Things I Ate in Singapore

Dim Sum breakfast - rather slimy rice noodle with a pork filling, not sure what it was called
Hainan Chicken Rice - boiled chicken on rice with a chicken broth and a garlic/ginger chili sauce
Chili Crab - see description in the previous post
Fish Noodle Soup - light broth with fish balls - rather bland
Chinese Roasted Duck - duck served with ginger and a dark sweet sauce
Roti Prata - a buttery Indian flat bread served with curry sauce to dip it in
Lassi - an Indian drink made with fermented milk - not bad, but a bit sour and gritty
Sushi and Sashimi - I actually got over my dislike of sushi and really enjoyed the dinner
Thai Green Curry - you all know this one, right?
Thai Green Mango Salad - refreshing crunchy, tart mango with a light spicy dressing
Chimichanga - only because I could, but not very good by American standards
Margarita - definitely better than what I got in France
Dragon Fruit - beautiful red fruit that tastes a bit like kiwi
Snake Fruit - rather bland fruit but the peel looks like snake skin -creepy!
Durian - really obnoxious stinky fruit, one bite only but I swallowed it. Smells like natural gas
Chicken Curry - Malaysian style curry, spicy yellow curry with coconut milk. Yum!
Singapore Sling - celebrating a successful customer visit

Singapore is a food-lover's heaven. The group has been taking us out for lunch every day and sharing their favorite dishes with us. They took us to the grocery store to pick up the unusual fruit to eat in between product tastings. Dinner has been a smorgasbord of tastes. We also visited a cafe that specializes in chocolate pastries. We tasted several versions and they were all good.

For work, we've been cooking fried chicken. So every morning and afternoon we have been tasting about 6 variations of chicken flavors. With all that chicken, our appetites have been spoiled so we couldn't try as many things as we wanted to.

I've also had to watch the amount of spicy food that I'm eating. Since Dutch food tends to be really, really bland, my stomach is not accustomed to the spicy things. That's how we ended up having sushi for dinner. Sushi was the blander option, believe it or not.

I have one more full day in Singapore before flying back to the Netherlands. I'm hoping to enjoy a few more specialties while I'm here as well as soak up a bit more of the warm weather.

Weekend FLight to Singapore

The glamour of business travel never ends. My boss decided for 2011 that all of us will fly economy class regardless of the company policy that should allow us to fly business class for flights loner than 5 hours. His reasoning is sound – he wants more of us to be able to travel and participate in conferences and trainings around the world. Generally the cost for a business class ticket is on the order of 5-10 times the cost of economy, so it’s really a huge savings.

On the other hand, 12 hours in economy class to Singapore is really not fun. In fact, it’s downright painful. I chose Singapore Airline knowing they have the biggest seats and the best food and service in economy class. But, I still ended up with an entertainment console that wasn’t working properly and a seat that felt like a board. I have to admit that maybe I was a bit resentful about sitting in the back of the plane. I was also irritated that this trip is messing up two weekends of my personal time. So, after 12 hours of watching movies with every 3^rd word cut out, I was fed up. I wasn’t able to sleep at all, which is unlike me. I was tired and cranky.

I left the Netherlands at 10:00 AM Saturday morning and arrived in Singapore at 5:00 AM Sunday local time. I was just relishing the thought of crashing in the hotel for a few hours before doing some sightseeing and shopping. Here’s where I got even more cranky. Of course, you can’t check into a hotel at 5:00 AM. Normally the travel agent books us in the night before for early arrivals, but this time they didn’t. The hotel was extremely good about it and did manage to get me in a room by 10:00, which is still hours earlier than normal check-in time. So I had to sit in the lobby trying to keep my bloodshot eyes open for another 4 hours.

When I finally got into my room, it was fabulous. I set the alarm clock and slept for a few hours. To sleep longer would just prolong the jet-lag issues. Then, I got up and went out to explore. I got some chicken rice for lunch (one of my favorites here) and some Diet Coke to shake off the grogginess.

For my one day of sightseeing, I decided to see the Sands Tower. It’s a new building in Singapore with 3 tall pillars and what looks like a cruise ship balancing between the towers. There’s an infinity swimming pool on the top garden deck, 56 stories above the city and harbor. I paid $20 to get to the top. The view and the cooler breeze were appreciated.

Feeling pretty good about things, I walked over to Boat Quay, a section of the Singapore River with lots of restaurants serving Singaporean specialties like Chili Crab. Chili Crab is my other favorite local dish. Of course, it’s rather expensive, but remember, I flew economy to save $4000, so I can afford to splurge on a nice dinner. Now you may be wondering how fun it is to splurge on a nice dinner by yourself. In the case of chili crab, it’s almost a necessity. It’s a very, very messy dish – a crab cooked in the shell covered with a tomatoey chili sauce. To eat the crab, you have to just dive in with both hands and start cracking shells. The sauce goes flying, drips down your hands, and quickly saturates silverware, napkins, and glass. The finger bowl is your best friend.

After my meal, it was back to hotel for a proper night’s sleep. I was expected in the office first thing in the morning.

The Tricks of the Food Industry

I really love my job – I love working with food and knowing the facts behind all the hype. But let me tell you, sometimes I’m embarrassed to be part of the food industry. The latest case of the Nutella advertisement is a good example. I remember seeing the Nutella commercial on TV here in the Netherlands and being a bit upset by it. The ad was encouraging Moms to give their kids Nutella as part of a healthy breakfast. The implication was very clear – Nutella is nutritious! Apparently the same ad was shown in the US and now the company faces a lawsuit for falsely portraying the product as healthy.

The fact is Nutella is really not healthy and serves as a good example of products that pretend to be healthier than they are. How do they do it? Very carefully. If you read the website, they accurately cite research about the advantages of eating breakfast. And Nutella can be eaten for breakfast ergo Nutella is healthy. They also suggest that you spread Nutella on whole wheat bread thus increasing the healthy halo.

If you click on the ingredient listing on the website, they flag several positives about the product in large type just above the list of ingredients. They highlight that the 13 oz. jar contains over 50 hazelnuts. (At 10 servings per jar, that’s 5 nuts per serving). They also say there are no artificial colors and no artificial preservatives. Maybe that’s to soften you up before they tell you that the first ingredient is sugar and the second is palm oil. While there are no artificial colors or preservatives, the product does indeed contain an artificial flavor. So, it’s a blend of sugar and fat with about the same calorie load as butter. But you probably didn’t read that far (Cliff’s Notes anyone?).

The website artfully highlights the positives and glosses over the negatives. Of course, this is simply marketing 101 for a company trying to sell a product. You can’t fault the company for wanting to make a buck. Why should we be surprised? Why should we be outraged?

A lot of industry people point to personal responsibility. You are the only person who controls what goes into your mouth. Only a moron would fail to read the nutritional information. We don’t need a lot of regulation telling companies how that can and can’t sell their products – it would be bad for business.

Here’s the reality check. Just because people should read the label doesn’t give food companies license to lie and deceive. Advertising works, otherwise companies would not spend millions of dollars to market their products. Advertisers know how to make those ads very seductive so we buy the product without fully understanding the negatives. Finally, we are bombarded with these seductive messages so often that it’s just a matter of time before one of them breaks through your defenses. Many people, especially children, are just not sophisticated enough to see through the marketing hype. Many people don’t want to see through the hype –they are happy to convince themselves that Nutella (or whatever product) is healthy.

Fortunately, the US does have laws prohibiting misleading advertising. Even while people have a responsibility to choose an appropriate diet, companies have a responsibility to market their products honestly. The laws and the enforcement, help to keep the marketing in check. They are necessary.

Here’s a tip if you are concerned about eating healthier: don’t focus on the marketing hype. The more it says it’s healthy, the less healthy it’s likely to be. It’s an over simplification of course. But truly, food companies make money on highly processed foods made with inexpensive ingredients (salt, sugar, vegetable oil). Heavy marketing should be a red flag for you to think twice before you buy. The real nutritious food is in the vegetable aisle. Without the big company backing, these foods don’t shout for your attention, but they just quietly wait to be discovered.

Skiing in France with Crazy British People

This year for our annual ski trip, we once again joined the British ski group that we’ve been with for the last two years. We originally connected with this group through a colleague of mine at work whose father organizes the ski trip. This year had some potential for being truly awkward as my colleague had been let go during the summer and is still unemployed. Fortunately, most people do understand that work is work. This year the group was 19 people strong and there were only a few people that we hadn’t met in previous years.

This particular group tries to do a budget, no-frills trip. That means that we go through low-cost vacation companies out of England. They staff the hotels with young British kids who are paid next to nothing. The kids get to ski, but often they lack the maturity and experience to give good service.. Case in point: One afternoon we watched as the cleaning lady was doing the floor in the common area. She swept the floor and the door mat with a broom (not even lifting the mat or taking it outside for a good shake). Then she proceeded to mop around the mat. She also ran the mop in front of herself, thus walking over the freshly mopped floor. The sticky spots got enough attention that we knew she saw them, but not enough to get them clean. And, she managed to mop the entire floor without once rinsing her mop! I know that I have a problem with being a neat-freak, but come on, that’s just basic and where’s her manager? So, our budget hotel was less than clean. I can deal with that for a week.

Another peculiarity of these vacations is that you get truly authentic British food. Since we were skiing in France, let me tell you, that’s a disappointment. British breakfast is just plain weird. I’m OK with the continental breakfast of bread, cheese and meat, especially when the bread is nice and fresh. With this hotel, they warmed up frozen croissants that would have made a French person revolt. The hot breakfast is typically beans on toast. The next day they jazzed it up a bit and served beans on toast with a side of scrambled egg. I’m not OK with beans for breakfast. When we had bacon or sausage, I was also a bit challenged. British eat Canadian style bacon, not the regular strips of bacon like we’re used to. And don’t even get me started on the breakfast sausage…

At all these vacation chalets, the staff are given one day off per week and the guests have to go out for dinner. Unfortunately, all the hotels take the same night off. The restaurants are inundated with guests on that one night alone (both hotel guests and staff on break). We planned ahead and made reservations early for a lovely French restaurant. The food in France is really good and in the Alps, you have some regional specialties that are quite fabulous. Dennis and I shared a raclette. If you want to harden your arteries and run your blood pressure off the charts, this is your dish! It’s a block of cheese that is placed on the table with a heating unit. The heater melts the surface of the cheese which you then scrape off with a knife and eat with potatoes and sausage or ham. Start with a salad because there are no vegetables involved. MMM, it was good.

The other regional specialty is called tartiflette. This is a potato casserole with cheese and bits of ham or sausage. The cheese is a local variety (roblichon) that is rather strong, but really good. Dennis and I also managed to get out to one of the local bakeries for fresh chocolate croissants – one of our favorites. So, we managed to avoid the worst of the hotel food and we were happy to be in a cute town with lots of food choices.

The best thing about our hotel was the primo location. We were a 5 minute walk from one of the main gondolas and as I already mentioned in the center of a cute town. Being close to the lift was a huge advantage over the situation of last year where we had to be bussed to the ski hill. That was a problem because if you want to stop early, you still have to wait for the bus to take you back. Having a gondola also helps when the snow is poor (as it was this year) at the lower elevations. You can ride to the top, ski where there’s good snow, and then ride the gondola back to the bottom at the end of the day.

This year, we had pretty bad snow coverage. Despite the massive snow storms in December, the area had not seen any fresh snow in several weeks. A bit of warm weather melted everything at the lower levels. The very top of the mountain still had good snow, but it really limited the available runs. For me, and most of the group, the available runs were wonderful – lots of wide blue runs (for non-skiers: blue runs are the intermediate level hills, fun but not scary). Dennis and others who prefer more challenging terrain were out of luck so they got a bit bored.

The first two days of skiing, I was with my peeps (16 of us trying to ski together!) and I was really having a good time. I had been exercising a lot before the trip - even trying to run a little bit - to make sure I was fit for skiing, and it was paying off. I was strong and confident. The runs were groomed and fast. On the third day, I was punished for being over-confident. I was flying down the hill just enjoying the thrill of ride, when one leg suddenly slipped out from under me. In a spectacular, agony-of-defeat-style crash, I went down. As my head whacked against the hard packed snow, I was glad I had a helmet. I determined later that I actually gave myself whiplash, but at least I didn’t give myself brain damage. When everything came to stop and I tried to get sorted out, I realized that my skis had not come off. Again, for the non-skiers: your skis are supposed to come off during a crash to keep your knees from getting wrenched. So, ski s still on = knees wrenched. I managed to ski a little bit more that day, but then decided I better go in early and not risk further injury. I was still able to walk, but the knee pain got worse the next day. That was essentially the end of my skiing for this trip. By the time my knee felt OK, it was time to go home.

For the days I wasn’t able to ski, I hung out in the chalet with some of the other non-skiers. We typically spent the mornings reading books and sipping tea. Then, we’d take a short walk around lunch time to peek in the shops and find a good restaurant. An after-lunch siesta and some more reading was next. At about 3:00, we’d gather in the tea room to wait for the skiers to come back and regale us with their tales of more spectacular crashes and daring-dos’. Before dinner, we’d have cocktails (gin and tonic was the top choice – very British). Anyone still awake after dinner could hang out in the bar. With the right company, this kind of routine is really fun.

Another British tradition is fancy-dress. I know I’ve told you previously about fancy dress, so I’ll keep it short. Suffice to say that British men have a little thing for wearing dresses and all the better if it can be done in public. On the last night of our ski trip, we had our fancy dress night. We decided to skip the hotel dinner and go out on the town to get some of the more traditional French Alpine fare. The transvestites really grabbed a lot of attention even from the French people who were just trying to get a nice dinner in a quiet restaurant. Ha! No quiet dinners with our group nearby! We terrorized that restaurant the whole evening. Our French waiter was a hoot – he was practicing his English and kept asking for advice on pronunciation and phrasing. He was very patient and helpful which is not always the case when you are goofing off in a foreign country. I was actually surprised they didn’t kick us out.

And, so another year of skiing is done. We have met some fabulous people and are looking forward to skiing with them again next year.

42 things that remind me I’m getting older

1) I can’t see as well as I used to

2) I call the blemishes on my face rosacea instead of acne

3) Are those freckles or age-spots?

4) I really want one of those handy chains for my reading glasses

5) “Fun” restaurants to are too loud

6) “Romantic” restaurants are too dark

7) The music in most places is just too loud

8) Movies are too loud

9) I still have a check book

10) Have the newspapers made the print smaller?

11) I pay attention to my parents health complaints because someday I may need to know about it

12) I can’t remember how old I am most of the time

13) I actually try to eat more fiber

14) I remember when gas was $1 a gallon

15) The only songs I know on the radio are from the ‘80s

16) Eating dinner too late gives me indigestion

17) I’ve had the same sofa for more than 15 years

18) I have to wear sunscreen to prevent age spots

19) Texting? I only know how to call…

20) I have two pairs of reading glasses, one for home and one for my purse

21) I find most teenagers annoying and rude

22) My shoes are comfortable not fashionable

23) I prefer not to have to drive at night

24) I really prefer to only drive on Sunday when there’s no traffic

25) When shopping I look for clothes that are age-appropriate

26) When I get up in the night to use the bathroom, I reach for my glasses first

27) I don’t want anything for my birthday because I ran out of storage space years ago

28) I have to continually adjust the TV volume because they whisper on the shows and shout on the ads

29) I have a hard time staying awake for the end of the movie

30) Don’t call me after 10:00 pm, I’ll be asleep

31) I’d rather read a book than go to a bar

32) I’m starting to think bifocals might be a good idea

33) I don’t know what Twitter is all about

34) Legwarmers are back in style

35) I really can’t text because I can’t see the itty bitty letters on the cell phone buttons

36) I keep obsessing about my age

37) When an attractive man looks at me, I wonder why

38) I still have a VCR and still blinks 12:00

39) I can’t make a Power Point presentation with animation

40) I remember when you could go into the bank and talk to teller

41) When I glance in the mirror sometimes I see my Mom

Did I mention that I can’t see a thing?