The Best Super-Power... Hands Down.
Behold Azuma Kazuma, boy baker with solar hands! (Seriously, that's his super-power.)
Being a baker and a casual anime enthusiast (I don't have a top-ten list, haven't watched EITHER Gundam OR Sailor Moon, and have never been to a convention, so that rules me out for otaku-dom) it was probably only a matter of time before I'd come across Yakitate! Japan, 60-something-episode series on the life and adventures of, well, Azuma Kazuma, boy baker with solar hands.
At least, that's what I gathered from the first ten minutes of the first episode.
Which is all I managed to watch, because I'm still reeling from the after-effects of Host Club (see previous post). Nothing feels good to me anymore... nothing... wait, Chapter 76 of Hagaren is out?
...D.A.N.C.I.N.G...
Okeye.
Weekends at home are a mixed blessing. There's really not enough time to kick back and relax, or do Do Something Useful, and once it's over, it's like bread that you only got to smell while it was baking. (Yes, I am trying to hammer in the fact that I bake. I bake, y'all! I'm a baker, yeah!)
So this weekend began with a visit to an open-air Ramzaan food stall, with one of the younger photo-desk girls. "You have to see it!" she said. "They have, like, the most amazing stuff!" And they did. Spring rolls, sugar donuts, skewered chicken wings, peanut pancakes, gado-gado, sugarcane juice, fried soba, curried tempeh...!
That was Friday afternoon.
It was midnight by the time I got here. My sister was wide awake, and we hung out for a bit, talking, mainly about what she needed to take with her to college. An hour later, she was asleep, and I was... sorting through the stuff she needed to take with her to college.
My mum and sister used to share two closets. Soon after mum passed away (it was sudden), I sorted through her things (actually that's overstating things, mum & me being equally disorganised, or 'creatively chaotic' as she'd put it, this wasn't exactly my forte)... folded the clean laundry and put it back in, etc. All her clothes went into the drawers, while Poppy's stuff went into the shelves and on the hangers. And it's stayed that way in the few years since.
I took out and rearranged mum's things again, doing a much more thorough job this time around. Poppy wanted to take a couple of her dresses along with her, and I thought it would be a good idea to get rid of things like rusted safety pins and broken bits of tailoring chalk, air some of her clothes and re-fold them properly, check her books for silverfish... (I'm kidding!)
It feels strange.
Darcy once remarked to me that you only really grow up when you lose a parent. I don't know if that's universally true, but it applies for our family. We were all (dad included) really just a pack of petulant brats used to having our way. None of us picked up basic life skills till a good while after we absolutely had to (strictly speaking, this doesn't apply in Poppy's case since she was so little at the time). When I think of every time I had my mum do something for me that I could very well have done myself, I... try and stop thinking about it because it makes me feel so uncomfortable (it's not the word I'm looking for, but it's close enough).
Is this turning into the set-up for a shoujo manga? Protagonist reminisces about parent currently pushing up the daisies? Narrates tales of hardship, but stays upbeat and steers clear of the cesspool of self-pity, thus earning the admiration of swooning fangirls?
Let's stop right here, and segue into a more cheerful topic: The Victory Of Sourdough!
Yes, people. I may not have solar hands, but I have won the battle (though not the war) against the uncooperative microbes of sourdough magic. The starter has stabilised (about time, eh) and I shall have a recipe for you anon.
Being a baker and a casual anime enthusiast (I don't have a top-ten list, haven't watched EITHER Gundam OR Sailor Moon, and have never been to a convention, so that rules me out for otaku-dom) it was probably only a matter of time before I'd come across Yakitate! Japan, 60-something-episode series on the life and adventures of, well, Azuma Kazuma, boy baker with solar hands.
At least, that's what I gathered from the first ten minutes of the first episode.
Which is all I managed to watch, because I'm still reeling from the after-effects of Host Club (see previous post). Nothing feels good to me anymore... nothing... wait, Chapter 76 of Hagaren is out?
...D.A.N.C.I.N.G...
Okeye.
Weekends at home are a mixed blessing. There's really not enough time to kick back and relax, or do Do Something Useful, and once it's over, it's like bread that you only got to smell while it was baking. (Yes, I am trying to hammer in the fact that I bake. I bake, y'all! I'm a baker, yeah!)
So this weekend began with a visit to an open-air Ramzaan food stall, with one of the younger photo-desk girls. "You have to see it!" she said. "They have, like, the most amazing stuff!" And they did. Spring rolls, sugar donuts, skewered chicken wings, peanut pancakes, gado-gado, sugarcane juice, fried soba, curried tempeh...!
That was Friday afternoon.
It was midnight by the time I got here. My sister was wide awake, and we hung out for a bit, talking, mainly about what she needed to take with her to college. An hour later, she was asleep, and I was... sorting through the stuff she needed to take with her to college.
My mum and sister used to share two closets. Soon after mum passed away (it was sudden), I sorted through her things (actually that's overstating things, mum & me being equally disorganised, or 'creatively chaotic' as she'd put it, this wasn't exactly my forte)... folded the clean laundry and put it back in, etc. All her clothes went into the drawers, while Poppy's stuff went into the shelves and on the hangers. And it's stayed that way in the few years since.
I took out and rearranged mum's things again, doing a much more thorough job this time around. Poppy wanted to take a couple of her dresses along with her, and I thought it would be a good idea to get rid of things like rusted safety pins and broken bits of tailoring chalk, air some of her clothes and re-fold them properly, check her books for silverfish... (I'm kidding!)
It feels strange.
Darcy once remarked to me that you only really grow up when you lose a parent. I don't know if that's universally true, but it applies for our family. We were all (dad included) really just a pack of petulant brats used to having our way. None of us picked up basic life skills till a good while after we absolutely had to (strictly speaking, this doesn't apply in Poppy's case since she was so little at the time). When I think of every time I had my mum do something for me that I could very well have done myself, I... try and stop thinking about it because it makes me feel so uncomfortable (it's not the word I'm looking for, but it's close enough).
Is this turning into the set-up for a shoujo manga? Protagonist reminisces about parent currently pushing up the daisies? Narrates tales of hardship, but stays upbeat and steers clear of the cesspool of self-pity, thus earning the admiration of swooning fangirls?
Let's stop right here, and segue into a more cheerful topic: The Victory Of Sourdough!
Yes, people. I may not have solar hands, but I have won the battle (though not the war) against the uncooperative microbes of sourdough magic. The starter has stabilised (about time, eh) and I shall have a recipe for you anon.
