0 Turning Japanese

Woo hoo! Admist the business, I still managed to get in a lip-smacking meal. Tamari dumplings (steamed) from Real Food Grocer, plump with no less than 10 ingredients including carrots, mushrooms, bean curd, French beans and chestnuts. The crunchiness of the filling contrasted nicely against the silky smooth skin (for once, no thick, clumpy dumpling skins!), and each mouthful was a joy of savouriness. I'm so glad they opened an outlet at Novena. 4 dumplings downed, I continued with a California salmon roll from Cold Storage, and another tobiko gunkan sushi (the rice was compressed till almost cake form), home-double-boiled herbal black chicken soup, one giant Driscoli strawbby and half a Fuyu persimmon. Gosh, I feel like a piggy after typing all these, but my tumms is filled and happy!

My japalang nut butter (mainly peanut, almonds, flax, sesame) is getting better by the day, as it releases its oils. It has a really strong flaxy flavour that paired well with the sesame-pumpkin-flax powder (double flax power!). I had this with Earnest's Mayan blend this morning, and a plum on the side.

Lunch was whipped up in a jiffy. Wheat noodles, teriyaki mackerel, lettuce and rocket, cherry tomatoes, and mashed avocado, tossed all together in a little of the leftover pasta water, topped with broad bean paste and some random seaweed shreds from a long time ago. So umami. A whole Washington Red apple on the side

I most probably bombed my sodium intake today with the Japanese theme. To more low sodium meals the next few days.

First of four presentations tomorrow - systematic reviews for Drugs & Clinical Trials module. And I havent even prepared my script. Which I shall do so NOW

0 Every second matters now

Oh my, I hate seeing the calendar page flip from "Feb" to "Mar;" later at 12pm (1 hr to go), the church bells are going to chime in their mocking tone, chiding my procrastination and perfectionism which results in me doing things so slowly just for the sake of precision, which ultimately, nobody would really care (except me).

Farewell lunch turned out to be at Itacho Sushi, which was a life-changing event, really. The blow-torched soy sauce salmon sushi was orgasmic, the fatty omega-3 oils literally oozing from the skin and melting into fishy goodness on the tongue. Salmon nigiris topped with lobster salad, chawanmushis, crabmeat beancurd, tamago were all equally good, and not too expensive. This has sparked a new found craving for sushi and I'm so going to have to check out the "shiok sushi" from Koh's Grill and Sushi Bar at Wisma's Food Republic - in 3 months time? And to learn to make sushi. It's amazing, rekindling the passion and love of something that I'm never experienced since... the discovery of oatmeal (which of course I'm still passionate about)

Speaking about oatmeals, this morning's creation was rather novel - 1/2 portion BRM's oatmeal cooked in Pacific soy milk and Garden of Life RAW protein powder, with a Rude Health Spelt Oaty biscuit crumbled in, a slice of Larabar Cappuccino melted in, Sunbutter, topped with a sprinking of nuts & seeds. Superb mix of creaminess and crumblyness from the biscuit (which surprisingly didn't disintegrate in the heat). A Red Delicious that was so red it could be the Snow White poison apple on the side. Garden of Life RAW protein powder has that malty, slightly chalky taste similar to Sunwarrior, which may be disagreeable to some as I found initially. However, I've even grown to like it now! So far, Lifetime Basics has the most neutral of "neutral flavours" out there in the market; you relaly can't detect the powder taste at all when mixed into oats.