Cavalock and The 9% Alcohol Goodness

Always a blast whenever I get to discover a new kind of booze from Japan at our local Don Don Donki. Seems like they are bringing in the pretty strong stuff, I mean we looking at 9% alcohol here. Decided to go for the Suntory Highball instead of the Kirin Sour cos ....er... highball. Have yet to crack it open but definitely will do so this month cos it's me birthday month!

So the Baker-at-Home is out for dinner with her friends and it's one of those rare moments when I'm home alone, left to my own devices and all that. Naturally it's time for a blast from the past with playlist from the 80s, or rather some rock ballads from the 80s to be exact. Watching the music videos, I'm like thinking just how old all the gorgeous big-hair supermodels in the videos are today? When I first saw the videos, I was a kid and they were like the hottest living creatures on the planet. Remember, no Internet back then. I'm sure not all of them have OD-ed ...cos... you know, coke was big during the 80s. Gawd, I'm so politically incorrect today. Hah! No, I'm not drunk yet. And No, I'm not gonna name the videos below cos where would the fun be in that?

Heheh... a little friend dropped by for a home visit in me coffee cup this afternoon. 

Cavalock and The Perfect Steak Formula and Other Bootleg Bounties

A Saturday evening home alone and I figured its been awhile since I posted bout something I put together in the kitchen. Straight from celebrity chef's Heston Blumenthal's at Home cookbook, this is probably the easiest thing in there. It's all about frying the perfect steak. Like I said, it's real simple and anyone can do it.

Heat your pan for like 5 minutes till it's crazy hot and smoking. Salt the best steak you can buy but make sure the steak is at room temperature first. Drizzle some olive or grapefruit oil on the sizzling pan.

Time to drop the steak in the pan and watch it sizzle. The trick is to flip the meat every 15 seconds for like two minutes if you want a medium rare steer. Well, you can follow all that or just watch Heston's video here, yah well maybe the latter. The Canadian ribeye I got earlier in the afternoon turned out nicely. The steamed brussels sprouts was another easy peasy dish. Just steam them and add a dollop of butter once they are tender to the bite, which takes about five minutes.

Yes, that's an autographed copy thanks to blogger epicurative.

Good enough for me.

Saturday evening with my essential 'friends' .

As always, the worst part of every meal is mopping up a grease-soaked kitchen. I reckon that took me three times longer than it took for me to prepare the food. Still, you can't really put a price tag to a great home-cooked meal.

Another cache of fake ...opps ... I mean, customised Lego minifigures has just reached our shores and I can't be more excited. Except for the Green Arrow figure which was an San Diego Comic Con exclusive last year, all the other three minifigures have yet to be officially made or released by Lego. So like I said in a previous post, it ain't technically a fake if there was never an original around in the first place right? Now if anyone's wondering where to find all these fake Lego ...damn it!... customised figures, you can find them at the Sunday flea market at China Square Central. I saw almost half the stalls there selling them including the fake Winter Soldier Lego.

Daddy's home! 

My TV series vs your movie?

Geddit?

But this is my favourite collectible to come out of this latest shipment. A reproduction of the black and white Batman statue by artist Sean Galloway. Decent packaging, same size and colour, and looking at the box, I'm assuming the original is made outta porcelain but the one I got is made outta hard plastic hence the rather economical price tag of only S$24 while the real deal is going for US80 before shipping.

Now I'm sure if you take a real close look at it, you'll notice some minor flaws. But I'm cool with it. There were also reproductions of the New 52 figures of DC Heroes' Flash and Superman by Jim Lee. I wasn't interested in those as the 'completest' part of me would be anxiously waiting for the rest of the (bootleg) Justice League to show up.

Cavalock and The Sashimi Still-Life Snag

Looking back at some of my older posts and I mean really older posts, like this one back in 2006, lots have changed in my life and surroundings. Well, no longer is the Sentinel action figure guarding my wine rack in the living room is gone and replaced by a more subtle display.

I thought the autographed O-No Sashimi display would also make a more ...er... interesting conversation piece if I ever, ever, EVER have any guests drop by. :P

I'll also be posting shorter pieces too I think, like when I first started. Besides I'm twitting way more these days and that's where you'll find all the food pix too, plus the geeky stuff of cos. Remember now, life is too short to be spent doing the things you don't like!

Cavalock and Table For One

So like I'm making my dinner for one and it took me exactly a half hour. A half hour eh? Get it? That's like exactly enough time for a TV cooking show ... so I figured do I get my own TV cooking show or what? Male cook teaching other male geeks to cook. Hah, just kidding.

Dinner for one turned fast and good. Started at 6pm after watching Ellen. A teaspoon of mirin and a teaspoon of suger into pot of boiling water. Then the pork strips shabu-shabu style, take out the pork once they are done and toss in some fresh green leafy veggies. Should take bout 5 mins for the veggies to cook. 

Now I forgot to get some sesame sauce as a dip for the meat. So I took this from the fridge, wholegrain mustard. I actually got this for a Nigella recipe that I never got to make (yet!). Not a bad substitute but I'll still get the sesame sauce next time. You'll definitely want to get some sauce.

Meanwhile I'm already steaming the Japanese rice in the rice cooker. So anyway once the rice is cooked, I prepared the instant miso soup and there you go, dinner for one in only a half hour.   

 

Eating and cleaning up took exactly another half hour so it was a wrap in 60 mins. I wanted to snap a shot of all the cleaning up I had to do but I forgot. Hah!

Cavalock vs The Flu Bug

*Whew* What a time to catch the flu bug. Yup, my nose was doing the marathon while my head was as hot as Amy Winehouse's crack pipe, last Thursday and Friday. It's just the common bug and not the you-know-what flu. Hence the lack of posts and of cos, nothing new on the food front. But I'm alright now, am pretty much back to normal. My voice is still a little 'pitchy' as Randy would say. ;)

So what did I do while stuck at home? Well, I 'tried' to watch cable. 'Tired' cos the freakin' cable box kept deleting my recorded shows by itself. Was told I had to reformat the hard drive, lost the latest season of 'Heroes' plus some SNL and anime stuff.

Anyway, took some pix of some of my stuff around the apartment.

Hah! Bet you guys didn't know I'm a big Peanuts fan. The figures I got from Osaka two years ago. Still in their boxes cos I don't know where to display them.


Some Snoopy pouches I got in Japan. In goes my card reader (which I also got in Japan years ago and has only gone on sale here in Singapore) and my 250G portable hard drive.


Other loot from my last trip, a couple of Star Wars helmets. The Biker Scout and the Death Star Gunner helmets. Neat, huh?

Hang on, I do have a food pix after all. I almost forgot I snapped this shot last week. Pasta linguine dinner for one. <^;^>

Cavalock and The Salty Sandwich

There I was, waking up late, alone in the kitchen and thinking what should I have for breakfast. Hah! Japanese dinner leftovers! Got some leftover roe sitting in the fridge, might as well eat them before the expiry date. Why not use them as a spread, well, I mean it sounds like a good idea although I have never heard or seen it done before.

Turned out better than I expected. You got the cheese spread and margarine in there, mixed it up with the crunchy salty roe. That is one mutherfukin’ salty sandwich! Washed it down with a mug of Bailey’s infused coffee and it’s not even 9am.

Now as I’m writing this, I just remembered that I got a new tube of Japanese mayo in the fridge too. Damn, I wonder how crazy the sandwich might have been if I whipped out that tube! <^;^>

Cavalock and His Amazing Day Off

Started my day off with a quick early morning online search for scrambled eggs recipes. Decided to wipe some up but didn't really have much stuff in the kitchen to add to it so ended up with a pretty plain version (with a pinch of chicken salt), and some cereal and coffee (with Bailey's of cos) to complete that morning breakfast of champions for one.

Spent rest of the morning at the library borrowing some CD-ROMs and a bunch of comic books. Finally got my hands on James Robinson's final chapter of Starman: Sons of the Father. Then a train ride to Orchard for the Kinokuniya sale. Lunch was pretty forgettable. Couldn't decide where in Orchard to go for lunch by myself, finally settled on Romankan Yokohama at Taka's basement since I was in the building already. Was 'meh'...

Got this impulse buy Izakaya, The Japanese Pub Cookbook. That's the first pix at the top. Flipped through the browsing copy near the cashier and thought it was quite good. Definitely not your regular cookbook, in addition to the 60 recipes there are lots of insight and articles on Japanese pubs and all their little subculture. The thing that sealed the deal for me? Printed in Japan, the book's 2,800 yen. It's going for (with the Kino 20% sale) only s$35. Do the maths man, with today's exchange rate, that's a good buy if I ever saw one.

'My Christmas shopping early'

Decided to do my bit to pick up the economy by doing my Christmas shopping early last nite.

Got it at Tangs for S$699 and it's not for me. It was on offer and I was afraid if I don't get it now, the price would go back up again. Wanted to ask them to gift wrap it but figured naaahhh. 

Now believe me, it ain't no joke lugging it on a Friday nite all by myself through the train station! Damn, I feel old, haven't been to Orchard Road on a Friday nite for ages, it's so crowded! And no, I won't be adding this to my budget listings, something like this would blow half my entire budget for the month. 

So it's a Saturday morning now and I'm home alone watching a Frasier rerun on cable as I'm typing this. Will be catching Ave Q tonite. See wat pix I have later. 

Oh yah, managed to finally catch the first episode of award-winning TV series Mad Men earlier this week. Hmmm...what can I say, it may not be the 1960s when I joined the industry here, but yah, I have seen and committed my fair share of 'stuff', especially my Four Rules to Life. 

Also caught the 11-episode Anime series on Animax cable, Ayakashi - Samurai Horror Tales, which is a collection of three classic Japanese horror/supernatural stories.  

'A race of killer man-ape soldiers'

So here I am on a pre-birthday leave from work and home alone on a wet Friday morning ... watching TV. I always got a kick outta watching the morning talkshows. I remember watching them while in NYC years ago till bout 10am, then going out so as to avoid the rush hour traffic. Hah! 

Anyway, caught the tail end of Ellen bout an hour ago and saw a guy run and leap over 4 cars. Then switched over to the Tyra Banks Show. Now this was an eye-opener. They had a segment with hidden cameras in the rooms of all the posh US hotels like Ritz, Shereton etc. And they showed how gross and unhygienic their room service really are. Maids who don't wash your wine glasses or just rinse them instead, dirty towels etc. Really, not the kinda thing you would expect from 5-star hotels.

And right now I'm watching the History Channel on humans and apes genetics. It's a little mad scientist-ish, with talks bout crossbreeding between man and apes. Sure, there's a huge possibility that men and apes did crossbreed bout 6 millions years ago, that's what the documentary said. But as recent as WWII when there were rumors that Stalin and Russia tried to create a race of killer man -ape soldiers.

'Don't do exactly what I do'

I have been keeping myself busy with some photography stuff. My lightbox project went alright I guess… as in not as well as I hoped it would be. For starters, the box I got wasn’t as big as the example. And without the proper lights and a decent SLR camera, my shots still kinda lack that elusive ‘wow’ factor.

Here’s where I based my little handicraft on. If there’s anyone reading this and wanna do his own lightbox, please follow that example and don't do exactly what I do. Here's another link to an interesting piece on cheap homemade lighting. I was actually watching last week’s American Idol while cutting up the box with a pair of scissors. Use a penknife, it’s way easier on the finger!

I have since replaced the sides with a translucent material (the kind you find when you buy huge electronic products) instead of regular photocopy paper. It lets more light in. Here are the untouched, raw results. As you can tell the lighting isn't as good as it should be.

With only one light source, it's tough getting the right lighting conditions. Using the camera flash leads to overexposure and nasty shadows. Don't use the flash and the pix turns out looking dark and dim. Also the box is a little too small. There's not enough depth to it. I should have taken the A3 box instead of the A4 paper box.

So as you can see, I got my work cut out for me.

Oh, another thing. A week ago, there was a Friday when I was really free in the office and I spent almost the entire day reading up on digital SLR cameras online. Hah, I actually filled up 4 notebook pages worth of stuff on the subject. Was reading guides, forum discussions, etc. And today, I called up one of the recommended shops and they told me the price of the Sony A200 has dropped from S$1,099 to S$960. Better freebies too, instead of $100 voucher on lens, it's now an extra battery.

'A slight buzz right now'

Feeling a slight buzz right now from downing a couple of bottles of beer after vacuuming and mopping the entire apartment by myself.

What was I gonna say? Oh yah, reading b's latest entry made me think bout my current statis. Right now in my current gig, job or whatever you call it, it's a little different from my last place, it's good and bad. What I'm doing now is essential as in it's a freakin' boring job but someone's got to do it thing. It's mundane but less stressful at times compared to my last place. So it's good cos I'm less stressed out now, got more time to do the things I really enjoy like reading, surfing, blogging, eating good food (hehe), all that kinda stuff. Bad is work has become mostly brain-dead kinda stuff. very little creativity. The folks in the other departments are the ones after the fame and fortune and they richly deserve it too. They are pretty good. I'm no longer there any more but I'm ok where I am now. I guess you can say I am contented in a way. It's like what I wrote 2 years ago bout myself and my life's soundtrack, John Lennon's Watching the Wheels. Just read/listen to the lyrics ... that's me. I am taking it easy now. The mortgage's all paid up, I don't have a car or any kids so that means no financial commitments of those kinds.

And speaking of hobbies and free time, been taking more shots of my ladies and booze series here and here. Tried something new with wine glasses and mirrors instead.

Alright, just in case anyone is wondering, I do take shots of other than just cheesecake figures too! They aren't great but I am working on them.