NARCISSISM IS NECESSARY

It started innocently enough, in the 2nd year of college, I found myself having to move my seat to the front row because I couldn’t make out what’s written on the whiteboard.

I started watching television from the distance of an arm’s length rather than several feet away. I began falling asleep in the midst of supposedly good movies in cinemas (which pissed Gareth off :P). I dreaded driving in the rain. I gained a reputation of being arrogant because I didn’t smile at people!

All thanks to my deteriorated eyesight. Mostly genetics, but definitely accelerated by long hours in front of the computer.

Mom was crushed when I had to start wearing glasses. To begin with, I couldn’t be more of a disappointment of a daughter for my mom. I already didn’t take care of my appearance as much as she believed a girl should. I would go out into the sun and came home ghastly tanned. I would step out of the house with frizzy, uncombed hair. And now her one and only daughter had to wear glasses. I bet she was thinking, “She’s not getting married, ever”. Hahaha.

I didn’t really care to be honest. I was already experimenting with those douchebag glassless spectacles before so I was rather thrilled that I now had a legitimate reason to wear one. So I went with Dad to an optical shop near home and a week later, I got my first pair of prescription glasses.

The novelty of wearing glasses quickly wore off. It sucked! It kept sliding off my face, didn’t help that I was born with flat pudgy nose. It kept fogging up when I exited my car. I kept having to clean the smudges and fingerprints.

# – A rare picture of me wearing my first pair of glasses eating Super Rings. Must be around year 2004 here.

Thanks to all the hassles, I only wore it for driving at night. My glasses were pretty much untouched the rest of time. Till I went for a job interview where having good eyesight was a prerequisite.

The doctor told me to get contact lenses, otherwise he would have to leave a remark on my medical report about my eyes and he told me point blank – I wouldn’t be hired. I’d never worn contact lenses in my life then and the thought of it freaked me out. I think that was the first time I ever felt truly disappointed by my problematic eyes.

Left with no choice, I got myself a pair of contact lenses. I got the job eventually but I never wore them. Luckily I was never in a situation where my eyesight was truly tested! Phew.

Until this day, I still couldn’t put on contact lenses without spending almost an hour on each eye. My eyes would get so reddened and watery, it just didn’t make much sense to put myself through the hassle.

As years passed though, my eyes got worse. I just couldn’t tread along without any vision aid. At last, I made a decision to wear glasses full time. I was like, since it’s probably forever, there’s no point hiding the fact that I’m four-eyed.

So, I decided to just get the most outrageous pair I could get my hands on. Hence, the arrival of my “Chicken Little” glasses that you, my readers had either come to love or hate.

# – My glasses that should have its own fanpage.

They were converted from a pair of sunglasses. Heavy, but I loved that my line of vision was hardly obstructed by the frames. Mom, was of course horrified but by now she knew she couldn’t do much to convince her daughter when it comes to appearance.

I think it was around the same time that I stopped wearing eye makeup too, haha. What’s the point? Cannot see also!

With my large spectacles, the familiar pesky problems returned. Spectacles fogging up, sweat pooling behind glasses (gross stuff), constantly having to clean the glasses (took me 5 minutes everytime cause damn glasses were so big), kids crying cause got spooked by my abnormally large “eyes”, rude relatives making rude remarks, looking like crap cause no point wearing makeup…the list continued.

But it’s still fine. I didn’t have to fall asleep in cinemas anymore. I could drive safely. I could see my friends from far. I could function, you know. That said, it still pissed me off whenever I had to watch 3D films, man it’s hard to balance two gigantic spectacles on a flat Asian face.

Then I got itchy butt and went to get a scuba diving license. I love it! The feeling of being suspended underwater is indescribable, only fellow divers would understand. But I knew that I hadn’t truly enjoyed diving because of my eyesight.

Frankly, from my first dive till now, I’ve had pretty good luck with meeting rare creatures underwater. The operative word here being “meeting”, not seeing.

# – Diving with shortsightedness.

Everytime, my divemaster would be like, “Kim did you see that shark? Kim, did you see that trumpet fish? I’d be like, yeah I did *smiley face*. But truthfully, all I saw were greyish blueish blobs. I guess I could have gotten prescription mask but it’s already hard enough to find an ordinary mask that fits my face T_T

And that feeling of disappointment with my eyes came back, every single time I went diving!

Despite wearing a ginormous pair of glasses and still never really took care of my physical appearance, I got proposed. As in marriage. See, mom? Hehe.

Anyway, we got straight to planning the wedding and then it dawned on me that I might not see Gareth clearly on our wedding day. I won’t be wearing contact lenses cause I don’t want to have red & watery eyes but I also CANNOT wear glasses on my wedding day. I just can’t bring myself to. I don’t want to be a four-eyed bride.

I want to have fake lashes so long Gareth would spot them first before he sees my face. The glasses would bend my eyelashes. Also, I would have nervous sweat pooled behind my glasses on my wedding day. I don’t want to be gross on my wedding day. The glasses would mess with my hair. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

# – I wore glasses on our Registration of Marriage day. Prefer not to on wedding day.

And that’s basically how I decided that I would get my eyes lasered once and for all. The most important day of my life, the most important day of a woman’s life. Getting married to the love of my life and presenting myself to him without a gigantic structure perched upon my nose.

I want to be able to bury my face into his chest without having to kill the moment by pausing to remove my glasses. I wanted to, no, I needed to laser my eyes and bid adieu to my “Chicken Little” glasses. I think I was so determined that I wasn’t even scared by the prospect of having laser shot into my eyes.

I asked a few friends who have had the Laser treatment done and the place with the most positive comments were all for Optimax Eye Specialist. My friend Celine in particular, is very, very happy and she did it 6 years ago with them.

I gave Optimax a call and was so impressed by the call operator herself who was so knowledgeable, I immediately made an appointment for a full eye checkup, which basically is a checkup too see if my eye were fit for the procedure. You must have normal to thick cornea thickness otherwise it’s not recommended and there are other procedures for people with thin corneas.

Well, at time of writing, I have already had the Custom All Laser Lasik procedure done and I couldn’t be more pleased. I don’t know how to put into words as to how happy I am and how excited I am with the future. And with the wedding, of course :)

Next post is going to be about my eye check-up and the experience of having my eyes lasered. Woohoo!

There are always opportunities to make bread & butter pudding in this household. Since it’s just the two of us, we almost always have more than half a loaf of near expiring bread in our kitchen.

Bread & butter pudding is easy to make and so delicious in spite of the minimal effort involved. I love it!

# – Luxurious bread & butter pudding.

I’ve posted a bread & butter pudding recipe before, but this is quite different. Like the title of this post, it’s a lot more luxurious and tastes rightly so ;)

The ingredients:

300ml of milk

1 vanilla pod (or 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence)

40 grams of demerara sugar (or ordinary granulated sugar)

8 slices of white bread

A handful of raisins

50 grams of butter

3 eggs

150 ml of whipping cream

3 tablespoon of apricot jam

A handful of sliced almonds

# – Throw in the sugar, vanilla seeds from as well its pod into a saucepan on medium heat. Pour the milk in.

# – Stir until the mixture is almost boiling and the sugar has dissolved. Turn off the heat.

# – Set the mixture aside to cool while you continue with other tasks.

# – Cut the bread slices across into triangular shapes.

# – Butter the bread. You can butter both front & back if you’re hardcore like that.

# – Arrange the bread slices in a baking tin, like this.

# – Then sprinkle a handful of raisins all over the bread slices.

# – In the meantime, break the eggs into the whipping cream.

# – Beat until combined.

# – Then pour in the milk mixture prepared earlier into the egg mixture. Make sure the vanilla pod has been removed. Stir.

# – Next, pour the mixture all over the bread. Set aside for 30 minutes to allow the bread to absorb all the milky, creamy goodness.

# – Put the baking tin into a larger tin filled half way up with water and stick them into a preheated oven at 170 degrees celcius for 45 minutes or until set. You are essentially steaming and baking at the same time with this method.

# – When done, brush apricot jam all over the crust to glaze.

# – Then sprinkle a handful of almond slices all over the top.

# – Stick it under the grill for 10 minutes to brown (top rack of oven, on grill mode).

# – Luxurious bread & butter pudding, DONE!

# – Serve with more whipping cream, ice cream or custard sauce.

# – Yummy!

Soft & creamy in the middle with a crispy, fruity crust. This recipe is enough for 4 but we hoovered everything up in a matter of minutes, just the two of us.

What better way to make use of stale bread? Have fun baking!

I have a recipe book called The Complete Southern Cookbook which I have been dying to use since I got it several months ago. I kept delaying its christening because we haven’t bought a deep fat fryer yet. I mean what’s the point of attempting any soul food if I don’t have no deep fat fryer!?

But alas, our search for a deep fat fryer that’s not in puke beige plastic has not been successful. Couldn’t wait no more, so I poured through the book to find something that didn’t need deep frying. Classic Creamed Chicken. Perfect.

# – Classic southern creamed chicken.

The ingredients:

2 tablespoon of butter

1 can of button mushrooms, sliced

1 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup of dry white wine

500 grams of skinless chicken breasts, cut into large dice

1 teaspoon of salt

3/4 teaspoon of black pepper

1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

220 grams of sour cream (I substituted with yogurt though, healthier & cheaper :D)

# – First, open the can of cream of mushroom soup and pour into the sour cream (or yogurt in my case).

# – Whisk until combined. Then, set aside.

# – Melt the two tablespoon of butter in a large pan.

# – Add the mushroom, onions and garlic into the butter and fry until fragrant.

# – Pour in the diced chicken.

# – Followed by the white wine.

# – Add salt, black pepper and paprika. Stir well.

# – Lastly, pour in the creamed of mushroom soup + yogurt mixture.

# – Stir until combined and simmer for 5-6 minutes more.

# – Classic southern creamed chicken, DONE! Serve with homemade cornbread or toasts if you want.

Creamy, delicious and addictive. Definitely soul food! Will post up the recipe for homemade cornbread soon, it’s really easy to make and goes so well with the creamed chicken.

Happy cooking!