prawn and mussel medley: international edition

D's been busy so I've been gladly taking over chef duties. Life during your 'gap year' is limbo when you are researching/applying for your next course and have no idea about the outcome, you're waiting for your work visa in the meantime and . . everything is a big fat question mark. Which means I try my best to stay in lest I go out and spend money, as distractions abound with gorgeous shoes and clothes everywhere-- you will always want new clothes and re-define 'want' as 'need'. So I end up thanking heavens that I have an aesthetically-pleasing lair, living off my savings. . and basically I've never felt so financially-challenged before my whole life. Sometimes I wake up and think, "Hey, when in my whole life have I ever been so free before?" I worked insanely hard during my undergraduate years (otherwise I'll probably be starving now and selling my shoes) and it feels odd to neither have class nor work. There are moments when I bemusedly think, "Oh, is this how a Trust Fund Kid or Kept Woman feels? Wake up, do no work, no nothing". It feels odd. Which also gives me time to cook. And therefore, the concoction of two recipes based on a prawn and mussel medley-- one Italian, and one Indonesian.


*On a side note, the header photo is entirely irrelevant but just another of D's breakfasts the first day I woke up in Brighton; I realise I have no photos of me cooking over in this gorgeous kitchen but rather only those of me cooking in my not-very-pretty Cambridge dorm kitchen.