Wind In My Head
Wind In My Head
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Got soup?
I learnt how to cook when I was about 9 years old. And I used to make my breakfast every Saturday morning. Mom would be at work and I wouldn't have to go to school so it was a big thrill and the highlight of my week. I didn't make the regular jam and bread breakfasts on Saturday. That was boring. I discovered in that year a couple of things. One, the kitchen cabinet with can food in it. Can food was always a treat because it wasn't good for you. But oh, it was yummy so good! Two, I discovered the can opener. Three, I learnt how to light the stove. Four, I discovered Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.And that started a life long love affair with the soup. Its strange artificial yellow colour, noodles that were all about 5 cm long and flat, chicken bits that tasted like ham and its very very salty nature. Without fail, every Saturday morning, I'd wake up, open up a tin of soup, cook it in a pot and eat it straight out of the pot in front of Saturday morning cartoons.
It has since become a comfort food for me. When I'm sick or depressed or had just broken up with some guy, that was what I turned to for sustenance and comfort. It saw me through many long years. Then new versions came into the market. There were the chunky soups, that were infinitely more filling, with real pieces of vegetables and meat in it plus those funky pop tops so you didn't have to use a can opener anymore.
But they just weren't the same.
Then there were the Asian soups, the thick soups that you find so badly done in Asian restaurants in Caucasian countries like hot and sour soup and Pacific clam and mushroom soup (read fake sharks' fin soup which I heartily approve of), which were a life saver when I was homesick and desperate for Asian tasting soup.
So there were all these dalliances. But I always went back to the faithful chicken noodle soup.
Until the last time I fell ill. That was the beginning of the end. My throat hurt and I had some strange sinus infection and felt utterly miserable. Packrat offered to go get me some soup for dinner and I croaked out that I wanted chicken noodle soup. It was the only thing that kept me from banging my head against the wall in some attempt to feel better. He came back, as promised, with soup. But rummaging through the bag, I found some Chunky soup for him because it was Clam Chowder (and I don't eat that stuff) and a disgusting tin of lentil and something soup for me!
Where was my chicken noodle? I croaked. He said they'd ran out so he bought me the lentil soup. I felt a surprising amount of rage well up in me and felt ready to hurl the tin at something. Thankfully, I valued my marriage enough to just burst into tears! He consoled me by telling me that he would find some the following day. That was 3 months ago!
Every supermarket we've been to, either together or separately would have half an aisle dedicated to Campbell's products. And we would go through them with a fine tooth comb. I'd even look at the price labels and it's taken me all this time to realise that they've taken it off the shelves. They have Cream of Broccoli (Who would drink that???) but they have no Chicken Noodle. I've had to concede that consumer taste must have grown too sophisticated for such a simple soup and so bring in the more chi chi varieties and leave out the staid, boring ones.
So, I'm sad. I have no soup. I mourn the loss of my soup. It came about in 1934. It survived World War Two, Kennedy's assassination, Vietnam, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism and even the two Bush presidents but it couldn't survive the Chicken Gumbo or the Grilled Italian Sausage with Peppers variety.
So, I'm sad. I have no soup. I mourn the loss of my soup. There will be no chicken soup for my soul from now on.
Technorati Tags: Campbell's, Chicken Noodle Soup
Ondine tossed this thought in at 19:59
Monday, December 11, 2006
Found soup
Thanks to LMD, I found my chicken noodle soup at a local NTUC supermarket. We don't know why NTUC which is supposed to be more heartland stocks it and Cold Storage, the more atas*, upmarket one doesn't. But whatever it is, all is good in my world now with 2 tins of Chicken Noodle and 2 tins of Chicken Alphabet soup stocked up in my cupboard.I look forward to the salty, artificial, chicken-ish taste. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.
Joy. :)
*atas- nose up in the air, snooty (local Malay slang)
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chicken noodle soup
Ondine tossed this thought in at 18:39
Sunday, September 10, 2006
In sickness and in health
I was right before, my throat was going to make me pay. Yesterday, it started off with me being unable to swallow (and NOT in the Zoe Tay way). Then the pain spread through the day, through my entire body. By the end of the day, I couldn't tilt my head back because my neck was too painful, my ribs hurt, my back hurt, behind my shoulder blades hurt (I didn't know you could hurt behind your shoulder blades) , the soles of my feet and my palms hurt.Not cool. So I begged Packrat to come get me from town, there was no way I was going to survive the crowded bus ride home. And as I sat forlornly, wanting nothing more than being able to curl up into a fetal position, outside Wheelock Place, I watched these two guys make total asses of themselves. Every Caucasian girl that neared us, they didn't even need to walk past us, they wolf whistled. Every single one, it was not even discerning according to looks or anything, just pure race! You had to marvel at the idiocy. I wanted to say something snarky to them, but I was in too much pain to form much of a sentence, what more a snarky one.
Well, Packrat managed to get me home and I managed to crawl into bed. But the pain got too unbearable, even lying down so I told him we were going to the doctor, even if it was going to cost an arm and a leg- afterall, it was Saturday night. By then, there was fever as well because why else would one feel that one needed a jacket to walk outside in barmy 30 degree weather?
Anyhow, $52 later, I was armed with potent anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers. Poor Packrat, a sick Ondine means a whiny Ondine and a whiny Ondine wanted chicken noodle soup last night which the supermarket decided not to stock so the whiny Ondine threw as big a fit as she could while her pain receptors walked in overdrive. The good thing is the drugs kicked in fast and it put me out for a good twelve hours.
Now, I feel vaguely human again and Packrat's still passed out from the effort of keeping me from killing him last night. I hope this is it for this year, same bad throat, one month apart is just not cool.
Technorati Tags: being sick
Ondine tossed this thought in at 10:23
Thursday, December 15, 2005
500 miles
We've been away from Singapore for 17 days and so far, the holiday's been great, despite the hanging, the riots, the evacuation from the hotel and the horse that went swimming. Oh right, I forgot to mention that. Packrat and I went horseriding in the valleys of Blue Mountains on the day when it was 38 degrees and Packrat's horse, Marty, decided when we stopped for them to have a drink, that it was time to go swimming- with Packrat on his back. We found out after that how water proof Timberlands were. We also discovered how difficult it was to actually kick a horse in its belly.
This is Marty. Horseriding would be great fun if there weren't flies or severly bruised inner legs the next day which meant walking the next day was a big problem. And seeing that our preferred mode of transport this holiday seems to be walking, that meant hanging out in front of the telly. Before we left, I listened to a proposal to introduce the 10 000 Steps programme in Singapore and wondered whether it could work. Then we came here and walked and walked and walked and I'm certain we do cover 10 000 steps a day.
So we get our requisite amounts of exercise a day and that allows us to eat all the rubbish that we do. I think tomorrow, we're going easy and doing sushi. Today, we had hot szechuan noodle soup and dried chilli chicken that made my tummy extremely unhappy with me.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 21:50