I guess it is only natural that a non - agricultural country like Singapore, would look towards collaborations with agricultural companies for advanced agricultural techniques and sustainable practices. These collaborations should help our farmers improve production efficiency, with resilience against pests (not sure what insects in tropical Singapore eats tomatos), and innovate e.g. vertical farming.
Then there is this other Straits Time article that push innovative concept of farm to table dining for Singapore. Article is about a copany Artisan Green, who wanna implement sustainable farming practices with a dining venue, plus some tours and workshops to raise awareness about the benefits of local agriculture and sustainable eating. Not sure if I want to at right in the middle of a farm in humid Singapore weather. Tried wine tasting and dining in Australia, but that is against a nice beautiful scenery plus great weather.
Oh well, worth trying I guess.
But more importantly back to the 30 by 30 concept, I think it is also great that we try not to waste food, i.e. this 30 by 30 is afterall trying to build some resiliency locally for food consumption. And if we can waste less food, I think it works too! So it is great that we have apps and initiatives to cut down waste, for example article about this app to promote retailers selling discounted food near closing time. I really dont mind getting bread and pastry at a discount near the stalls' closing time, since I normally eat the bread for breakfast the next day anyways (i.e. dont need to buy the bread at an earlier timing).
So yes! 30 by 30, and less food waste!
By the way, vegetables farms seem to be working well, but the fish farms are suffering. The linked article showed that a quarter of fish farms are closing / had closed down in Singapore. Tough life for fisherman.
I was buying my grocery at the NTUC Fairprice when I chanced upon their marketing banner to urge the shoppers to buy locally produced vegetables. Heh the locally produced vegetables are typically priced higher than those from Malaysia or China. I recalled there was a government initiative to sustainably produce 30% of our nutritional needs by 2030, i.e. that "30 by 30" programme, see this "Our Food Future" website. So I guess there is some reminder and support by NTUC Fairprice for this government food initiative.
Support Local Food Supply - NTUC Fairprice
I am all for supporting local initiatives! Although to be honest there were only a few boxes of locally produced vegetables at the NTUC Fairprice. There is limited variety produced given our weather and limited land supply. I saw some packs of Xiao Baicai and Caixin hua. Sometimes I wonder how our local vegetables farmers can survive given there is not enough scale for their production nor could they compete in terms of pricing against the farmers in Malaysia or China. Yes I bought a pack of the Yili vegetables. I hope there would also be some form of government support for these local farmers, e.g. for some of the government events (e.g. those involving food and such), the organisers should also source from these local farms.
Vegetables from Yili
Further down the shopping aisle I saw this other promotion. This time the promotion is about Chew's Eggs, and great it is another local producer of food! The promotion is a lot more attractive this time round - Buy 2 trays of eggs and Get 1 Free tray. Essentially this translates to about 33% discount if the shopper buys 3 trays of eggs in total. Given all the concerns about food inflation and such, naturally this deal would be attractive to shoppers.
Chew's Eggs - Buy 2 Get 1 Free
Personally I think we could do more to support local producers of food. It was quite sad to know our local farmers (and fishermen) face many challenges when we know (or should know) food supply is a very key ingredient for our national security. I believe the price of chicken hasn't dropped since supply has been restricted from our neighboring country - the few pieces of chicken on our hawker chicken rice is honestly quite pathetic.
This was especially stark during the COVID period when everyone was worried about our food supply. I remembered that shelves were empty and the many shoppers frantically just grabbed any food that they could find. Now that COVID is over, I think our planners should at least pour in more resources or help to make sure the "30 by 30" programme succeed. Hopefully local enterprises like NTUC Fairprice could also help these local farmers (say local commission?).
With the recent rush of rainfall, punctured by periods of bright sunshine, it is no wonder that my bag of potatoes have sprouted. It is quite a sad development actually because we didn't get a chance to use any of the potatoes at all - waste of food. Yes, we have learnt to cover the bag of potatoes and keep them away from sunlight.
Nonetheless here's the bag of potatoes, and the many spuds growing out of the potatoes. I have been advised not to eat them anymore or I might have food poisoning.
Sprouted russet potatoes
If we zoomed in, we can see the sprouts, although I am not sure why the tips have a darker / black colour. Are these black tips the signs of growing leaves? Can russet potatoes grow in our humid climate?
So I have decide to plant it! No I don't have a garden with sufficient soil for potato planting, but oh well, let's give one of the potatoes a chance to grow right? So I have tried it using a shallow glass container. After a few darks the tips darkened further, and I guess it might not survive for very long. Hopefully it at least grow some leaves and maybe last a few weeks.
I was reintroduced to this poem "如梦令" by 李清照 when I was watching one of those singing competition online. The duo (郁可唯 and 胡夏) gave a beautiful rendition of the song, which is a song from one of the popular Chinese drama "知否知否應是綠肥紅瘦". The name of the drama is part of the poem versus. The poem in turn formed the chorus of the song for the drama.
Here's the YouTube video for those interested to hear the song:
Hearing the song prompted me to search for the entire poem again, and here's the poems for those interested:
昨夜雨疏风骤，浓睡不消残酒。
试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。
知否，知否？
应是绿肥红瘦。
A direct interpretation of the poem would be the reminiscence of a scene by the author 李清照. The author remembered that it was an extremely windy night (the night before) with sparse rain. This was after a night of drinking where even after much sleep (浓睡), there is still the remnant of wine in her body.
This prompted her to remember about the flowers in her garden. The flower here referred to (海棠), which incidentally is the name for a group of flowers (see Wiki about 海棠), that generally has no fragrant. This sets the somewhat melancholic scenery, and it could be inferred that the author feels sorrowful, whether it is due to the changing of seasons (flowering spring to summer rainy season) or her background, or possibly both.
Thus she asked her maid about the garden, who is helping her to roll up the curtains (卷帘). The maid replied that everything is the same, which is of course contrary to what the author felt, i.e. the strong wind would have ruin the flowers.
This then lead to the 3rd and 4th line, where the author asked that famous line of "dont you know, dont you know", the scenery should be one of many greens (i.e. many leaves) and little flowers. There is an interesting symbolic inference where 绿肥, which literally translates to "green - fat", and 红瘦 for "red slim", painted a more graphically image of a ruined garden with much leaves and not many "red" flowers.
The entire poem painted a very beautiful image, that started with the sorrowful scene of strong winds (and sparse rain) giving rise to expectations of ruined garden, but yet the reality (if you believed the maid) of a normal garden. Poem ended with the author asking if it should be the other way round instead. Guess in a way this is a reference to her life. The author 李清照 lived in the Song dynasty, and initially she was leading a happy married life with her husband until the invasion of the Jin army.
知否，知否？应是绿肥红瘦 is thus used as a way to indirectly state that the life is the other way round (instead of what the maid sees normally).
Black Friday sale is often a time to buy coffee related items, including capsules that I used for my Nespresso machine. I usually hunt for the coffee capsules on Lazada and of course this means getting all the vouchers and planning the purchase process.
The purchase was quite seamless, and I'm amazed at how fast the capsules arrived at my place. As usual, we would add the different combinations and such to the cart by Thursday evening. Straight after mid-night, and entering the actual Black Friday itself, I selected and cart out the purchase within 30mins, i.e. 1230am 24th Nov. Below is a pic of my selection that included the seasonal special of Starbucks' Toffee Nut.
Selection of Package on Lazada.
Amazingly I received my package this evening (Saturday evening), i.e. a short span of less than 2 days (including a Saturday) from placing the order around 1230am Friday to the receipt of the package by Saturday evening! With the different discounts and such (price above was before vouchers discount), I've paid only $74.89. This worked out to be $6.24 per tube of 10 capsules, which is way cheaper than usual price at marts.
Starbucks Coffee Capsules & Mugs
Above is the picture of the package, nicely packed and with the 2 freebies of Starbucks Festive Mugs. I will try the Toffee Nut selection by tonight and see how it goes. The packers are quite careful with the fragile mugs, and they were actually wrapped tightly in bubble wraps. See the picture below.
There is this famous Chinese poem by the Song Dynasty poet 苏轼 (also known as 苏东坡) that is used by people to advise others that many "dream" careers or jobs / positions, are merely that, a job / career. Before we achieved that position or career posting, they may look extremely desirable that is worth all efforts and time, but once we reached that goal, we would have realised it is nothing so special.
My poor attempt of translating the poem would be:
The first sentence, "Amidst the Lushan rain / mist and the Zhejiang tide" describes an ideal scenery, and everyone dreamed to see it at any cost. Before seeing this scenery, the heart is full of yearning and expectation, and we would try every means to pursue and realise it. Once seen, one would feel that it is nothing special (i.e. 别无事). The misty rain is still the misty rain, and the wonderous tide is still just a tide.
Here's the actual poem in Chinese
庐山烟雨浙江潮，未至千般恨不消。
到得还来别无事，庐山烟雨浙江潮。
I've read two different background of why 苏东坡 wrote this poem - one stated that it was his poem written for his son who was leaving to start an official career (government post which is a desirable job in the past). Another version stated that it was his gift for a monastery when an old monk asked him for a poem. The latter could be a refence of how this poem also described a very Zen (禅) view of life / career. Seems like the poet passed away not too long after he wrote this poem.
This poem is beautiful because the first and last sentence (庐山烟雨浙江潮) are the same, and yet so aptly position to precisely point out that the scenery, i.e. referencing that dream career, is just a scenery, i.e. a career like any other. I guess this poem resonates well with a lot of mid-career / middle aged people.
As we welcome 2022 with brighter hopes, I was looking back at the last two years and wonder how they just flew by. Two years of many changes, not just due to COVID. Nonetheless it was also a good time to reflect and try new things (at home) for new experiences.
COVID ART Test
Basil Planting
I have never been a green thumb and most of my plants died regardless of how much attention I gave them. So it came as a big surprise when my Lemon Basil plants grew with many green leaves. They did grew up somewhat "bent" instead of straight but heh they grew well! One of the basil plants even flowered! These little white flowers do look quite pretty and I look forward to seeing the basil fruits. Not sure how they look like though.
Basil plant with flower
Bread Making
I was surprised that I actually enjoyed making bread. I didn't have much hope of making good tasty bread when I first started. Indeed my first bun actually felt more "scone-like" rather than the normal bread texture. I think it is an issue of yeast control. I didn't let the bread dough rest enough.
Scone-like bread
The second attempt was not much better, although the bread buns gave a slightly more "bread" feel to it. It felt wasteful to throw them away so I ate some.
For my third attempt, I used a bread tin and followed the recommended timing for the dry yeast to do their proper job. The humid warm weather in Singapore does not create the best environment for bread making. The recommended 1 hour of dough resting in the room "temperature" is meant for those temperate climate with 25 degree Celsius I guess. At the 30 minutes mark, the dough had risen too much that I hastily put the entire concoction into the fridge to cool it down.
The texture is much better compared to the earlier buns versions but honestly speaking still not good enough. Again the control of temperature and timing for yeast in bread making is critical.
Heh but with many failed attempts, I think I got it right on my fourth attempt! Letting the bread dough slowly rise in the fridge for more than 2 hours helped in the bread baking. This bread finally "tasted" like bread, and the crust gave that satisfactory "crunch" when I bite into the slices. The crust was a bit too thick because I left it in the oven longer to 'brown' it. I should try other methods next time.
Sliced Bread
After the fourth attempt, I tried making one with chocolate. The bread came out fine but the chocolate taste was not sufficient. Ok I guess practice and efforts are the basic ingredients for bread making. At least this side hobby is one good thing that came out of this dreadful COVID pandemic.
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