the worst meal ever I think

And it was mine!
I cooked an awful supper tonight. I might start by saying both Tim and I have lost weight. Not what I was expecting, with the eating out, the Indian food laden with oil, and oh so good, and the beers with friends. But Tim has lost probably 10 lbs, and is the weight he was in high school, and when I met him 30 years ago. I am down probably 15-20 lbs. I don't know for sure. But in our gym is a machine you put in your height, age, sex, and with your weight, it tells you underweight, okay or overweight. It says I am underweight! I love it! But I think it is wrong, or it is different for Asians or something. But it is wonderful to be down. I just hope I stay down. And I don't recommend Tim's and my diet of unbelievable stress to get down in weight. But better than the stress adding lbs.

At any rate, maybe some of the loss is because of my cooking. Chickens here are wonderful. I am sure they are range fed, they are fatty, juicy and fresh and packed with flavour. But not the one I torched on the bbq tonight. I wanted to learn our new bbq. It is the best bbq we have ever had. Tim bought it on craig's list. It lights on the first click of the starter, imagine that! We have never had one that does that for more than a few weeks. Well it is hot damn hot and my poor spatchcocked chicken was awful.
The chicken is great (usually). Fresh fish is wonderful. I don't buy beef (Aus). The fruit and vegetables, that are local, continue to be in season all year, (at least so far). Imported fruits and veggies, from Japan, NZ or Australia are like at home, packed as a flower and ripened on the trip to here, and VERY expensive. $16 for strawberries. But the local  mangoes are divine. And probably 10 varieties of bok choy. Which lasts for weeks in the fridge, because it is so fresh in the store.

My next project is to find a wet market and shop there. I find every trip to the grocery store is $100. At the wet market it will be a third that. Wet market means that every night it is washed down. So farmers come in every day with their products. They have fish, seafood, chicken, on shaved ice, not refrigerated, and there is no smell at all. The food is so fresh and the market is washed down every night! Apparently you go, find your dealers and be allegiant to them, they get to know you and they teach you. My next project.

We eat at this unbelievable dim sum restaurant nearby. It started was a hawker in Taiwan and now has 38  restaurants around Asia, and has been reviewed by the New York Times even. We have one in our 'hood! We eat down at the beach, at East Coast Park Hawkers (one of the 10  things to do in Singapore!) probably once a week. I will take pics and describe that experience another time. It is like no other.

Today coming home from church, from the bus along a residential street, I saw a hanging basket of petunias at someone's gate. I went over to admire them and the home owner came to talk to us. Very unusual. Singaporeans are nice, but they do not initiate contact or seek out a conversation. But this guy , Mr Sim, invited us in to see his garden and his home! It was a treat. He has a mango tree, a star fruit tree, a banana tree, many flowers, and probably 8 ponds. One had koi 12" long. One was under his coffee table! He was such a sweetie. He told us to drop in for tea some time! Yikes, that is so unusual.

Well, feel sorry for me. I have just put together our next trip. Thursday we will fly to Krabi. We went there on our first foray. We will meet our friend Norm (the reason we are here- a retired AC pilot who came here and told Tim to come). We stayed with him when we first arrived. He lives downstairs in our building. He has a sailboat in Thailand. He treats it as his cottage. With 2 days off he will jump on the plane, fly to  Phuket ($25), rent a car ($25) and stay on his boat for the weekend.

He is going to sail from Phuket to Krabi. We will meet him on Thursday at the marina in Krabi, and sail back to Phuket with him, his son and fiancé. and a lady friend. 6 of us. It is a big sail boat. I am beside myself with excitement. Then Tim and I will have 2 days in Phuket. How fun is that?