Extract:

“The Prisoner’s Dilemma” is a concept from the field of Game Theory. Imagine two perfectly rational prisoners who don’t know what the other is doing. Each can rat the other, or remain silent, resulting in 4 possible outcome…

I chose his recipe “Boiled Water” as my first step into Mark Bittman’s work, mainly because I had everything already in my fridge. And ofcourse, the fact that its only got 3 freaking steps, well, the lazy bum in me couldn’t resist. Plus, it currently has 645 thumbs up from other users, so it has to be good right?

This is how simple the recipe is (and as you read, you’ll understand why I was intrigued and a little baffled as to why this would get 645 people thumbing up):

Mark Bittman says to bring 4 cups of water to boil, with 8 – 10 crushed garlic cloves and one bay leaf. I used only 3 cups (because the original recipe is for 4 people and I’m only cooking for 2). Bring to a boil, then simmer on very low heat for 15 minutes. Salt and pepper added to taste. Now you see why I could not, for the life of me, fathom how something with so little ingredients could taste good?

While your soup (can I even call it that?) is simmering, its time to grill the french bread. Mr Bittman’s recipe calls for THICK slices. Except, I didn’t have thick slices. I just had thin ones. Oh well.

I’m supposed to heat 1/4 cup of olive oil in the skillet and then toss the bread in to brown. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I know, olive oil is good for you. People actually drizzle it over salads as a finishing oil. Any other day I would. But I had beef rendang and chicken curry for lunch (Nasi Padang at 55 Zion Road… the famous one!) so my guilty conscience made me lightly brush olive oil over the bread instead. I know, that’s a lot of cheese I’ve tossed onto the bread. See? All the more I need to cut back on the oil!

And here’s the final result. Boiled Water. Frankly, the cheese looks like its a chemistry experiment gone wrong. And I’m sure there’s plenty that can be improved on the bread arrangement. Frankly, never having eaten “Boiled Water” (and the iPhone app didn’t have a photo of what its supposed to look like) I wouldn’t know if this is how its supposed to look like.

But according to my part-time food critic (and full time hunka hunka burnin’ luurve … I just had to throw that in!), the bread was tasty and — can we have a drum roll please — its a dish he’d eat again!

I am no SeeToh of Makansutra, so I can’t give this any chopsticks. But it gets Jimmy’s seal of approval. Or as I like to call it: 3.5 out of 5 hunkas. With 5 being “OMG, this is ambrosia!” and 1 being “Woman, are you trying to kill me?!”

So would I make this again? Yes. Only because its so darn easy and since Jimmy will eat it, then sure! But next time, I’ll get really thick bread, chop it into squares and make giant croutons. And I’ll add tomatoes into the soup and then blitz it all in my Vitamix… taking out the bay leaf first, of course!

Someone gave me a sachet of Stash’s Licorice Spice herbal tea. The scent that wafted up from the cup as I poured the hot water in was so invigorating and soothing at same time. Then I took a sip… and my mind was blown!

It tastes like pleasant tasting plain water (you know what I mean, sometimes tap water can taste weird) at first, then out of nowhere — like a surprise kiss from your loved one for no reason at all — the taste of SWEET licorice grazes the back of your throat. I usually put tons of sugar in my tea but with this licorice tea I don’t need it at all! The sweetness doesn’t attack your tongue. It lingers on in the back of your throat.

I do have to say this though: if you are not a fan of licorice, you probably won’t like the fact that it lingers, no matter how sweet it may be.

I love love love this tea! And the friend who gave it to me said that  Yogi’s Egyptian Licorice tea is even better! The sweetness of the licorice is even more outstanding. Its a pity that its not available in Singapore. If I ever travel anywhere that sells it, I’m getting a suitcase full! Who needs new clothes?!

This is my story:

I live in Punggol. I work at Thomson Road. It used to take me 1 hour 20 minutes (including wait time and walking) to get to work. I would take one feeder bus, switch to another bus and settle in for a 50 minute ride to work. Then they build the Circle Line and with all that it promised (“shorter commute!”) I thought: whoa! I will rather make multiple transfers if it means I will take less than 40minutes to work!

So there I was. Waiting to take the feeder bus to the mrt. Then I waited to board at Punggol, alighted at Serangoon MRT. Walked the looooong walk (by the way, EVERYBODY uses the travellator) to change up to the Circle Line and waited for the mrt to Bishan. Then I got off at Bishan, walked another windy route to my bus stop and then waited for the bus to my work. And guess what? I am proud to say, it took me all of 1 hour and 15minutes.

Wah, I saved 5 minutes. And got all that exercise… in patience.

Mr Brown, I second your nomimation of our new First Minister for Wormholes and Inter-dimensional Teleportation, Mrs “Jumpgate” Lim Hwee Hua!

All in favor, say “Aye”?

I also like step by step, clear and specific rules of thumbs. It does me no good to tell me: When you tap a watermelon and hear a “plunk”, its a good one. I mean, what’s “plunk”? What if its “plonk”? And how hard do I tap it? With one finger? The whole hand?

So you see, while I love rules of thumbs, they’re always better when very specific. Like this video on how to parallel park.

Seriously. I followed the rules (“align side your side mirror with the other car’s side mirror”, “3 feet of space”, etc) and as Professor Higgins would say, “She’s got it! I think she’s got it!”

Anyway, they’re funny things, words. You say, “queer” and people think “homosexual”. You say “crack” and people think “drugs” (or, err, the gluteus maximus?) You say “cult” and people think, oh I don’t know,white robed neophytes sacrificing chickens illuminated only by the light of the full moon?

OK, maybe people don’t think that. Anyway, Christopher Knight visited a Seventh-day Adventist Church and these are his observations.

Obviously I’m upset. Why? Because she’s rude. Sure, she may have been busy, but how busy can you be to ignore even a reminder sms? No time to even give a quick “will check. busy now.”? Any response would have been better than being ignored.

Isn’t it?

Let’s dig a little further…

Some time back, T mentioned that sometimes when she doesn’t know how to respond, she will ignore the sms. We’ve all done that. An invitation from an over-eager acquaintance to a product launch talk, a question about a relationship status, an emotionally heated accusation, at some point we all receive an sms from someone, about something, that we just don’t know how to respond to. Whether its a delicate situation of rejecting the product without making the person pushing it sound rejected, or simply just trying to avoid an embarrassingly awkward conversation, we’ve all heard the message tone, read the message, sigh and put the phone away, message unanswered because its just too much to deal with at the moment.

So I’m not upset because I think she’s just been rude to me. I’m upset because in my own mind, I believe that she doesn’t value my time, my effort,… she doesn’t value ME! I am the awkward person that is too much to deal with at the moment!  I have been rejected! On this train of thought, I am the janitor in charge of cleaning toilets, and not just any toilet: I’m cleaning the broken toilets that have overflowed with unmentionables.

But the fact is, I only know that she didn’t reply. I don’t know WHY. I don’t know the reasons behind the why. And I most certainly don’t know the motivations behind the reasons why.

If that didn’t make sense, give me a chance to explain:

Let’s take the example of responding to SMSes. Imagine I received an SMS about some new thing that my acquaintance wants to share with me. Not needing the product is not a reason for why I failed to respond. Its easy to simply reply, “Thanks but no thanks”. Instead, why I fail to reply is because I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And the reason why I don’t want to hurt their feelings is because I will be seen as the bad guy who hurts people’s feelings. And my motivation? To avoid, at all costs, being perceived to be a unfriendly, cold-hearted, unhelpful person… better to be the overwhelmed person who “got the sms but was so busy that I forgot to reply” than the uncaring person who says “no”. The former pleads guilty to being overworked. The latter says you’re an unfeeling mouth-breather.

Now here’s the thing that I have to keep reminding myself: I only know about the act. I don’t know WHY. I don’t know the REASONS and I certainly don’t know the MOTIVATIONS. And there can be a gazillions Whys and Reasons and Motivations!

But what we don’t know, our minds fill in the blanks with the worst possible scenarios!

So… some people survive by filling the blanks with THE OPPOSITE.

They think the best of everyone, and live in this little glass bubble where everyone is a saint (bu them) and every mistake must have a justifiable and extremely valid reason (except their own).

Guess what? That was me, too.

A friend promised to spend more time with me but didn’t call for a whole month? She must have a good reason. I don’t know what it is but it must be good — maybe they really wanted to but was so busy with other more important people. I must forgive and forget. It’s the Christian thing to do. Which means, the very next time she calls at a drop of a hat to say she has THAT VERY afternoon free so shall we have lunch, I will drop everything I had previously planned in order to meet up with her. After all, she’s the busy one so a good Christian accommodates others, right? Plus, she has more important things to do than me.

Err, hello?

Neither one of these scenarios is helpful. The first one makes me want to mope in a corner and eat worms angrily, the second, well, I am still eating worms only this time I think I deserve it.

So what’s my solution to this? STICK WITH THE FACTS.

The fact is Miss Last Minute didn’t call and live up to her promise.

The fact is T didn’t reply my sms.

WHY? Reasons? Motivations? I don’t know. So unless I’m willing to approach them for an open dialogue, I will never know the whys, the reasons and the motivations. And guessing will only make me feel worse because we choose the worst possible scenarios to fill in the blanks.

So where does this leave me?

Since the only person whose action I have control over is MYSELF, then I will choose to take action that is based on… fact.

If the fact is T didn’t reply my sms, then I will just go on with my life, make my plans and go ahead to Marmalade Pantry with the other girls sans T. Simple as that.

If the fact is a friend who doesn’t call for a month, suddenly pops up and wants to spend an unplanned lunch together, well, that will depend on whether I want to make the time for it. And if I do, it won’t be because I’m less important and so must cater to her every whim. It will simply be assessing whether the value of spending time with her is worth the inconveniences.

And by the way, before I leave off, I have to say this… if someone tells you that you’re less important, it doesn’t mean you are. If someone said they thought you were a carrot, does it make you a root vegetable? It just means that THEY think you’re a carrot. That’s it. It doesn’t mean anything else. It doesn’t mean they are blind, callous, uncaring, rude bigots who can’t tell a human being from donkey snacks. All those adjectives are our own interpretation of the facts. And interpretation isn’t fact. Cuz facts are undeniable truths. Whereas interpretation is, well, arguable.

Stick with the facts. My new mantra for peace of mind.



I am very excited! When I was in the beginning stages of my journey with God, I attended a Bob Fitts worship and I was thoroughly blessed by his music and leading. It never occurred to me that years later, I would be working in a media production studio, creating Christian programs for a radio station (Be107FM) and meeting Bob Fitts in person! Even more unbelievable is that I would be a part of organizing an evening of worship with him and 3 other Christ-led local worship leaders.

Experts say that the reason why our thinking tends to veer towards the negative is because our brains are not wired to “see” the unknown future. We can only look back. So of course, if your recent past has been filled with a lot of sadness and heartache, then it stands to reason that your brain will “see” a future can only be filled with the same.

So getting the call that Bob Fitts would be willing to lead a night of worship for Be107FM… and then to have Trinity@Paya Lebar warmly welcome us to the use of their Chapel; other worship leaders come forward and agree to be a part of this night of exalting God… I never would have “seen” it happening but it is! And here’s the thing: I am blessed. The evening hasn’t even started and I am already so blessed.

So here’s the thing: I want you to come. Seriously. Its not cuz the place has 1000 seats. Frankly, my job isn’t to fill the Chapel. My job is to make sure emails get sent, powerpoints get proofread, and a whole bunch of necessary admin stuff. Its God’s “job” to fill the seats. I want you to be there because even if you cannot SEE how it would bless you, it will. Somehow. I want you to tell your friend and bring them because even if you can’t SEE how they will benefit, they will.

We can’t SEE the future. I didn’t. But I was blessed anyway because I walked by faith (yes, I’m invoking my own name here as a pun, so you can tell how excited I am about this!).

Walk with me?

Worship with Be107FM…

One night. Four worship leaders. Unlimited blessings from God!

Presenting…

• Bob Fitts with the Trinity Worship Band
• Patrick Leong
• Gabby Tham
• Nathaniel Tan and the AskGod Worship Band

Date: Sunday, 11 April ’10

Time: 7.30pm – 9pm

Venue: Trinity@Paya Lebar (247 Paya Lebar Road, Level 4, Chapel) View map
Free Admission (A gift offering will be taken to help Be107FM continue broadcasting Christian programs to Batam and Singapore)

Brought to you by Studio Elpizo.

Deepest thanks to Integrity Media Asia, Oops Asia, Trinity Christian Centre, and Singapore Adventist Mission