the drinking culture; it wasn’t just a bunch of bored men making tagay from a single glass (you’ll get hepatitis C, my mother would scream to my face). It was a communion of people who shared the same dreams and aspirations even if uhm, mine was different being wayyyy older than everyone in the group. I may have been naive to believe that it was going to be for life.
But I guess life changes; the kids grow up; and I was still the same (what did I know about the struggles of having kids, constantly jealous wives and thin paychecks?).
Anyhow, I think that stopping the habit may have allowed me to possibly enjoy my later years with (fingers crossed) the least problems health-wise. All that drinking continued all the way through your forties wouldn’t have been good.
Here, there is a certain caution when it comes to alchohol. The laws won’t even allow you two beers if you’re driving (if you get caught). The company that you keep also determines how and when you drink, and after three years of initially being out there (again, with people younger than me), I’ve decided that the company I wanted to keep was my own as well as a tiny circle of people. Currently, I would drink probably, four times a year if ever?
I never get the urge to drink by myself at the end of the day. My dad did it, and a whole bunch of people do, and I think it’s WEIRD.
Anyhow, I bought a bottle of Luxardo cherries to put onto an ice-box cake that I’m making for Sam’s birthday this weekend and I spied on the website that they also sold Aperol. There was a boxed set with good Prosecco which was even better, so I got one only because it’s currently my go-to drink on the rare times I find myself at a bar or restaurant. And besides, it’s been so hot lately, that why not celebrate the heat with a slight buzz?
The classic spritz that you make it with, is crisp, refreshing, unbothered and uncomplicated - which is what I like my life to be. Cheers!
Guo Pei photo dump
If I was 10 years old again, I would have felt reverence, a sense of piety at being at the foot of an all-powerful being even if it was a mere statue, its glassy eyes looking straight ahead as if it didn’t deign to look down at me, a mere child (this was how I felt every time we went to Church).
But I’ve grown older and while not necessarily distant from the religion that I grew up with (I still fervently say my Hail Marys every night before I go to sleep), I have enough wisdom now I think to see through the pageantry and be able to appreciate what it really is - just very pretty, ornate old stuff.
Guo Pei’s creations have the inertness of Catholic religious statues; you’re only ever inspired if you’re a believer. Because outside of that, would anyone really imagine themselves teetering on 6-inch platforms passing off as footwear and walking on them while dragging a 25-kilogram gown?
But Rihanna actually did and this is why haute couture is hardly ever the thing you aspire or pray for in life; let the Gods (and pop stars) have them instead.
Guo Pei: Fashion, Art, Fantasy 郭培 ：时装之幻梦Guo Pei: Fashion, Art, Fantasy 郭培 ：时装之幻梦 is currently showing at the Auckland Art Gallery from December 2023 to May 2024.
Biscoff saves the day
The double-cream split and the ube jam didn’t really taste at all like ube, but Biscoff single-handedly redeemed everything!
Frankly, we’ve never heard of Biscoff until it was all over social-media, appearing everywhere from cookies, pies to ice-cream. It has that distinctness that’s similar to Amaretti biscuits; the flavour doesn’t get lost when you use it as an ingredient in something.
I made banoffee pie for Mary’s birthday and I attempted to do some variations to elevate it a bit more; putting the caramel on top of the bananas instead of underneath them, and then piping the cream topping in structured swirls. The cut bananas turn brown so putting the caramel on top ensures that they keep their colour. But using canned caramel means softening it you see and this is where it failed- the sauce was too runny and it ran down the sides (should’ve microwaved it instead of diluting it with cream).
The second disaster was the cream topping. I used double cream for the 1st time and didn’t realise that you had to watch it like a hawk in the mixer. Whisking it too long and it could become butter - which I wouldn’t have minded- but it didn’t, yet it inexplicably split (which made piping pointless).
Note 1: try making it in a smaller springform pan (which is so GODDAMNED hard to find) to give it better height.
But the Biscoff base was SPECTACULAR. It was like having a deliciously crisp and buttery cookie at the bottom. It didn’t really matter if everything else looked like a hot mess - the pie though as a whole was satisfyingly rich without being cloyingly sweet. Note 2: a Biscoff base is more delicate than one made from Graham crackers or digestives. For an eight-inch round pan, you can use two packets or about 500 grams of biscuits for a stturdier base.
Two days after the Banoffee I realised that I had an open bar of cream cheese, some leftover long life cream and one final packet of Biscoff, so I thought, why not an ube cheesecake as I also had a jar of ube in the pantry?
Making a cheesecake is easy enough - could make it with my eyes closed - but the Youtube videos were right in recommending that you not only use purple food colouring, but also ube extract. The ‘ube’ cheescake neither looked nor tasted like ube - but the nearly 2-inch Biscoff base again saved the day!
Sunday
We finally took down the Christmas trees, took the mattress that Dylan slept on when he was here back to the garage, re-arranged the plants and cleaned up my desk. The holidays are officially over.
It’s too hot to work from home (we don’t have AC) even if the second floor has plenty of windows and two sliding doors that open to the deck- but what is 26 degrees compared to a summer’s day in Pangasinan or maybe Dubai??
And yet here I am, topless, sipping water every hour and feeling that heat lethargy where half of your brain feels like mush.
And yet I have fallen in love with summer, with sunshine. I read somewhere that a man needs vitamin D to boost testosterone; so maybe I had been feeling the ‘boost’. But I’m still wary of it. A decade ago, people I knew were laughing at my SPF 80 sunscreen but look who’s laughing now. The last three years, the sunscreening has expanded to include my neck and my hands.
They say there’s a hole in the ozone right over New Zealand, so even if a 31 degree day in the scheme of things isn’t really hot, we got it worse.
It’s a bitch to deep fry in the heat, but the easiest meat in the deep freeze to cook are boneless chicken thighs so fried-chicken it is. I have the recipe for ‘popcorn chicken’ down pat which is really all in the batter. I never used to have a measurement for it, hence, the inconsistency but now I do. The ratio of flour to tapioca starch (or cornstarch) should always be one to one with a teaspoon of baking powder. From there, I just make variations on the flavouring. I’ve always been partial to Chinese five-spice or plain salted- this is because I always eat it with rice and a buffalo-ranch style of coating doesn’t really suit.
We bought the viral KMart mini rice cooker and it’s perfect; I don’t eat any more than a cup of rice and it makes enough for dinner and for lunch the next day.
2024: What's In and out
OUT
1. ‘Influencers’ at the gym
2. Excuses NOT to go to the gym
3. Excuses in general
4. Eating too much during the holidays
5. Spending too much during the holidays
6. Buying an unnecessary item instead of using the money for (expensive) dental care
7. Traveling somewhere just because everyone else is (not that I gave in to it)
8. NOT reading
9. Your OPINION and THOUGHTS on any platform that allows you to express it
10. Fried chicken (sorry, there is such a thing as way too much fried chicken).
11. Marvel movies
12. Countries opting for war
13. Countries opting for right-wing populist leaderships
IN
1. Traveling to a local place that’s out of my comfort zone (and there are PLENTY in this country that I have yet to visit)
2. Watching a play or a musical
3. Travelling overseas to see a play or a musical
4. Quiet luxury in eating (I mean if you only have one meal a day, then it shouldn’t be a frozen dinner from the supermarket- make something like grilled salmon and broccolini, or boneless, free-range chicken thighs pan-fried with a butter-miso sauce).
5. A LOT of reading
6. Keeping your OPINION and THOUGHTS to yourself and shutting out the toxicity of the world in general
7. Keeping ‘quiet’ and listening to your own voice, your own thoughts
8. Taking time to cook something special/different
9. More sunshine (but just 20 minutes please)
10. Art you’ve made yourself
My Tita Lita and Tito Benny
Amelita Amor Agbayani: 1938 - 2024
One of my most enduring fantasies was to find myself back again in Fairview, at my aunt’s house.
In this fantasy, it is a cool day in June and the trees and plants are lush. It’s quiet even if we’re in the middle of a hectic urban sprawl. We sit in her garden and talk for hours and hours. I tell her everything and she just listens, every so often nodding or saying her piece.
We notice that it’s gotten dark and we go inside where we sit down to a dinner of dishes she’s made that I could neither forget nor replicate; buttery soft Bistek Tagalog, rich beef caldereta and pork binagoongan with an impossibly perfect ratio of meat to fat.
But sadly, regretfully, it will be just that - a fantasy.
I never did get to visit.
I have a million reasons (or excuses) and I think that she would tell me to my face, how wrong I was on all of them. She would say this in a tone that is just slightly reproachful and firm enough that it makes you think twice about answering back.
I’m actually referencing my dad here, but only because they were so alike. They loathed inaction and hated it even more when you attempted to defend your inaction.
Perhaps the true fantastical bit about this fantasy is being able to talk to them the way I picture it in my head. They were so stoic, so forbidding (the demeanour only softening when they sit down to a meal they’ve cooked for their family) that you often stayed out of sight, out of mind.
Would they have indulged me?
I’d like to think that she would, but I don’t know and I’ll never know.
Odds and ends
I’ve never liked long vacations or breaks.
When I was younger, summer vacations in the Philippines stretched forever especially when you were a loner like I was. I kept to myself at home, reading and daydreaming. I would spend the summer mentally reviewing the things I wanted to change or improve about myself. I only looked forward to the start of school to determine if I would succeed. A few things worked - write competitively (I won a couple of national writing competitions); a lot didn’t -learn French, put on some muscles, improve your singing voice (!!!).
But I didn’t stop (finally put on some weight and muscles later) nor felt that what I was doing was a chore or an impossibility. It doesn’t take a lot to relax - I don’t have kids or responsibilities - and most of the time, I would normally just take a good day (a Saturday) to get everything calm and sorted (and even then, I would be doing chores because a clean and organised home is relaxing).
Not judging but people often joke that they’d spent their break just sitting on their ass and well, it looks like they did.
Life is too short to just sit on your ass right??
What did you eat in the final days of 2023?
There were plenty of things that I still didn’t get to make, buy or eat:
Leche flan (make)
Sans Rival (make)
Caviar (buy)
Cocktail recipes I’ve saved from TikTok (make)
A cheese-board (make)
Salmon Wellington (make)
Mini beef wellington (make)
Almond Roca (buy)
Pavlova Christmas tree (make)
Pecan tart (make)
Maybe this year…
Korean nights
New Year’s eve buffet lunch at the Cordis
Today
Finally and literally got to the root of the problem as to why our 6-year old calathea plant was feeling the blues; her soil was water-logged (what looked like clumpy clay was mixed in her soil mix) and her roots had started to rot.
So we spent the better part of the afternoon splitting her in two, repotting two other indoor plants that I got as gifts as well as an olive tree that I got for myself as a New Year gift.
(More) New Year resolutions for 2023
Finish that novel
Do (and finish) all those art ideas that have been living in your head
Read 100 books before June 2024
Write a letter, send a card
Complete your Top 10 list of stuff to bake
Be a bit more gracious
Change up your ‘style’
Be more organised
Be a bit more prudent with your money
Go somewhere that is NOT a tourist destination
Dear Diary
Going through some of my stationery, I found an old Moleskine journal that was gifted to me (along with a Lamy pen) for Christmas 2019. The last entry was May of 2020- a time in which most of my entries were on this blog.
It wouldn’t hurt to resume using it.
Dear Diary,
1. I love the kids and I’m glad that when I don’t feel a 100% (just tired really and bloated from all the food the last couple of days), I can step away. As a parent, I probably can’t. I guess I would have to watch Aquaman all by myself now.
2. Some writer said, to make a resolution about something bigger than yourself. That the great wide world wouldn’t really care if you lose weight, or work out, or work harder, or quit drinking or smoking. The world may not care, but I do, so FUCK YOU.
3. How about asking the people and the entities who actually do have the power and the influence to fast-track things instead?? Ask Israel, Palestine, the Russians and the Ukrainians and the billionaires to sort things out and stop fucking the rest of us.
4. Ugh, now I need a drink (the only time I ever consume alcohol is over the holidays) but where to get mint?? I feel like doing a couple of mojitos.
5. A neighbour and co-worker dropped off some mint for me- bless you Angelique.
6. Suddenly, friends who’ve been actively messaging you all year are suddenly quiet when the holidays come.
7. Speaking of people you know, how brave are you to admit that if you never hear from some of them again, it really wouldn’t matter?
9. How many more stuff can you buy?? You can never have enough shoes, or clothes but at some point, you need to say, I should stop buying now.
10. Prosperity bowls are all the rage but they’re so complicated! I’d rather put the effort at work which should hopefully give me prosperity!
11. I’m superstitious about superstitions; what if it doesn’t work? Or worse, what if it brings you the opposite? I’ll just take my chances.
12. Or I’ll continue praying to God.
Make some cookies; you'll feel better
Actually, I’m fine. Still some last-minute Christmas crap you have to deal with and it doesn’t matter if you’ve planned and organised everything down to the last detail.
And I had to go to the city to pick something up on the hottest - a balmy 33 degrees - day of the year. Aren’t we lucky?? Didn't break into a sweat walking up and down Queen Street, probably the most chilled, unhectic city street in the world. Yes- haters can have New York or Paris or Rome and I hope you fucking get mugged.
Ruth is arriving tonight so in addition to our favourite store-bought sticky-date pudding, I thought why not fill the house with the smell of freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies?
Didn’t add nuts or dried fruit this time, and it turned out to be your classic, chewy, burnt buttery version. And I used milk chocolate which I’ve honestly always favoured over dark chocolate which also amped up the sweetness factor.
Took all of 30 minutes for 20, 60 gram cookies (thanks to having a mixer which has seriously made the work flow easier and faster).
Ingredients:
210 g butter browned
200g dark brown sugar
100g white sugar
2 eggs
Vanilla
330g all purpose flour
3.4 tspoon baking powder and baking soda
300g chocolate your choice
Method:
- Make brown butter and let cool
- Once cool, mix with sugars and whisk. Add eggs and vanilla
- Add your sifted dry ingredients
- Add chocolate
- Bake in batches for about 12 minutes
Air-fryer 'lechon' works
I didn’t have time to marinate the pork belly a bit longer and frozen lemon-grass is a hit and miss. I don’t think the one I got from the Asian store had any flavour at all.
But the pork was flavourful - it could’ve been steamed a bit longer - and 95% of the skin became crackling which is good enough.
The pork was about a kilo and if it was any bigger, it wouldn’t have fit in the air-fryer.
Got the recipe here:
Prepping for Christmas
In the Philippines, we don’t bother with place settings; there’s so much food that there’s no space for stuff you can’t eat.
In New Zealand, a typical Christmas table has ham, bread and some sides and a cake and that’s it. So there’s room to fluff up the table which I’m happy to attempt to do- because why not?
There’s something calming and soothing in this domestic exercise that I once dismissed as being too feminine and unnecessary. But as I’ve become older, I’ve realised that I actually have the freedom to rethink what’s necessary and what’s not in my life - and funny enough, I’ve stopped making a distinction. I just do it, and it’s fun. It brings joy. It keeps me sane. There’s just so much goddamned ugliness in the world that a little bit of beauty when you sit down to eat a piece of ham on white bread (!!!) does make a difference..(Imelda Marcos was right about how she described beauty - look up the quote!).
New plates, glassware and cake stand from Kmart; table-runner and mats from Stevens; Kiwiana coasters of native birds by Creative & Brave; cutlery from Momento and Villeroy and Boch.
