Sukiyaki Study

Have you ever read a food blog? You know, the kind where they go and eat at wherever and then they talk about the food. Sedap ke tak. Servis baik ke tak. Got a lot of cute people or not. They write it down in their blogs to a bunch of drooling followers.

I kinda like to read food blogs la. But after awhile of reading, I realised dat dey all end up sounding sumting lyk dis ;). Srsly. Hw do u expect me 2 finis reding entry lik tat?

Then I, dengan megahnye, said, Ekeleh. I can write a better food blog than that! I am, after all, Captain Obvious and Grammar Nazi all in one delectable package! I can do no wrong with the written word!

(This is where the god of words spit on me, I think).

So I pergilah makan dekat this one Jap restaurant in Tropicana City Mall, with the aim of writing - sorry, not writing, blogging - about it. That and also I was craving meat. MEAT, THOU ART THE FRUIT OF LIFE!! Delicious and tender, sweet and comforting. Thou hath no rival in the world of fruit and vegetables!!Especially not tofu.

Why go to a Jap restaurant for meat? Why, have you not had their thinly sliced beef, grilled on that...stone thing. Or chunks of it, grilled? Or dipped, for only a few moments into boiling soup??No?? Great. Then now you have me drooling for no reason goddamnit.

Went there la (forgot the name of the place). Across from Artista, which is this awesome place for music and drinks. We ordered salmon sashimi and erm, some tuna chunks with this weird bean thing that smelled like a petrol nozzle threw up, and then a spider shat on it, because it had these funny fermented tendrils that stuck on your spoon when you tried to scoop it.

Mysterious bean thing.

Delicious slices of salmon. Wonder why cooked salmon never tastes as good.

That bean thing was like the height of our adventurousness la. So for the main meal he ordered soupy udon noodles (unless it was the other one), and I ordered Sukiyaki.

The main dish. Wink wink.

The whole time I ate, this was going through my head:

The charms of Sukiyaki,
The arms of Sukiyaki.
Are all I long for since I left old Nagasaki.

Ah, that Sukiyaki. Such a tease. My own Sukiyaki was delicious. And now I malas nak cakap dah about my dinner.

The most important part of my Sukiyaki. MEAT!

Anyway. I realised not everyone can be a food blogger la. You have to be pretty rajin, I think, to write about all the places you eat. I went to that Jap place about a month ago, and baru sekarang I terasa wanna write about it. Tsktsk. Also, you just have to like food. I like food, I do. Really. But I don't like it enough to feel inspired to write about it and describe in an appetising and scrumptious manner.

So I may be aware of proper grammar and sentence structure, but that doesn't make me a food blogger. It just makes me kind of a prick about other people's grammar.

I learned a valuable lesson because of this: I am not the god of words, despite whatever delusion I was labouring under. It's a setback for my plans of eventual world domination, but nevermind. I have a scientist friend who will no doubt succeed in her plans to take over the world and I can leech off her in the future.

Freeform Independence

The other day I went and volunteered at a soup kitchen.

I know, I know what you're thinking. Sam? Really? The one who stops at nearly every (nearly because Iylia stops at every) mirror to check her hair? Who won't go out with the wrong shoes or unmatching underwear (I actually do that quite often thanks)? Feeding the homeless?

Yes. Yes I was.
I followed PERTIWI Soup Kitchen (intro-ed by this blog) on Monday night. This is what I expected:

Masses of smelly people drooling at the sight of food. Unable to control their hunger and lack of hygiene, they push and shove and fight over the bowls of soup. Raving lunatics and druggies share the same breathing space, dependant on charity for food. Sad, wasted, demented people..

Seth: You mean you expected prostitutes waving AIDS-filled syringes in the air to come trampling after you?
Me: Yes! Exactly like that!!
Seth: (Rolls eyes)

It was nothing like that. It resembled that description the way Stephenie Meyer's writing resembled Jane Austen's: basic premise is similar, but execution is completely unrecognisable.
Yes, they were homeless. And yes, they were poor. Kot. I guess. I mean, they took the free food (which came in tidy little brown baggies), so I assume they needed it. Although there was this one tourist from Pakistan or something who took a free drink before realising it was for homeless people. Technically, tourists are homeless. Except they have money. And a place to stay back in their hometown.

So these homeless people, they look like completely normal people. No beards or braids down to their knees. They obviously had baths and haircuts, and clothes that were, on the most part, clean. If they weren't lining up for the food, I wouldn't have thought they were homeless. It was not as depressing as I thought it would be, to be honest. The lady in charge, Baidah, told us that some people just choose this way of life. Some of them can't change, or don't want to. Some just never have the opportunity to escape from it once they're in it.

I can't really say what they're doing is wrong, or that their life sucks. I can't say I pity them as much as I would, say, a poverty-stricken rape victim or an old man with alzheimers. Those people have no control over what has happened to them, and not much after that either. But these homeless, to a certain extent (excluding the obviously insane and mentally or physically or age handicapped ones), do have control over their future and themselves.

But what control do any of us really have over our life anyway? No point really thinking too much about it. Just do your good deeds and hope that God is keeping score (do I get an A for effort God? Huh? Do I? Do I?). I did it out of the kindness of my heart (honest!), despite what my friends say (what my friends said:

HRHing: except that
HRHing: i bet in that moment when you were helping
HRHing: your head was screaming "Don't TOUCH ME! PLEASE DON'T ROB ME!"

Lies, O Heavenly Father. Utter lies. They should know by now that's what I think about everyone).