Banging pots and pans.

You know what the best part of my trip was?

Ok, ok. Second best part. The first best part was being with Hero again.

Oh. Ok. Third best part. Second would be the adventures we had.

So, do you know what the third best part of my trip was?

A fully-equipped, fully-functional kitchen upon my arrival!

Can you tell I’m a bit strange?

People never believe I could cook, much less believe that I love cooking! I find those people strange.

For my Cairns trip, I came armed with my apron and my groceries list.

“Where did you got that from?” Hero asked, surprised to see me clad in apron. He chuckled when I told him I brought it from home.

The kitchen we had in the rental unit was not aesthetically superior, but it was designed smartly. I can’t describe this properly because I’m no interior whateverya. I don’t have the words to express why I’m in love with it. I should take a note of that when planning my own kitchen next time. The best way I can express it is by saying, the way it was designed everything was within reach. The island, the stove, the built-in pantry cupboard, the sink and the dishwasher was within a certain distance of each other. Of each other! For those of you who cooks frequently, you know what that means, right? You know why it is of utmost important, yes?

In this kitchen I whipped up sausage casseroles, tagliatelle, herbed roasted potatoes and chicken thingie (I still haven’t come up with a name for it. The recipe just came on top of my head). 

The thing about having “the recipe on top of one’s head” is that you have an expectation on how it is supposed to taste. But usually conjured recipe comes out a bit different than what you expect. And then you get disappointed. But for other people, they don’t know what you’re making, and when they eat your creation they end up liking the taste. At least, that’s what happened between us. I sat there sulking silently to myself about my “botched” attempt, but Hero was praising me for making the chicken in such a way that it was so juicy and tender. He didn’t know it was a supposed fail experiment. Well, not until I incredulously asked him, “what? you like it?”. He was confused with my expression, but he still said yes anyway.  

“The chicken is very…”

“Yes. I heard you the first time.” I said. And marvel at men’s simple taste. Ehem.

One more thing. Sausage casserole with pork sausages = no good. I never knew pork sausages are salty. I always exclusively used beef. I asked Hero to pick whichever sausages he wanted and he picked pork. He liked the casseroles. I didn’t. It wasn’t meant to be salty! Worse is that I didn’t even add a single pinch of salt in that dish. Thank goodness we had roasted herb potatoes to go with that casserole.

I only remember to snap pictures of the tagliatelle. Hero’s new favourite dish. But ignore that label because everything I cook becomes his favourite. It’s like he is so scared of offending my culinary sensitivity. Culinary sensitivity. For the love of English, will someone come here and slap me please? Culinary sensitivity whatcamacallit indeed!

I keep on telling him that he can tell me if he doesn’t like it, because I’m not a Nazi cook. I want to know if I went wrong somewhere so I can correct it. But noooo…he claims “it’s good, baby”. Verdict? Aside from sushi, this man would probably eat anything I present at the dinner table.

I’m possibly the worst critic of my own cooking.

   

Boiled in the chicken stock from previous night’s dinner. The same chicken that was supposedly a failed experiment. In summary, the stock is chicken stock + generous amount of parsley + white wine. YUUMMM! It also had strips of leftover chicken from the same dinner. Also, pardon the crappy phone camera and equally crappy photo skills.

Oh, by the way? It turns out that my man does know how to cook! Albeit very simple ones like steak, and, as I found out last Friday, delicious bolognaise. I was soooo surprised, soooo taken aback and soooo delighted—I had two servings of it. At 12am! (I arrived at 11.20pm). I have never eaten his steak yet, but P told me he makes marvelous steak. I better believe it, now that I have eaten his marvelous bolognaise.

Dare I say that his bolognaise is waaaay better than mine? Eeek! My kitchen ego is at stake!

When he returns I’m going to ask him to make his bolognaise sauce for lasagna. Mmmmmm.

Oh no. Between this entry and chatting about Kuching food with Super Gentleman…I’ve made myself hungry.

At 2.50am.