The Infernal Diurnal Journal

This is a lot harder than I thought. Without blinking I am 3 or 4 days behind. So what did I do on the 6th- let me see this must have been friday. It was a working day for me so I think I cooked up some mutton curry with the remainder of the mutton. This time I went for the full monty with onions and garlic- ofcourse I had to be satisfied with the smaller onions that seemed now to have become the norm in Manila. Were they onions or were they challots? In any case this new bag I bought was slightly larger than the previous bag- so may be things were improving and soon we will get back to full size. Not that it matters when you are planning to use a nutribullet and pulverise them to a liquid anyway. I cooked the mutton long and slow- using a recipe from habit and memory - a slight combination of various recipes ranging from the mundane jhol to a peshawary karahi mutton. In the end I got a lovely colour- not too dark but dark enough to qualify as a rich curry redolent and remiscent of kos...

A thursday is normally very busy. But not today- I had catch up call with Jessa and a mock board presentation with Tomasz. The catch up with Jessa was light given the first call of the year. We mostly spoke about food wherein I discovered she was a foodie- not unlike me. I recommended that she try out the “Embers” on Greenbelt- slightly fancy but well worth it- especially given the portion sizes. I need to go back to it but whom shall I bring with me? I could not possibly dine alone in a place like that- imagine what a sorry figure I would cut. I had enjoyed a fancy meal after a long time. If I could only count the number of disappointments I had had when visiting rated restaurants- especially in Dubai. In singapore, we tended to eat in moderate places..din tai fung, jumbo seafood and so on. They were plenty brilliant already so never needed to go anywhere above and beyond. But Dubai- this is another story. For all its glitz and glamour a lot of the fancy restaurants decidedly flatter ...

First work day where I did not have to go to the office. I began the day by waking up at 11.30 am- a great improvement on the previous morning but still a ways away from the 2 pm target. I placed a call to ICICI bank to try and reset my internet login which had for some reason been disabled. I needed this account to be accessible pronto because I had just given word to Santosh that I would contribute  money to his agro- food venture in exchange for shares in his company. They were not listed yet but hopefully it would be a good investment. If not, I could write it off- no worries. But I did want in- into this startup environment- not necessarily because I wanted to be an entrepreneur myself but to learn a bit about the space. It may help with the non-profit project that P was leading…I could formally tap into Santosh’s expertise to help with that. All said and done, I keep telling myself that I am a recent judge of people and I find Santosh quite capable and authentic even if we do...

This is the first day at work- I tried to sleep late the previous night so as to move briskly into my graveyard routine. It did ot work well and I awoke multiple times and was up from 8 am onwards. At around 1 pm I got an email asking me to submit my passport for Canada Visa stamping. Relieved, I set out to walk to the Rajah Travel offices in Makati so I could personally drop it off. It was a 20 minute walk towards  downtown Makati along the now familiar Makati Avenue. I had to wait there for the correct person to finish her lunch break- which was another 20 mins or so. Upon my return to my place, I went out and did swim 50 laps- the new target for 2023. I ventured off to work although I soon realized that most people in our teams would be working from home this week- a bonus to ease into the workplace after the holiday season. I still wanted to go to work because it would help with keeping awake- ( lots of free coffee  and a work environment) would enable this. As expected, w...

A melancholy day - which started with me checking the airport news in Manila. Why you ask. The Emirates flight 333 was to depart at 17.40 which was to take P and the boys back home to Dubai. However, the previous evening, indeed on the first day of the year, the Flight Control Tower at Ninoy Aquino International Airport came a cropper. Power failure seemingly. So much so that flights were cancelled and even flights from elsewhere and going elsewhere were redirected if they were to breach  Manila airspace- which meant a lot of flights from New Zealand and Australia headed to Japan and Korea. This news was broadcast in all the leading papers in both Dubai and Singapore- and hence we were getting messages from friends to inquire if we were stuck. Thankfully there was no cancellation message from enirates on the morning of the 2nd- but also when I checked the local news it mentioned that the problem had since been resolved. But from experience, whenever you have something like this the...

When I reflect on last year, the one thing I am most proud of is that I have managed a more or leas excercise regime for a whole year- probably dor the first time in my life. No matter that I may have squandered any benefits from the massive and unhealthy meals I have been gorging on for the last 2 weeks- culminating in the monstrosity that was yesterday at the Mesclun Restaurant 31st Night Buffet. This was a spread to remember- They had these shrimp tempura with big shrimp..something you dont see everyday on a buffet. It was delcious..and unlimited. Also there was the very best lechon I had thus far tasted in the country. Just the previous night we went to a date night to a restaurant called Embers in Greenbelt- and I had ordered a beef short rib. Delicious as it was , I was uncomfortable the entire night. It felt like my body could bot process a hunk of meat anymore. I had not been consuming beef very much- and even other red meats were only consumed minimally. The body may have forg...

The key activity for today was a go at cooking Bise Bele Bath- a variation on a "Sambhar", wherein you mix the rice in with the watery dal all cooked together with overboiled veggies and some oil or ghee infused with spices right at the top, once everything is all one basic yellow mush. I am deeply intrigued by this type of dish because it essentially counts as a one-pot meal (OPM)- that panacea or rather opiate for the single dweller, where effort before and after cooking can be optimised against a simple recipe containing everything one needs to carry on. There are other such items I have tried a number of times and are my go-to weekday meals in general- mainly Paella ( Spain ), Jollof Rice ( West Africa), Khichudi (my Native Bengal)  and Bhaatebhaat ( also my native Bengal).  The most frequently prepared OPM, I will say, is Bhaatebhaat- which literally translates to rice-on-rice which I always found interesting. It does have rice , but what is "on" the rice is no...