Maybe I'm being too cynical in my life or something, but these days I keep seeing contradicting stuff that just makes me feel so....so....cheated (for a lack of a better word).

Just yesterday, Sis brought back a magazine (you know, those 'Health & Beauty' type magazines all filled with photos of models in extravagant clothes that we can never afford, and tonnes of advertisements for beauty products that don't really ever work?) after her shopping spree and being the 'snob' that I am, I flipped through the pages. The first thing that caught my eye was this huge title on the cover saying "Keep your curves and lose an average of 1kg a week" or something to that extent. That in itself got me thinking, "Why in the world would you promote curviness in a woman and YET get people to lose weight? A little bit contradicting, don't you think?" 

Still, curiosity got the best of this cat (and you know where that leads to!); I flipped to the article hoping to see that there are some ladies who are slightly bigger than normal women, and what did they do to be a little bit more in shape & healthier. Guess what I saw? Pretty women who were not in the least curvy to warrant that term! For one, they look kind of short, and these petite women are FAR from being called fat! Sure, they tried to make them look fat by putting terms like "Whole Body Mass", "Muscle Mass", "Fat Mass", and "Body Age", but nobody really understands it that much! And to make it worse, these ladies don't even hit the weight ABOVE 60kg! Oh, let's not ignore the fact that they ALSO added a little note about their "Ideal Weight"...and all of them were actually UNDERWEIGHT!!! What. The. Eff. Right??? 

Here they go promoting 'curves' (more like skin & bones to me) and then getting them ladies to lose weight when they're already grossly underweight (case in point: there's this lady who is only 47.7kg and her ideal weight was 60.6kg. After 3 weeks of 'healthy' eating and exercising, she became a waif thin 46.9kg. Go figure)! To think they would have the audacity to put it out in print...and distribute it to women all around the world! (This particular magazine has franchises all over the world....dare I say it? The name starts with a "C" and is similar to that famous Egyptian queen, Cleopatra)

Sure, I get it that in order to lose weight properly and all, healthy eating and exercise are important. They did give some great ideas on how to eat healthy, but to use underweight ladies as examples just screams hypocrisy! And damnit, I'm feeling quite pissed...or maybe it's the hormones. Or maybe I'm just unsatisfied with the way I am. Blah.

Okay, I'm not a good cook like lots of other food bloggers out there, but it just so happened that these few recipes that I've tried out turned out rather good for me (& yummy too, I might add!), so I'm posting it here again as a reminder that cooking is fun (well, the process is sometimes not, but the finished product and the tasting afterwards is!) and I should look for more recipes to try out rather than just sit and wallow at home...hey, at least there's some comfort food to eat right? ;) These are photos already in my FB page, but since I'm bored and all...might as well talk more about it here. Heh!

This was my version of PW's Coffee Cake (recipe here)...made it last week for Father's Day, since Dad is an avid coffee drinker (don't know if I'd used the word 'avid' correctly, but it sounded okay, so meh...LOL!) I thought it would do very nicely! And thankfully, it did! I was very hesitant about frosting the cake since the first few times I ever frosted any cake turned out to be complete disasters! But thanks to the great buttercream frosting, it was VERY spreadable and easy to work with so at least this time around I didn't botch it too much...YAYY! 

Dad loved the cake, so kudos to the great recipe! I liked it too, even though I'm no coffee drinker...the coffee taste was good, although it left a little bit of a bitter aftertaste (I think due to the coffee flecks in the frosting) but it's dense and not too sweet...that I think was because I reduced the sugar content A LOT! Coming from a family history of diabetics (my Mom is one, and my Dad has a family history...so I have a very high chance of getting it) I was always told that high amounts of sugar = EVIL, and I can't tolerate too sweet of a dessert myself so I ALWAYS reduce sugar when I bake...some might not like it, but the cakes and all turn out to be in my tolerated 'range', so it's still good IMO. LOL!

This was on Sunday...to celebrate Kenji's birthday, Father's Day and to welcome Mom, Sis & Rachel home I promised to make dinner. And it took me a whole day to do it, but it's SOOO worth it! The cake was from the day before (that coffee cake above), but the rest were made on Sunday: Meat Cake Pops for the furkids (my own 'idea' of a Cake Pop for them...surprisingly, it turned out quite well! YAYY!); Cajun Chicken Pasta (recipe here) - I made this with shrimp instead of chicken though; Hot & Sweet Drumsticks (recipe here); some blanched vegetables & Brazilian Lemonade again. 

Pasta was good! I was a bit too spice happy with the Cayenne pepper, and added just a wee bit too much so it was quite spicy. Thank goodness my family has a high tolerance for spiciness (unlike me!) and they said it wasn't that spicy. In fact, Mom said it was good...high praise coming from a woman who doesn't really like pasta, especially creamy ones! She said the spiciness 'covered' the cream taste which she can take :) Elder Sis wanted more cream to the pasta since she's a huge fan of carbonara...LOL! Oh well, if I ever make this again, I'll try to strike out a balance :P Chicken was good too, but when it was cooking, they were swimming in not just the sauce, but the chicken drippings too! I felt the sauce was a bit too watery for my liking, so I took the chicken out and thickened the sauce...tasted better, but I think next time I wouldn't cook the sauce first before adding to the chicken. Instead, maybe letting it cook together with the chicken might be just the trick to getting the sauce just nice like PW's version :)

Due to my enthusiasm in getting the correct ingredients, I ended up with lots of stuff that we wouldn't normally use in Chinese cooking...so, I'm gearing up for another round of cooking this week (hopefully! *crosses fingers*) I still have quite a bit of buttermilk left...very pricey for Malaysia, so I didn't want to waste it. I went searching at PW's site and found recipes like Orange Mini Muffins with Brown Sugar Glaze & Homemade Chicken Strips which will use up the buttermilk quite nicely! I'm hankering to try that, and maybe this Coconut and Lemon Loaf recipe too to finish off my very nice (& quite pricey) shredded Hawaiian coconut that I got some time ago....who knew that we can only get shredded HAWAIIAN coconut when in Malaysia, we have an abundance of coconut trees?! Unfortunately the only kind of 'shredded' coconut that we have are dessicated, which are dry and too small for some of the coconut recipes that I found...hence the extra forking of moolah for coconut. Sad >.<"

As I sit here typing this, it's been my first real 'break' from the (almost) non-stop work I've been doing since 9am today. What kind of work is it? HOUSEWORK! And I've not done half of the things I'm supposed to do...o.O" 

Being the weekend and all, I was very enthusiastic about some more projects that I could try out...started at 9 with cinnamon rolls (recipe here) which were done in about 2 hours (including baking), which turned out to be the fugliest cinnamon rolls in the world due to my noob skills! Oh well, it was good though...recipe was great; it's the person that needs work. LOL! Then it was on to baked fish sticks and heating up some packed food from Y...with lots of washing and cleaning up in between. After that, getting the house to look slightly NOT messy so that when P arrives for lunch, he wouldn't get put off. Didn't work out coz he was early as usual....LOL! Still, lunch was okay...=) Had fun talking about dogs and their antics =)

After that, cleaned up and washed the dishes, cleaned up doggies' messes and put the clothes out to dry....only to realize it was going to be dinner time! Still wanting to try again a similar recipe, I attempted the cheesy garlic bread swirls (recipe here) to go with Campbell's mushroom soup (yes, from the can...I'm not THAT good yet! LOL!). Realizing Dad needs just a bit more food than me, quickly stirred up some sausages, eggs and beans just in case...=) Cleaned up, washed the dishes (yet again) and then on to doing the laundry. Whilst doing that, realized Dad's clothes for work have run out, so did some ironing for him (and some of my work clothes) too....phew! Just typing this out made me exhausted >.<"

As I look back upon the amount of work I had to do (and the amount that I HAVEN'T done, like cleaning the floors and the car!!), I really admire the women who stayed at home to be full-time housewives and mothers...some even without the help of maids! It's really amazing to see these formidable women keeping the house spotless and at the same time ensure that everybody in the family is well fed, make sure the house supplies are sufficient, remember every bill deadline, chauffeuring the kids the school, and the list goes on and on...o.O" 

At the same time, I also kind of understood also how my Mom felt doing all the work; why she would be extra grumpy during the weekends (coz we sit around doing nothing...but at the same time, weekends are the only times we get to sit and do nothing because we've been working during the weekdays! Oh, the irony!) and why she would actually snap at you when the the only sentences that come out from your mouth are, "Is dinner ready?" or "Have you boiled water yet?" or "Hey, the clothes have not been washed yet...you'd better wash it coz there are so many already piled up!". Let's not mention the monotony of doing the same thing over and over and over again in the course of the day for so many years...o.O"

Seriously, it's scary thinking about it! There's ALWAYS something that needs to be done, and just when you've finished one thing you realize that there's something else that needs to be done! Or when you're in the midst of doing something, you see something else that's related to what you're doing, so you might as well finish that too right? o.O" Or maybe it's just me...LOL! All those years of drilling from my Mom when I was still studying and helping her out with the chores, I get kind of 'extreme' in a way....things has to be done a certain way, or if I get it done, it has to be done rather quickly. It's just freaky to think that after all the work you've done (and you feel quite proud that you've accomplished that with a rather sore back to prove it!), you realize also that there's so MUCH more that haven't been done, and it's already been one whole day! O.O"

All I can say is, if I ever get my own home some day I will make sure I will get help (be it part-time or full-time....hmm, maybe part-time is better) because there's no way I'll be able to juggle a full-time job and coming home to do all the housework. I still remember there's this quote from a character in "Pride & Prejudice" (starring Keira Knightley) about how "it's SUCH a joy running my own home!" OMG...just saying it out loud already got me horrified. >.<" I guess I will never be that kind of a woman...oh yes, which reminds me that tomorrow (or rather in the evening today!) I will be trying out a whole dinner for Dad, Vivian and her bf...eep! What have I gotten myself into??