Of Italian cooking and media scrums

Easter weekend is over, and it's back to the grindstone, with two magazines to edit by the 25th...

But at least I caught up on my sleep on Good Friday. The previous day was pretty hectic, as I had my cover and editorial shoot early Thursday morning. Just got the low-res images emailed in by my photographer, and I'm very happy with the way the images turned out. In fact, considering the logistics involved in the out-door shoot - plus the fact that it was quite far away, the chances of things screwing up were high, but in the end, we got a break in the weather, and everything went surprisingly smooth and fast.

Oh, and I finally met my neighbour Sara-Ann, who I've been corresponding on my MoBlog site, although we've only briefly met once. managed to catch up with her over supper at the Hong Kong Cafe at Telok Kurau, a short walk down the street, but talk about a late supper - went to bed at 3am...

Saturday was an unscheduled full day though. Because I 'inherited' the company van from a now ex-colleague, and I was driving it for all of Thursday for the photo shoot and errands, my boss asked me to help him move a couple thousand Xbox games for a 'leilong' sale at Suntec City....

...Hey!? Why is Channel 5 showing a commercial on the upcoming Hi-Five kids concert at 12.20am??

... getting back on track...

Also found out that a friend, whom I haven't seen in months, was in her office on Saturday afternoon, so did a little grocery shopping and made up a nice little 'picnic' lunch for her - Subway sandwich, chips and iced tea, plus an easter egg (she's a chocoholic, so I got her one with truffles inside) and topped off with Ben & Jerry's Strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Had another good 'catch-up' session.

I then spent Saturday evening 'keeping an eye' on a photoshoot conducted by one of my new writers, which dragged on for five hours. Gave her a critique about it at the end, but reckon she did a pretty good job, although she should have kept me informed over a number of things, which I could have then helped her out with.

Sunday was another sleep in day, although I did try another shoot at getting my lasagna receipe right, this time ensuring that the beef sauce had plenty of liquid to soak the instant pasta with.

Here's a pic of my lasagna, before heading into the oven:


And here's one after I took a slice out:


Lovely - got both the meat sauce and the cheese sauce right, and the grilled aubergine gives it a nice contrast. I love cooking great Italian food.. which is why I rarely eat in Italian restaraunts in Singapore.. I think I'm a better cook than the chefs here... ;)

So it's Monday, and my first ever media scrum! Went to the LG 'Family' event, with loads of foreign journalists and lifestyle jurnos swarming, on account of the Korean actress Lee Young Ae making an appearance as the 'spokesmodel' for LG...

Not a situation that tech jurnos are used too... the actual product showcase was basically a non-event.. LG must have spent a bomb on setting up the displays and bringing in Korean girls to act as hostesses, but they totally neglected to even show journalists the displays and talk about some of the products, including a 101 inch Plasma TV.. strange.

Instead, the event turned into a media circus when Ms. Lee appeared, with a horde of jurnos charging to the front, camera flashes blazing. Seriously, it was a real scrum, elbows flying and people pushing and jostling for space, and it's a pity I didn't take a snap of the melee...