No spending day part 2: the cheeseless pizza

Dearest Erin, I want you to know that I love you very much, and you are always in my heart and thoughts.  I know it's been a long time since I proposed to you, and I still can't afford to give you a ring and pay for our marriage, and by now you would have probably had children already if it were not for me.  I'm so sorry that I'm so poor, I hope my work and sacrifice has somehow enriched your business at the very least, while I beg of you to please be patient and have faith and pray that God will make our marriage happen soon.  Please forgive me for my flaws.

Dearest Natty, I'm so sorry I made a typo on your name the other day.  I didn't mean to do it, and when I discovered my error I immediately fixed it.  I assure you that I didn't do it on purpose, I wasn't trying to make a joke at your expense or anything like that.  I do have a cat named Batty, but if I ever talk about him please rest assured that I am in no way referring to you or making fun of you.  I take marriage very, very seriously, and your happiness very, very seriously.  I know how much you hate people making fun of you and talking bad about you behind your back, and I'm very sorry if you had to suffer that because of me.  Please forgive me for my flaws.

Why is it necessary that a pizza have cheese?  To please the general public's perception of what a pizza is I suppose, and a pizza does taste great with cheese.  When I worked at the pizza joint, I would often get orders for pizza without cheese.  Usually women would ask for that, or someone who is lactose intolerant.  But so what, if a pizza doesn't have cheese?  One can eat spaghetti without cheese, and have bread to go with it right?  One can enjoy chili with bread but no cheese, right?  There's no cheese on a mince pie.  There's no cheese on a pumpkin pie.  So for dinner, I had a sausage, fried onion and chive pizza without cheese.  Or shall I say a sausage, fried onion and chive pie?  It was delicious.  It was filling.  It was greasy.  Alhamdulillah.  Ya Allah, please forgive me for my flaws.

 

No spending day

Hi Honey, how are you?  How's business?  Please pace yourself, and give yourself plenty of time to rest and relax.  Right now, I'm trying to slow down my spending to save money.  No Honey, I'm not flat broke, I'm just trying to be strict to budget.  I wish I had a bigger budget- I would get a maid and a gardener, so I would spend more time on the computer and making music.  But I don't have a big budget, so I will be implementing "no spending" today and tomorrow.  I'll just eat whatever is growing in the yard or what's left in the cooler.  I'm quite used to these "no spending" days, but the concept must be quite alien to you, as well it should be.  My wife MUST live well, inshaAllah.  You are beautiful and precious to me.  I don't know if this habit will influence others not to spend, but I don't think it will be an issue.  There's always someone spending, right?  I had ramen noodles for lunch, and I made a couple of those huge curry pups for dinner, since I still had some of the sardine stuffing left.  The diced tomatoes made the calzones kind of gooey inside, but it was delicious.  Alhamdulillah.

Hey Natty honey, how are you?  Keeping cool in the ultraviolet blue?  Well, we must protect you because of how precious you are, my dearest princess.  Make sure your bosses take good security of you.  Would you like a sardine and tomato calzone?  That's a 12" plate they're resting on, so they're quite big.  Plenty for you.  I won't be at the chat room in Second Life for about a week, so don't go looking for me there.  It's time for me to work on my wardrobe, and we all know how important THAT is, right?  Oh, music and fashion is always the passion...

 

 

 

 

Now that's a big curry pup...

Hi Honey!  How's it going today?  How's work?  You must be all sorts of busy, so please eat properly and get lots of rest.  Nothing out of the ordinary going on here for me.  I'm trying to save money, so I'm not spending any for the next 2 days, and eating whatever that's in the cooler or growing in the yard.  I had some sardines left over, so I made a couple of calzones for lunch stuffed with sardines, diced tomatoes and fried onions.  I have 2 ways of closing my calzones, one I close the edges then pull it back and tie it into a knot, and the other I pinch the edges into a twisting pattern.  Here in this country we have a local delicacy where dough is stuffed with a meat and potato stuffing and shaped into mini calzones where the edges are pinched into a twisting pattern, and they usually come in the size of about half a palm of one's hand.  These are called "curry puffs" or "curry pups", and these are what my parents are used to.  So even though a calzone is a folded over and sealed pizza, my parents still call it a curry pup.  Now I've never seen anyone sell curry pups the size of half a plate, perhaps someone should try that.  It would certainly be a quick and filling meal.

Hi Natty!  How are you doing, Beautiful Girl?  I am sure missing you- I haven't seen your pretty face in a while.  I can only assume that you are very busy and living out of your suitcase.  Get your travel kicks in now while you are young.  Because I will make sure my wife and children are rooted in to one spot inshaAllah, so they can live a sheltered and safe life.

 

 

 

 

Sardines

Hi Honey!  How are you doing today?  I hope everything is going smoothly and absolutely great for you.  I've never been much of a one for the holiday season myself, even when I did spend the money to buy presents for the occasion.  Now I simply adhere to Muslim and family occasions, not just for because I know who I am.  Which makes you much more marketable for the USA than me.  Sure Allah makes me somewhat interesting mashaAllah, but you are my wife inshaAllah.  You're my girl.

Hey Natty honey!  How are you?  I do hope you're not overworking.  How's your big brother, by the way?  I don't really keep up with what he does, my interest is in you.  I sure hope he goes for being the next James Bond like I suggested.  In showbiz, there's really no respect for the piddly roles so he might as well go straight for the big parts.  But he is his own man, of course.  No Honey, you are not upstaging him.  You're getting married, that's all.

Sardines are certainly common man's food, but unlike mackerel the bones are soft, and can be chewed.  The innards are easy to eat too.  Sardines go great with tomato sauce, thus they go great with Italian food.  You must have noticed that sardines are cooked and canned in tomato sauce.  So I went to buy a can of sardines for my dinner.  There were so many different brands to choose from, the 400g portion ranged from RM3 to RM7.60.  But what's the difference?  Sardines are sardines, there is no gourmet type of sardine- it's just an ordinary fish.  The price difference must be in the sauce the fish is cooked in, and whatever sauce it is, the sardines must impart most of the flavor.  So I bought the cheapest brand.  For dinner, I had baked fettucine with sardines in a spicy marinara sauce.  The black sprinkles you see are crispy sardine bones.  Delicious!  Filling!  Alhamdulillah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it delivery?

Hi Honey!  How are you feeling today?  You must be very busy, after all it is the season for shopping, so your bosses must need you badly.  It's the same old usual for me here today.  I spent some time with my baby mango trees after my usual morning chores, and I still had some extra time before voice training.  I didn't fill that time with anything useful- I took a nap, then watched TV.  It rained in the evening, so I didn't do any yard work.  I had an early dinner, then I watched a movie.

Hey Natty honey!  You are awfully quiet.  Is big business scaring you or something?  Well, please put your fear in the right place- put your fear in God.  Once you become used to that, you will never be paralyzed by fear inshaAllah.  You have so much going for you right now- you're beautiful and you're my girl.  So enjoy your career, have fun, and keep safe OK?

No it's not delivery, it's a pre-made pizza crust.  I made this pizza crust a couple of days ago, and I let it sit in the cooler for a few days to see how it would cook later.  It's obviously not the same as freshly cooked bread, but it's still quite good.  A bit chewy, but crunchy in the right places.  So do you all understand that, people?
1.  First you prepare the crust.
2.  At the point of sale, you put the sauce on and cook the toppings.
3.  When the toppings are cooked, you put the cheese on and melt it.
Quick and easy peasy!

By the way, do you like my Dolce and Gabbana jacket?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sing

Singing is not just a physical ability, but also a gift from God.  It should make sense that Janis Joplin's voice would come from a small woman from Texas, but we should also wonder why God gave the voice to Janis and not some other small woman from Texas.  Other physical conditions are like being in shape and healthy, and not making mistakes like drinking a cup of ice cold coffee right in the middle of the set (which I did today, so I had to warm up all over again: I'll have to start leaving my coffee to cool down at room temperature, if I could figure out a way so the ants don't get it).  Then there is the emotional connection- you have to mean what you say, otherwise it would sound wrong.  This is also true when reading the Qur'an: there has to be sincerity.  Therefore singing well is both skill and sincerity.  And only Allah can make the dead to speak.

I wanted to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, but the supermarket was out of spaghetti!  I guess the only pasta the locals understand is spaghetti.  They were also out of linguini.  I didn't want to drive all the way downtown just for spaghetti, so I made fettuccine and meatballs instead.  It was nice.  I would have rather had spaghetti, though.

Also, you may notice that I had a wardrobe meltdown right in the middle of dancing last night.  What was supposed to be a gold outfit turned out to be badly made, so I had to switch to a black skirt.  I had to change the shoes, too.  I hate having a wardrobe dilemma right when I'm trying to work.  At least I didn't have any problems changing clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Honey

How's it going today?  How's business?  It's just another average same old day for me.  I vacuum cleaned my Mom's house and scrubbed her front porch this morning.  Yeah I do house cleaning, but I'm not good at it, and I have so much other stuff to do.  I've started eating only 2 meals a day lately.  I find that preparing and eating breakfast is so time consuming, plus I could lose some weight, and become lean and mean.  Right?  Ha!  I've decided to stop eating heavy lunches, because I feel the best when I have noodles and soup or similarly light dishes for lunch.  Then for dinner, I eat something very satisfying.  So for lunch, I cooked up the Spanish mackerel bones and head that I kept in the freezer for soup, separated the meat from the bones, then added rice vermicelli with some veggies.  Dinner was a couple of deep fried calzones, or folded over pizzas.  Want one?

Hey hey hey Nattikins, how are you , you beautiful girl?  You are awfully quiet lately.  I guess you are super crazy busy, living the glamorous life, and forgetting about little old me.  Well, I always think of you.  I always think about my wife, she is my future.  Would you like a calzone?  Lots of pizza and greasy Italian food on the menu this week.  Oooh, I need to buy some spaghetti.  Well you make sure you get plenty of rest, and drink lots of water.  Please pray.