Una Ragazza on Shop: Shopping for a Party

This winter, I attended a Chinese New Year event organized by the Singapore Consulate in New York. Food, as usual, was the impetus for my RSVP. This time round, however, something was different.

After passing through the security checkpoint at the entrance of the consulate, I approached the reception desk and was handed a leaflet about voting in the upcoming parliamentary elections by overseas Singaporeans. Unfortunately, because I had spent less than 30 days in the last three years in Singapore, I learnt that I did not meet the qualifying criteria to cast a vote.

While disappointed, I went on in and the lo hei, satay and mee goreng distracted me enough that I didn't dwell on the issue that night.

In recent weeks my attention has reverted to the subject of the Singapore election because of the interest and excitement among friends and family back home who have regularly chattered online, most frequently about candidates newly fielded by the various political parties.

In the past, the general apathy among Singaporeans toward political matters had at times left me disappointed in what I feared had become an overly-complacent society which would not cope well with a change -- any change -- in status quo.

Despite not being able to participate in the electoral process this time round, my Singaporean friends and I exchange viewpoints on our hot-button issues, the various parties and candidates. I'm glad in the confidence and interest that Singaporeans, at least some, seemed to have found in politics, something that was visibly absent in elections of yonder.

Those looking for this blog positing to get real political and dirty may be disappointed. Instead, I encourage you to take a break from all the politicking and join me on a little shopping excursion.

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The newfound enthusiasm for politics among Singaporeans has inspired the following musings that liken these weeks of deliberation, campaigning and decision-making to our national hobby: shopping.

In a way, voting in an election is not too different from shopping. The 2011 Singapore shopping experience is shaping up to be pretty colorful.

First of all, there are some plausible options on what to buy. Instead of the ubiquitous house brand of soy sauce, a shopper can choose from some new varieties. Not that the usual item is lacking in quality, but that every now and then, a shopper welcomes a change in the way his soy sauce seasons his food.

Which soy sauce is best for me?

Secondly, the advertisements for the products on sale are working. People are talking about the samples they got for the new perfume, and its upcoming launch party. People are engaged. People care about their choices.

Thirdly, people are showing up at the product conferences. The travel exhibitions with giveaways, discounts and hula dancers... people are here to see what they've got.

At the ever-popular NATAS (National Association of Travel Agents Singapore) fair: Which travel package is best for my family?

No one can deny that the single largest game-changer has been the advent of socia media. It has practically reinvented the shopping experience. Facebook pages advertising the benefits of the brands have sprung up in force, backed by product endorsements among bloggers and traditional media. Product demonstration in Ang Mo Kio void deck, volunteers needed? Not a problem. One Facebook update or Tweet, and the need is taken care of.

Increasingly, Singaporeans seem to have had enough of the bench-warming act. People are generally more interested in learning about the product attributes of their laundry detergent rather than opting to settle for the one with the largest advertising budget with the most prominent shelf space in Cold Storage or NTUC.

Some have even taken to doing their own research to find out if the detergent companies are telling the truth! Citizen journalism: now we're talking.

However, many of us are also grappling with the idea that we can influence the price and varieties of cooking oil sold in the provision shop by our nearest MRT station. What are we going to do with this power? Will we end up doing something "wrong" and hurting ourselves? In the first place, is there something wrong with my mini-mart's offering of cooking oil? Are we over-thinking it?

What about product guarantee? While some brands have been in the market for a long time, the manufacturers advertise their quality and commitment to innovation.

Look, we are Yeo's packet drinks. You've grown up with us and loved our soya bean, barley and chrysanthemum. We even have winter melon and green tea now. Why do you want to try another brand? Stick with us, we're tried and tested. We've grown up with you.

I guess the biggest unknown for undecided Singaporeans is the post-purchase experience. For most, we do not know the recourse, if any, if we were to buy chicken rice from a different stall and drink sugarcane juice from a new vendor.

The old man from whom I always buy my weekend breakfast: His nasi lemak needs more ikan bilis (fried anchovies) and his belachan (Malay chili paste) has room for improvement, but at least I know the quality of his product. If I were to go across the street, will the food taste better, or will I instead be besieged by a bad case of food poisoning?

For kiasu ("afraid to lose") and kiasee ("afraid to die") Singaporeans, this is a trying time indeed.

The country is at a major crossroads, and for many of us Singaporeans, there is a feeling that change is palpable.

May the best chicken rice stall win.

Healthy competition is in; chicken rice war is out

(Some pictures taken from the Internet)

Little Pixy Boots on Eat: Norwegian Office Lunches

Ever since I've worked in a "normal" office with normal office hours in Norway, I've noticed some things are different from Singapore. For example, lunch hour in Norway is not exactly an hour - it's half an hour. That's because Norwegians prefer to finish the day early and fast so that they can get home early, relax or enjoy the summer sunshine before it's gone for the day. Full-time work in Norway is a strange 37.5 hours, unlike most countries where it's 40 hours per week. So it turns out, a lot of Norwegians begin their day early and have their dinner at home at 4 pm or 5 pm, something almost unheard of in Singapore, and certainly not in Spain, where most working people get home at 8pm or 9pm.

Time for lunch is "normal" enough at 12pm. Lunch is called "lunsj" in Norwegian, with the same pronunciation. Which incidentally brings me to the strange fact that Norwegians call their dinner "middag" which means "midday" and "ettermiddag" for afternoon, so in Norway "ettermiddag" comes before "middag". Strange, huh? I haven't figured that one out yet.

Unlike Singapore, where food is cheap (yes, I know Singaporeans complain all the time that food prices always go up, but wait till you see the prices on food menus here, my friends!), Norway is horrendously expensive to eat out everyday. So what companies offer as a benefit or part of the package deal for the employee, is a canteen with subsidised or free food, or office lunches in the pantries of smaller companies. Of course, employees still contribute a small sum of money per week to office lunches, but as I was earning puny money as an intern, I get to eat for free.

Office lunches in Norwegian offices can be a rather monotonous affair, but they do try to spice it up every Wednesday and/or Friday. Norwegian lunches are usually simple and not served hot. Most offices I've been to for lunch, serves bread with a variety of spreads, "pålegg" (which means something to have on top), and fruit. Juices, milk, tea and coffee accompany the food, as most (western?) Norwegian people like to have coffee or tea after their meals.

A typical Norwegian lunch with brown cheese

My office serves the usual but there was a brief period of time when yours truly added spice in their lives. We were in a temporary office for 3 months where there was a stove and an oven, and we could work wonders - pizza, thai phad thai noodles, pasta salad, risotto, scrambled eggs - you name it, we make it. I say "we" because when I first came, there was another female intern in the office from Finland who is preppy, funny and has a British accent. She was the one who urged me to cook outside the lunch box, within a time limit of 30 minutes. That was when I saw the benefits of frozen broccoli, fast-to-cook pasta and rice, and ready-to-eat chicken salad.

I've come to realize that frozen vegetables are usually pre-cooked half-way and all you need to do is to dump boiling hot water into a bowl, throw them in and voila! Cooked broccoli in 5 minutes! Very useful when you have tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, paprika to cut up otherwise, while watching the pasta boil in another 5 minutes. My Finnish cooking-comrade (FCC for short) used to almost exclusively cook most lunches, even though according to our company's rules - there is a "chef roster" that rotates among the colleagues per week. I think she just likes to take care of food for everyone and somehow all the could-be chefs got lazy and relied on her.

Maybe the men are just waiting for a woman to serve them! hah.

I don't know why but after I started my first try at cooking thai curry noodles for lunch, I seemed to get special requests every time lunch comes around. Usually they are quite subtle... they start by discussing something special that they would like to have at around 10am. Then they ask very nicely, "Har du lyst til å lager mat?" (Have you lust to make food?)

Usually because I love cooking and feeding people, I wouldn't say no. But I do remember one day being so tired that I said very succinctly, "Jeg har ikke lyst til å lager mat". I remember how disappointed the girls looked though. I guess sometimes a girl's going to have to take care of herself first before others!

My challenge during such "Asian" lunches is how to shorten the preparation time and cooking time to just 30 minutes. With lots of stress and sweat, of course. It helped that my FCC is a superwoman when it comes to speed of chopping, slicing and peeling, because she turned out to be my sous chef on more than one occasion. I loved frying the garlic and onions while preparing the meal, but at the same time, I had to be conscious to not be too near the food and air out the kitchen while cooking. That's not easy because when I opened the window during winter, -15 degrees celsius air swooped into the kitchen.

The reason I had to be conscious about how I smell is because the first few times I cooked, I remember going to my Norwegian language class after work and feeling apologetic to my neighbouring classmates that I stink/smell like fried garlic.

I really had no desire being remembered as the "garlic girl".

So anyway, my green and red thai curry noodles was a big hit. So were my stir-fried tofu with grill spices and spring onions. A few times I recall getting compliments on my cheese, mushroom and onion omelette too. There were a few times when I was the sous chef and helped my FCC with her famous pesto pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, olives and cherry tomatoes. That was really good because it lasts for two days in the fridge.

Thai red curry

The last time I remember cooking an Asian lunch for my colleagues is an adventurous phad thai noodle. It's challenging because I've never cooked it before, and I have to do it within 30 minutes. My kitchen was also appliance-challenged, because all we had are two pots - on a magnetic induction cooktop. With an induction cooktop, I have difficulty lifting my pot and flipping my noodles, omelette etc up like a normal Chinese chef does, because induction works by contact - no contact, no heat. It didn't help that we didn't have a saucepan and proper frying ladle too, so I was working with limited tools.

But at the end of the lunch, somehow even my most amateurish attempt was praised. I think Norwegians are just much more appreciative towards a sincere effort.

Those were the days, my friend - I thought they would never end. But they did. I have just left this job as my contract ended and before that, I was preparing "normal lunches" again because we moved to an office with no stove or oven. So I tried to be creative - buy the meats that my colleagues liked to eat, broccoli salad (just additional hot water, pine nuts, raisins needed), avocado as a "pålegg", different cheeses, fruits, lemons, smoked salmon etc. Somehow I think I had gained a reputation of making good lunches, which is a nice reputation to have.... just because I like to feed people well. I remember my colleagues tried to name who is a "feeder" and who's an "eater" in our company, and I was a feeder like my Finnish cooking-comrade!

I'm going to miss those guys, but probably not the lunches, because it gets monotonous for a vegetarian like me. It's hard to get vegetarian "pålegg" in normal supermarkets so I had to stick to vegetables and cheese all the time. Most pålegg for Norwegians mean boiled egg, liver pate, ham, kaviar, some canned fish, cheese and chocolate spreads, especially Nugatti. I don't like the chocolate spreads and seldom take egg, so I get limited options.

Nugatti Air - a airy favourite for the boys

Well, that's that. I'm going back to Singapore for two weeks this coming Saturday, so I'm looking forward to a gastronomical party! Rojak, laksa, rice dumplings (all vegetarian of course), here I come!

:P' ' '

pixy

Pictures from the internet.

Una Ragazza on Eat: Smells Like New York

Ah, the things that happen in New York.

This week, a congressman from the New York borough of Staten Island introduced a bill to make pine the “official scent” of New York. His case was that while New York had an official flower, tree, bird, animal, insect, fruit and muffin, there is no official scent to bring the state together. “And that stinks,” he said.

For a city still undergoing an economic recovery, the news was not welcomed by many. In fact, a Facebook page called “New Yorkers against PINE being the ‘Official Scent’ of New York” was created on the same day the news broke on April Fool’s Day (which the congressman denied was a joke).

The New York Times takes us on a walking tour of the smells of New York

If not pine, what then, do New Yorkers think should be the official scent of New York. Here are a few olfactory choices to get us thinking. If any one of these garner enough support, we may very well have to consider overturning the “pine bill.”

10. Bagels

The fresh smell of bagels puts a spring in my step on weekday mornings. Entering the deli a block from the office never fails to put me in a good mood. Beware -- avoid the onion or everything bagel if you're meeting with the boss in the next 4 hours!

9. Bacon and eggs

On weekends, I used to go for a run down the Westside highway when I was living in Chelsea, occasionally ending my exercise by ducking into a diner because I can't resist the sizzling sound and smell of bacon on the grill. Pair it with a bellini and good coffee and your weekend is set.

8. Pizza

In my opinion, pizza is one of those things to eat within minutes of it being ready. There are so many pizza delis in the city, and many with half-bought pies sitting on the deli counter for too many hours. Over time, I've learnt to either hold my breath while walking past a pizza deli or to quicken my foot steps.

7. Chinese takeout

Being Chinese, I'm certainly biased toward Chinese takeout. I eat more than my fair share of General Tso's chicken, fried rice and egg foo young, and am thankful that I have a door to my office at work so that I can spare my otherwise hapless colleagues who prefer a simple and odorless lunch of cereal, fruit and yogurt.

Tasty as it is, my attitude toward Chinese takeout is similar to that toward durians. Lovely to smell and eat while I'm at it; take it far, far away from me once I'm done.

Tip: throw away the leftovers in the office pantry, not in your personal trash can.

Durians -- lovely to smell, but only while you're eating them

6. Street meat

I was introduced to street meat within days of starting my first job in New York. The term is loosely used to mean any meat sold by street vendors, including hot dogs, kebabs and steak sandwiches. My favorite street meat vendor is Rafiqi's, a turkish kebab and meat-over-rice stall which is run by an enterprising Middle Eastern man with nearly 20 trucks around the city.

A crowd-pleaser is the lamb or chicken over rice. White sauce? Yes! Red sauce, yes!

For tip on post-meal disposal, refer to #7 above.

Rafiqi's: Reliable street meat serving Midtown (and elsewhere) for more than a decade

5. Coffee grounds

Coffee is a daily, necessary drug that transcends class, gender and race; students, the employed, and the unemployed all need this to power through our days. That means a ton (literally) of coffee beans are used, generating a staggering amount of coffee grounds. Since the city garbage trucks do not pick up trash on a daily basis, the resulting coffee smells -- fresh, stale and rotting -- is a rather permanent feature of the air we breathe.

4. Beer/Vomit

I'm terribly thankful that St. Patrick's Day makes its appearance only once a year, and that the accompanying madness is pretty much contained within that day. But when that day rolls along, the damage sometimes appears insurmountable. Working on Second Avenue in Midtown means walking by drunk people as early as during the lunch hour. Never mind that there are policemen around -- this is the only day of the year that they can drink in uniform, so don't venture too close to one if you're looking to make a complaint about the vomit splattered onto your pants.

3. Laundered suit

With apartment sizes as tiny as 300 or 400 square feet, most New Yorkers do not have a washer and dryer in their apartments, or even in their buildings. Many send their laundry and dry cleaning to the shops, which number in the thousands to serve the millions of office workers. The result is the smell of starch and laundry detergent in high-traffic subway stations serving the financial and legal businesses concentrated in the Financial District and Midtown.

2. Urine

Crazy as it may sound, in a city where apartments and office space go by the millions, New Yorkers still have to put up with the smell of urine -- from humans and pets -- in every neighborhood, even swanky ones like Soho and West Village. The worst places are in phone booths and corners of subway stations. I have personally witnessed more than my fair share of peeing men in both these locations. Time to install some public toilet facilities? I think so.

1. Garbage

Finally, garbage. This problem is usually worse in the summer, when the soaring temperatures cause the unmentionables in the garbage bags to disintegrate faster and emit more pungent gases. However, this recent winter has proven us wrong. Winter garbage can stink pretty badly as well, especially if the city waste disposal trucks don't pick them up for more than a week!

Trash piling up outside a bar-restaurant in Midtown

Have a better idea for an official city scent? Leave a comment, and state your case.

(Some pictures taken from the Internet)