Busted Season 3 + JJ & JH came over for lunch + removal of implant stitches + Minmed health check-up + PotaTOH’s cut and burn + visit to YB’s + scalp detox treatment + Knives Out + housewarming with Pat & WZ + Pilates Anatomy

Finished watching Season 3 of “Busted” on Netflix.

It’s nice to come up with the idea of an organisation that wants to “uphold justice” but the way they do it isn’t “right” after all. Some fun segments here and there, but I did not enjoy this season as much as the previous two though.

Rating: 3.25/5

20/3/21 Sat: Potato whipped up tomato-based pasta with minced meat and capsicum~ yummy!

21/3/21 Sun: JJ and JH came over for lunch at PotaTOH’s. Potato whipped up the dry udon (eaten with sesame oil and sauce), pork skewers and miso soup with Japanese cabbage and tofu. The two cousins were happily exploring and questioning about things in my house. We played a game of “Unlock” and “Singaporean Dream” too. *The “new normal” version is interesting too.*

22/3/21 Mon: Headed down to Dr Winston Tan’s clinic to remove the stitches for my implants. He mentioned that it looked to be healing well, so now I just have to wait for another three months for the gum and screw to fuse, and then to go back to test out the sturdiness and fitting before going back to Koh Dental to do my crown.

Treated Potato to lunch at Pho Street at Westgate. We went Eccellente to buy for ourselves 210g of salmon (about $8) to grill for dinner~ bones were already nicely removed! Learnt a dish that resembles hotplate beancurd in a video on Facebook. We dipped the cut egg tofu into starch powder and deep fry them for a few minutes, then mixed three tablespoons of light soy sauce, half a tablespoon of dark soy sauce and sugar, one tablespoon of oyster sauce and 100ml of water to make the mixture, before pouring them in together with the fried egg tofu into a pan of chopped garlic and leek to cook. *left it to cook over low heat for 5 minutes or so* The dish went very well with rice, but it was still a tad too salty to me, so I shall put less light soy sauce next time~ and remember to taste as I cook!

23/3/21 Tues: Had to skip breakfast as I had to fast for my health check-up this morning at the Club provided by Minmed Group. *Is always a little nervous over measuring blood pressure and both times readings turned out to be “high normal” tsk.* They measure your height and weight and waist hip ratio (0.74), before finishing with blood test and urine collection. *Goped more breads and fruits since my colleague said I could haha!*

24/3/21 Weds: Had my first PAI reformer class with Zel and two other students. The moves were still hard for me, especially when it comes to the arms. Zel is even more patient with a beginner like me, and she knows her stuff, but it seems she was not as prepared for her class as the other instructors.

Spent some time at Fairprice Finest shopping for ingredients I needed for our dinner tonight. I followed a recipe from Mina magazine for my gailan-enoki bacon wrap, but that turned out way too salty, so I decided that I will never add salt or soy sauce to bacon ever again. *Already not a fan of bacon to begin with.* As for the grilled three-joint chicken wings that I spent 20 minutes under running tap water to break the frozen ones up and marinate them with three spoonful of teriyaki sauce and put in the fridge for two hours? They were still kind of bland, which was a pity. However, PotaTOHs were glad the pork ball蛋花soup tasted good. 

*rRandom tThought: Time to restart on my oatmeal breakfast again since the recent medical check-up revealed that my level of LDL is still very high… haiz. But, I decided I should check for recipes to make it yummy!*

25/3/21 Thurs: PotaTOHs cooked hot soba for lunch~ I stir-fried the leftover baby gai lans, while he did the eggs, soba and meatball soup… it was satisfying!

26/3/21 Fri: Cooked my own oatmeal for the first time. Added apple slices and pistachios to the meal and despite oatmeal being bland, the overall taste was not too bad.

Potato and I were preparing some ramen eggs at night when he accidentally knocked his head against the corner of our cabinet when he stood up. Luckily, it looked only superficial but a pretty big cut, still. We did not have any antiseptic cream at home, so he showered and made sure his wound was clean. *On a side note, one spoonful of mirin + sugar + light soy sauce smells really like chicken essence!* I guess the yolk were not cooked to perfection this time, slightly overcooked but I still cannot wait to taste it at YB’s on Sunday!

27/3/21 Sat: Potato stir-fried lady’s fingers with whitebait and chilli padi, as well as steamed 10南翔小笼包for lunch. It was yummy but poor dear’s hands were affected by the spicy capsaicin and he felt a burning sensation for hours. He tried putting baking soda, lime juice, Vaseline, aloe vera gel and even soaked them in milk. It got better by dinner time, but after we had fried rice, the burning sensation got to his left palm again. *Pray it goes away soon.* Had pork fried rice at night!

28/3/21 Sun: After my tuition with Rayne, I took bus 160 to meet Potato and WL to YB’s place. Ethan was still sleeping when we reached. We had some 8度空间 Taiwanese food for lunch. My oyster mee sua was so-so, the rest thought their卤肉饭was not as nice. *Potato’s ramen egg tasted much better than their braised eggs lor lol!* We chit-chatted and watched an episode of《密室大逃脱》. WL, WH and PotaTOHs went to Malaysia Chiak at West Mall for dinner… omg their popiah ($2 each) was quite sweet. Shopped for some veggies, soup ingredients and salmon at Cold Storage before we headed home.

29/3/21 Mon: Had Cardio Tramp class with Patrick and Marybeth in the morning… some moves were tough as usual. *I probably need to lower my resistance… but peer pressure la lol.* Helped cut the carrots, potatoes and onions for our ABC soup at night. Potato deboned and removed the fish scales, then marinated the salmon with teriyaki sauce~ the addition of sliced cucumbers was awesome! Oh right, we stir-fried the打老婆菜too, but the ones mum cook still taste better.

30/3/21 Tues: Only wanted to do a simple haircut but I could not stand the oily sight and blockages of my scalp (especially on the top of the head) from the machine, so I agreed to do one trial session of the scalp detox session ($58), which lasted for about half an hour and cleaned my scalp quite well.

Then, in came the pushy manager and I was really firm about not signing any packages with them on this. *I still have four more hair-cutting sessions left with them, but it’s stressful going there every time knowing they want to sell something all the time. That’s it, no more after this.*

Had to make a turn in mid-air as we do the final pose for aerial yoga tonight, and I wasn’t very smooth at it, but still managed the pose!

31/3/21 Weds: Tried baking the crispy Japanese gyoza SS recommended during dinner and it was not bad. *Could do with sweet and sour chilli sauce or mayonnaise too as it tasted quite a lot like nugget haha.*

1/4/21 Thurs: Tried wheel yoga in the morning and some moves were very hard, especially as my lower back felt it. Met Mike for lunch at the coffeeshop at Blk 155 and I tried the dry mee hoon kuey from mum’s二表哥’s stall, also called“香香面家”, but they have a longer history than the三表哥’s one at Jurong West. I still prefer the one at JW market though, because the sauce was thicker and chilli tasted different. Seems like Mike moved house in February as well! *Hopefully, a speedy recovery to Triston and his family!* Potato put the tom yam sauce-based soup (with some salt too), Napa cabbage and chicken meat in to cook since early afternoon, before adding tomatoes and tofu closer to dinner time. He stir-fried the celery and then steamed eggs in the rice cooker. Maybe we got to add water to the eggs next time if we were to steam it in the rice cooker because it expanded and dried up, with parts of it stuck on the steam vent, causing a “mini-eggsplosion” halfway… phew~ it was nothing serious.

2/4/21 Fri: Good Friday holiday and PotaTOHs cooked for both lunch and dinner today! Tried out jap-chae for lunch, and yes there was quite a bit of preparation work to do with the carrots, onions, leeks, fresh mushrooms, eggs, blanching of spinach and cooking of the sweet potato noodles. The taste came out not bad… a bit more sesame oil and dark soy sauce would probably nail the dish.

I thought the pork belly and napa cabbage Mille-Fueille should be pretty easy to do after seeing it on “Master in the House”. We made do with less than 200 grams of pork belly and half of a napa cabbage since it’s only meant for two to eat, and added in some carrots and tofu impromptu. *simmered the pork belly and napa cabbage in white wine early evening* It came out more sour-ish than we both expected maybe due to the white wine’s flavour. Potato wants to try it with bacon and chicken stock next time, and hopefully we remember to get that ponzu sauce too haha!

PotaTOHs caught “Knives Out” at night.

It is a mystery film that follows a master detective investigating the death of the patriarch of a wealthy, dysfunctional family. From Wiki: The family of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a wealthy mystery novelist, attends his 85th birthday party at his Massachusetts mansion. The next morning, Harlan's housekeeper, Fran (Edi Patterson), finds him dead with his throat slit. The police believe Harlan's death to be suicide, but an anonymous party pays private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to investigate the case.

Quoting what Blanc said of the gist of the trap, “A doughnut hole in the doughnut's hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its centre - it is not a doughnut hole at all but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not whole at all!”

I still don’t get this, alright.

Nice twist. Enjoyable movie.

Rating: 4/5

3/4/21 Sat: Invited Pat, WZ and their families over for dinner. Potato cooked Japanese chicken curry for all six adults and two kids for dinner~ 厉害! I only helped with grilling the Japanese crispy seaweed gyoza in the oven. *Not easy managing kids as compared to adults haha~* Royden would always follow the six-year-old Reiden in what he do, while the seven-month-old Vera is your wide-eyed girl haha. WZ, Pat and I headed down to Le Quest to shop for a bit after dinner and wow Joel is obviously a big eater because he got WZ to buy another Macdonald’s meal! *Good meet-up with them and I’m glad they enjoyed dinner and found our nest spacious hehe!*

4/4/21 Sun: In-laws came over in the afternoon while I was working. *FIL and MIL bought chicken soup, yummy hei zou and sweet and sour sweet potatoes noodles over too!* MM and Andre only stayed for a while as Luke needed rest and milk-feeding at certain times of the day. Potato and I ate zi char at night with FIL and MIL… 酸甜排骨、番薯叶、虾酱鸡和芙蓉蛋 (less than $40)… not too bad. *Gosh I have itchy scalp and dandruffs nowadays. Time to adjust my blow-dry method and the new shampoo and conditioner hmm.*

5/4/21 Mon: Took me more than two months to finish reading “Pilates Anatomy” by Rael Iscowitz and Karen Clippinger. Borrowed this book since I started taking reformer classes, but yes, I have lots of excuses like moving to a new house and etc the past few months~

Pilates aims for core improvement and spine articulation etc, and it used to intimidate me because I’ve done trial classes and found it too tough, especially when my back and core are weak. But the weaker you are, the more you must face it and strengthen right? *Well I guess that’s me adult-ing in a way~* Two months into it and I felt a stronger core (i.e I could do the “swing” in aerial yoga class with relative ease now). Some moves are still tough for me no doubt, but I only push myself to the limit I can for now, while in envy of other classmates who are much stronger.

This book teaches foundational, intermediate and advanced Pilates mat work and delves deep into the specific muscle groups used for each of them. Kind of technical, not that I can memorise them, but it surely opened my eyes to the body anatomy. Definitely bookmarked them so I can execute the moves in my spare time.

Joseph Pilates wrote in “Return to Life Through Contrology”: If your spine is inflexible at 30, you are old; if it is completely flexible at 60, you are young. People are much aware of mental health nowadays, and I’m sure we know one way to improve our mental health and mood is via physical exercise.

Rating: 3.75/5

7/4/21 Weds: Potato cooked chicken mushroom aglio olio with pa bor chye for dinner! The chicken meat was already marinated with teriyaki sauce hours before so it tasted good.

8/4/21 Thurs: It was an impromptu decision, but we decided to have the cup noodles we bought at Daiso for dinner, with teriyaki salmon, caixin and celery~ all done up by my dear!

9/4/21 Fri: Attended Pilates back-care class with three other students. There were some tough moves and lots of sweat but I think one reason why Jean’s class attracted many students was because there was always variety in our moves. *I need to improve in the executions haha... hope Pilates helps to ease the pain in my left lower back asap.*