Not a Newsletter: Sep22 Edition

I thought there would be a joy-related feeling to leaving a place during winter and coming back to it in the spring (even though there was only two weeks gap in between), but I forgot that we live in Melbourne, where the weather is shitty more than half of the year.

Now that I have done the whining part let’s talk about happier things.

Highlights

This month was made of three things: the London trip, my birthday and being sick after returning from London.

🎂 ━ Because I had to travel on my birthday and therefore didn’t get to celebrate it properly, Fafa took me on a day trip to Healesville during the four-days weekend and recreated a perfect birthday day for me.

🍰 ━ During the same four-days weekend I also went to a gathering at Jen’s place (had her delicious lemon cake) and a bbq at our neighbour’s.

🍅 ━ I am so proud to have successfully planted and harvested mini radishes though I almost never ate them. On the same farming note ━ Fafa got me a veggie crate for my birthday. It might not sound romantic, but the man has been supporting all my hobbies, and this is exactly what I wanted.

Love and Found

🥻 ━ I have added Madhur Jaffrey to the list of ladies I hard-core fangirl after watching a short video of her on Youtube. It was my first intro to Madhur ━ ever since I have been stalking her online; what an icon!

 📺 ━ Since I have been recovering for most of the month, I have spent most of my waking hours either working, pretending to work or watching TV in bed. I watched the second-latest season of Law and Order SVU and Dahmer ━ the latter made me, a true crime fan, feel uneasy, so it was well done?). I also repeated plenty of episodes from Drop Dead Diva and Criminal Minds. But my favourite and highly recommended show to watch immediately is the multiple awards-winning Abbott Elementary (it’s on Disney+) ━ and principal Ava is my new idol. Oh, I almost forgot, I watched (and adored) all three seasons of Shrill on the plane.

Foodie Guide-y

🥘 ━ After having it in our neighbour’s place and once again during my self-care day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the North Indian Paneer Curry, so I made it last week – but somehow, it turned out to be a South Indian style roast (according to Fafa). Nevertheless, it was delish, and I’ll be making it again.

🍛 ━ I have been eating a lot of comfort food, from porridge in Dumbo to Kaki Lima foodtruck’s Crazy Rice, from Nasi Bakar in Tambociek to Japanese breakfast at IMA Project Cafe, but nothing has successfully soothed my heart and aching body. So, this weekend I plan to UberEat my ultimate comfort food, Chicken Rice. Hopefully, it will be the answer.

🍲 ━ If you are looking for cooking inspirations and recipes, check out Nik Sharma’s A Brown Table. I listened to his interview on Bad Table Manners, a must-listen podcast hosted by anthropologist Mehe Varma.

🍖 ━ I have never prepared a Sunday roast feast, nor I’d be inclined to do so anytime soon with just me and Fafa at home, but I want to be invited to one, so I am putting this out to the Universe.

Browsing History

🫶 ━ Whenever my friends asked me about London, the first thing I told them was about Tracy Emin’s actual bed that was sold for almost $4m. TATE is welcome to uproot out my messy spices pantry for half the money.

🫶 ━ After declaring that I am not a Midori girl, I relented and got a Traveler’s Notebook in the Selfridges department store in London because I was tired of carrying a thick-ass Moleskine in my backpack every day. I have yet to commit to it; I may need to go on a few more trips to decide. If you need some convincing yourself, take a peek at these artists’ journals and Seaweed Kisses for journaling in general.

🫶 ━ How about some self-improvement links? Ten micro habits to apply in life, judgement-free ways to change shopping habits and gentle rules to feel good – or check out CupofJo for light inspos.

🫶 ━ Lastly, not really important, but kinda for me, I am sorry about the ugly-AF Google AdSense ads floating on the blog for a couple of weeks. I found out that I somehow installed a plugin last month, and those ads just started showing up on the blog. It took me a few tries to get rid of it because technical stuff gives me a headache.

Tiny Joys

Birthday 🧡 Being able to celebrate my birthday in London 🧡 All the well-wishes and thoughtful gifts I got my birthday 🧡 London 🧡 My houseplants surviving after being semi-abandoned for a couple of weeks 🧡 Getting a cheque in the mail 🧡 Receiving good news regularly ━ I have started keeping a record of it.

Meanwhile, on Kulture Kween:

Between London and feeling unwell for weeks, I only managed to write about Fijian Souvenirs and my unpopular opinion about I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki. However, I promise to write more this month; read the below point for details.

I also added Melbourne as the newest category on the blog. One of the biggest regrets I had when I left Singapore was that I didn’t write enough about Singapore’s culture and cuisine while living there, and I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.

Time Machine

Read more about last year’s happenings.

Thank You, Next!

🖥️ ━ I have been thinking of participating in a past blog trend, Blogtober – of publishing a post every day in October. At first, I wanted to clear off some of my backlog posts but then decided posting exclusively about my London trip would be more fun. So I am doing my own version of Blogtober, #30daysofLondon. To be real, I am not sure whether I have 30 stories to share about London or the time or the energy to post every day this month consistently, but here is my public commitment to do my best.

🪔 ━ I am so looking forward to celebrating Diwali with my family in Jakarta! Also, this will be the first Diwali I celebrate with my parents and Fafa, a belated Thalai Diwali, an important tradition in my culture.

🛫 ━ The trip to Jakarta comes with a stop-over in Singapore, and we have been ranking all the food we love to choose which one deserves the first taxi ride out of the Changi Airport before moving on to the next things if time permits.

Keep Kultured!  ━ KK.

Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.