Tag: architecture

Learning South Indian Cooking

Good Karma Through Cooking

The idea of taking an Indian cooking class came about when two friends I’ve made here, Dani from Australia and Mandy from Hong Kong, and I all wanted to learn about the prominent cultures in Singapore. We decided to take a South Indian cooking class from a very cool woman named Ruqxana (with a great reputation) in her funky little home near the eastern coast of Singapore. Maybe not surprisingly, with 5.4 million people in a place the size of Milwaukee, there are very few free standing homes here so Ruqxana’s house near the coast, or anywhere, is pretty unusual. Homes are crazy expensive and are typically owned by the very wealthy and Singapore has a lot of them (just look at the lamberghinis and other sports cars zooming around).  I venture to say that Ruqxana is not part of that group, thankfully.  Her home is quite bohemian, comfortable and cosmic, with her classic VW bug in the driveway and a number of sweet cats, too.

Ruqxana teaches many types of cooking classes, but we were most interested in learning how to work with Indian spices and making some everyday dishes. The only other person in the cooking class was a fascinating and very well-traveled Asian man named Alvin who was born and raised in Australia and moved to Singapore two weeks before.  The four of us bonded during this 3 hour cooking class.  There was a nice rain while we cooked in the partially covered outdoor kitchen, but we needed to clear the table since it was getting wet. We made dosai (a fluffy rice and lentil pancake like bread) dal, masala potatoes and green and red chutneys.  Mandy, Dani, Alvin and I had a lovely, delicious lunch at the dining table on the front porch while it rained and then became sunny by the end of the meal.

We decided to travel back together, and do a little sightseeing.   Mandy, Alvin and I caught the bus outside Ruqxana’s house to the train and went to the posh part of town to bum around. Dani took a cab to pick up her kids from school.

Susan with Ruqxana, cooking teacher, making Indian dosai
Susan cooking dosai – Enjoying the experience
Ruqxana, cooking teacher on front porch
Ruqxana’s front yard
Her front porch dining room
Ruqxanas driveway. Love her bug
Ruqxana’s groovy inside dining room
Dani from Australia making dosai
Mandy who moved from Hong Kong is making dosai
Cooking: Alvin from Australia just moved to Singapore.
Meal on porch – Dining on our creations
Students sitting on porch together to enjoy our South Indian food

Our New Apartment Home

After many more days of looking in many different parts of town, all with their positive attributes, we are going to rent a lovely apartment on the 18th floor of The Metropolitan. It is close to the train (only a few stops from Gene’s office), close to wet markets (farmers markets) and Hawkers Center (prepared foods from vendors), and has a great view.

The wet markets and hawkers centers are not everywhere, at least not near where we are now, but in many neighborhoods; they are a big draw for us to live in a more traditional neighborhood.  In addition to younger working people, we saw many elderly and young families here. This building has many Japanese and Indian residents living here, too.  Since owning a car is so expensive, having these shopping areas near train stations or bus routes is quite common.

We need to get furniture and kitchen stuff. This should be fun, or frustrating, probably both.  We have been looking online because we need to get most of it pretty quickly.  I think we move in late July.

Metropolitan on Alexandra
From balcony on 18th floor
Gym looking onto pool
Metropolitan livingroom with balcony
Master bedroom with small balcony
This is a big kitchen
Master bath with view
Train station with building in background
Fresh Market at Red Hill
Fresh veggie market
Fresh fish market
First meal prepared

Apartment Hunting

Gene’s firm has a dedicated real estate agent who helps each of the newly transferred employees find a place to live.  Regina lined up a number of fascinating places to see. All are two bedrooms, 2 baths, some partially furnished, others not. The latter two locations were too zoomy, even too modern inside for our tastes, and too far from a walkable neighborhood, but amazing architecturally and a real eye-opener for us to see Singapore’s commitment to cutting edge design.  A new visual experience for an architect from Wisconsin, and an architecture fan.

Besides the cool experience, it helped us decide that we want a more urban walkable neighborhood.  These apartments are on the bay and would require a train ride to most places we’d want to go.  It will probably make us compromise on the view from our apartment, but if it is in the city, there are marvelous views everywhere when walking about.

Interlace Apartments – just opened
Caribbean at Keppel Bay ground floor pool
Reflections – Keppel Bay on China Sea