A lotus-y blast from the past

On our monthly trip to the Asian food superstore just south of us, I excitedly happened upon something I hadn't seen since I lived in Shanghai - frozen lotus root! I'd seen whole fresh lotus root in Chinatown, but in my experience, those beasts require an enormous cleaver and start to brown and go off a little bit too soon for two people to enjoy. So you can imagine how many minutes it took me upon arriving home to unwrap and chuck them in the wok. About four.

I sauteed them with some edamame beans in soy sauce, chopped garlic, toasted sesame oil, sweet chili sauce and a bit of Chinese vinegar (brightens everything up). They required a much longer time in the wok than I was anticipating - if they're not completely cook all the way through, you get this slightly unpleasant bitter starch taste.

The dish was a nice accompaniment to some sauteed choi sum, char sui veggie baozis, and these ridiculous imitation veggie shrimps we found in the frozen foods section. How I love enormous Asian grocery stores.

A good (great) Friday breakfast

On a lazy weekend morning, the first thing we start talking about when we wake up is what we're gong to cook for breakfast. It almost always requires a groggy trip to the grocery store and an Otis Redding album as we sit down to marvel at how delicious our concoction is.

This morning - wholemeal grilled baguette slices accompanied by grilled tomatoes, veggie sausages, a healing pule of sauteed spinach cooked with toasted sesame oil and chillies, and "posh beans". I also highly recommend slathering everything in kalamata olive tapenade and harissa. a

Refreshing...

Read Quote of Justin Freeman's answer to Life: What are the top 10 things that we should be informed about, in life? on Quora

And here we go.

The beginning of this blog comes with a confession. After years of thinking about starting a blog, it was only after realising that one of my best friends had taken the plunge herself that I was inspired to pull my proverbial finger out and put it to better use on this fantastic swipey keyboard.

And it's more of a self help project if I'm honest. When you leave uni and the comfort of a never ending array of seemingly productive activities with which to fill your day, that day and the rest all begin to look a bit... Samey. And you start to realise with mild horror that there are so many entertaining ways to waste the precious free time you have. Those first few weeks on Pinterest felt supremely productive, collecting and hoarding ideas of things to bake and build and buy. But then you start to notice that there a lot of people on Pinterest pinning a lot of hopes and dreams, and you look through your collection of 156 thanksgiving desserts and realise you'll probably never make a single one of them. And that you'll probably spend twice as much time pinning as you ever will baking.
...Don't even get me started on Facebook.

So that's where we are.

Looking back on where I've been and what I've done thus far, it appears to be a hell of an interesting ride. Fantastic, actually. But it's easy to forget that amidst daily meetings and emails and spreadsheets and late trains and early mornings and planning and cooking and cleaning and the occasional sleep. I find myself slipping into that paralysed fear of the mundane quite a bit. So this is for the little things, the big things - the important things that will remind me of why I chose what I chose and put this new speed of life into a little bit of perspective. That's the plan anyway. I sure love making plans.