Not a Newsletter: May24 Edition

Hi guys, I’m back. If you want to know why I was MIA, read on.

Highlights

👩🏽‍🌾 ━ With the exam well behind me, I was supposed to return to the regular adulting schedule this month. But no, instead of blogging, I spent 99% of my free time at home playing PS. A week after the exam, I treated myself to the latest Harvest Moon edition, and I can’t stop playing it (and thinking and talking about it when I’m not playing it).

🐔 ━ I have played Harvest Moon since my then-BFF Susan introduced me to it in high school. Ever since, it has brought me consistent joy. On the Winds of Anthos farm, I have three chickens, a chick, a cow, a calf, a sheep, a horse, and a house cat I named Miaw. These days, I come home plotting how to expand the farm and mine gold ore instead of adulting. And you know what? I’m okay with it. I’m happy.

👩🏾‍🤝‍👩🏽 ━ Another thing that brought me joy this month was socializing. My weekends (and some weekdays) have been filled with fun hangouts. We had Shiv and neighbour + fam for dinner, and the weekend after, I solo hung out with Jen, followed by a girls’ gathering at our place. Then we had Shoba for Indo dinner two weekends ago. A few days ago, I went to Whitehart with Jen and Aina, and yesterday, I went to Panco with Shiv and my neighbour again.

🛫 ━ In between the above fun, I managed to squeeze in more fun during a getaway to Sydney. I went to the Sydney Writers Festival for the first time (I’m bummed that I missed out on the Poetry Booth), hung out at Harris Park and tried new-to-me Indian food there. I also did a fun photo project in Castle Hill with Jik. On Sunday, Jik and I went for brunch, followed by cafe hopping to journal and spent the money we should have saved on matching bikinis like irresponsible teenagers. It was fun and fulfilling, and before I knew it, I was back at Melbourne Airport, replying to work emails that piled up over the weekend. Adulting.

India Culture Chat

🍅 ━ A snippet of Udupi, India.

🍛 ━ The history behind Indian Butter Chicken Masala.

🪔 ━ How an Ancient Indian Art Utilizes Mathematics, Mythology, and Rice.

Found and Love

🪑 ━ After many months and many more discussions that went nowhere, Fafa and I finally agreed on a chair shape and colour for our living room. So we got it and are happy, mainly Fafa, because now he doesn’t need to sit on the kitchen bench when we have two guests or more. Such a small thing has been such a significant improvement in the house.

Read, Watched, and Browsed

📚 ━ I returned to Melbourne with half of the luggage filled with the books I acquired at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I got a signed copy of Feast, Dey Touring Edition, Catching Fire – A Translation Diary and a poetry book titled more than these bones.

🏣 ━ I picked A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama (translated by Jesse Kirkwood) on a whim based on its title (and colour palette) and smashed through it during my Melbourne—Sydney flight. It has everything I like from a book — a less than 200-pager Japanese lit with an unlikable main character (matched with an equally frail relative, who wears Negi — Japanese leek, around her neck as a home remedy. And a flakey mother added into the mix) and a story that goes nowhere with chapters defined by season and Tokyo, Shinjuku Train Station and Japanese Convenience store as revolving backdrops. It’s good to read; it got me back to reading, and now I am ready for another start-and-finish in one-seating book. It also made me crave Yokan (red-bean-based Wagashi) and add Saitama to my Japan travel list).

☀️ ━ Fafa and I went out to watch The Fall Guy at the Sun Theatre over the weekend. This movie is beyond stupid, but we had a nice date night out of it, with a custom-made wine cocktail in the corner bar in Yarraville and a brief stop at the Sun Theater bookshop.

📺 ━ The Living Room Movie Night (LRMN—I’ll try to come up with a better name) Camp is a continued tradition. This month, we watched Manjummel Boys, ate spicy salami, and drank canned wine.

👻 ━ I started my horror saga this month by watching Madhavan’s Shaitaan with Fafa. Waggs was also kind enough to download Humane and Late Night with the Devil in Sydney. I loved all three movies. I also bookmarked The Cloudvale Tapes (free on YouTube) just because the actor reminded me of my friend, they even shared the same last name.

🩺 ━ But my most considerable screen time of the month has been Grey’s Anatomy. I didn’t mean to rewatch it; I just replayed the first episode while waiting for the last episode of the previous season to drop, and before I knew it, I was already eight seasons deep and cried AGAIN when Lexi died. Oh Shonda, you da best!

🎙️ ━ Underfoot is a series of virtual audio tours by Liz Crash and Jinghua Qian uncovering the secret histories of Footscray.

🌠 ━ Unfortunately, I completely missed out on Auraro Australia this month, so I set up an alert on Google. Now, I am getting too many alerts, but if it means we don’t miss the next one, so be it.

🔖 ━ The Case Against Travel 🔖 The Morning: Why We Travel 🔖 The Great Ganesh Milk Miracle 🔖 Self care beyond the face mask 🔖 Different types of rest 🔖 Ideas For Taking Your Life in Extraordinary Directions 🔖

Foodie Guide-y

🫐 ━ The biggest food news this month is that I finally ate the berries from the Lilly Pilly (Syzygium Smithii) tree in our backyard and didn’t die.

🦐 ━ Though I didn’t cook as much, I made Amma’s Prawn Tauco for the first time on Mother’s Day weekend. I also made yummy Mangalorian Durka Maas with the homemade masala my cousin’s MIL gave her, which she graciously shared with me. I also made Prawn Sambal, Nasi Lemak, and Malay Omelette—all three recipes I learned from the cooking class at Food Playground in Singapore.

🍗 ━ Meanwhile, Fafa has been tinkering with the air fryer we got almost a year ago and making the best spicy chicken popcorn and steak. There aren’t many simple joys that can compete with returning to a warm home-cooked meal.

🍳 ━ We went on a dinner date at the newly opened Hoppers Joint in our old neighbourhood, South Yarra. We started with Pineapple Chilli, a typical street food in Sri Lanka, and Paddu (rice cake topped with spanner crab, spice, and Salmon Roe – it was my absolute favourite of the night), followed by set meals that included two curries, two Sambols, and two hoppers. During my third hopper, the owner’s mother came to chit-chat with us; she also offered to put a Bindhi on me, which I accepted. I can’t recommend this place enough, and we will return next month.

🍽️ ━ The steak night date is back on the schedule. We went there on a whim and made a pact to return once a month, at least during winter.

🍷 ━ I also found a new place to take all my friends: Willows & Wine. It’s a (mulled) wine, cheese, and book bar. Need I say more?

🍝 ━ In Sydney, I enjoyed delicious home-cooked meals—Broccolini noodles and Calabrian Chili Bucatini—balanced by a quintessential Western Chinese takeout. Outside, I had delightful Prawn Risotto at Remy’s for brekkie, Korean Dinner at Bimbibar in Redfern, and Nick & Nora’s, a champagne bar on a 26th-story floor in a fancy building in Parramatta.

🍘 ━ On the flip side, Waggs introduced me to Ugly Delicious on Netflix while in Sydney. I was so irked watching how savage they were on the caviar in the High and Low episode that I think I finally found food I do not want to try. And that’s a caviar-laden beef sushi roll. Yuck.

Kulture Kween

I promise I will be back to regular posting next month.

Tiny Joys

Agoda Refund ❤ Fupi brand Mala flavour beancurd skin crisps ❤ Spicy Chicken Ramen for breakfast ❤ Old-fashioned floor heater ❤ unplanned naps ❤ chatting until we forgot the time ❤ rainbow toothpaste ❤ ❤ the enormous box of Ferrero Rocher ❤ These days, I catch a bus to commute home. It’s a wee bit longer, but it’s much more predictable and requires way less brainpower ❤ Catching rainbows in between muggy Melbourne weather ❤ and the rainbow toothbrush Fafa got for me ❤ Chicken soup ❤ My Atta’s soup ❤ Din Tai Fung soup.

Time Machine

Read more about last year’s happenings.

Thank You, Next!

🍶 ━ I pulled Three of Cups from the Gentle Tarot for June’s card. It’s depicted as three naked women raising a cup to the waterfall in front of them and themselves, I suppose.

🐊 ━ I am off to Darwin on the long weekend with Jik for our annual GGP trip. So far, we have eaten Laksa and fed crocodiles on the schedule. More on it later.

☕ ━ On other weeks in Melbourne, I’ll go to the Truffle Tour in QVM, see Joy installations in the Immigrant Museum, and participate in the Tarot Club in Milkwood. Fafa and I are also going to Counting and Cracking, a South Asian-themed theatre performance I am super excited about, as the last theatre performance we attended in London blew my mind.

♕ ━ I am looking forward to the second half of Bridgerton – I can’t wait to see more of Queen’s hair and Cressida’s sleeves.

Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.

👩🏽‍🌾 ━ Farmer Kal.