culinary (con)fusion? rhubarb pork noodles

I don’t know of many people who’ve been to Singapore and don’t like it. The ones who scoff at its well-reported intolerance for everything that interferes with its harmonie communitaire – like chewing gum, litter or Western pluralist democracy – have never been there. Despite what my Guardian-reading brain dictates, my heart commands me otherwise: I love this place.

John Malathronas, Singapore Swing

Six weeks out, and we’re really starting to miss Singapore. The cool order of our little apartment, the convenience of our gorgeous swimming pool, the pure unbridled deliciousness of the food.

And so this weekend we decided to bring a little bit of sunny Singapore to dreich old Scotland, in the form of a rather nice bit of pork belly. My inlaws were staying. They happen to be hopeless with chopsticks and have a pathological fear of fat – even the slightest hint of rind turns them into picky toddlers – so this was going to be a test for them. But the rest of us fully intended to enjoy every mouthful.

Ever on the lookout for recipes to use up my triffid-like rhubarb patch, I decided to brave this peculiar Jamie Oliver recipe: hot and sour rhubarb and crispy pork with noodles. A friend had found it on the internet and almost dared me to give it a go. Out came the chopsticks, the noodle bowls, the Chinese spoons and the cleaver: pork belly is something that I want to do properly.

I wanted to write just a short blog post about this recipe because, if your rhubarb patch is getting out of control like mine, you must give this a go as an alternative to the ubiquitous rhubarb crumble. Not only does it contain the most obscure ingredient ever in the form of “interesting cresses” (sorry Jamie, I could only find cress cresses, but I’ll keep searching) but the rhubarb marinade cooks down into a spicy, tart, savoury, utterly fabulous sauce, almost like a mild rhubarb sambal - you could cook and jar this for so many different things (I have rhubarb ketchup with lovely sausages in mind).

The twice-cooked pork belly is obviously fabulous (except if you’re my MIL who refused to eat any – ho hum). An hour and a half roasting in the marinade followed by a quick, smoky wok fry rendered it both crispy and melting soft (as I set off the smoke alarm my husband rubbed his hands together shouting “wok hei!” in delight). And who knew that rhubarb and fresh coriander is a match made in culinary heaven? J-to-the-O-Dawg, we salute you. Especially after your lovely interview in the Observer Food Monthly at the weekend.

Totally bonkers recipe, totally seasonal major ingredient from the end of the garden, totally fabulous dinner.

Rounded off with cones of mango frozen yoghurt from JO’s 30 minute meals book (if you have the book and haven’t made this yet, you’re not going to believe how good it is), we all felt a little essence of sunny Singapore in our patch of grey British sky.

absence makes the heart grow fonder me crazy in the coconut

The received wisdom is to keep busy. Occupy your brain fully enough and you'll start to forget about it. I'm not talking about anything physical, just the grinding, boring deadweight of homesickness. It's something that I've mentioned flippantly in the past but have now come to realise is, truly, a sickness. When I woke up this morning I swear I could have even told you what it tasted like. Here I am, living a charmed life in one of THE great cities in the world - certainly not something that has ever been said about my hometown (!) - but I can't shake the gut feeling that I just shouldn't be 7000 miles away from the simple and mildly humdrum existence where I belong.

I've tried everything over the past six weeks. I've cut out booze, coffee and snacking. I'm taking vitamins, staying hydrated and going to the hairdresser more often. I've swum, run and thrashed tennis balls about. I've gone to museums, festivals and parks. I've read, knitted and crafted. I've written letters, posted photos and skyped. I've cleared my mountain of paperwork and addressed my feckless sleeping habits. I've roasted dinners, baked cakes and built fortresses from sofa cushions. I even resorted to severe retail therapy. I haven't stopped keeping busy.

The end result? 4lb lighter with neat hair and an even neater new swimsuit. Nice, but not things that I really value... those things don't really matter so much where I belong.

Why it's kicked in with such vengence after 18 months I have no idea, but it'll improve, I do know that. And I know how lucky I am to live for a time in this magical place while so many other people have REAL problems (though feeling under pressure to be grateful does, I think, make it worse).

It's pouring with rain today, so I'm planning to opt out of this afternoon altogether; Mummy's on strike. I have an old Disney film for The Boss to watch (more than once if that's what it takes), some wool to wind and a new book that everyone's recommending over and above the movie.

Because maybe the only thing I haven't tried is doing nothing.

Linking in with Yarn Along, not least because it's the friendliest and most supportive linky-thing out there ;0)

a small sky

While London burns, if you crane your neck a little and peek just over the edge of the murky sky to the east, you'll see that it’s National Day here in Singapore. It’s 30 degrees in the shade at breakfast time, flags are fluttering, the kids are all on holiday, and later we’ll indulge in the shiny-eyed patriotism that is watching the National Day Parade on the telly.

National Day commemorates Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965. It’s also a day when Singaporeans around the world celebrate their nation and its values. I can't see the concept of a National Day working in the UK (just look at what's going this week, not much national pride going on there). I suspect British people are too cynical to get behind overt patriotism anyway, and the nation's too much in debt to stomach it.

As National Day crept into its fourth hour I was wide awake; that tricky second night of jetlag. The first night is usually bliss - exhausted from the trip and the restless journey, you sleep as if drugged and wake feeling wonderful and just a little bit smug. You’ve escaped jetlag! But by the second night you’re screwed. At 3am, with eyes full of grit, your stomach grumbles expectantly while friends and family eat dinners thousands of miles away. The post-flight dehydration seems only to be getting worse, and then The Boss wakes up for a twilight blether about a bad dream.

The combination of jetlag and National Day reminds me how far away I am, both geographically and ideologically. But I took a photo last week in my garden in Scotland, and looking at it brings me a little closer to home. More than the granular quality of the dewdrop or the bloom on the alchemilla leaf, it's that the reflection of the sky is very small. Granted, it would have been a significantly better photo had I had got something clever reflected in the droplet, but today I just need the sky to look small, 'cos we're really not so very far away after all. Majulah Singapura.

To see some photos by people who would definitely have captured something cleverly reflected in that droplet, see Sweet Shot Tuesday.

what I dream about when I dream about gardening

I have a beautiful garden. At least I did. It’s 6724 miles away (according to the internet) and I haven’t seen it for 14 months and three weeks. While I’ve stopped counting the days we’ve been apart, it’s safe to say that not one goes by without my thinking about it.

Scratch that: not a day goes by without my worrying about it.

Distance and time have added a rosy tint to my memories. It was a charming jumble of abundance. A scruffy playground for children where the sun always shone. My garden filled our house with cut flowers and fresh veggies with no apparent effort. Okay that might be pushing it a bit but hey, they’re my thoughts, so I’ll remember a personal Elysium if I want to.

Slightly more problematic is my vision for the future.