vivo nuevo

A Summer Sunday lunch

By Zona Marie on January 10, 2010 4:23 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Learning how and what to cook based on seasons was one of the learning curves for me when I moved to Australia. Knowing what produce was in season, that hot soups and baked pot pies were good in winter and lighter cold dishes were perfect for summer was something very new to me. With Malaysia's all year round average 30deg weather, no food was too hot or cold for a season.

This last December made it officially two years since I've moved to Sydney. So this was my third summer, and two winters had passed enough to almost learn the basics.

Realising that it was going to be a lovely warm sunny this weekend, and having rarely cooked any seafood dishes - I thought this would be a perfect time to try.

I invited over to our place for lunch an old primary school classmate and her family who had recently moved to Sydney from Brisbane. Since she doesn't eat beef, seafood was a great (and coincidental) choice for a summer Sunday lunch. So I decided that the menu was going to be Chilli Mussels, Prawn Mango salad, a Chocolate Raspberry crème caramel for dessert, and ice-chilled homemade lemonade.

My aunt in Perth had once taught me how to make chilli mussels almost ten years ago, while I was living with her studying there. Having never attempting to cook it again, I'd almost forgotten what she taught me. The Tasmanian Blue Mussels were in season at $7.99 per kg at the Sydney Fish Markets and I was itching to try it again.

Continue reading A Summer Sunday lunch.

Christmas leftovers: Ham & corn fritters

By Zona Marie on January 1, 2010 9:36 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Remember the Christmas ham we roasted about a week ago? Yeah, the 5kg one which was expected to feed the masses... uhm, I mean, two mouths.

Well to keep from food-boredom (a foodie never lives on the one dish alone), I wanted to create a little variation on the menu with the leftover ham in the days after Christmas, instead of just chomping on cold ham (which my husband does anyway to snack on). The obvious one I've already made was a quick dinner mini pizza with ham and mozzarella - also particularly to utilise one of our Christmas presents from MIL - a pizza stone! I thought up some other ideas like ham sushi, curry ham, ham shish kebab, ham satay, ham in fried rice...

Crazy ham ideas aside, here's just one of the few recipes I've actually made in the last few days... (I'll update with the others to follow-up).

Continue reading Christmas leftovers: Ham & corn fritters.

First Christmas feast

By Zona Marie on December 30, 2009 7:57 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

This was officially my third Christmas in Sydney, as home. The first two Chrissy celebrations had been spent with Lee's family - one in the Sutherland shire and last year in the hot and quiet Hunter Valley.

We weren't going to do any of the above this year, and half of me was a little down and bothered about not having the yummy Christmas feast like my dad cooks up back in KL. Lee was also feeling a bit traditional - and spoke about how his old boss traditionally gave out Christmas ham leg to employees. So I said, why not have a ham this year?

Plans came together very last minute. Say - two weeks before. And the Christmas menu was increasing, even though the guest list wasn't. How were we going to feed two mouths with a bloody big ham leg?!

Lee chimes in to say, "That's why there's the ham bag - you keep it as leftovers for a month!"

Gaack!

The week of Christmas, we had a 5kg ham in the fridge and accumulating ingredients for a Raspberry Chocolate Custard Trifle, roast potatoes, chocolate mint bark, salad, cheese board and a delish Adriano Zumbo Christmas pudding. It wasn't long after when the turkey was added.

Thankfully, Lee's mum said she and her partner would spend Christmas dinner with us.

Continue reading First Christmas feast.

iBlog here long time

By Zona Marie on December 3, 2009 9:28 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

Knowing that the main reason why I've neglected my blog is my surfing habits have been limited to my iPhone - I've downloaded the BlogPress app! Here's the first post - and hoping that it'll get me back on the blogging trail. Reckon Keisha would approve? =)

- posted from my iPhone

Autumn antecedents

By Zona Marie on April 25, 2009 12:21 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Autumn's always been my favourite season. For some reason, April showers and shadowy clouds on a chilly day brings out the sombre, contemplative side in me. The khaki coloured leaves piling up in the gutters and gusts of mini willy willys remind me of the parts of ourselves that we shed to start the next day, the next chapter of our lives.

It doesn't need to always be a new season three months later. It could be a new job, a new relationship, a new addition to the family or starting a course, that new milestone that our lives start and stop and overlap with.

While most of the planet greets April as the month of spring in full bloom, upside down in Australia as autumn it's nonetheless as meaningful. Polar opposites exist to remind us that the cycle is there for in affirmative reason.

Pondering on Steph's confessional, I can't help but confront my own thoughts. With so many significant events having gone on in my life the last couple of years, I haven't honestly had the chance to stop to confront that existentialist question. It's crossed over every now and then, but only fleetingly and never long enough for me to deal with it. Although I acknowledge that these events all happened for a reason, no matter how excruciating and painful or how blissful, there's still a part of me that ignores listening to those lessons, and I keep running. It's as though since I made that decision to "take the plunge", it became the literal plunge wherein life moves without breaks.

Some might say that's a good thing, that it's living life. I'd say, not entirely. While it's cool that I don't feel so enrapt in the details, I think the soul is missing something. It's missing being listened to.

Even though mother nature knows its course and everything around it follows, we seem to be the only beings who can do otherwise. We forget to listen to mother nature, the Creator's voice, who can tell us where and what we're looking for.

And then I understand why summer turns to autumn turns to winter turns to spring.

Just catching up

By Zona Marie on April 22, 2009 9:42 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

We've moved from Balmain to hippie Rozelle.
We visited Tasmania for Janelle & Christophe's wedding - and I want to go back!
Lee threw me a summer BBQ party for my 30th birthday!
We got a rawking new PS3!
I started tweeting.
I got a new job as a web producer.
MacSnob am I! I now own a 13" unibody MacBook.
I am learning Spanish, and is a class short of completing Level 1.
I vote Adam Lambert, Danny Gokey and Allison Iraheta as American Idol S8's top 3!
I've joined a gym with Steph; and do mostly pilates classes.
I got Kevin Rudd's tax bonus last Friday! w00t!
Lee got me a Cookie Monster hoodie for an anniversary present.

Para paranoia

By Zona Marie on April 22, 2009 8:49 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Getting my blogging gears cranked up again feels a little clumsy. I haven't been in that blogging state of mind in a long time and just thinking about how to start writing and what to write about is honestly hard. Admittedly, the incidences that have happened over the last year does contribute to my mental block. It is a psychological effect and validated paranoia of having someone breath down my neck to see what I've written here just to use it against me. Someone at my last job.

Long story short, this person was just a toxic influence in a job I actually enjoyed. How do you decide between a job you felt could be a new career versus a pain in the ass manager who doesn't believe in managing a team with positive encouragement or reinforcement? Who would rather believe in stereotypes than the truth and yelling unwarranted obscenities during meetings. It was also obvious by my first month of working there that he hated my supervisor.

I was somewhat trapped; but it came as a blessing in disguise when I got retrenched, two days after I turned 30. It wasn't a very nice experience, for sure. I just grew very resentful of that office in the weeks leading up to it and the retrenchment announcement was the crux of it. The irony was I felt liberated and relief.

Doubly more so when two competing magazine editors and a publicist called to tell me that I was very good at what I did there, and that they were surprised to hear that I was the one retrenched. The affirmations I never got from that manager, I received from the industry. It was good enough for me to move on.

Continue reading Para paranoia.

"I'll carry you until death do us apart"

By Zona Marie on April 19, 2009 8:54 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

I received the following story in an email just a couple hours ago. It couldn't have come at a better time, as gentle reminder about what a marriage should be about - for eternity. For those who are married, unmarried and yet to be married, the following is a sharing of what a relationship needs to be...

***

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

Continue reading "I'll carry you until death do us apart".

hola!

By Zona Marie on April 19, 2009 6:05 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Como estas? Estoy bien.

Si, tengo regresado.

Yes, I've returned to blogging. At least, resuming regular blog space on a fresh new database. I've decided that my old Movable Type that's been constantly upgraded was just too battered for me to troubleshoot. So I've deleted the legacy database and started from scratch. I think there's a lot to be said about that, in it's symbolism.

Anyway, "vivo nuevo" means alive again in Spanish. I knew that a new blog with new start means re-living my online world, so it was only apt to give it a fresh name. "Vivo" is nonetheless a great way to say "I live" and to represent my blog in that way. Even though I didn't completely disappear from the online space, mostly visible to friends and family who were on Facebook and Twitter, restarting my blogging presence has always been at the back of my mind. I'll recount what's been happening in the past year in near future blog posts for those who've been out of touch, and continue to share with you about my new life here in Australia.

So, to old and new readers alike - Bienvenidos! Selamat datang!

Our first wedding anniversary

By Zona Marie on April 19, 2009 2:04 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

A year down, infinity to go! I can't believe it's been a whole year for us already. Time flies when you're having fun, and that's a good thing to say about being together, isn't it? *^_^* Not trying to overlook that we haven't had our disagreements or kinks, which is a given, of course.

In a simple quiet first anniversary celebration, I decided to book 10-course degustation dinner for two at French restaurant Bécasse in the city.

The experience at Bécasse was quite fascinating, because it's not a place we could afford to go all the time. Lee said, it was surreal having to experience food presented like we've only seen off the Lifestyle Food channel. He was quite tempted to head to the kitchen and yell, "Yes, chef!!!" I agreed that while watching these little jellies and coagulated olive oil arrive on our plates, it was like I was being served by Heston Blumenthal!

Continue reading Our first wedding anniversary.