I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been extremely busy over some jobs, practicing the art of watching Ally McBeal while exercising, and meeting up with friends.

However, today (yesterday? last night? It just being 12.05am) is sort-of a momentous occasion for my normally rather unexciting life: I managed to cook something for dinner, with the help of my brother.

One of the few slightly important things about me is my having been born unequipped with any cooking skills whatsoever, or even any instincts females were traditionally (I am saying traditionally, when women of all ages and classes were stereotyped as “housewives”) expected to possess. The food is basic, really, and I got the recipe from the Yummy magazine my friend gave me. It said the prep time was going to be around 20 minutes and cooking time 15 minutes, but I ended up staying in the kitchen for over an hour.

To further demonstrate my unpolished cooking vocabulary:

Me: it says I need to melt the mayo in a saucepan! I don’t know what a saucepan is! Is this a SAUCEPAN? (I hold up a black pan)
My brother: I don’t know. Maybe.

And as the first among many firsts:

Me: the mayo’s not melting. It’s getting COOKED. Is it because there’s no oil?
My brother: maybe because there’s no oil.
Me: (looks for any pre-mayo-melting instructions in the magazine. Nothing about oils found.) maybe I should put olive oil.

After putting the macaroni in the oven:

My brother: I think it’s cooked.
Me: are we going to get burned getting the macaroni out of the oven? It’s still on, and I don’t know how to turn it off.
My brother: how long did you set it?
Our housemaid: it’s at 10 minutes.
Me: it wasn’t turning on if I set it less! I just stopped when I saw the light.

It didn’t get burned, we didn’t get burned, and despite not having any feta cheese (plus flour substituted with cornstarch because THERE WAS NO FLOUR AT HOME), the macaroni was edible.

I learned to put peppers next time, and I could probably add things I want to in it even if it’s not in the instructions. The magazine kept on saying, “season to taste” but I have absolutely no idea what it was supposed to taste like, or what I wanted it to taste like. But you see. I’m learning. (And, as an additional note: adding crabsticks to the pasta actually tasted good. But shrimp or salmon would probably be better.)

And, as for the title of this post: as I was setting the table for dinner, I wanted the macaroni to match the plate so I thought of using our green plates that had smaller yellow plates as a partner. BUT THEY WERE GONE. And our housemaid told me my dad gave it away. Needless to say, for some minutes I really was frustrated because I couldn’t make the table look the way I envisioned it. Haha.