Chocolate Yoghurt

There’s no such thing as chocolate yoghurt.

‘I miss chocolate yoghurt,’ she said as she looked at me with a smile. ‘You have yoghurt with fruits and yoghurt with no flavours but here in Hong Kong, you don’t have any chocolate yoghurt. This is why I miss France. If I wanted to have a dessert at home and I wanted chocolate, I would have to eat a cake because you don’t have chocolate yoghurt and chocolate is life.,’ she continued as I cocked my head to the side, smiling at her incredulously.

‘No,’ she quipped before I could say anything, ‘It’s not the same as chocolate mousse or yoghurt drizzled with chocolate. It’s not.’

‘Yeah, that’s why I was thinking too,’ I said as I slowly nodded to a more plausible thought, ‘There’s no such thing as chocolate yoghurt.’

My mind cannot comprehend its existence. I remember eating chocolate pudding cups, the one you buy from das Supermarkt, after a grocery run with the family but not once did I remember any chocolate yoghurt. My love for yoghurt is something similar to my friend’s love for chocolate. I love yoghurt, especially frozen yoghurt. Admittedly, I don’t love chocolate as much as I love yoghurt or ice cream for that matter.

I also love pudding and chocolate mousse and pudding cups. I love dairy or desserts like creme brulee with its hardened sugar shell or a flan or a dessert that’s pillowy and sweet and cold. I know no one who likes eating cake with ice cream or ice cream sandwiched between brioche bread or milk bread or mantou as much as I do.

I think people should try mantou with ice cream inside. It’s forbiddenly delectable and should be considered an occasional treat. Without going any further off track, I could make chocolate yoghurt but will I eat it? It’s so strange of a notion that I’m flabbergasted.

If you know a good brand of chocolate yoghurt that I can have shipped to Hong Kong, let me know and I’ll try it.

Sincerely,

Allison.

A Case for Forever

For someone who is painfully aware of how she has been single and rarely has ever been in a relationship (think of my David Mitchell dramatisation), I sometimes think back to my parents’, my flatmate’s parents and grandparents’ love story. When I do, I can’t help but smile at the thought that it might also happen to me. I mean that I trust that God is good and He has something planned – grand or not – for me in regards to my crazy, lifeless or inexistent love life. This thought fills me with hope despite the fact that my first, and what I thought and hope would be my last, relationship ended unexpectedly and horribly like when the Taal Volcano suddenly started spewing lava and showing rigorous volcanic activity.

Keeping this in mind, I aim to be like Ruth. It is no secret that I never stopped working towards my dream when I was in a relationship and took an almost a year break when I had my heart broken but it is a life-long goal to be better so that the people around me will also be better off. Integrity, after all, is a rare but a highly sought character that people find difficult to practice. It would be hypocritical of me to expect the same thing if I don’t implement it myself. So, while I’m not hitting the ground running, I’ve started and that’s what’s more important. Lastly, have you seen Hercules? Tell me I have high standards but I can sympathise with Meg after rewatching this movie. Imagine sacrificing everything only to be left in the dust.

Regardless, I believe that there’s someone who will love me and fight for me and I, him. Like I said, no matter how imperfect the relationship will be, with all of its ups and downs, I would still consider myself extraordinarily lucky to love and be loved by someone well into our twilight and waning years. If it happened to my parents, my grandparents, my flatmate’s parents and grandparents, I’d like to think it could happen to me no matter how the small the sample size is.

Hopefully this time, it wouldn’t be someone younger than me. Haha or he turns out to be younger than me, he would be someone mature, kind, funny, smart, proactive and independent.

In other news, have you seen Operation Mincemeat? I just watched this on the big screen today and man, the climax was intense! Not knowing anything about this piece of history, I was on the edge of my seat with the characters while we were waiting for the result of the operation. I love war films because I have had a phase where I dip in and out of my history nerd phase. This is highly driven by the fact that my country has been conquered so many times, you can’t help but be intrigued by the motivations behind each political move. For example, did you know that the British conquered the Philippines for almost two years because the Brits and the French were warring? You can read more here.

Also, I’m just a big Colin Firth fan. I loved him in the King’s Speech, the Kingsman Movies, Pride and Prejudice TV Series, Black Adder and dare I mention Mamma Mia?

Operation Mincemeat (2022) Colin Firth was a very busy man in WWII, he did just about everything. – Cedric Coe, YT.

Watch the movie and please let me know what you think!

Sincerely,

Allison.