My default CNY conversation has been:

Other person: Eh, Happy New Year! Wah, never take leave ah? So hardworking? (quick, say I'm hardworking also)

Me:  Happy New Year! No la, where got hardworking? You also wat...

Other person: *syok sendiri*

Today, my panties abit tight, so I tried to be anal.

Other person: Eh, Happy New Year! Wah, never take leave ah? So hardworking? (quick, say I'm hardworking also)

Me:  U-huh.. *cucuks beverage dispenser* *whirrrr*

Other person: *muka tak syok*

Yea, my CNY sucks. So sucky I've been drowning my sorrow experimenting with food. Today, I created a new recipe over dinner. It's called black pepper capsicum herbed chicken. Wow - so long a name? Yea. we could call it 'poco rosso di rotini formagiatta con bacon-bitte della Toscana' too if you want (go ahead, google it).

Here's the recipe. Don't ask me for measurements. Pros don't measure (stoic and square moled lips as I say this).

1. Finely chop onion and garlic. Sautee over olive oil. Don't have to be virgin, unless you're into that sort of thing.

2. Throw in yellow and green capsicum (I never did eat capsicum but YP has since 're-educated' me. Mmm).

3. Dump in chicken breast. Left breast is more tender. Check out the fibrocystic breast tissue survey in Google Scholar.

4. Oh, did I mention that you need to marinade the chicken? Yea. Massage oyster sauce, sugar, black pepper and a dash of vinegar into the meat the night before. Please resist the temptation to lick your fingers.

5. Cook under MAXIMUM fire. Must got steam come out from wok. There's nothing more pathetic than stir frying with low heat.

6. After all sides of chicken appear cooked, rinse the bekas containing the marinade with a little bit of water and pour it into the wok. Lower heat and cover.

7. Go fiddle with your cat/dog/leftover right-breasted chicken for 3 minutes.

8. Close fire. Serve.

There are two curses to noob cooks. The first is over-estimating the amount of ingredients you need, and ending up with a wok more crowded than Sunshine Market on CNY's eve. The second is the paranoia of super-cooking meat because if you should (crom forbid), bite into any raw part, you'll get infected with the T-virus and turn into a Resident Evil zombie. See, the one tip I want to share about cooking chicken, is that you don't have to cook it all the way. Chicken has the 'ability' to continue cooking itself even after you remove it from the fire. So really, you shouldn't have to cook it till it's rock hard. But do use your own judgment la (yea, I learned this from the same place I learnt the word snarbering).

 (And if you do turn into a Resident Evil zombie, sorry lo).