Croaky has a soft spot for claypot rice…

Two misgivings about the dish:

(1) The rice was not cooked in a claypot – I have not experimented heating a claypot on my electric cooker hob and there is no intention to try.

(2) A ready mix is used. It’s so convenient nowadays. And you get the right savoury taste anyway…

There’s chicken, lup cheong, mushrooms, chye sim and plenty of rice!
By the way, the pretty claypot costs $2 – from Daiso.

While Yosemite National Park boasts of cascading waterfalls and natural wildlife, Lake Tahoe is a distinct beauty with its crystal clear waters and picturesque backdrop. Located across the State of California and Nevada, it is the second deepest lake (501 m deep) in the United States. The views of the lake are free, but if you were to enter it’s vista points for photos, you will be charged a minimal fee.

Here is a signage at one of the vista points – the Cave Rock. It must be a rock by the name of “cave”. We see no caves.

See the ski mountains? Great for ski lovers! Warning: admission is hefty.

Our frozen smiles as we posed in front of Tahoe Queen. The winds were really icy out there.

We had our lunch at the Forest cafe. Croaky voted this as one of the best and reasonably priced buffets we had in our entire tour.

And you see him gleefully pinching away the hairy legs of the Alaskan crabs above.

We caught sight of a fisherman in action… notice how blue the waters are?

Croaky with his superman stunt again!

And us, in fairyland.

It’s 10 degree celsius and is freaking cold.

Our next destination… San Francisco.

Recently, I attended a talk on “How to be happy – The full life approach to well being” at my workplace. The speaker presented one Happiness equation invented by Prof Martin Seligman which I found interesting. And here goes:

H: Enduing level of Happiness
S: Set range (somewhat like a person’s characteristics eg your minimum is 3 and your maximum is 9)
C: Circumstances including age, climate, education, race, medical tests, money etc
V: Events under voluntary control

We were asked to rank ourselves using the Satisfaction with Life scale (SWLS)
Score (1- strongly disagree, 2 – disagree, 3 – slightly disagree, 4 – neutral, 5 – agree, 6 – slightly agree, 7 – strongly agree)

Q1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal. ____
Q2. The conditions of my life are excellent. ____
Q3. I am satisfied with my life.____
Q4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.____
Q5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.____

And the results as follows:
35 – 31 Extremely satisfied
26 – 30 Satisfied
21 – 25 Slightly satisfied
20 Neutral
15 – 19 Slightly dissatisfied
10 – 14 Dissatisfied
5 – 9 Extremely dissatisfied

The average score for Americans ranged from 26-28, prison immates and hospital patients 12-14. No local results were provided.

The speaker cited 3 examples of people at work.

A – wakes up every morning to loathe going to work. She sees her work as a means to bring home the dough. If she has been given a choice, she would left her work long ago. She would never ever want her children to be in her line of work in the future.

B – knows what the work she is doing now is temporary. She is constantly looking at ways to improve herself and gets noticed by senior management. She knows someday she will be due for a promotion. She views her current state as a stepping stone to greater things ahead.

C – enjoys what she is doing for a living. She talks about her work with great enthusiasm. She doesn’t mind bringing her work home late at night or gets contacted for work commitments during her holidays. She hopes one day her children will follow her footsteps and do what she is doing now.

And as all you may have guessed by now.
A is a job.
B is a career.
C is a calling.

The participants nodded their heads furiously when the examples were cited. It’s not unusual for people to find shadows of themselves in either A, B or rarely C.

The last leg of the talk explained the differences between a pleasant life, an engaged life and lastly a meaningful life. One lady provided an account of how she quit her profession in pursuit of a more meaningful life.

I wonder how our economy will suffer if all of us quit our professions to seek a “more meaningful” life – no matter what it may be. Imagine the exodus of white-collared workers who will leave their offices to teach yoga, sell cakes or set up a farm. A balance has to be striked, but how? Men shall remain in their offices while their wives seek “meaningful” lives?

Ultimately, the root cause of your happiness or lack of happiness lies in your hands. The “V” in the equation explains it all. How often have you made a wrong decision in life and yet forgive yourself because it is your own choice, really?

We had nothing much to do on Saturday and hence, we decided to try out this new place called the Sunset Grill at Seletar Airport (Croaky says Tom Cruise used to land here with his private jet). Having read the reviews on an internet forum, we armed ourselves heavily with insect repellent and left home early at 6 pm in order to catch a glimpse of the “sunset”. We GPSed “Sunset grill” and arrived at the place in a jiffy.

It looked very much like a cze char stall right smack in the middle of wilderness, albeit you can find displayed aircrafts at an arm’s length.

Burning mosquito coils at your feet was a common sight. With our double/triple protection, we did not suffer from any bite! Miracle.

The food came quite promptly. Pork chop costs $18.90. Rather expensive, if you ask me. NTUC sells pork chop for $3!

And we did not catch the sunset because the sky was shrouded with too many clouds…

It was too crowded despite it’s inaccessibility. And the better seats (on the platform) were reserved as early as 6.30 pm.

I shall recommend my favourite seaside restaurant in another entry – The Shore Restaurant.

The idea of sewing a skirt would not have come to me had I not been tempted by a saleswoman in US who was trying to sell me a wrap-around skirt that looked something like this.The skirt was made up of two pieces of reversible rayon (which she informed me was “silk”) worn in many styles. However, the price of USD 90 was indeed too hefty for something sold at push-carts. I am confident that I can produce something similar.

Right after our return from the States, we journeyed to Spotlight and bought two pieces of cloth. Unfortunately, I made two grave mistakes during the purchase.
(1) I bought two pieces of cloth which were not reversible – a vital design of the wrap-skirt
(2) I took the cloth to the counter without checking the price!

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the price – $24.95/meter. Nonetheless, since the cloth had been cut, I had to pay for it. (Lesson learnt: Never make any assumptions in everything you do.)
As mentioned in point (1), the wrap skirt project had to be shelved for now.

I had to produce something else in place of the wrap skirt.

It’s sheer hard work sewing this light green chiffon – I had countless undoing and redoing. The chiffon (not from Spotlight) only cost $3/meter.

And Croaky was happy to hoist my finished product as I took a picture of it.

Due to unforseen circumstances, we made last minute plans to visit Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe on our second week in US. With the guidance of our friendly Hertz NeverLost, we drove our way up 7000 feet above sea level to reach the moutainous regions of Yosemite, hoping to see a glimpse of Brother Grizzly Bear in his wilderness form. The ride was best described as nauseating and vertigo-inducing as our poor Nissan Infinity meandered its way up the tortuous turns up the mountain roads. We were pleasantly surprised that RVs and Campervans were a common sight.

We noticed the Americans loved to go straight in instead of reverse park. When in Rome, do as the Romans do!

This was vista point for Bridal falls at Yosemite. The water was supposedly to be flowing down like a bridal’s veil, hence it’s name.

The mother of all waterfalls in North America – Yosemite falls (2425 foot / 739 m). You won’t be able to take a picture at the bottom of the fall unless your camera was water-proof. It was a awe-inspiring experience to just stand quietly at the bottom of the fall and enjoy the marvels of nature. We were dwarfed by this giant.

The park was spotlessly clean with informative signages around. It pays if every citizen has a good sense of civic-mindedness.

Beautiful scenery abounds…

I shook hands with Brother Grizzly Bear in a souvenir shop – at least.

Lunch was at Yosemite Lodge where we ordered simple fare. The asparagus was over-cooked though.

As we drove down the hills, we saw snow! It’s high altitude preserved the snow in pristine condition even though it was already late Spring when we visited.

We stopped by to watch the kids snow-board on the hills…

And snow on the ground felt different from those in the fridge. It had footprints!

And Croaky maintained a composure of calm while we were lost in the hills.

More of Lake Tahoe in the next entry…

Hokkien mee is not my specialty. It’s a simple dish which Croaky loves and is easy to cook.
Let me explain to you what are the ingredients;
1) prawns
2) scallops
3) carrots
4) baby sweet corn -> Croaky’s fave!
5) bean sprouts
6) plenty of chye sim

Mui Mui (whom I shall name this bear) was hand sewn from a handicraft kit bought from MiniToons for $6.95. The floral dress was inspired from one of the Teddy Bear Making books I bought.

I’d like to think that each Teddy is a legacy which will survive generations and be treasured by people dear to you.

I have been trying to perfect the recipe for the aglio-oglio for a very long time. And here is my recipe for success! (Croaky professed that the above dish was the 3rd best aglio he had sampled).

You need:
(1) 6 -8 medium sized scrimps – deshelled
(2) 8 scallops – thawed
(3) 1 sutchi fillet – thawed and sliced
(4) 6 pieces of Shitake mushrooms – thinly sliced
(5) Linguine for 2 pax (or sphagetti if u preferred) – cooked in boiled water until soft; add in salt and a teaspoon of cooking oil in the water during boiling.
(6) Vegetables for garnish – boiled broccoli, asparagus etc, whichever you like
(7) Chopped garlic – as much as u like
(8) Ground pepper
(9) Cooking oil / butter (preferred)
(10) 1/4 cup of chicken stock

Step 1: Marinate (1) – (3) in a dash of pepper, 3 tablespoons of wine, 1 tablespoon of corn starch and 1 teaspoon of sugar and salt.
Step 2: Fry garlic in butter until fragrant. Add mushrooms.
Step 3: Add in your marinated items and chicken stock. Continue until cooked.
Step 4: Toss in your pasta and mix well with the cooked ingredients. Add ground black pepper now.
Step 5: Garnish with boiled vegetables and parsley flakes (optional)
Step 6: Ready to serve!

Duration: 45 minutes (including preparation and cooking)