Judging by the increased sightings of people wearing Espadrilles in the recent days around Bangkok, I’m guessing that the demand for such footwear is now the “in” thing.

Just seeing it being worn by one of my younger clients the other day  (above picture) brought me back into my teenage years in the early 90s. At that time, Espadrilles were the rage – they were not too expensive and it was the coolest shoes to own once-upon-a-fad. I remember that Esprit was the only shop that had sold them, and they were pretty much out of stock for several weeks on end.

I also remember owning several pairs in different colours. Unfortunately, one of the reasons why I had a few pairs was because, each pair did not last very long. They get soaked really quickly if you stepped into a puddle or get caught in the rain, smelled really bad if you don’t wash them, and when washed too often, they fell apart. When you are a teenager going to school, and you take every opportunity to wear just that one pair of shoes when you are not in uniform, then it would be quite hard to keep such shoes in a wearable condition for long. I fondly recall owning a peach-coloured wedged Espadrilles that comes with what looked like a ballerina-shoes strings which was used to tie around my ankles.

As it comes to light, Espadrilles were once the shoes worn by peasants (source: wiki), but has since gained popularity. The shoes are made of cloth and have flexible soles made of jute rope – the defining characteristics of Espadrilles.

Funnily enough, the older folks who don’t quite agree with our fashion sense at that time called it the silly karang-guni shoes. I guess they were not too wrong about it as the jute rope seems like the kind of material they used to make a gunny-sack, and, in Singapore, we used to havekarang guni men.

To explain a little, karang gunis are essentially rag-and-bone-men, who went door-to-door to collect old newspapers and unwanted items to resell for recycling or reused. They would bring along a karang-guni (aka gunny sack) to hold the newspapers in, haul them on their backs and continue their rounds to do the collection of old newspapers or unwanted items.  That’s the long and short of it.

Karang-guni or not, the shoes are back in fashion. I don’t think they appeal to me anymore at this day and age, but, I don’t necessarily think they look bad.

If, however, I could find me a nice wedged espadrilles, that would be a very different story!

We’ve had Jaime’s 30-minute Meals book for a while now, but we have never really attempted any of the recipes for the following reasons:

• Preparing a 3-course meal in 30 minutes sounds ambitious
• I was not convinced that 30 minutes flat was all it took without resorting to short-cuts and tricks (I am an “all-from-scratch-cook”)
• The recipes seem “so-so” (sorry Jaime)
• Some of the ingredients in the recipes can be hard to find or just too expensive (not that they are expensive ingredients by nature, but because they tend to be mostly imported stuff, and Thailand slaps a huge import tax on imported items)

Then, Jaime’s 15-minute meal book came along as a gift. One of the recipes includes making a Chinese dumpling or Masala Curry as ONE of the meals as part of the set. Seriously?  Dumpling or curry in 15-minutes flat?!

Bite me. I make stir-fried noodles from instant noodles in 20 minutes!

I became an even bigger skeptic.

But then…Silver Bullet loves to challenge himself just to prove that it may just be possible, and so decided to give one of the 30 minutes meal recipes a go. He whipped up 3 separate dishes consisting of Mustard Chicken, Gratin Dauphinois and Mixed vegetables:

Jaime Oliver got by within 30 minutes with a few tricks and tips to save time (some of which I’m already doing), but other than that, I am convinced that he just happens to have a little bit of Flash’s superhero power in him.