Last Day of Summer.
I briefly considered skipping this entry. I have 213 items on my to-do list, and I wondered, who’s really reading someone else’s life summary? Also, it’s the last day of summer. But then I thought—if I’m lucky enough to live a long life, and this blog survives just as long, I owe it to my old fragile future self to preserve a slice of our lives in a format more structured than frantic chicken scratch handwritten journal entries.
So, here’s to future me—and to you, reading this now.
Highlights
🥮 ━ A lot of good things happened this month, but one of the most unexpected and welcome surprises came after a particularly bad day at work. My friend, Liz, sent me a package of LeTao cake simply because she knew I was overwhelmed. I was so chuffed. Thank you, Liz.
🎰 ━ We started the month with a Poker Night of poker, pizza, and baijiu at our friends’ place. I drank a lot, ate too much, and lost a little. It was such a fun night. Can’t wait for a repeat—hopefully in a snow cabin somewhere.
🍰 ━ We also went to a kid’s birthday party, and I ended up having way more fun than expected, playing arcade games and eating birthday cake.
🍔 ━ Fafa and I had dinner at our friends-turned-neighbours’ home. We started with a cheese appetizer and Hoegaarden (gosh, I missed Hoegaarden!), followed by dinner. This friend always makes amazing food, but I’m starting to notice a theme—every dinner party involves some form of DIY dish. This time, we built our own pulled pork buns; last time, it was gado-gado. I love this concept so much that I’m thinking of hosting a temaki sushi DIY dinner in winter.
🧧 ━ We also had a Lunar New Year lunch party at work, where I (happily) got roped into making Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls and Mango Sago. A colleague made Singaporean Chicken Curry, which brought back so many comforting memories. I also discovered Pâté Chaud, brought by a Vietnamese colleague and ate six of them. We cracked some fortune cookies—mine (which I forgot to take a picture of) said something about growth.
🍣 ━ For Valentine’s, Fafa and I had a low-key dinner at Nori Maki. Aside from one overly affectionate couple, it was a lovely night. We’ll definitely be back once they get their liquor license.
Culture Chat
🏮 ━ The next time I go to Hong Kong, I’m going to visit the villain hitting for fortune tellers—maybe with a list of names, maybe not.
Read, Watched, And Browse
📚 ━ I’ve only read one book this month, and that was for book club—Shapeshifting: First Nations Lyric Nonfiction. It was good and thought-provoking, and I learned so much. 10/10 recommend.
📺 ━ Fave TV shows: Apple Cider Vinegar (highly recommend) and High Potential (low-key recommend).
🍿 ━ What I don’t recommend is Real Pain, which we saw at Cinema Nova. It’s highly rated everywhere, so it must be good—just not for me. I just didn’t get the point of it.
📹 ━ I took a sick day, officially declaring it as Kaletine, and planted myself in front of the TV, binging The Diary, Wasp, Nefarious, Immaculate Room, 0.0 Hz, The Dead Thing, and Grafted. That might just be my highest horror movie count in a day+.
Foodie Guide-Y
🍈 ━ I had a fig; by that, I mean I saw a fig fruit and ate it. I think I had figs before in some Australian cafés’ breakfasts, but seeing one whole was interesting enough to document.
🍳 ━ Friday is my tense-cooking day, where I cook without a recipe. This time, I made Mapo Tofu, but it turned out brown instead of red. A quick Google search later, I realized I was missing chili bean sauce. And because I like taking things a bit too far, I’m going to add Duo Jiao next time. Last Friday, I made Upma on a whim—it tasted meh. Yesterday, I made a concoction of pesto pasta with anchovies—also no bueno. The only thing that turned out well this month was the Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken from the recipe Nikki shared with me. The learning: I need a recipe to cook!
Cooking fails aside, I’ve had so much good food recently. The more I write this food section, the more I realize that most of my life’s highlights (including in the highlights section above) revolve around food—and you know what? I think I am completely okay with it.
🍲 ━ Apart from the Lunar New Year celebration, we had a special day at work with scones (jam and cream—my absolute fave!), ginger cakes, and Portuguese-Indian chicken made by my colleague, who’s also a chef on the weekends. And last Wednesday, our team ordered from Peko Peko, just because. I can’t wait to take Fafa there for a chill lunch of Sichuan chicken and Taiwanese sausage fried rice.
🫕 ━ We also had a fancy-ish work dinner at Chancery Lane. The menu was a kind of Russian roulette—three courses with two options per course, but no choice in what we’d get (though we could swap with the person beside us). The starter I got was cured kingfish—I loved it! For the meal, I had the Steak, which was good, but I’d have preferred the Salmon. The dessert was some sad chocolate ice cream with sour rhubarb (which I hated). I wish I had the next person’s crème brûlée instead.
🌯 ━ I’ve been stressed lately, and Fafa has been doing his husbandly duty by dragging me out for good food. We went to Kaprica for pizza and pasta, Fresh Chilli Deli for tofu banh mi (and then across the road for the best Vietnamese coffee in town), Pochana, Dosa Hut for a delicious dosa and chicken and last night to Borgna Korean BBQ.
🍖 ━ Our neighbor also invited us again for a meat galore session, and it was absolutely delicious! We are so overdue to host them (multiple times!).
🍱 ━ Some other memorable eats this month: A new Poke place opened near my office, and I’ve been going weekly. The past few Saturdays, Fafa has been tau-pau-ing Char Kway Teow from the Thai place and always shares it with me—even though I tell him I’m not hungry. It’s so spicy and delicious!
🧋 ━ There’s an emerging new bubble tea craze at the office, so we created a Teams group, Bubble Tea Gang, to discuss places, coordinate orders and at times talk about new skin care products. It reminds me of my bubble tea days at the Indo office.
🍫 ━ Current favorite snacks: Cadbury seasonal chocolates covered almonds, spicy pork crackling, Thạch Rau Câu Lá Dứa (Vietnamese coconut pandan jelly), Royal Kohi ice cream at Kori, Taro Bingsu at Homm, and Godiva soft serve.
🍚 ━ Lastly, don’t @ me for this, but I’ve been cheating on my warm, fluffy, freshly made rice with microwaveable rice. It started when Fafa called me from IGA one day, offering to buy peri-peri rice, and it somehow evolved into Mexican Rice, Coconut Lemongrass Rice, Garlic Rice, and more. I still think my homemade rice is better (look at me defending my basic B rice-cooking skills), but in a pinch, it’s been surprisingly convenient and somewhat affordable—especially after I spent $7 on banana bread for Lammas.
Kulture Kween
This month, I wrote about Temaki Sushi Omakase 🖋️ Sentimental Flavors of Marco Padang Peranakan Cuisine 🖋️ Unio Mystica A Portal of All Things Woo Woo in Helsinki 🖋️
Tiny Joys
The prettiest bouquet of flower Fafa got me for Valentine ❤ Liz got me a pasta bowl for Christmas, and I love it so much that I’ve been using it every single time I need a bowl of any kind ❤ Fountain ink samples haul ❤ Planning a trip ❤ Organizing stickers ❤ Asian snacks shopping session with Fafa ❤ Dumbo’s Head in the Clouds ❤
Time Machine
🌴 ━ the happenings of this time last year.
Thank You, Next!
🍚 ━ My March card is another Ace of Coins—Rice from the Magic Pantry deck.
💯 ━ We have a long weekend next week, and I’m hoping to use it to make progress with my studies. Lame, I know. But necessary.
Thankfully, I have a few fun things lined up as well…
🎂 ━ I have Liz’s birthday dinner (still need to get her a gift—any girlfriend gift ideas are welcome!). I also have a midweek event at MFWF with her. I was supposed to attend a few more events, but I canceled them all because of adulting.
✍🏼 ━ Last weekend in March, we have our own Footscray Writers Festival—its first year, and I’m super excited! I thought about volunteering, but work is too much right now. Maybe next year. For now, Fafa and I are attending a few of the events, and I can’t wait!
Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.
Grateful for the post and glad you didn’t skip this entry. Thanks for sharing even though it’s super busy ❤️