life's like that -

30th Aug 2007

Have been so busy lately. Exams are finally over! That would probably be my last school exam for the next 4 years at least. I'm gonna miss TP and all the people that I knew and all that I encountered and learned to make me who I am today.

I believe the main issue on every year 3's mind now is how many friends will you actually stay close with after Poly life. It is scary, seeing how close friends in year 2, after changing class in year 3, could be reduced to mere hi-bye friends. However, I am glad to know I will have a handful of people that I will keep in contact with for a long, long time. Not forgetting my eternal friends from Team Daidee and of course, Phy.
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Tabasco hot chef competition scheduled on 7th September is a mere 8 days away. We had alot of practices lately, I had not rested one day at all since the end of exams, which just sucks. Spent almost 400 bucks among 3 people for this competition, and I still feel chances of winning are pathetically low.

Sometimes, when you are a just a Commis chef, do not overestimate your abilities and knowledge, no matter how much you read up on the lastest Molecular Gastronomy, no matter how well you think you are doing. My team's dear leader, shall call him Mr T, is one such person.

Personally I feel he is a good chef, but as a leader and coordinator, or when it comes to human relationships, he sucks through and through. Knowing that his team mates, me and Calvin, are very new to the kitchen, instead of encouraging us, he talks sarcastically, thinks he really is one class above us and will use every chance he have to show he is leader. And that just sucks. When i asked him "Mr T, what do we do now?", he replied "Please lar, use your brains". Ok, so now what? You think you're damn smart now? Its supposed to a TEAM WORK, but how many decisions are made YOURSELF without consulting me and Calvin? Yes, we might not help much, but as a team, we would surely like to know any decisions being made.

First, you say you wanna do Molecular Gastronomy, den you changed Asian, now you want Western. So what exactly do you want? Now you come up with all these weird Peruvian dishes that just tastes like smoked mashed potato to me. You said the chefs emphasized that basics would help us win, but yet you keep trying to "chim-ify" your food with all the weird names, weird ideas etc. I can never forget these moments, where you think you're being smart, but you're not:

Scenario 1

Chef J: What is this?
Mr T: Its a Peruvian dish, its a Causa
Chef J: A WHAT?
Mr T: Causa, its a Peruvian dish
Chef J: Never hear before, your dishes making me feel very confused.

** Note that Chef J is a chef from the National Team

Scenario 2

Chef Jo: Hmm, this dish.....
Mr T: Its actually my trademark dish, I really like it alot, I think it brings back childhood memories.
Chef Jo: huh? no feel leh
Mr T: Maybe because decoration not nice?
Chef Jo: Please dun tell the judges that this is your trademark dish. Lao Kui (it's embarrassing)

From the above 2 scenarios, you can clearly see how much he tries to impress people with all his never-heard-before culinary chimology. I told him, I warned him. Be humble, we are still inexperienced, do not try to fly to heaven in one step, do be so big with your words and ego, explain everything humbly. But no, you had to continue your egoistic ways. How many times had it been that Calvin and I really felt that you are just stepping on us so that you can get closer to the spotlight.

And I thought he can act so good he deserves Oscar. Whenever we are doing trial cooking, he will not care a shit about how well we are doing, he focuses on what he is doing himself. And as a leader, you should check. Whenever we ask him "Eh this one can or not?" he replies "Okok very nice" without even glancing at it. When we ask him "how much to add?" he replies "just add".
When the dishes turns out crappy, he blames it on us. Oh back to the topic. He practically ignores us throughout the trials, UNTIL when chefs walk near. He will showcase his acting skills worthy of Oscar's and go "eh guys? everything ok? wow this looks great, well done. Hmm i think this might need a little more colour"

Wtf. seriously wtf. Number 1 bootlicker and actor. Whenever Calvin and I try to suggest a change, or try to tell him his idea is wrong, he does not accept it. He thinks our knowledge is below his and we should not have better ideas than his. BUT how many times did the chefs pointed out the same mistakes that we told you? Whenever the chefs tell you, you ALWAYS say "yes chef i understand" I cannot tahan anymore.

Fuck you. We join this competition because we want to win as a team, not to let you stand on us and shine in the spotlight. not for you to order us around like worthless filth. After this competition, i have sweared never to work with him ever again.

Out

I was Blogging on 8:16 AM

life's like that -

My first cake in the oven - below.

The completed Lemon Cake, home made for Phy's birthday - left

Extremely delicious carbonara below, and my experimental dish, Lemon Cream Pasta to the left.

This is my kitchen. look at the amount of work place i have, so pls cherish your big and well equipped kitchen.

I was Blogging on 8:46 PM

life's like that -

13/8

i might be a little too harsh

ticketing test is finally finally over. it is the end for ticketing. relatively easy to do, to my surprise. went for the shortest revision lecture EVER by Lisa C. a real pro. 30 mins.

all that's left is the competition, exams before SIP starts. rather excited.

I was Blogging on 4:42 AM

life's like that -

This is one of the competiton items for my team,

tuna wrapped in soya jelly with watermelon

Another cooking try out at home! Made cream sauce myself for the first time and just added in brocolli. Needs improvement. the cup of green stuffs is avocado milkshake, looks gross but trust me, it is SOOOOOOOOOOO good. my goodness. This drink is made possible with the lovely blender purchased recently. haha.

I was Blogging on 10:55 PM

life's like that -

CHOCOFFEEL STAFF!!

2nd Aug

The "fiercest" week just passed. 2 major presentations in a day was never a good thing, but we cleared it, finally. I predict this to be a long entry. lol

28th Jul (Sat)

Only 3 days left till we have to hand up the Hot Chef competiton recipe. 8 bloody recipes, and only 2 out of the 8 seemed workable so far. Calvin will be staying over at Terence's today to test dishes. You would never understand how much i want to be there, but I can't, thanks to tuesday's double presentations. I couldn't bring myself to go there and have fun in the kitchen and neglect rehearsing my presentation slides. Called up Calvin and asked how was their progress at around 10pm and he said they were just starting. I had so many sudden urges to just take a cab down to Terence's house and do it with them, but i didn't. I felt so bad and useless deep from my bones. Even though I told them i would experiment on 2 dishes myself from home, deep down inside I knew my dishes would not be accepted even if they were really good. Screw the ginger ale. Tried to rehearse through my slides and it just couldn't get in. It was a bad, bad day.

29th Jul (Sun)

Woke up to Calvin's msg "We got 5 dishes done, 2 more cold dishes to go". I asked him if my ginger ale was still needed, he said yes, as a back up, much like what I have expected. Am i disappointed? Yes I am, but i accepted it. Went to play basketball with the guys and got throughly owned by the NS guys. Felt useless in the game, I just didn't dare to move in that game. Jerome ended up telling me "Why you so scared to move? We had a chance!" Then it dawned on me, our team had been playing among ourselves for too long, we need external competition to drive us better. Rained heavily after 2 hours of balling and was called up by the CC's janitor for a "free buffet". No one knew what it was but everyone who happened to passed by the CC was invited. Turned out to be some Youth Organisation Handover day, plus National Day talk. They didnt have enough people so they just grabbed anyone available to make up the numbers (who the hell wanna attend something like that?) pretty obvious. sweaty basketballers, ping pong uncles and Aunties carrying market goods were amongst the audience. I decided it would be a waste of time and made some lame excuse and got away with the guys.

Had lunch with them and found out that Calvin would be following Terence to Shermay Lee's cooking school to help out today. Followed by further recipe testing at night. I wanted to be there, but I reckoned i should just give up the idea. Went to crystal jade at jurong point with mum and aunt. freaking ex meal with so-so food. i dun really fancy crystal jade other than its Xiao Long Bao branch. Managed to grab a blender at the Courts there and went home. had a little quarrel with a grp mate over presentation. nth personal. Tml would be a long day.

30th Jul (Mon)

Started the day with a mind blowing Ticketing lesson, followed by the knowledge that Calvin and Terence had came out with 8 dishes and a team name (everything was decided without me)Real bad start. Before the lesson I carried all my stayover barang barang to phy's' hse to deposit. Gonna stay over at yan wan's house to rehearse the next day's double presentation, but i dun really wanna squeeze into one room with 6 girls. so i decided to drop at phy's hse instead. Went for lunch with ivan and group, followed by another useless lisa chua lecture and off to yan wan's house. Starting off by playing DS Lite, den off to Simei to buy some lacking ingredients. Eastpoint was very different from what i remembered it to be, when phy was still staying in the area. Much trendier now. headed back to yan wan's hse and went out again for dinner. den back to her house for rehearsal. had a fun time finding trouble with a particular grp's slides.

oh i forgot to mention. yan wan's hse is this 2 storey DVD cove/ entertainment hub. if a police ever raids her house, it would take her 1 day before she can dispose every DVD in the house. LOL. nontheless i borrowed Saw and Saw 3 from her.

Rehearsed till real late at night and the bloody chocolate cutlet kept failing. wrong type of chicken, wrong type of oat, wrong me with wrong cooking skills. It was only at 3+am that we decided to start on BE presentation. everyone was shagged out, and Qiutin blew her top out of fatigue. there she was trying to present and there we were laughing away. her eyes were swollen and i reckon it was time for all of us to get a rest. headed over to phy's hse after a 20 min walk. reached there about 4.50am, bathed etc and slept for 1.5 hrs at aldrin's room. Phy said at 5am "its only 10 mins before my mum wakes up to prepare to go to work." you can imgine how late/ early it was. anyway many thanks to phy having to sacrifice her sleep hours to open the door for me. love you :)

31st Jul (Tues)

Felt a hard kick in my butt and woke up after a 10 minute wake up call by phy personally. washed up and rushed back to yan wan's house to cook the chicken and prepare for the presentation. was locked outside yan wan's house for 20 minutes or so as everyone was asleep or didn't have keys to open the door for me. tango-ed in the kitchen with beilin while everyone else is still asleep or groggy and managed to settle the chicken while the rest of the group woke up one by one. Went into the room to take a look. Sarah and Qiu Tin were dead fishes. lol. dressed up and headed for school in a much unplanned for situation. and it started with Destn presentation.

we were the second group, and it started with Sarah, Ayuni, Beilin, Yan Wan, Qiu Tin. when it was my turn, seconds after i spoke my first sentence, the timer rang. 15 mins was up and lisa chua said "2 more mins". Cherie was behind me, and she had more important things to say. I stammered horribly and decided to pass to Cherie asap. Then it was Q&A. I had to be honest, out of the 8 questions posted, i only knew how to answer 2, thank god i have good group mates. Yan Wan answered the tree question in a way that stunned me. we anticipated the question and had come out with the correct way to respond but it seems like she forgot about it. She was being questioned mercilessly by the other groups and I felt i have to step in and correct it. Thank god it was the right way to answered it and i felt it somehow made up for my horrible presentation earlier.

rushed off to change into our "costume" and heat the food up and ran through BE presentation one last time before going in. Shoo-ed Tan Teck Meng out of the room and set the room up. Qiu Tin got him back and we started. He seemed totally uninterested in our little "act". Presentation as per normal but I thought I sounded really panicky. Q&A session, thank god everyone had great answers. Tan Teck Meng said we did well and that really made my day. Headed outside and took some group photos and headed back home for my well deserved rest. woke up to study for the dreaded chinese letter writing test the next day.

1st August

Chinese test was generally ok, went for OB lecture, was good to catch up with some old friends. OB tutorial was again, boring. headed to TM for a drink and chit chat with phy. Went home. nth much.

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and so it seems the busiest week is over, all that is left now is the BE portfolio and exams before i go for Top of the M for 5 full months. Results for the Hot Chef Competition would also be out pretty soon next Monday. Although I was not involved in many things to date, I would still hope we get through the selections, then I will work double hard to return the 2 guys a favour.

Thats it for now.

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