The annotated budak:

Farmed seafood may sound good from an environmental perspective, but many aquaculture species such as salmon and grouper are carnivores that require feed derived from wild protein sources (herbivorous species that can thrive on vegetable-based feed include tilapia and milkfish). With several kilos of fishmeal required to produce one kg of piscivorous food fish, it's arguable that the impact on marine life from aquaculture may be little better than unmanaged wild fisheries. So it might be a good idea to think again before tucking into that fillet...

At the market and hawker centre I frequent in the morning, there is a little stall that sells bread, both entire loaves as well as portioned slices smothered with kaya (coconut jam), Planta margarine, peanut butter and other artery-clogging spreads. The fresh loaves are lovely, with a firm envelope of brown crust produced by the Maillard reaction. In the heat of the oven, sugars and amino acids on the dough surface react to form caramelised pigments and volatile flavour compounds that produce the characteristic rich 'brown' aroma of baked goodies.

What bewilders me still is that almost every customer at the stall requests that the whole loaf be thoroughly skinned and squared, such that what was once a bulging piece of bread is reduced to a floppy cube nearly half its original size. It's not just the delicious brown crust that is removed in toto; buyers also seem to disdain the 'dome' that's left on the naked loaf and desire its excision. This leaves a whole lot of brown and white scrap lying on the counter and at the back of the stall. Somehow I doubt they use this waste to feed the pigeons. Why are some folks here so averse to eating bread that is not sponge-soft and bleached to blandness that packaged sliced bread companies have to formulate products with all the fibre of wholegrain but the toothless texture of white bread?

Another pet peeve of my duck are escalators and the legion of dolts who can't comprehend the sense of keeping to the left to allow those in a hurry free passage. At the top of one long flight today, I gently asked the auntie in front of me (who was occupying the right side of the step with a companion) to let me pass. Unfortunately, she seemed to panic, first trying to go one step down. And then she tried to go two steps up, frantically twisted this way and that, and finally she sort of fell in a heap on her companion. To which my ~~waxed~~ vexed duck quacked a muttered apology before taking flight to escape the prospect of further calamities.

A new product concept emerged from a conversation today. I call it iCome.