Khao Soy Ramadan

I have been having chicken noodle soup hankering since like 5:00 in the morning. It's all boey's fault actually. Boey is this 31 year old ethnically Chinese, born in Malaysia, schooled in Singapore, went to college in the US, working in California as animator/graphics designer guy who is famous for his styrofoam cup art.

Anyway so today was the first day of Ramadan, and it was the weekend so as usual I was up till 3:30am or so, and after that there was no point in sleeping since sehri/sahoor/dawn was at 4:20am anyway and I had to stuff my face before then. I had had a late night frozen-food dinner and was already kinda full since I hadn't slept but I ate anyway and around 4:30, since I still wasn't sleepy, started reading my RSS feeds, and then one blog had written about boey, so I ended up on his site, which is rather cool with stick figure drawings of him, his friends, his workmates and funny everyday stories about his life. I mean the stories wouldn't be funny if I had been telling em but the guy writes em so they are funnier. You know what I mean!

So boey is having some sort of noodles or noodle soup every 3rd or 4th blog entry or so, and that gave me the noodle soup hankering. So I went to sleep around 6 am, woke up in the afternoon, lazed around and since I was still dreaming about noodle soup, went to Carrefour to get the makings of Khao Soy ... which is Thai but anyway it is yummy noodle gravy thingy. Stupid Carrefour people don't believe in boneless chicken ... I was hoping they'd have a frozen boneless chicken pack so I could make enough for just me and dunk the rest in the freezer but they didn't so I ended up buying 1/2 kg of fresh chicken which you can't freeze so I had to chop it up into little pieces at home and then cook it all. And they didn't have spring onions either so I had to stop at another shop to get some sad looking spring onions. Not as bright and crisp as the ones we got back home. Anyway I was back after 5:00, iftar/sunset was at 6:45 so I went about making everything at once, and emptying about a ton of food that I got besides ... I do that EVERY time ... I think I have a buying-too-much-food phobia. Anyway I had forgotten curry powder so I ended up dunking in a random mixture of spices which thankfully came out fine. And then I had some spring rolls and mango flavoured milk at iftar and then I ate sooo much khao soy that I couldn't move. And I got like three more servings lying around cuz I had cooked all of the chicken but I think it will be a good idea to freeze it for later.

So a Khao Soy bowl is egg noodles at the base, with Thai chicken curry poured over it and then heaped with fresh spring onion and shallots and cilantro and sometimes they even put fried crispy noodles and pickled cabbage but I stuck to the fresh veggies bit only.

Khao Soy: At this point you can only see the cilantro and the rest of the veggies. Maybe it should served in glass bowls for people to be able to see the layers

All Shook up -- after a few bites

By this point I was so full I was half sitting half lying on the rug in the lounge, somewhat leaning against the couch and praying for the food to stay where its supposed to be ... anyway you can see the thai chicken curry at the base now

Oh and I even got instant hot chocolate ... mostly because the bottle was kinda funky! Darn the pretty package designs. I always fall for em! And its midnight already and I'm waiting for some space in my tummy so I can also have the hot chocolate. And sehri/sahoor/dawn is at 4:20 again. Boy o boy I'm gonna eksplode! :D


Oh and at the end of it i left an epic mound of dirty dishes in the kitchen, but the maid is coming in the morning so yay!

Sadness Prevails

Happy Ramadan all you observing Muslims out there, today was the 3rd Ramadan - 1428 Hijri, in Pakistan. Another half an hour to Iftari and another day gone, mercifully rather quickly. Its Sunday and as usual I'm confined to my room, sitting in my bed, stuck to my laptop, playing with everything that can be played with via the internet.

I miss my mom's Iftari, or even the one I used to make myself last year. Now thanks to a busted fridge, a flatmate you hate (and vice versa), no car, and no friends who would like to break their fast with you, my definition of Iftari has come down to dates, water, a pack of lays and uhmm a peach (till stocks last). Then i'll pray, sleep and wake up and order a 6" Subway I guess *sigh* The stuff above accumulated over a few chance visits to the proximity of grocery stores. Karachi is not a place where you can walk to your nearest shop alone, on foot. Its too damn unfriendly for that. I know I wouldn't have hung on if not for a job I really really really like and uhmm yea thats about it.

As for the flatmate we used to be on good enough terms till about 2 months ago, thats when all hell broke lose, had an argument with my flatmate, and sadly she stooped to the level of verbal violence that I can never even imagine stooping to in about a six hundred billion years. The reason?! Me not helping her with getting the fridge fixed. Hell, I didn't want to tell her I was so depressed I couldn't even find the energy to feed myself 5 days outta 7 in a week let alone be bothered about whether the fridge is working or not. Again, my work life is great, its just my personal one thats screwed up! Last year I made both of us sehri and iftari, since my flatmate's culinary skills are very limited, and for some reason NEVER rubbed it in, but my flatmate makes a point of hurling at me, everything that she has done and I haven't ... and oh of course since she moved to Karachi first and had already bought the fridge and the TV and the microwave and such, its obviously 'hers' hence now off-limits to me.

The silver lining? Well I'm praying more regularly, more regularly than I have in more than a year, I hope I stick to it. I'm working and uhmm updating my blog, if that counts as a silver lining.

Adios all, 10 mins to go, I'll go wash my dates and slice my peach.

For those who find some terms up there unfamiliar:

Sehri: the meal taken before the fast. It must be taken before dawn.
Iftari: the meal taken when the fast is broken. Taken at sundown.