our

Hmm...this argument is worth considering? Although I've never wanted to get back together with any of my ex.

The manga is pretty brutal @_@ my heart feels heavy after reading it ah. While I think the ending is the "best" resolution, it still sucks seeing them not get back together. Overall, the story is really good, and more importantly concise.

Reminds me of this song:

tophat

A series of crumble topped summer stone fruits:

 cooked peaches

 cooked apricots

grilled peaches

raw plums

To be honest...the fruits themselves all pretty much suck. Except for the peaches when they're super duper ripe, they all taste bland af. Bad fruits are not something a crumble can rescue "orz At the very least, these were an exercise in plating.

Tangyuan ii

I don't think I'll ever have a separate food blog, so the least I can do is organize the food posts here better. Introducing the cooking notes tag, and I'll try to link previous iterations from now on.

Tangyuan i

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Coconut sweet potato filling, TIL sweet potato is also referred to as 地瓜

Followed the recipe pretty much exactly as written and accordingly was rewarded with a dream of a dough, both to work with (no stickiness!) and super Q. Yeah I see why Q is such a textural goal for so many asian food.

Going to try one more batch as I made too much filling, but I'm gonna pre-emptively say that this dough isn't optimal for making filled tangyuan. The optimal texture for workability isn't the optimal texture for closing the dough around the filling. I think the most Q dough is quite a dry dough, kinda like udon (not that I've made udon yet, but I believe every word out of culinary goddess Amanda's mouth). Whereas other videos on making filled tangyuan show a very soft dough. Perhaps I should stick to inside-out tangyuan as the recipe originally intended for, and just use the 摇 (dip-and-roll) method for filled tangyuan.

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In case you didn't click on the two previous links and have not witnessed the greatness of Amanda, definitely do! She's like the Jacque Peppin of (mostly) asian food. Her videos have very clear instructions, and covers a wide breadth of dishes. Love her so much *u*

Switch Girl

Quite a wholesome shoo manga. Nika's off side and her fam is hilarious xD On a more serious note, a rhetorical question: Why is this genre of shojo mangas defined by having a meddlesome lead girl? Because every cynical cat-person, yours truly included, wants to be proven wrong in their cynicism. They we, want someone to demonstrate that they care way beyond reasonable limits. Basically to inspire hope, which we want despite how much anxiety and heartache it brings. It's the lesser of the two evils compared to living without attachments.

It's obvious...and cheesy af...written out like this, but it took me reading n shojo mangas over like a decade to fully realize, and admit to myself xD

curl

my boy is a genius

burst

Warm salads & a bruschetta for the cool weather:

 OG potato salad, UK version with samphire instead of basil

 Spring lentil salad with honey dressing

I put off making this for the longest time as the recipe didn't sound that interesting to me. I was very wrong and love how this tastes. Too bad the snap peas are past their season now :(

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Roasted grape, soft cheese and walnut bruschetta from Polpo Cookbook

I thought I was smart selecting black grapes since they'll look better in photos. I was very wrong, the contrast in the first photo is a nightmare, especially since I don't have the latest Adobe camera raw that's compatible with my camera. It took an ugly curve adjustment to make it look presentable.

patch

A rare event of me venturing outside:

A flowers themed exhibit at the Victoria Art Gallery. One day I'll pick up embroidery and knitting / crocheting (Y)

Then pre-emptively celebrating the end of dissertation writing...so close yet so far away ;_;

Raphael Restaurant: tl;dr = texture is perfect, flavour is normal

octahedron

It's nice to eat stewed summer vegs when the temperature maxs out at 20˚C. I'm extra appreciative of normal UK summer after the heatwave.

Ratatouille via Serious Eats

Think I added too much tomato sauce that its consistency became more of a pasta sauce...so that's what I used it for. It's substantially less labor intensive than the caponata, but I do prefer the caponata better.

Lady Macbeth

I'm not sure whether I'm more impressed by the aesthetics, especially the color palette, of the film or how awesome (in Mondrow's usage) Katherine is.

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Speaking of strong and ambitious female characters, Crimson in Ragna Crimson is amazing. Very much looking forward to updates of this manga.

turn

Some online window shopping and candidates for the unicorn work pants:

Everlane GoWeave Track Pants

Is wool, is right shape, is black, is reasonably priced, is full length...too bad not high waisted but so far the best candidate.

Another candidate is this pair from Massimo Dutti, but not sure how I'll manage with a pair of checked grey pants as the cold weather work pants staple.

In other news, that shearling jacket is perfect! Not super huge and minimal hardware, especially at the sleeves (cough Acne cough). It's also much cheaper than Acne's, and reasonable considering it's fully leather with an generously assumed level of quality. But I don't associate Massimo Dutti with prioritizing quality, although I should hold my judgement until I see the piece in person.

Bottom two pieces are from Aritzia, both which are not needs but they are versatile enough for both work and leisure *u*

Caponata

This dish is 99% of the reason why I bought the Polpo cookbook:

So oily, such a hassle frying eggplants, but so soooo good

I cooked it on the stove instead of oven per recipe instructions and think it turned out fine. The vegetable pieces retained less shape due to more frequent stirring, but this isn't a particularly pretty dish anyways. I also went on a limb and substituted suancai (which I initially misread as zhacai, which is slightly more reasonable of a substitute imo) for capers, can't say that I taste a difference. Also didn't buy enough tomatoes so I substituted a potion with passata and tomato paste, to no detriment either. Although my version is tangier than what I remember, perhaps because my tomatoes aren't ripe enough. It's actually just so good *u* definitely making it for my fam when I'm back.

One thing I lazied out on doing is removing the ribs of the celery. Don't be me, its a major textural flaw in the final dish. When everything else, and especially the eggplant, is silky...the tough fibres of the celery ribs is a glaring contrast.
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Made some naan to go alongside this. This is my second time using Matter of the Belly's recipe.

The first time, I found the naan to be too tender, which I rightly suspected was due to the lack of kneading in the recipe. This time around I repeatedly smooshed the dough in a circular motion against the mixing bowl after it comes together with a spatula (my lazy way of kneading without touching sticky doughs) for about 3 minutes, and also did 1 round of stretch and fold (also with a spatula to avoid getting my hands sticky) during the proofing. This did develop the gluten more, but next time I would knead it even more and do another round of stretch and fold (going to try #1 at 30 min, and #2 at 60 min during the 2 hour proof instead of just 1 at 60 min).

I also streamlined the rolling process by rolling it between sheets of parchment paper, again minimal mess :D Also getting the hang of how thick to roll the dough, which is just trial and error and needs to be recalibrated to each stove / pan combination "orz. The last modification is to add a tablespoon of water after putting the dough in, and after flipping the dough and steaming it the whole time instead of just wetting both surfaces of the dough. This resulted in much more puff.

chasing what's already gone

Was listening to this as I read the most disturbing manga I've yet to read:


The manga. The synopsis already sets up quite a mess. And then you watch the characters make each decision, which is full of good intentions whether that's self-protection or chasing their tendency, but cumulatively leads to such a train wreck. It's disturbing in that its realistic. The ending is really nice though, it uses a cliche, but imo they deserve a fluffy cliche ending.

It's especially disturbing since my mind was primed because I read the latest chapter of My ID is Gangnam Beauty (another great manga) earlier in the day. Sooah's arc just started, and it bears some resemblance to Mikako. I do like Mikako's character though, she's crazy and owns it. Though all 3 lead characters are well written.

I've been happily read a bunch of manga / webtoons / manhuas on the topic of society's beauty standard. It's always a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't kind of situation: too ugly is painful in many ways, too pretty is...tiring in many ways, and average is being a cog which I suppose is the least of the evils. Frankly, I'm susceptible to the problematic idea that if you look bad then you're lazy. I'm sure this train of thought should lead somewhere, but I'll follow it with another frankly, I get why Mikako and Kaito don't wanna get older. The girlish charm is very real and it's disappointing to think that it'll never take as little effort to look good as now. Past the awkward self-discovery teenage and undergrad years, but before "real" stress of "real" life settles in. I seriously can't wait for many things in the future, most of all owning a place of my own, but man so many necessary shit to put up with try to enjoy to get there. But like, for how long can I happily wear really short skirts, or avoid exercising which I absolutely detest?
Guess this turned into a prelude of graduation thoughts.

conical section

I think it's safe to say that summer has gone back to the typical UK summer of hovering around 20 during the day, phew. Thank you to this tank and this dress for carrying me during the heatwave:

I'm obviously looking forward to autumn/winter clothing. Saw these from HOPE's new collection, want very much:

Viva coat / Law trouser

One day I will have a giant furry coat with equally giant collars! Actually I came close to blind buying a forest green one during Artizia's winter sale last year, but mom reasonably talked me out of it. This blue-grey color is even better...maybe it'll be on sale in half a year, but it'd have to be a blind buy again ugh.

Found a US stockist (La Garconne) for the trousers, might be my last resort if I can't find a good pair in Canada. The silhouette is pretty perfect although would prefer if there isn't as much of a drop crotch. Seriously, why is a pair of high waisted carrot shaped trousers with some wool content such a unicorn?

various pants references via pintrest

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Also looking for tees with the perfect drape @_@

Gough

Quite a miserable day to go to Cheddar Gorge, especially since we got caught in the rain while walking on top of the cliff. Oh wells, getting completely soaked and then devouring dinner together is a good bonding activity (a la survey camp ha).

I really like how poorly my Rokinon performs in the edges / corners, call it personality haha. I hesitate to call a film-like look because I haven't seen enough of actual film prints, but its what I imagine the look to be. Although the poor focusing in the second photo is completely my fault.

Spirit Blade Mountain

Fairly certain that the Chinese title (从前有座灵剑山) is referring to a joke, the light-heartedness is one of this manga's strong points, while also incorporating serious philosophical considerations. The pacing is also excellent, after reading manga for sooooo many years, pacing is now what I appreciate the most and find sadly most series lack in, especially the xianxia genre. The characters & character development are also very good, the MC and his master have such good chemistry! I did spoil it for myself that they eventually get together, but would totally ship them even if I didn't know. Really looking forward to when master's past gets revealed, the plot has heavily foreshadowed it. Look how cute she is when she was little:

Begin Again

I was lured in by 500 Days of Summer listed as a similar movie. They are similar...but this didn't have the same emotional impact. I did enjoy Violet's storyline a lot (was expecting to see her with her guy at the party celebrating the album), and think that the ending is quite appropriate.

Kiera Knightly is pretty af, and her outfits were all great, especially this:

herbs

Made fesenjan chicken from The Art of the Larder last week to use the pomegranate molasses that I impulsively bought at Waitrose. It is mouthwatering delicious omg.

Looks like a brown glob, but taste so good. Totally worth trying to ground walnuts manually using a mortar and pestle...though I did give up and used half the amount of walnuts, to no detriment imo. Another thing I would change is skip browning the chicken, since my skinless (although the recipe did call for skinless) chicken thighs had a tough outer layer where it browned. Fully tender pieces would be the best. The recipe was correct in specifying plain rice as a side, the sauce needs something plain to allow it to shine...could possible work with udon a la curry udon.

<-

Dissertation first draft, done!

dribble

I don't think I've read any sports manga, but I am fully confident in say that 1/11 is definitely the best sports manga there is. This deserves awards.

The storytelling format is insanely effective, not really episodic, more like a series of one shots that connects to the overarching main plot line. it delivers so much feels hnnng.

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Oh I lied, recently started to read Golden Waltz as well. MC is very refreshing and so far plot pacing is good.

sequence

It makes me really sad that there's wild blackberries growing in abundance all over Bath but they taste super sour "orz

sibling

To match my Natsu no Zenjitsu wallpaper, here's my sunflower themed Animal Crossing camp:

fold

Achievement unlocked: own a bra that actually fits
Much thanks to /r/abrathatfits and being in UK which gives me easy access to Bravissimo

Let me recount the journey.

Stage 0: ill fitted bras, sometime in middle school until sometime in high school.
Aka when I knew nothing and picked bras based on nothing. Obviously, the fit was meh and looked meh and felt somewhat worse than meh. This ultimately lead to...

Opting out of wired bras altogether in favour of bralettes, sometime in high school until very recently.
I have no clue how I first discovered bralettes, probably by randomly walking into aerie when there was a sale and being attracted to lacy design. All was well since they are significantly more comfortable and I'm lucky enough not to require any support. But since there's no structure, bralettes do just squish boobs against chest, so there is a definite lack of shape and definition. This doesn't bother me under most clothing except for t-shirts, so I did keep (and even bought) a couple of t-shirt bras with underwire. But since they don't fit that well, they are still noticeable under t-shirts...which absolutely defeats their purpose.

Stage 0.5: silicone nipple covers, last month.
I've owned them for some time but never bothered to use it outside of special occasions. But UK's recent heatwave made even wearing bralettes quite repulsive, so I finally started wearing them regularly. They're amazing, bless the person who commercialized these. No extra layer of fabric, and actually better shape (thanks to genetics that my boobs have decent projection). I seriously considered never buying bras again and using these all the time, still considering actually. But alas I did buy a properly fitting bra today.

Stage 1: a bra that fits! Starting now.
I got this and day zero impression is that they're fantastic. Hopefully I remember to update how they age later. Although my band size is small enough that it's not commonly available, so it'll still be a struggle to buy bras. But man closer fitted clothing looks much better! Except button-downs, I'll keep a couple of bralettes for those.