Another Baby Food Anecdote

Seems like one of the major topics I put effort into writing about nowadays is baby food. I have no idea why, but go along with the whim anyway.

Today I made blueberry, banana, and tofu puree. And while it tastes OK, I must state that it unequivocally looks like puke, more so than any other baby food that I have made before. And that I am 100% disgusted and feel slightly nauseous looking at it. I think this will be the last time I make this particular food combination for baby.

Baby Fish Porridge

A traditional baby food dish in Singapore is fish rice porridge. My Dad told me an anecdote about the cry room in the sanctuary of the church they attend in Singapore - that around a certain time all the babies/kids start getting hungry at the same time and the whole room turns into a disgusting and nauseating miasma of ang gor li fish and porridge. My Dad and Mum pointed out that they made that same dish for me to eat all the time, and like all other babies, I loved it too.

Anyway since I have become a Mum, my parents ask me every so often what I am making for baby to eat. And they keep suggesting the fish porridge idea. One qualm I've had about it was that I wasn't sure what kind of fish was suitable, and then in what proportions. Good luck trying to ask a fishmonger for ang go li here. But finally Jon got onto the bandwagon too, and wanted to make fish porridge for baby as well, as he's currently on a she's not getting enough protein sort of anxiety binge.

So finally today, I have attempted to make fish porridge. I put in half a cup of jasmine rice to boil, and about half of a fillet of swai fish (what is swai even called in Singapore?). After boiling for a while, I realised the rice had swelled up into a ridiculously large amount, to the extent that the amount of fish seemed too little. So, like any caring Mum, I ended up taking out spoonfuls of just plain rice porridge, so the proportion of liao to porridge would be higher. Then I mixed in some quasi-pureed peas that I had prepared yesterday, so that there would at least be something familiar tasting/fibre in the dish. I then ate the plain rice porridge, with a little bit of soy sauce, so it wouldn't go to waste.

Hopefully baby will like this dish, when I feed it to her later.

Classic Rock

When I drive, the only radio station I listen to is 103.3, the Classic Rock station. Or as Jon calls it, the Dad Rock station, with "Dad" referring not to him, but to my Dad. Specializing in 60's, 70's and 80's music, it plays exactly the kind of music I listen to at home anyway, minus a few bands like Stars, Metric, Muse, Linkin Park (my guilty pleasure) and The Arcade Fire. Jon laments my close-mindedness about music all the time, but usually goes along with it.

Anyway one thing I noticed about 103.3 is that they like to play music in spurts and clusters. For example in December, they kept playing ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man and Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. For a while it was The Car's Just What I Needed. Now however it seems to be the Steve Miller Band's The Joker - and I really really loathe this song. Another favourite for now also seems to be Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, which I don't like but at least can tolerate. The sheer number of times some of these songs were played were such that close to every single time I drove (maybe for a total of 1h a day?) I would hear one of them, and they became running jokes between me and Jon. Except The Joker of course, because every time it comes on I just rage inside.

The reason why I'm writing about 103.3 however, is that one day they started playing Green Day's the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and it took me by surprise because of all things, Boulevard of Broken Dreams could hardly be considered Classic Rock, one reason being that it came out in the mid 2000s and I remember hearing it everywhere when I was in Secondary School. That, by some people's regard, Boulevard of Broken Dreams can be considered Classic Rock, makes me suddenly feel very very old. Says the almost 30 year old with a 7 and a half month old baby.

And that is all I have to say.