A hearty breakfast and other meals

Yum! Ramli burger for breakfast this morning.

Caught a nice bargain at Ikea last night.

I trawl through the AS-IS (ex-display) section every chance I get to pick up bargains. Saw a sweet, sweet suede sofa (discounted more than MYR500) for just a bit less than my monthly salary. All brand new too. Will definitely make a fine addition to my apartment. Except that I still see no reason to buy an idiot box for the living room. And without that, there's just nothing for other furnitures to center around. Unless some interior decorators will like to give suggestions.

Thus, pass on the sofa. Instead, bought a very nice frying-pan.

Platinum Teflon. Cool metal handle. Thick steel base. Big!

There's just something about a big cooking utensil with a LOT of metal that makes it superior to those cheap, thin aluminium affairs that's so common nowadays. Aluminium pans are often slightly domed in the centre, which is probably designed to take metal expansion into account, and flattens out when the pan is heated. But even then, they still aren't as flat as I would like. Grease will flow away from the centre sweet-spot, and even eggs will flow to the sides so you end up with weirdly shaped fried eggs.

Nice beautiful round eggs just aren't possible with thin aluminium pans.

Another thing with more metal, is that the pan will have a higher heat capacity. Which makes it better for pan-frying stuff. You can get the pan all nice and hot, then release all that energy into your food in a split second. That's how chinese cooking often is.

And the new frying pan is also great for cooking burger patties. And that's what I had for breakfast this morning. Greased the pan generously with Australian butter, cooked the patty, and wrapped the patty with a fried egg, then sandwiched with lightly toasted Gardenia bread.

... Good God! Just realised that a long life of single-hood is making me increasingly domesticated! Help!!...

Well, at least I'm not using copper pots like those Queer Eye guys....

Hmm... still need to get a good cast iron wok. It's not a proper CHINESE kitchen without a cast iron wok. And you won't find those at super-markets. Have bought a couple of really crappy ones. Aluminium is hopeless. Cheap steel woks machined from a sheet steel is also crap.


Moving on.....

I've finished Anansi Boys. Quite enjoyable.

If you've read American Gods, you might remember Mr. Nancy, one of the old gods fighting alongside Odin. The one who told the story about Spider stealing Tiger's balls.

Well, this is the story of Mr. Nancy's boys. About Charles Nancy's relationship with his father; going to his father's funeral; discovering his long lost brother, Spider, who monopolised all the godly magic in the family.

It's fun to read. Love the writing style.


And after this, there's Orson Scott Card to read.

After hoovering almost everything Card has written, I had left him for a while to 'fallow'. Recently found that he's writing Ultimate Iron-Man for Marvel. Which I found kinda cool. And it suddenly occured to me to go back and check on the field.

Very pleasantly surprised to find Giant of the Hegemon, AND another new book, no less.

My first introduction to Card was Ender's Shadow.

What Gaiman is to the field of 'contemporary fantasy' and mythology; Card is to science fiction. Many of his short stories are simply amazing.

Perhaps his best known book is Ender's Game. This was written ages back. And to put it in a way modern readers can identify with.... It's like Harry Potter in space. There. It's as if Harry Potter was taken to Battle School in a space station to fight aliens, instead of going to Hogwarts to fight he-who-may-not-be-named. Except that Ender grows up.

There was talk of making Ender's Game into a movie. Not sure what has come of that. Chances are, some idiot producer can't see a good idea unless he shat it out himself.

Same thing happened to Jeff Smith's Bone. Some idiot producer killed it.


Anyway, there's enough to keep myself occupied in the meanwhile...