Ratatouille

If you like Ratatouille the cartoon, you’d know this dish too well. I never thought of making it until I saw a photo posted on Pinterest from Table for 2. Actually, the husband saw it first and he was good at making me wanting to cook it for him.

Recipe (adapted from Table for 2)

* The sauce:

- Olive oil

- 1 onion, diced

- 4 cloves of garlic, mashed

- 1 green bell peper, 1/2 red bell pepper, diced

- 400g tomato, diced

- 1 tbsp tomato sauce

- Salt and honey to taste

{Cook in a pan, in listed order, simmer for 30 minutes}

* The vegetable:

- 1 eggplant

- 1 zucchini

- 1 yellow squash ( I couldn’t find it here, so I doubled the zucchini amount)

- 5 tomatoes

{Cut the veggies into thin slices, toss with oil, sear lightly in pan}

Arrange the sauce and veggies into a baking pan, then bake in the preheated oven (200C) for 20 minutes. 

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The outcome:

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I served it with pasta tossed in olive oil and chopped basil. Best dish I’ve EVER made!

Bon appetite!

Blind shopping

I bought this skirt from an online site similar to Groupon. Online group shopping has become more popular here. It’s convenient, the price is reasonable, and most importantly, everything is delivered to the door for free. The only drawback is that I have to accept any random color they have to offer (or come to their office to pick up the color I like, which sounds impossible in my working hours). This skirt came in several colors and I got a blue one at first. History changed course following a negotiation with the delivery man.

I’m not so sure if I like blind shopping. Accessories, maybe, but clothes, maybe not.

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Top: thrifted ($2) | Skirt: bought online ($4) | Necklace: sale shop ($1.5) | Shoes: thrifted ($12.5)

Magic owl

Wow, life has been crazy for the past few weeks for me. I was too busy with work and stuff that going to the park near home to take photos was impossible. So please bear this boring background of my house’ front yard for this post. I really adore all the fashion bloggers out there. I find it super hard to squeeze photo session into my daily routine, which includes making lunch box in the morning, spending 9 hours at work, then going to yoga classes in some evenings or translating book in the others. Really, how could you guys do it?

Say hello to Lhasa the puppy’s head.

This outfit was inspired by Kristine. I think I fell in love with her style. Stripe and skirt? Count me in!

I bought the necklace for about $4 from an online site similar to Groupon. I like how the wings flip open to reveal the clock. Ah, can’t wear it enough.

Speaking of lunch box, this is what I’ve been up to lately:

Thank you for reading

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Top: thrifted ($1) | Skirt: Local shop | Shoes: H&M

I wore makeup

…and it’s a big deal, because I have decided to live without it as much as I can. This is the reason why. But I have to admit makeup makes every woman look much prettier. And you can’t go to a wedding sans makeup! So I made an effort to put on light eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, blush and lipstick, to my classmate wedding last Sunday. It was in fact too light you can’t even tell from the photos. Can you?

I rarely dress up, because I hate spending so much time on my appearance (as if I don’t care how I look in all those outfit photos!). But these photos made me think twice about it. I guess I can still pull off the elegant look while dressing simple,  with just a touch of accessories, and of course a smile.

Thank you for reading!

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Dress & Heels: thrifted | Bag: Mango | Earrings: bought in Thailand | Necklace: Banana Republic (gift)

Purple vintage

Last Sunday, Tra and I went to our classmate wedding. Tra wore a simple vintage dress, classic and beautiful as always.

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Dress & Bag: thrifted | Shoes: no idea| Earrings: no idea

As long as this warmth remains

For the first time, it took us less than 25 minutes to finish shooting an outfit. The weather was nice, sunny  as always, and I was happy with all the photos taken.

Speaking of 25 minutes, it is one of the two time management methods I am trying to apply to better focus on doing the thing I’m doing. It is called the Pomodoro Technique, which uses a timer to break down period of work into 25 minute intervals. My husband found it helpful and convinced me to try. It works if you need to achieve one goal at a time, for example doing research or studying language in the morning, etc. If I’m multitasking, I prefer another method suggested by Mark Forster, which is called Rotation method. I write the list of tasks that need to be done, and against each item write 30-20-10 (supposed to be 10-20-30, but I like to do it this way). These are blocks of minutes I am going to spend on each item in turn. Then I set the timer for each task and when it rings, I stop to do the next task. (You can do it with any timer. I find the 30/30 app very useful).

I have big problem with procrastination and distraction. I often find myself doing A for 5 minutes and then browsing the internet or switching to B just because I can’t stay focused for so long. These methods really help, especially when I have different goals to achieve on the weekend (translating, blogging, studying Chinese, etc.)

Do you have a time management method of your own? I’d love to learn it from you.

Thank you for reading!

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Mint dress (worn as top): thrifted | Skirt & Shoes: local shop | Necklace: gift

Post title: from 1Q84

Time for the cats to come

Hi everyone, happy Monday!

How was your weekend? On Saturday I helped the NGO where’re I’m working with to host a community day where beneficiaries and staff of local non profit organizations came to pick up donated clothes and items. It was fun, we expected it to last 3 hours but the boxes were emptied within one hour! We are planning to open a thrift shop in Saigon (would be the first of its kind by an NGO in Vietnam). You can imagine how excited I am with the project.

Saturday evening I watched Magnolia, an extremely inspiring movie. It was a break from a series of German and Til Schweiger films that ruled our weekends for the past few months. My husband and I like downloading movies and watching during the weekends. Since he’s studying German and got to suggest what we see most of the time, we ended up with more German movies in the past few months than I’ve ever seen in my entire life! Actually we were supposed to watch Les Daltons (French movie, with  Til Schweiger playing Lucky Luke) on Saturday night, but since he could not find the correct English subtitle, we watched Magnolia instead.

The weekend ended with we going to a wedding of my high school classmate on Sunday noon, where each guest was given a raffle ticket to prizes including movie tickets, T-shirts and badminton rackets and birdies (seriously?). I didn’t win, oh well!

Thank you for reading!

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Top & Shoes: local shops | Denim shorts & belt: Etam (bought in Beijing) | Bag: thrifted

Post title: from 1Q84