Firstly, I’d like to apologize. We’ve been missing in action for a fair few weeks now and we know it! Since we got back at the end of March, we’ve taken a bit of a break from our blog so we do want to make up for it.
It’s been quite trying to write during this period of Coronavirus especially in terms of actually having the will to do it. It’s a hard one to explain as we both find writing to be a great way to express our thoughts with much more clarity however it’s simply not translating to words at this point.
Perhaps we’ve lost some of that excitement we’ve had whilst on the road? Can’t say for sure, but to answer the question, life after 7 months of travel has been a gastronomic adventure! Wait, you didn’t expect that did you? Perhaps you thought I would say it’s fabulous to be back where it’s all stable or you might have thought that I’d say it’s downright boring to go from country hopping every few weeks to indoors all day, every day.
Well yes to that as well but isn’t life what we want to focus on? 🙂 Let me take you on a bit of a journey of what it feels like to go from the one extreme of living on constant adventure to living the most predictable life during CoVid-19 now in the way I know best, via food!
So we got back in time for my birthday and this year, we were on quarantine. So a home-cooked meal was in order and I wanted us to do a birthday dinner that we have never done before. Ta-daaa, we went all out on a home-made Japanese dinner!
On the menu was: Miso Soup, Sashimi, Edamame, Sonomono (cucumber salad), Hosonaki (sushi rolls), Tempura Platter and Burnt Cheesecake! The initials on the bottom right of the placecards indicate the chef for the dish, so everyone had a part!
While I was quite certain when we left Singapore in 2019 on this grand adventure that I would be in Cuba or Belize celebrating my 35th birthday, I never imagined that it would be back in exotic Singapore! While I wasn’t where I thought I would be, I was with people that I didn’t think I would see just yet! Celebrating occasions such as birthdays with family and friends will always be the most special part of a birthday to me, the birthday hugs and the home-cooked meals are truly priceless.
Amidst meals like this mind-blowing bee hoon, we’ve finally taken the plunge into our quest to eat more seafood and plant-based food. We’re not 100% vegan but we have omitted dairy and meat from the majority of our meals. If I were to put a number on it, I would say we are 98% vegan for the past 3 months and counting. This would have been a hard one to put into motion on the road for us as we love eating the local food and there’s a lot of yummy meat dishes all thoroughout South America. Never too late to start!
“How did we go from mouth-watering pics of bife de lomo in Argentina to 95% vegan?”
The truth is we’ve wanted to take this path for about 6 years now but we loved meat way too much to give it up! The running joke with a good friend of mine is that I can say no to dessert without missing a heartbeat but you would have to drag me away kicking and screaming from my plate of meat.
It does sound simple now, but back then I couldn’t find middle ground. I thought it was no meat at all or why should I bother to begin with? It took me a good long time and then the discovery of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma completely changed the world for my family. Everyone has their own journey to take to reach the conclusions they do. Perhaps I’ll dig deeper into this in another post, but who needs meat when you can have homemade gourmet vegan meals that look like this?
If you’re readers of this blog for some time now, you would remember we love having pizza nights. I love a family activity that gets everyone involved, especially the kids and pizza night is just perfect for that. This time around, we even got a video in the making for the newly launched The Dev & Reyan Show!
The Dev & Reyan Show has been yet another one of those “what’s new with you guys” thing, apart from going more plant-based. It started out as an idea from brother dear who is the Founder of Ideas & Inspiration and we went along with it as it would be fun and great to get the kids comfortable speaking in front of a camera and just letting those creative juices flow. It’s yet another one of those family activities that everyone gets involved in and we have a blast and our fair share of hair-pulling moments when our kiddy actors go on strike!
We made pizza with 3 different toppings: BBQ Cauliflower and Tempeh; Garlic Prawns, capsicum and olives; Caremelized onions and mushrooms
Most people might be struggling having their kids with them indoors and around the clock. While being with the kids around the clock has been the norm for us whilst on travel, we really strived on a lot of outdoor activities. We share the challenges however we are grateful that we don’t have to juggle work at the same time of having the kids home (and not having any home-based learning shenanigans)! We are grateful for many things, this is certainly one of them!
Then……. I started work 🙂 Oh yes I did and it’s been over a month now that I’ve started my short term gig. Thankfully Mr.C is very hands-on and runs a fun ship so the kids love hanging out with him. Living with family helps as well, more folks to love the kids and more play-mates for the kids (although they are adults!). It certainly makes festivals like Hary Raya a whole lot more exciting during quarantine times with our Spotify Hari Raya playlist and Mr.C whipping up this almost vegan hari raya meal!
Speaking of Mr.C on kiddy duty, we’ve seen some very positive and eye opening developments. Mr.C and Coco#1 have been taking Mandarin classes together online and been spending about an hour a day practising. From an almost zero base (simple conversation, no reading), they are both able to recgonise quite a few characters and can read simple sentences. All in just a month! We never thought we would be the parents to revise the homework with our kids (we were left to our own devises and we turned out fine, nay …awesome?) but we can clearly see the benefit in doing so and how much more excited and happy Coco#1 when he understands the teacher and knows the answer. Learning has to be fun to stick.
It is amazing how time passes by oh so fast. We’ve been back in Singapore for close to 3 months now. That’s almost half the time we spent travelling the world and living a life of mad adventuring. My biggest worry about returning to Singapore was losing the magic of being away. Moments when we were in a place and caught up in the sounds, smells and sights would wrap up in a whirlwind of enchantment and gratitude for being able to be right there, right then. I’ll admit that many time, my heart longs for moments from the past. How fortunate we have been to have lived that life and right now, we’ve firmly rooted back home and completely back in the game!
As time passes by, we’re now embarking on a massive but very exciting project – to sort through the thousands of pictures we’re taken on the journey and document our journey.
So life has been interesting even though we have been back and under quarantine. Of course there’s almost no adjusting back as we’ve lived our entire lives here but there are small little instances that made us laugh. I do remember both Mr.C and I having to circle the taxi once again to walk over to the passenger seat when we first arrived in Singapore (right hand drive in Singapore, left hand drive all over Central & South America!). Our first instinct when thanking a person is to say Gracias! instead of thank you. When we’re trying to order food or drinks, I struggled to remember my usual “kopi c kosong” instead of “cafe con leche sin azucar”. Just little things like that tickles us 🙂
