12 Nov 2016
Chopping garlic is such an annoyance. Let's see if mincing lots of garlic at one go and storing them in the fridge works.
Apparently a little oil should be added so I'll do that.
Got some fresh chilli and limes today so I will try to make sambal in the next few days if I'm in the mood. The belacan has been here for a while so it's time to make use of it.
19 Nov 2016
The sambal didn't turn out so well. It really does stink when toasted so I'll have to do it when no one is around.
The belacan in my first batch was probably not toasted enough so the mix ended up looking bright red. The freshness of the chilli also made it watery.
At least the mortar and pestle from Korea finally proved practical. It had a lot of grooves at the bottom but I wasn't sure if the whole thing was just a decorative item until it was finally put into use.
Next time the belacan will be toasted longer and maybe even get slightly burnt.
22 Nov 2016
Why is the view count so high for so long? It has been consistently about double the rate I was used to before this blog slowed down, with my latest 30 posts or so having at least 90 views each.
Totally no idea why because the top referring sites at the moment is this very blog and google. Basically this is saying that someone knew to google something that leads to my blog and has been clicking on my blog posts to read them one at a time.
No other clues because even the spam bots have died out here in Blogger so the comment section is always dead.
Bought the Friends of the Garden annual pass to Gardens by the Bay (GBB) because I've been there at least thrice already in the last year. With the flowers always changing, especially the cacti flowers (there are two towers of agave flowers blooming at the moment, which someone told us are very rare here and is the first time a regular such as himself has ever seen here in GBB), I think I may visit the conservatories more in the future.
The Flower Dome actually feels suitable for chilling out, seriously, so I may do that with the pass. Maybe order a pot of tea at Pollen and just spend hours there.
It costs me $20 to enter both conservatories with a single ticket, or $12 for just one, plus $8 (with no chance of any discount) per entry to the OCBC Skyway, so to pay $61 (10% off single conservatory ticket bought on the day of application) for unlimited entries to all 3 for a year is pretty good deal to me.
This brings to mind a friend of mine who bought the $2000 annual pass to the Marina Bay Sands. She gambles a little but shops there a lot, especially for the aromatherapy stuff to deal with the cigarette smoke in her home, and for that she's received 7 nights in total at the hotel this year, 3 of which was for her birthday month in December. Moreover, they usually give her one of the better rooms with a choice of either City View or Garden View (ie sea view), not the lowest tier just because it's a freebie.
Those 7 nights have totally covered her $2000 membership right there. Well, technically it's just almost but close enough.
I would sign up and try but the problem is that there's rarely any reason for me to go there and it's a bad idea to go out of my way just to spend $2000.
However, they're now offering another way to get it - spend $500 in a day then another $500 within the next 3 months. The first $500 will get me 3 months of upgrade to that tier from the free tier, then the following $500 gets me the other 9 months. It's still not very tempting though since it's limited to once per lifetime and the listed perks in the website are bland. Neither do I get the entry to the casino.
How this works is that you pay the $2000 levy for an annual pass to the casino, and this counts as a $2000 spend which gets you qualified to the first paid tier of the MBS loyalty programme. The shortcut does not involve the levy at all.
So the first batch of Tiko 3D printers has left port. Mine will be in the 9th batch and that's definitely arriving in 2017.
Lots of interesting deals on GMG for Black Friday but nothing particularly tempting.
In all seriousness, coffee prices are rising due to demand and a series of setbacks for coffee farmers recently. It just feels bad that people are wasting this increasingly precious commodity through.... pumpkin spiced latte? Among other things, of course. Let's be honest - most coffee drinkers out there just want a coffee-flavoured diluted milk.
Then again, I used to be like that before tasting espresso in Italy, so who am I to judge? As long as someone likes it, it is not a bad dish/beverage, right?
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