Cherries make my world go round

Cherries are one of my favourite fruits but I don't eat them often, particularly because it's expensive. But I found some on sale so I got them. I love cherries since I was a kid, especially the canned ones, those that you find on cakes. No prizes for guessing why. To me they were the sweetest things on earth. Anyway, when I grew up a little more, I was fed fresh cherries instead and I loved them.

On the side note, cherries contain potent antioxidants and have anti inflammatory properties. They are rich also in vitamin C. Plus one of my favourite desserts is the Cherry Jubilee, which consists of fresh cherries flambéed in liquor and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's unique to a Russian restaurant, Shashlik.

I found these cherries cheap and appealing because they seem to have a perfect dark shade of red and their skins reflected a natural shine. I felt compelled to take a picture. If you look carefully enough, you may even see my reflection in the cherry.



On my way home one evening last week, I came across my favourite stray cat below my block. She had been around for a while and she's very obviously aging. I remember why I liked her. She doesn't get into fights with the other cats often. The strays in my neighbourhood gets into a fight every other day, probably because the estate is over-populated. Cats are everywhere. And they will stick around because my neighbours feed them regularly.

So that evening I sat there and played with her and watched her clean herself and took this picture. She has inspired me to go out and keep a photo journal of strays because some of them are really beautiful cats, like her. And I remember taking this picture of her some years back.

Chili Con Carne

It's been a while since I blog about any of my success in the kitchen. Not that I've been failing >.> just that it takes some excitement over the success to motivate me to write about it. Anyway I just made this a couple of hours ago and it turned out right.

Recently, I had developed a taste for South American food, much of which is spanish influenced. Chili con Carne translates to "chili and meat" literally and that is the base of this dish. It is a stew made from chili peppers, meat, garlic, onions and cumin and believed to have been invented in Mexico. I was incredulous about the cumin because its known to be an Indian spice. Then I realised some Mexicans were of Indian origin. Perhaps thats where the cumin came into the Chili con Carne. Originally, the stew contains only peppers and meat but as it travelled people made variations by adding tomatoes and beans and substituted beef for other kinds of meat.



I had thought of making it last week and bought for myself beef and went to search for various recipes. And this would be my own concoction partly because some recipes demand different kinds of chilies which I find unnecessary.

Holidays are ending fast and it seem like I haven't run the errands I had planned to this holiday. Mostly thanks to work. Anyway, we managed to get Daniel and Ernest to play Guild Wars. Yay. I heard some classmates used this holiday to do their internship, which made think of mine. I had forgotten about it until someone mentioned it. Actually I'm quite picky and fussy about this because I'm strongly against going to some production house and capture tapes, import/export files, buy coffee for editor, stuff like that. Hopefully, it's possible to secure a screenwriting or photography internship. I have been introduced to FOF too, because they're starting some film project and need help. Would be awesome if I could do that.

I've thought of the story for my solo but I haven't written the script and now I'm having second thoughts. I think the story is complicated. But I don't have anymore ideas. Bleah.

I'm starting to like the eco-friendly bags. I got one from Cotton On some months back and it was very useful and compact. If I fold it nicely, I could pack it in a wallet. Yesterday I bought the Charles and Keith one, which is well-designed and stylish but I haven't opened it. It's even packed nicely in a box. So cool! Ok I'm quite a sucker for these thingies because they are comfortable to carry and they are friendly to the environment. And they're friendly to your pocket too.

Soon I'll be posting photos of church camp which is long overdue. Like almost a month.