These pictures you see here were taken on days when I thought my meals were going to be routine and regular, but which turned out to be spectacularly new after all.
See, I don't have a habit of planning my meals.
So whilst I do know (roughly) what it is I have to eat (thank you diet) I don't know where it is I'll eat it at. And since the menu is flexible, so even though I might have thought about going for Thai but because I'm at a place where there's very good Turkish that comes recommended, I might embargo the Thai and head for the Turkish instead.
It's all very spontaneous, very on-the-go.
There was this particular day where I was in Suntec City and because my route to the convention center took me past this Thai place, I had a lunch of noodles in seafood tom yum soup.
Then there was this day when my companion thought we might go to Chinatown but then the bus passed by the Kampong Glam area and so down we hopped and headed to a Turkish restaurant which we'd never before tried.
There are hits and misses, of course- we loved the green curry beef and the fish maw soup at this place in Tampines, but the tom yum seafood noodle at Suntec could have had more seafood in a thicker broth.
Spontaneity grants us more hits, fortunately, even if we don't really remember the name of what it was we ate at the Turkish place but only know that we had a lot of bread, a lot of cheese, and a lot of olive oil.
In my phone I have the dine-out pictures.
But I also have the dine-in ones.
These are of meals which we prepped in our kitchen, particularly during the months of the circuit-breaker where there was no dining out and you either had your meals delivered, you did a takeaway, or you cooked them by yourself.
They're memorable, each one of them, and secretly I sometimes wish we had more time to prep these meals the same way again.
We don't do this so much anymore.
Breakfast these days is more slap-dash and go, but during those months, we had more time.
So there was a day where we had a geriatric-style breakfast of soft-boiled eggs with oatmeal and honey on the side.
There was a day where we had a South Asian breakfast with pan-fried naan, a single fried egg and coffee topped with cinnamon.
And there was a day where there was a bowl of smoothie that blended avocado, blueberries, oats, honey, coconut water and banana.
Lunches and dinners were no less simplified. Ingredients we didn't usually have, we now had. Things we didn't usually make from scratch, we now made.
Like the homemade rosti which we peeled and shredded the potatoes ourselves and then ate with pan-fried boneless chicken thigh served with a dollop of Greek yogurt on the side.
Like the green curry fried rice which the Chef made from leftover green curry, a beaten egg and overnight rice, which we then enhanced with pieces of fresh beef stir-fried.
And, of course, the homemade broccoli soup that saw us simmering the vegetable over the stove for a good twenty minutes before melting in a chunk of cheese, adding in a portion of fresh milk, plus a bit of turmeric and sea salt into a base of organic vegetable broth that came from Cold Storage.
