I woke up on sabato with a piece of bad news - the framing sponsor for the cat exhibition has decided to pull out at the last minute, saying we should have 'given her more time' (so it's our fault now when she had said she could do it earlier) and had the cheek to criticise the quality of the prints when she has no right to. Che cazzo. Surprisingly, I maintained my cool and calmly thought of the alternative. No point crying over such unreliable idiots right? Negative feelings are a waste of energy; we should instead channel our time to positivity.
The mood was certainly upbeat at my cousin's J as we sat down to a casual Mother's Day lunch. It was also Kiki's Chinese birthday celebration so he donned his first pair of shoes and stepped on 2 pieces of ang koo kueh (red peanut cakes) for good luck. Then there's the tradition of letting the one-year old baby pick out an item from 5 significant objects, namely calculator, pen, book, chicken thigh, red egg and money (if it's a girl, thread is added to the mix). Each item has a different significance per esempio, if he picks the food items, he loves to eat and if he picks the calculator, he'll be a businessman. But we don't take it seriously lah, it's more a game.
Kiki eventually picked the pen after a false start (he was crying his eyes out). My mom only remembered that my bro picked the red egg so I phoned nonna who said I picked the thread while my sis the pen. So does that make me a good homemaker? Mamma had prepared a few dishes including her signature chicken curry - incidentally L's preferito. He made me promise to make it for him in Italia which I'd be happy to. Anyway e' molto facile.
Here's the recipe for everyone to enjoy:
Mamma's Famosa CurryIngredients:A whole chicken (chopped up)
A pack of curry paste
A pack of coconut milk
6 large potatoes (pre-boiled and cut roughly)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
3 tbsp cooking oil
Method:1. Fry the curry paste in the combined sesame and cooking oil till fragrant (1min).
2. Add chicken pieces to the curry paste and stir for 5mins on low heat.
3. Then add salt and potatoes, and mix well for another 5mins.
4. Add coconut milk and 2 cups of water, and cook on medium heat for 15mins or until chicken is cooked.
5. Serve with rice or bread and lots of tender love (come mamma who is also celebrating her 57th birthday over the weekend - I love you mom)!
Yay - the preview party for the cat photo exhibition was a great success! The day started with a live interview at 93.8FM radio station where N and I were chatted with the 2 hosts about the cat project, how it started etc. I must say we sounded quite smooth on air! Haha. Then in the afternoon a bouquet of lilies arrived from C in Romania - so sweet - to congratulate me on a job well done. Well I couldn't have done it with the support of everyone, especially my partners and friends. F got in the act last minute and produced these gorgeous cat photo magnets which we managed to sell for close to $300 at the opening party itself. 5 foto were also sold for $50 each, so hopefully we can raise more money for the Cat Welfare Society. Be kind to animals everyone!
L called me from Oslo where he's based for 3 weeks per lavoro. He said the landscape's amazing there and the sun is up from 5am all the way to 11.30pm - che stupendo! But imagine what a nightmare it'd be for insomniacs or vampires! There are apparently a lot of Asians there too; he ate at a buono italian ristorante which is run by 2 chinese old ladies and italian waiters. I tell you - Chinese people are amazing entrepreneurs. They can sell you anything! And talk about selling... of late we have been interviewing some applicants for our PR executive position and some people simply don't know how to sell themselves. When I asked them to describe themselves, a few of them said "Oh I'm funny". I bunched up my brows and replied "Funny?" And they added like I didn't hear them "Yeah my friends think I'm quite funny." I so wanted to tell them, look we don't run a circus, so we don't need clowns.
