Episode: a new experience
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

This happened yesterday. In the morning, class start at 9.30 today because there was a workshop conducted by Phillips Design. When we went into the workshop, we already scented the food. It made all of us hungry. Yup, the workshop is about our sense of smell and taste. First, there was this lecture on how we tend to neglect our sense of smell and how it can bring different memories to different scent.


Afterwards, we had to go to the shelves behind, and one by one, smell and choose the best scent that bring out memories. There were 9 unlabeled scent. So, when we try to guess the scent by sniffing the small glass cups, we were taking some time on it.


I wrote down glass cup number one as the chosen scent that triggers memories to me. I wrote, the scent remind me of the time when my whole family just got back from KL, and at home when my parents took out and open the durian, it would give out this scent. Yup, I thought that glass cup number one has the scent of a durian in it. Soon, the labels of each glass cup was shown. These was the actual scent:

1) strawberry
2) green tea
3) lavender
4) cassis rose
5) white petals
6) mango
7) sandal wood
8) passion fruit
9) nothing

Haha! I thought strawberry was durian. Whats wrong with my sense of smell? I can blame it on the flu that I had just recovered from recently. That was the first part of the workshop, the second part was up next.

This was what we saw when we entered the room.


Food food and more food. Well, there were just ingredients. Ranging from sweet, sour, bitter and many more. Those that are not halal had labels next to them saying no halal.


We were given the task to come up with a new experiences of food with the available ingredients. With plenty of ingredients ranging from rice to Toblerone, my classmates seem to grab them and either place it in their plate or straight in their mouth. Haha! I went a few rounds thinking of what I was going to make. Soon, I grabbed some ingredients, of course those that are halal ones, and get started on my new creation. I was actually quite experience in doing such things at home, as I have tried it a few times.

Soon, I felt like one of the chefs in Hell's Kitchen. Hehe. I took the concept of traditional Malay food and started doing my food experience.

To present my tiny bite sized food, I add carrots for colors, anchovies, cucumber and eggs to give that traditional Malay food look.

Presenting.........
Mini Nasi Lemak.

The ingredients are:

1 squared shape seaweed
Rice
Dried cuttle fish strips
Dried onion
Sambal

Preparation:

Place the squared shape seaweed onto a plate. Place the rice on top of it together with the dried cuttle fish strips and dried onion. Fold the seaweed and pack it up with sambal at its tip. Poke a stick to secure the packaging. Finally to wrap it up, take a strip of the dried cuttle fish, and tie around the packed food.

I named it mini Nasi Lemak because it resembles the traditional Malay food, Nasi Lemak in a small from. Some of my classmates named their foods with weird names, such as these:


The Mer-e-pek, created by Syafiq. Some even give the name of their food with a warning sign.

City of sweet with Twin Tomato Towers. Dangerous! May be inedible. When I read this, I already know what the food is going to be like. It definitely is some kind of tomato with honey or any sweets. I dare not try this. It is too dangerous.

Some did an awesome job of presenting their food. Some of good example are these:

Appetizing right? Well it was like this in the beginning, where people just use the space that they had and add anything and everything that they see among the ingredients that were there. After everything, we were told to place our creations on the shelve behind and present our creation. We had to tell how we came up with the dish.


After this, we had to try some of the food. I mean some, because some are not edible. I tried Cherlyn's creation. It was vegetable with chocolate syrup. It was alright, but was weird. The presentation was not bad.
Mine, three brave boys chose to have a taste at the mini Nasi Lemak. Through their reaction, I find that they somehow enjoyed my creation. They also gave good comments.


After the tasting, the workshop ended. But, since there were still some food still left there, I took the opportunity to eat them up. I think, I was the one who finish the Toblerone. The picture below showed me drinking down honey. Yummy! After the workshop, I thought to myself, what kind of course let you do all these fun things in class? There is no other course that I would rather be in. Diploma in Experience Design (Interaction and Product).

Had Critical Reasoning Skill module after that. I took out my jacket and wear something nice for the test. It is going to be counted for our CA1, so I dressed to impress. Take a look, handsome and smart right? Hehe..

After that, I went home with my gal. At around 6, met her and her parents at her block. We were going to watch Anugerah Band at Mediacorp again, supporting Edmushyta. This time, we sat in the front row.

The show was great! But, I did not enjoy my time there, because there was this bisexual idiot sitting on my left. I am alright with bisexual people, as they are people too, but this one kept saying he knows the artiste from disco and other irritating questions. This bisexual idiot is better off dead. I did not talk to him after a while, but he kept talking and saying how cute I was. I turned to my gal who is sitting on my right side, but she kept quiet. With no one to turn to, I just sat there minding my own business. After the show, I felt relieved and felt like going somewhere else immediately. Anyways, I received messages from two of my friend, saying they saw me on the show. Ya, I was right behind one of the judge, so every time the judge give comments on the band, I would be somewhere in the background.

Soon, we went off to Adam Road for dinner. Saw many bands from the show there. I saw the singer for Edmushyta there. In my opinion, he sang very well for a guy who is sick on that day. Awesome!
After dinner, went home and take a good night's sleep. What an experience! An experience that I would never forget.


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Aidie blogged @ 5:13 AM

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