Jayeon Bread Part II

Hey, remember the raisin starter I made in my Jayeon bread post? I baked two more items from the book.

This is Hottoek, a Korean pancake. The recipe uses glutinous rice flour. I followed the recipe except for the pine nuts and cinnamon and managed to achieve this. The taste was awesome. The dough was extremely hard to handle. Very, very sticky. Unfortunately, I got sick the next day because I can't eat glutinous rice. It jams up my digestive system. If I were to make it again, I would skip the glutinous rice flour.

I used some of the starter to make pancakes. I wasn't really expecting much because it's pancakes. I added blueberries which kept popping out of the batter. How do you get the blueberries to stay in the batter while it's cooking? The taste was better than expected!

Do you know Peaceful Cuisine from youtube? He is Ryoya, a hipster vegan from Japan. He has a video for raisin starter bread, very similar to Jayeon bread recipe. I used my raisin starter to make his whole wheat bread. Videos here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

 

My results weren't very good. I thought my dough was a bit dry but somehow I failed to address it and popped it in the oven. No surprise the bread looked dry. Taste wise, my Jayeon bread was better.

Remember my Alex Goh's bread I made from Magic Bread? I used my Jayeon starter to bake the sweet buns and to my surprise, the buns turned out a lot smaller. I think the reason is I did not let my dough bulk ferment in the fridge. Anyway, the buns taste very similar to the sweet buns made without the starter. I'm chasing the taste now and if it makes no difference I would not bother going to the trouble of using the Jayeon starter.

After feeding the Jayeon starter a few more times, I realised that the resulting bread tastes sour. It seems the older the starter, the more sour it gets. I decided I didn't like the taste of the sourness so I abandoned my Jayeon bread starter. Maybe later I may go back and explore it some more. Meanwhile my eyes have caught another shiny object. Can you guess what it is?

Eat Drink Sleep

Hello,

If you've read my Star Wars Run post, you might have noticed I've gained weight. In fact, nowadays I dare not weigh myself anymore. But, just in case you think I've been irresponsible and stuffing my face with snacks and whatnot, let me explain. This weight gain is legit. See? I even put it in italics so you know for sure it's legit.

Before I dive into my excuses, I am happy to tell you I was able to exchange my wrong medal for the correct one. So I'm able to get on with my life now.

And I've got my official results from the Star Wars run. I think I did pretty good! Seriously though, I wish I can run faster. Losing some weight will help. Well, currently the situation is more of a stop gaining more weight.

Speaking of which...

Sometime in July 2015, two years ago, I started having headaches at the back of my head, on the right hand side. At that time, the headaches came with my digestive problems which my doctors said could be just one of the many symptoms of gastritis. So when I complained of headaches, the doctors  told me to take panadol (paracetamol). Then in August last year, the thing happened with my gallbladder. So it ended up being removed which turned out to be a good thing because most of my digestive issues disappeared. I thought my headaches would disappear as well. But they returned. At first, slowly, then surely.

This year it got real bad. Sometimes I had them daily. Sometimes the whole day. Sometimes a few hours. It didn't matter. It was hell to me. Some days the headaches disappeared. Like during my Hong Kong trip? Zero headaches. A week after I came back, the headaches returned with a vengeance and would not stop. Every day and every day, they came. Sometimes they spread and that meant I would spend the whole day in bed. Panadols didn't work. The pain just got worse and worse and always the headache started at the same spot - at the back of my head. And all I could do was wait it out. Wait for it to go away.

One day in April I found myself googling for painless way to die. That was when I realised this was serious. I was in too much pain. I couldn't handle it anymore. I made an appointment with the polyclinic to get a referral to a specialist. Surely some doc out there can cure me?

Some days, the Universe is good to me. At the polyclinic, I barely sat down when my number was called. What? No waiting time? My doctor was a sympathetic woman. She listened to my story and finally said I had better see a neurologist. Usually I wait months before I get an appointment to see a specialist. Again, the Universe had my back. I got to see a doctor the following week. What?

The verdict? The doctor said he suspects my headache is due to a deterioration in certain segments of my neck and spine. I had a MRI 10 years ago which he could view. Anyway, the doctor suggests I try a medicine which he said is effective for his patients with similar problems. There are patients with similar problems? Music to my ears. If the medicine does not work, I'll have to go for a MRI. (which I am so hoping to avoid - isn't it like lying in a coffin?)

So I tried the new meds. Thankfully, it's quite inexpensive. The first week I took half dose. It didn't work. The headaches came fast and furious. The first day after my full dose, still the headaches came. After that, suddenly, magically, the headaches stopped. I couldn't believe it myself. I shake my heads vigorously just to be sure the headaches aren't lurking around. Nope. The headaches stayed away. The pain in the neck and shoulders which come with the headaches stayed though. Actually it's almost as if the headaches continue to come but I can't feel them anymore. Occasionally I feel shadows of the headache but they never push through.

To fix my neck issues, I went to a physiotherapy. Unfortunately, the therapist made things worse. So I won't be seeing him again.

I've been taking the meds for a few weeks already and I found myself with all these pain free hours while I'm awake. I was worried one day the meds might stop working so I've been making full use of my pain free hours. I started looking at my bag pattern making. The last time I made a serious attempt to revive my bag pattern making was before I went to the hospital for my gallbladder. I entered the hospital a bag pattern maker and emerged a baker. Yes, that's what happened to me. Maybe I was a bit insane in August last year because when I looked at the stuff I was working on, they were like gibberish. So I scrapped everything and started from scratch. I have to say this. Writing instructions is so much work. The details! If the meds carry on working, who knows? I might even publish a new bag pattern this year.

The one bad thing about the meds? It makes me sleepy. I have to sleep like 12 hours at least for the sleepiness to wear off. If I sleep less than 12 hours, I'm like a zombie all day. Did I say there's one bad thing? There are actually two. One of the side effects of this pill is sudden unexpected weight gain. Not exactly something I'm happy about. It's not that taking the pill itself results in the weight gain. It's that my appetite increases and a lot of food starts to taste good to me. I have all these desires to eat whatever I wanted. It's quite scary because I really don't want to get fat. Anyway, I did indeed gain weight because many times I gave in to my appetite.

Yesterday I went back to see the doctor again and he says I need to try acupuncture since physiotherapy didn't work out. I can't wait to feel needles all over my neck. <shiver> The doctor says I cannot sleep 12 hours a day. He has come up with a solution. I have to take the medication earlier. As simple as that. The doctor also warned me that the possibility of me becoming very, very fat is very, very real. It's one of the side effects of the medication. I am very, very scared. He gave me a strategy to counter my insatiable hunger. Drink water. Thanks doc!

Star Wars Run 2017

I'm not a fan of Star Wars. <faint> I've always resisted Star Wars. The only Star Wars movie I saw was The Force Awakens. I didn't think it was a good movie. Kinda boring. But that's me.

Hubs on the other hand is a Star Wars fan. I was unaware of that when I married him... Anyhoos, as if to make up for my lack of interest, I gave him a daughter who is a legit Star Wars fan. Ha ha.

This year I became quite lazy and barely exercised. I think it was due to lack of signing up for runs. They motivate me to drag my ass to the canal to run my 5km. So when hubs asked me to sign up for the Star Wars run, I said okay. You get to choose between light and dark side. <Apparently, this is a big deal - light side, dark side> I took the light side because of course hubs wanted to be the dark side. I got a green stuffed toy....

 My green toy is called Yoda.

Hubs' black toy is called Darth Vader.

Yoda and Darth Vader are big deal in Star Wars. I think my green toy is cuter.

One thing hubs neglected to tell me or maybe I forgot was the Star Wars run is a night run.

 

What's nice about a night run is you don't have to wake up early. What's bad about a night run is it took place at 7pm so I didn't get to eat my dinner. I was HUNGRY.

Our starting point was at an open space next to Marina Bay Sands. The light side and dark side were separated. Some die-hards came in costumes or held light saber. I don't know how they manage to run in cloaks, knee high boots and one woman in sandals. Very dedicated.

 

The best part of the run was just before flag off, there were fireworks. It really got my adrenaline pumping because I ran unnecessarily fast. So after what felt like 5km, I discovered I had only covered 2km.

The guests at the flag off were Kylo Ren and Chewbaca. One of the reasons I resisted Star Wars movies in the past was credited to Chewbaca. I simply couldn't understand how a monkey like creature was an alien. My mind just refused to accept it. I know. It's a very strange reason.

The Star Wars Run t-shirt I wore was made of a terrible material. I sweated horribly and I am someone who doesn't sweat much. After a few km, I had to tie up my hair in pigtails because I felt myself burning up.

Thanks to my hunger, I ran all the way and did not walk at all. I thought I was giving it my all when into the 6th km, a runner growled at me: "Slow runners, please keep to the left." So humiliating.

Hubs who finished way ahead of me only managed a blurry back shot of me. I'm the one on the right.

I had expected my timing to be a lot worse because I hadn't been training and I have gained weight. I am very pleased with the result. It's more or less the same timing as my first 10km last year.

After the run, I was very disappointed there wasn't any sports drink. Just water and coconut drink. I can't take any coconut products. It's poison to my body. But there was vitagen and yogurt. I was starving.

After the run, hubs insisted on going to the Gardens by the Bay to see the Star Wars exhibits. Except so were thousands of people. We squeezed here and there and managed to see this machine thing. I don't understand it but it made hubs happy. What made me laugh my head off was a female passer by accidentally brushed her arm against hubs' wet and slippery body and she felt so grossed out. She had no idea what she touched so that made it super worse for her.

Finally we headed for the MRT but thanks to hubs we went the super long way and ended up having to take an extremely long escalator. I have a height phobia and nothing scares me more than an extremely long escalator. Of course hubs took a video of my suffering.

When I was on the train home, I looked at my medal and realised the idiots at the Star Wars Run counters at the finish line had given me the wrong medal. I know I went to the right queue because a guy in front of me was told he was in the wrong queue - 4.5km which was next to mine. I looked up to check my queue was the 10km queue. THREE people checked my bib before giving me the medal. I was so tired I simply chucked the medal in my pouch. I wished I had checked. The wrong medal ruined it for me.