Filed in: Beautiful Books

Links I love! (Because I have nothing to offer you but the possibility of procrastination)

• I love and want all of Coralie Bickford-Smith's Penguin Classics covers. 
• In music, Tupac Shakur was back on stage (as a hologram) performing with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
• Today seems like a good day to re-read a masterful 2011 magazine piece on what the Secret Service does.
• When Did Hillary Clinton Become the Coolest Person on the Planet?
• The Atlantic asks, "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? As a society we're more isolated than ever. Is social media to blame?"
• The Top 10 Racy Novels--that awkward moment when erotica tales become literary sensations, and you just can't get enough. 

And finally, if you are a slave to your inbox like many corporate drones today:

What's chicken, good lookin'?

While waiting for some of my shows (GCB, Suits), let me post a little something about stuff (well, the ones that aren't too heavy boots for strangers I don't even know, anyway). First things first, how wonderful is Birdy's rendition of Shelter? I'm writing this down because I am listening to it as I type. I didn't have Birdy when I was in highschool but this is exactly the background music you want for young, immature love. This drivel about music, however, has nothing to do with my post--which is about food, glorious food, because my love affair with food is the only thing constant in my life. 

We had roast chicken for dinner today and while roast chicken is one of the easiest things to make in the kitchen, I find that the variety in the method of cooking changes flavor, texture and overall satisfaction in just a snap. I didn't get to take a photo of today's chicken, but it was so delicious-looking in its beautiful, brown, salt and pepper specks here and there, glistening all over crispy skin that I now regret why I didn't. I have a tendency to repeat tried and tested recipes though, so this photo from two hundred plus days ago still works: 

In any case, I'm sharing my choice recipe for roasted chicken. I like mine with the juiciness of an oven-roasted chicken and the crispy coating of a fried one. Incidentally, this kind of roast chicken is one of the easiest to achieve. For my recipe, I use a combination of garlic, lemongrass, thyme and oranges (instead of lemons). Here we go!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• one whole chicken, I used a 1.3 kg for tonight's dinner

• lemongrass, tied in a bunch + some thyme (I also add rosemary if it's available but I stay away from sage)

• garlic cloves (I used half a bulb)

• olive oil or butter (or a mix of both)

• salt and pepper

• 1 orange (I like it because its sweetish citrus flavor is a lot more subtle than lemons), which may be cut into big pieces or be left whole if it is small enough. Instead of tying the chicken legs by using twine, we'll just use a big orange to close the cavity of the chicken.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

• Take your chicken out of the fridge about an hour or so before it goes into the oven. What you want is a chicken that's completely defrosted.

• Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F. I use a turbo broiler, you could use that as well.

• The secret to crispy skin is a chicken that's completely dry. Take a couple of kitchen towels and pat, pat, pat your bird dry. Make sure to pat all over, creases and crevices included. Hush, you dirty mind. It's just poultry.

• If you're feeling indulgent, use butter to rub the chicken all over. Follow with a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Season well, as this will give your chicken flavor. If you're not really into using butter as a rub, you can substitute olive oil instead. Drizzle, then season with salt and pepper, rub all over.

• For juicy meat, make a couple of incisions on the chicken surface. I do the sides, a small one in the center.  You should cut through the skin but not through the meat. The slits should be about one and half inch long, allowing you to touch the meat underneath the skin. Insert dollops of butter and massage all over. The butter will spread inside, all over the chicken meat and it will keep your meat juicy while roasting. I know of a recipe that inserts bacon inside these pockets. Delicious but hehe, I won't even go there.

• Next, put the lemongrass and a couple of garlic cloves inside the cavity of the bird. I like to make tiny incisions in the cloves to release the flavor. I follow up with a sprinkling of thyme (because I don't have fresh ones, I use dried herbs) and then close it all up with a small orange, sliced in half. If you're using lemon instead, prick it all over and heat it up in the microwave a bit to bring out the flavor (I got this from Jaime O.!).

• Place the chicken in the roasting tray, breast side down. Some people like to place their chicken on top of chopped vegetables to ensure even cooking, but I don't really do that anymore. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F and cook the chicken for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, depending on the size of the bird. (HUUUSH, you!). No need to baste the chicken halfway, by the way.

When cooked, take the tray or the roasting rack out of the oven (or the broiler) and transfer the chicken to a plate. Let rest for 15 minutes or so before carving. (At this point, I hope we have reached an understanding that you are to discard the stuffing inside the chicken. If you're serving the chicken whole, I hope everyone knows this shouldn't be eaten.) Serve and enjoy.

WAIT, NO SAUCE?!

Some people like gravy with their chicken, I like eating mine pinoy style (with ketchup and worcestershire sauce), over steaming hot rice. Imagine this: your teeth sinking into the creamy, crispy brown skin and soft, juicy white meat, followed by a tangy hit of the worcestershire sauce and the sweet note of tomato ketchup, all lost in the lovely Asian kryptonite that is white rice. Ah, perfection. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

A short book report: Hector and the Search for Happiness

One of the nice books I've read in 2012 is Francois Lelord's Hector and the Search for Happiness. The premise for this book is simple, Hector is a young shrink who's done everything right. Yet, the feeling of listlessness and confusion won't leave Hector as he continues to see that his patients are persistently unhappy. He realizes that despite his excellent training and sympathetic ear, he doesn't really know how to help them find happiness as he doesn't know what it is himself. Even worse, he finds himself becoming increasingly drained and dissatisfied by his own life--in many ways, he is as lost as his patients. Leaving everything behind, including his uncertain relationship with a pharma exec named Clara, Hector books a vacation with a mission--to travel the world in search for happiness. What makes people happy? What makes people unhappy? He searches the world far and wide (exage, Reisha) to seek the truth and find meaningful answers to his questions. 

In his first stop (China), he meets a lonely businessman trapped on the money-making treadmill, a prostitute who teaches him about love, and a monk high up in the mountains who asks him to return once his journey is complete. In Africa, he meets a doctor working with very poor patients, holds a conversation with a drug lord and a bartender and runs into the local mob. On his last stop in the United States, Hector sees a "happiness expert", one that helps him piece through all of the realities he has seen and experienced during his travels. There, Hector manages to draw a few more conclusions about the connection between happiness and relationships. 

Here are the lessons that Hector has learned in the course of his travels, how or why did he come to these conclusions, I'll leave for you to find out. Buy the book! The writing is simplistic but the plot is very nicely laid out--expect a hard hit of wanderlust and  heaps of existential thinking to kick in afterwards. As always, enjoy!

Lesson 1- Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.

Lesson 2- Happiness often comes when least expected.

Lesson 3- Many people only see happiness in their future.

Lesson 4- Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money.

Lesson 5- Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.

Lesson 6- Happiness is a long walk in beautiful, unfamiliar mountains.

Lesson 7- It’s a mistake to think that happiness is the goal.

Lesson 8A- Happiness is being with the people that you love.

Lesson 8B- Unhappiness is being separated from the people that you love.

Lesson 9- Happiness is knowing that your family lacks for nothing.

Lesson 10- Happiness is doing a job that you love.

Lesson 11- Happiness is having a home and a garden of your own.

Lesson 12- It’s harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.

Lesson 13- Happiness is feeling useful to others.

Lesson 14- Happiness is to be loved for EXACTLY who you are.

Lesson 15- Happiness comes when you feel truly alive.

Lesson 16- Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.

Lesson 17- Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.

Lesson 18- The Sun and the Sea make everybody happy.

Lesson 19- Happiness is not attaching too much importance to what other people think.

Lesson 20- Happiness is a certain way of seeing things.

Lesson 21- Rivalry ruins happiness.

How about you? Are you happy with the life you lead? Do you get to reflect on things while you travel? Do you write about them? I hope so. I find that one of the exciting pleasures of leaving is the opportunity of coming back a changed person--a smarter one, at least. 

Read so hard, libraries want to fine me.

How can you not love a rap song with a line like, "You use a Kindle? I carry spines..."

"He said Shay let's get married at the Strand, his Friday Reads so bad, he can't have my hand."
"Nerdy boy, he's so slow. Tuesday, we start with Foucault. He's still stuck on the intro? He's a no goooo."
"That shit cray. Explainy, ain't it, A? What you readin'? (de Montaigne)"
"You ball so hard? Okay, you're bowling but I read so hard, I'm J.K. Rowling." 
"War and Peace? Piece of cake. Read Tolstoy in three days, straight through, no delays, didn't miss a word, not one phrase"


And my personal favorite, "Burroughs, Golding, Shakespeare--all dead". Hahaha. Tangina this. 


This print's rare,
R

Indulge me: A heart-stopping pasta recipe

One of the more famous blog posts here is my tomato cream pasta recipe (an absolutely no fail recipe, if you ask me), which is quite funny because I don't even love the stuff nor do I like making pasta that much. I find it a little easy and a little less challenging. Since I am yet to win my battle with slow-cooking beef brisket (the last time I did it, it took me 2 whole hours only to admit defeat and transfer everything to the pressure cooker for another hour and half), I've decided I'd just share another favorite pasta recipe, one that is quite as delicious as tomato cream but is definitely a lot deadlier. 

Happy Easter, my darlings. Have a heart-stopping aligue pasta (pasta in sauteed crab fat or crab roe)! :) There are many ways of preparing this particular dish, off the top of my head are three specific suggestions:

1. Aligue pasta with shrimp and squid (always a winner!)

2. Aligue pasta oozing with toasted garlic bits 

3. Aligue pasta with cream and other seafood bits from mussels to crab meat! (this one I have never tried nor do I have plans of trying, because when done repeatedly, this a death sentence waiting to happen)

My version works with fresh ingredients, a lot of lime or calamansi, freshly chopped tomatoes and basil. I find that the sweetness of the fresh basil and the tart acidity of freshly chopped tomatoes cuts through the heavy sauce. I sometimes add cheese in the end but only on very rare occasions, such as right now. Let's get to work! 

For this recipe, you’ll need:

Spaghetti noodles  (I used half of a 450g pack)

4 medium-sized tomatoes, chopped (Summer is a good season to work with tomatoes, they're juicier and plumper)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 of a red onion (or white, whatever works), minced

a fourth of a small bottle of crab fat (about three heaping tablespoons) 

juice of 2 calamansi pieces (Do not include the seeds, duh!)

Freshly torn sweet basil 

salt and pepper to taste

a tablespoon  or two of olive oil (EVOO is a waste of money)

Some cheese if you're like me (Well, actually, I had a huge block of parmegiano regiano from an aunt based in Italy that has been sitting on the freezer for so long. So, I just shaved and shaved slivers of cheese over mine. Bake or heat for 5 minutes until it melts! Oooh, sin.) 

Instructions:

Cook pasta as directed, drain and set aside. 

In a pan, saute garlic and onion in olive oil over low heat until fragrant and brown (the garlic, the onions will turn transparent). Add the crab fat paste and then add the juice of the calamansi. Bring to a simmer. Toss in the cooked pasta and season with salt and pepper to taste. Throw in your chopped tomatoes (FRESH!) and your torn basil leaves. Mix and serve! Top with parmesan cheese. (I like topping mine and then popping it in the microwave to melt the cheese.) You can add whatever you want, from sliced black olives, chopped bell peppers, sun dried tomatoes, even capers! Your choice. For an extra layer of taste and texture, I added a few pieces of truly delicious yellow fin tuna belly on top of mine. Yum. 

Yours in sin, 

Reisha

Meet Medusa!

You know what, it's not really nice to only write about the bad stuff so why don't I tell you about silly, mundane things. Can I tell you? About my prickly new pet. 

A few weeks ago, I got a very happy call from my sister telling me that she was in the honor roll. I'm big on spoiling my sister because in my book, it makes up for just how stern I am when it comes to school or in everyday life (I have an award-winning short temper). So, like the way we celebrate most of the momentous occasions in her young life, off we went to get her a new pet. For those of you not in the know (just kidding, I just needed a transition statement), this prickly little fella is a cinnicot-colored hedgehog. Her name is Medusa (after a favorite romance novel heroine's pet hedgehog) and she's a pinto African Pygmy hedgehog, just like most pets of her kind. More after the cut!