It wasn’t just any purple car, it was a vintage Austin-Healey Sprite. I sure hope it was there because it was getting restored, because it’s such a cute little car.

It’s called a Frogeye, for obvious reasons. What a huge smile!

And a blurry shot of the old-school 4-speed gear lever:

The rest of the car had been stripped out, but the gearshift being left in suggests that it’s being restored. Or, there’s no use for such an old gearshift nowadays. We need more cars like these on the roads… cars that remember when TV was black and white. There’s something charmingly retro about the simplicity of old cars – no traction control, no airbags, the radio tuner is analog… plus the old cars that have stood the test of time are the ones with lasting appeal.

Set the pasta on to boil.

As the pasta cooks, you can do the rest of the prep. Chop up the garlic.

Change out the water for the prawns as it’ll be super cold by now, and replace with more water. Once the pasta is done, chuck it into a colander. I didn’t bother with reserving pasta water this time.

Throw the garlic and prawns into hot oil.

And when the prawns are done, throw in the pasta. Stir vigorously and add chili flakes. Serve with a sprig of basil from your garden.

All food shopping, prep, cooking, washing and photography by yours truly. I think I’m getting better at this “living on my own” thing.

On the first day of CNY, it’s a family custom to drive up north to my grandfather’s ancestral home in Batang Kali, where his brother still lives. Along the way, there are a few really interesting sights.

This is the famous local landmark, a limestone karst in Templer Park. 40 minutes north of the city and you get to see this.

Further on, the B-road cuts through what was virgin jungle. One thing you see in abundance here, that is really rare in Singapore: Forest giants.

These are Shorea trees, identified by their tall, straight trunks and cauliflower-like foliage at the top of the tree. (I stole that description from something I read somewhere…)

Shorea trees only seem to grow in primary forest, so I had a really hard time spotting them in Singapore, where even the Central Nature Reserve is secondary forest. Yet here they are, growing abundantly by the side of the highway. To give you a sense of scale, the cement embankment is about 2 storeys tall. True story.

I set it loose on my kitchen floor and watched it slowly circle around, trying to get a grip on this area, before zipping off in one direction to find the edge.

This is how it navigates edges and corners:

Yes, it’s quite noisy – you expect most vacuums to be.

I left it to run while I wrote this post (ah, the wonders of technology) and it seems to have done a thorough job. It won’t stop till the water tank or battery is empty. Since my kitchen is fairly small, it’s going to go on for a while yet, I think.

Hooray for robots, our uncomplaining slaves that free us from the drudgery of housework!

Ingredients:

500 g (one pack) of pasta, clear chicken broth, frozen mixed veggies, chicken breast meat, and some olive oil. You can cook pasotto in any liquid. I’m lazy so I buy pre-made broth, even though it adds substantially to the cost.

Step 1: Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, heat it up to smoking point, and pour in the pasta. Dry. All of it. Because it’s fun.

Explanation: This is “toasting” the pasta. Does it make any difference? I dunno. I’m in the “olive oil is magic” cult.

Step 2: Pour in the chicken broth, or whatever liquid you’re using. Beef stock, fish soup, water. Put in enough to get all the pasta wet. Maybe more. But not too much.

Times like this, I really miss the physical shutter button on my old phone. “Tap to capture” just isn’t as convenient.

Step 3: Stir the pasta. Stir stir stir. You may take out a piece and test for doneness. Still not done? Good, throw in the chicken.

The breast meat was dry because a) it’s breast meat and b) it was 2 weeks old. No matter – the stock will revive it! Also, put the meat in well before the pasta is even al dente, or you’ll overcook the pasta (or undercook the meat).

Step 4: Pasta is allllllmost done. Throw in the veggies:

And add a bit more stock if you like. In fact, you can cook the veggies separately and just add them in the end, but that defeats the “one-pot” cooking purpose of this dish.

Step 5: Stir stir stir to mix everything up and ensure veggies are cooked. Ooof! Pasta is really heavy now, from absorbing all that stock.

Since I’m going to put these in storage containers and put them in the fridge for reheating at a later date, it doesn’t really matter if the veggies are undercooked. Might even be better, as overheating makes the carrots limp, while the peas turn a sad wilted-green colour.

Step 6: Serve or store as needed.

Monday lunch, Tuesday lunch, Wednesday lunch, Thursday lunch, Friday lunch.

Notes: You can add cheese along with the veggies, and balsamic vinegar along with the first addition of broth. I skipped both this time around because the flavours were a little overpowering, and I’m going to be eating this in the office so it would be discourteous. In fact, the original recipe adds white wine instead of balsamic, but *shrugs* everything’s a suggestion.

2. Put in soil and give them water. They will soon produce a root and then try to shake off the shell.

3. The first pair of leaves are seed leaves.

4. True leaves emerge later.

5. It’s just growing more and bigger leaves from here on out.

6. Fast forward a few weeks, and a new growth appears.

7. This is the flower head. I guess that’s as tall as my sunflowers want to grow.

8. It will progressively open…

9. Bit by bit…

10. Until you see a burst of yellow!

Lots of diseases have no cures. The common cold. The flu. Chicken pox. Perhaps the mortality rate from these diseases is so low that it doesn’t have that glowy, I-want-to-save-the-world cachet that cancer has. But a cure isn’t the solution. In the above illnesses, we just give treatments for the symptoms and let the infection run its course. A cure would be superfluous because the body can heal itself and drive off the invaders.

I admit that cancer is different, because it’s not a conquest launched by external invaders. It’s a mutiny of the body against itself. The theoretical cure, I suppose, would be to develop a “weapon” that fixes the fundamental problem underlying all cancer – the cancerous cells have killed their own kill switch and are now, in a sense, immortal. Our theoretical weapon would be able to flip the kill switch back on, so that these cells self-destruct as nature intended.

Until we find that weapon, however, the only way to get rid of the mutineers is to attack their Achilles heel of rapid multiplication and high metabolism, and pump the body full of toxic substances and/or radiation, the dosage finely balanced so that it kills all the mutineers before the civilian population is too wiped out to rebuild.

The search for the ultimate weapon continues, but in the meantime, why don’t scientists concentrate on creating chemo drugs with fewer side effects? I know that some drugs, like my good friend Rituximab, are intelligent enough to target only cancer cells. It’s the equivalent of a homing missile. I’d like to see more of such drugs so that in future, we can ease off on the blanket bombing of innocent body cells.

A cure for cancer would be nice, but it’s years away. Those years mean too much to cancer patients for us to ruin them with debilitating treatments, when research into better drugs is a viable alternative route. It’s time the public was aware of them, even if the media deems such research not newsworthy.

1. No squeaky shoes. Ever.
2. Toilet-training should start as soon as the baby is able to sit up.
3. I find that parents compensate for their little girls’ lack of obvious gender cues by dressing them in pink confections. Why? The kid doesn’t have a gender construct! She’s not going to be confused! And people need to get comfortable with ambiguity.
4. Why are there no black clothes for babies? Like, Goth onesies and black lace mittens?
5. I frequently draw parallels between the raising of dogs and small children, but the leash is probably unnecessary. Anyway, leashes don’t stop them from putting things in their mouths, or grabbing at breakables, or falling down stairs.
6. No Crocs, because I’m terrified that the escalators will eat my kid’s toes.
7. Lots and lots of Lego. They teach you to clean up after yourself, because if you don’t, you’ll have a lovely indentation in the sole of your foot to remind you to do so.
8. Insurance, because there will be falling out of trees/ bee stings/ general lacerations requiring stitches.
9. Intelligence may be hereditary but it is not accurately measured by the school exams. The school syllabus is churning out future employees but not individuals.
10. Penggunaan Bahasa Malaysia dalam hidup seharian kita akan mempercepatkan kefahaman fonik anak-anak. Ini adalah kerana Bahasa Malaysia mempunyai ortografi yang telus.
11. The Singapore education system is good preparation for Singapore society. That’s not a compliment.
12. I will tell my child to pick up a skill that is in demand globally, rather than a degree. A chef is a chef in whatever country they go to, but professional qualifications don’t always translate well – or lead to a fulfilling life.

We always think we’re young, at our physical peak, and that nothing is going to happen. And that if anything happens, MediShield is going to take care of it.

The first mistake is in thinking it only applies to one hospitalisation episode. You might have enough coverage or savings to tide you over once. But if you get a disease that puts you on the exclusion list, it’s going to be difficult to get insurance in the future. I’m fine now, but still uninsured because no private insurer wants to take on my case. One illness can affect you for years down the line. Heck, I can’t even get life insurance which only pays out in the event of disability or death. I’m a bit peeved that the insurance companies think I’ll drop dead so easily.

The second mistake is underestimating how high a hospital bill can go. Even with subsidies and a lower ward class, things still cost money. And there will be expenses that aren’t covered by MediShield. I keep using MediShield as an example because most Singaporeans have at least that level of coverage, while I had nothing except a flimsy company plan that was about as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane.

The third mistake is in seeing premiums as wasted money. I use the word “mistake” loosely in this sense. Others might really feel that MediShield is enough, and getting the highest-cost plan from a private insurer is just being kiasi. I wish I had been paranoid, take-no-chances, cover-my-ass kiasi, but you know what they say about wishes and horses.

I’m inspired to write this because one of my colleagues went to the doctor for a funny swelling and the initial tests point to bone cancer. One young person is an isolated case. Two, and you would be foolish not to heed the statistics and buy insurance.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.