notables II ...and on cooking

more food blogs i like:

-gilarumah.blogspot.com
-chubbyhubby.net
-makansakan.com
-joonelovesfood.blogspot.com
-chezpim.typepad.com
-cookingforengineers.com
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she said i have been cooking a lot recently, based on what she has been reading here. told her, not really...coz my hubby has a rating for my cooking ..based on the fact that i seldom cook. and because of that i have decided to continue to record my cooking mini successes and note them so that he remembers that his wife does cook..okay..

i enjoy cooking. coz i like to eat. i can get almost a mini orgasmic reaction to good food.. really. a few friends and of coz the husband have witnessed the toe curling act when i have something divine..hahahahah..and something divine doesnt have to be pricey for me.. once it was while having masala cha with some good dark chocolates..

and i do get upset when i fall sick and my tastebuds go all bland. to make me feel that i am not so sickly and to make me feel more alive, i'll eat stuffs most unsuitable for a sick person..like all the fried stuffs especially.


so does my husband. he likes to eat and he enjoys cooking.. so when we want to prepare something together, take the pizza for example..he will always have some idea of his own on how to do it differently from mine. so we always end up doing two versions of things we cook together. the pasta dishes. the wraps. the fried noodles.

his signature dish by the way is, mee hongkong..it's good. my mum says so too..and when he does this..i am not allowed to help in the kitchen.....it beats me..maybe he has his own secret recipe to guard.

my cooking is still in the experimenting stage so i do have my share of cooking disasters..hence a novice at it. but i perserve on...and try to learn from the mistakes...

have to say too..i can only take to simple recipes..the recipes that have ingredients categorised in bahan A; bahan B; bahan C ....kind of scare me right now...like alot of the recipes in asma laili's books..hahahah...so the stuffs i try out for now are the simple ones.

i especially enjoy baking. not that i am good at it but its therapuetic and comforting ..plus i find baking easier than making dishes. dishes are subject to one's tastebuds and preference( i like my stuffs less salt, less chilli..) and therefore involves agak-ration..

baking is more about ratios, proportions, precision and reactions. somethings i am more comfortable with :)

cozying up

met a friend last night. we decided to spent time at cozy canopy since she had her dinner plans much later and i just had high tea. and i was waiting for phyz. so we had time to while away, so it was snacks and a movie at cozy canopy. we were a lil bit late so there was already another customer who had chosen the movie. but we didnt mind joining in, the couple before us chose wimbeldon which wasnt too bad a show.

cozy canopy@stamfod house

its not actually a cafe. they have really simple snacks like muruku and kerepek ubi.


you get freeflow of these and softdrinks (canned drinks) as well as some hot beverages (tea, latte etc)

+

a movie of your choice (if there isnt anyone in the middle of any movie) which you get to watch in this room with comfy sofas and cushions.

all for price for $10.

it actually can sound a bit silly if you think of it. you can just rent a dvd and get freeflow of the same stuuffs at home..but i think it isnt really too bad a concept. say..you really feel like spending time away from home and want to watch a show whil consuming...limitless amount of snacks and drinks..with friends.

and ohhh... for an additional $5 after the first show you watch...you can actually be at the place the whole day and continue to watch endless amount of movies..(if i heard correctly)

which made us think it's not too bad a place to hide, say if you decide to do a diva act and 'run away' from home or some people..

out of shape

my husband had been asking me if i want anything..honestly honestly...i cant think of anything. materially i dont lust for anything now...really. zilch.


but last night i was standing infront of the full length mirror...and i just knew what i want...hah..nothing that he can do about. but something i have to work on myself....i think i am losing it..i m so out of shape now. gravity isnt getting any kinder..and the article in sundaylife..no i dint read it..though i will look for it now. looking at my posterior..hahah i think i need to work it. the daily climb to the third floor hasnt actually helped much.

therefore i think i am going to sign up for.....

another 10k run at the end of this year!

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not sure if i can blame it on the one thing that inflicted me..the first year-wife syndrome..hahah ..

got me domesticated and all...

made apple crumble over the weekend

go march like a penguin

i had a not so pleasant ending to the week yesterday. was in a long meeting. someone was getting a bit offensive on me...and i was left feeling rther pissed. my friend said i looked obviosly so..she had never seen my face like that..hah

so i wanted to feel better. suggested we go watch a show. it was a toss between perth or the penguins. since it was a depressing week, i said, penguins. at least it will remind me there is life out in the world there apart from deadlines and nitpickers. perth as i had remembered from the review..is rather depressing.



so we went to watch march of the penguins last night. it's a beautiful show on a year in the life of emperor penguins in antartica. the visuals were beautiful. and surprisingly the story was touching. continuing ones lineage has never look so difficult.

it was a beautiful show except for the part that the narratives were in chinese. it was jarringly horrible. i would have prefered to watch it in silence. or perhaps order the american dvd version online.

one critic had said about the show "except for the part on the leopard seal eating up the penguins, penguins are like you and me"

i however beg to differ. experience tells me, we do have these leopard seals among us dont we ? ready to eat us up..

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ate chicken we did however last week.

updated in girlcaneat.

time out

i am so very tired.

but...i have been thinking these last few days...i really do want my cake and eat it too.

how?


i want to have kids. i want to pursue my hobby. i want to travel (another hobby). and i want to study.

possible?

i have a colig. she has two kids. she was diagnosed with cancer. she has been going for treatment... and she just started on her post-grad now. and continuing with her work at the same time.

so it's not impossible rite?


i do have to say..i am not ambituos..e postgrad is not for anything if i do it..the hobbies and the travel..it's self-fulfillment. that isn't that bad is it?

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was on msn chat and possibly a call later with her tonite..it's been so long.



one of my fav fotos of her taken by me at a rooftop somewhere.

my boy

few days back, the PILs cleaned their room and uncovered a box of old albums and photographs. and when the kids came down we had fun showing them the photos and comparing how their umi looked then and now. and also were pleasantly amused at how similar lil aliah and her umi looks.

oooh and i had the pleasure of unearthing his old photos...

my lil boy..he was oh so demure



and his poses ..hmmm...


he was fair and skinny and..and in my heart he was cute..in a pretty boy kuniang kind of way..heheheh



how he has changed.

lost that innocence...but still in my heart.


my photos..online can be found in izad's album

the weekend-aug20

last night i had insomnia again and i had another round of strange dreams. in my dream last night, i lost a tooth. a molar. strange. what does that mean?

i am not having monday blues today. it's because i had it yesteday, the blues. ASB. that's acute sunday blues. it started sometime mid-day and it reared it's ugly head just before dinner. i think i wasnt behaving very nicely. coz the thing about the blues, you tend to feel its all about "me, me, me".

BUT, we did have a good saturday.

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we found that it had been increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves from a life of domesticity and sedentary living.

weekends are spent with the family, parents, nephew, niece and all..


you know, that movie that got everyone excited about a golden ticket..we must have been among the last few to catch it. we decided enuff is enuff, before we really turn to old farts , if we have not already, we have to get out to see the world and the world us..heheh..it helps that this weekend we are based at jellicoe road.

we went to the esplanade on saturday night. we were there to watch m-daudkilau. heheh.. it was beautiful. the performance together with the city skylight as the background was a treat to the senses. and for awhile i saw glimpses of the boy i used to know. not that he changed lah, but its another sort of interaction with his friends.

after that we planned to go retro again (told him i am a child of the 90s) to catch a kepalabesi performance further up the river...but on the way there in the cab, there was a change of plan, so instead of going to watch the man with the golden tooth, we detoured to watch the boy with the golden ticket. so yeah, we finally got to watch the movie!

it was still a rather nice weekend if only it was for a day.

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saya m daud kilau = i m david sparkle

they are really good. only started recording yesterday. so watch out for the cds.

for the kids

i have to say i am quite the traditional person. taking two issues in the news recently, to highlight this :

1. my friend AF has an article in ST under the review section today. its about naming kids. i think i've blog on this before.

and i already told him i consider myself quite the traditionalist when it comes to names. so my thoughts echoed what he wrote.

anyway i was just thinking again,...so i smsed him just now: "hey,in case you want to know, if i have twins i will give them traditional names. one's ketumbar and another jintan".

that's traditional with a twist hor..new-agey..following the trend of stars naming their kids after cooking ingredients or what you can find in the fridge.

2. getting girls into vs..the school. not their new hostel ..in the news lately was the proposal of allowing girls to study in vs making the school co-ed. when i first heard that i thought it was just some silly rumour. until he said it was already in the papers..

i was not from the victorian family, and obviously i was never from a boys school. in fact i am actually from a girls school who simply love the boy(s) from this school. so for that and a few other reasons i do have a soft spot for the school.

plus i am a traditionalist. it's sacrilegous to even consider converting a non-coed school to a co-ed one. especially it being one of our older schools with a tradition. and a reputation.

i know the people of bkt timah and the west probably would not be bothered about this ..but for us people at this corner of the island, it is one of the last non-i boys school around.. (i am thinking far here)

and you know, each school has its own identity. would not want to generalise but i have friends and acquaintances who pass through certain schools, they kind of have the same traits, character and mentalities. which is not surprising given that companies and countries have their own culture, which affect how their people think and work. so do schools affect kids at the stage of development.

and the reason given for the proposal is almost like a dollar and sense decision type of thing. to have girls to improve ranking. almost like why you sell the raffles or certain football clubs. with the lame reason of its just neccessary for survial. was just wondering if it's really a neccessary solution or is it just the easy way out.

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the petition against co-ed: vs.jonaize.com

khun sumpooooorrrrnnnn says......

girl, eat some oysters!

revived and relinked.
girlcaneat.blogspot.com

love is rabun?

over the weekend we did a movie marathon thingie and one of the movies was Rabun by YA. it was a story of a retired couple...behaving like two newly wedded lovebirds. bergeletek together (pinching and poking each other) openly in the living room, berkemban-kemban together and bermandi-mandi together..




and with it also came that inevitable question

no...not that "will we be like that when we are old?"...

seeing the antics of the characters, pak atan and mak enon (?)

the question was, "how come they can be so lovey dovey when they are so old?"

to which he said the answer is in the tittle..

rabun. pak atan is rabun.

tsk tsk..

my $9.90 airfare to phuket

well, okay..with taxes and all..the final price got to be $90 eventually for return fare..but that isnt a bad price either.



that trip to phuket last week, we went there by harimau airways, making that our first trip by a local budget carrier..not the first budget airline trip coz we had taken virginair and airasia before. but both of these were really short ones not lasting more than an hour...so those didnt really count..let me now however recount my 1/1/2 hr trip to phoookett

we booked it around early july. yupz, quite early coz they had a promo rate then (oooh, but we met shafi and sham onflight and they had booked their flight since march!)..it also helps that you have like-minded friends. dor alerted me on it, so we booked ours shortly after she booked hers.

a few things about it being budget..to save cost, they have no customer service number..actually they do have a phone service. but it's one way, meaning they can contact you but if you try to connect to the same number again it wont connect.

i learnt so when on the day of departure, there was a delay due to technical faults! and i kept missing calls from a particular no..which was unconnectable when i tried calling back. they eventually got me but i got to know of the delay first through dor.

so first thing there was the delay. 2 hours of it. but it was fine with us coz we had things to catch up here.

the plane we got onto was airbusA320. i have travelled in small planes, the smallest was a pratt&whitney (the ones you can see the propeller blades), and let me just say i dont like small planes. any turbulence, and or changes in altitude are visibly felt, even the slightest. particularly somehow when they are landing, its always kind of weird. i remembered one gliding for ever so long and another one kind of did sharp turns of altitude. makes me edgy.

this lil plane we took last week sets new grounds for me on travel in a small plane..when it was taking off, it made the loudest ever whirring sound.geez..dor was looking at me across the aisle and going something like "what the f****!" coz it was really loud, and not anything we had ever heard before and we thought the plane was just going to crash. but the stewardess were cool (not showing peculiar behaviour like the MAS ones that felt to their knees and started praying on that sydney flight) so we pretended to be cool as well..the noise went on for a very long time until after it was a few minutes after cruising.

the rest of the trip was fine for me, but not really for phyz, his 6 feet frame felt kind of squashed in the very compact seating arrangement. they packed the seats to the max, the seats were very close.

and the menu was also cute. they dont serve food but you can order from the menu. it was cute because it was just a piece of typed word document and xeroed and reused..hahaha kind of reminds us of the photocopied lists and notes in schools.


we just had to order snacks and drinks inflight. coz it was boring, with no entertainment..hahah and see what my friends were doing...




the hols would start when we land in phuket, not while airborne..so they were catching up on some work there!



have to say, so was i!

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in conclusion, the flight was alright except for the unnerving whirring. the compact sardine packing seating was fine given that it was only around 1 1/2 hr flight. i would however if i can pay a bit more to be in a more comfortable flight for anything longer than that.

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we enjoyed the trip very much.

at $90 for airfare, that's at least 50% savings for our airfare.
we also got a really good deal at a fantastic place in phuket at 75% off published rates.

like what some people say, it's not how much you spend, it's how much you save ;)

surin loving

pizza-ria

another adventure in testing testing masak...
last week we did it at jellicoe, this weekend at BG

we have to start with the easy stuffs..esp at BG


TKK gave us the inspiration and a craving last friday.

we prefer ours in thin crusts..so he asked if i could do the thin crust from scratch..told him the yeast will make me scratchy..no time..

i suggested instead, a short visit to MC, where we got our ready made crust and ingredients

the family was in. so we decided to make 2 versions. each 12 inch wide. ooh..plus two kiddy ones for the kids.


he goes for the meat




i would love to have mine salmon with capers.. but instead i went green. one of my favourites; seafood with spinach

the seafood hidden under the greens there..



i actually wanted the greens raw, just sprinked on the top. but that would be a bit freaky for some.

would be nice to have em done in a wood-fired oven..but at BG, the BB would do just fine..




guess which one the family prefered?



suprisingly, ehmmmmm... my spinach version!

dr dr: personal ramblings

1. about that visit to the doc last night.

i did go to the family gp clinic..but the usual gp guy wasnt there...he was err.. next door doing aesthetic laser treatment (yes!). so i was tended by another doc. he was younger than my gp, and i thought he looked familar.

today in the cab, it suddenly hit me..'ack! he was from my college!'

but i think he is a senior.

it is still kind of weird.



2. we have one dr friend. he came to our wedding. dr S. we know him from way back.

i like to tell the story to the young 'uns about him. yes, he's the story of why you should follow your heart and not go for 'brand' names.

if he had opted to stay (he could) and to stick to the 'brand' he wouldnt even have a chance to study medicine in NUS.

but dr S...i would never ever want to be his patient. not that he is not good..

it's just that we know him too well personally.


3. i could have told the young 'uns about the other smart guy who wasted his time in medical school..

...should have gone the other side? everyone knows he is much better at something else. not just much better, but brilliant. that's where his heart is.


4. there were occasions when i wondered, what if i had decided to choose triple sciences in college.

i didnt back them, becoz i hated memorising. i hated memorising because i was too good at it!

i got second highest in the level for history in sec 2. but i tot my brains was going to pop remembering all the historical details.

i chose geography as my humanities in sec 3 becoz it was the most common sensical and didnt require much memorising. but i stuck with my triple pure sciences until the 'O's....

by then i was fully aware of my mugger capabilities...if there was soo much to memorise, i will try my very damn hard..

but i didnt really want to work that hard by then lah..
so i opted out of taking biology.

and took economics instead.

i got even lazier when it was time to choose the course in uni.

i chose something with very minimal need for memory work and writing...

only thing was, it turned out to be one damn siong course.


5. my favourite dr online is still, dr ain.

http://screamingsonic.info

not so silent *sighs*

*sigh*

1. a few things on the blogsphere that got my attention recently seem to be proving sumi right.

i think it is childish. and only the ignorant will be so stupid and attention seeking as to write such things.

i know that i know more on what we are about than anyone can say, so i am not riled. anyway, there will always be.......


and things like this should be best ignored?


*sigh*

2. i got a health scare the other night. the type which you have heard could mean something else or nothing at all.

so i went to the family gp after work today. his diagnosis was, inconclusive.

and i will need to go for further examination next weekend.

dont ask me what it is. i dont feel too worried about it right now. telling more people about it will actually make me more worried, seeing their response.

we are quite cool about it now. perhaps because i think i am on the right side of statistics? perhaps there is just so much going on in life now that i am taking things a day at a time.


*sigh*

3. cant wait for next week.

blogging (or the net) is toxic or so says S/u/m/i

i have a fren called sumi. but the sumi above is not my fren sumi. its that ms tan in ST..she's yet another one in the daily paper that has something to say about blogs. another one from the few others i have read in the past few weeks, writing in their personal coloumn about the net, specifically on blogging.

already i find it a bit tiring and BORING that mainstream media is analysing the blogging world and perhaps overanalyzing. what is even worse is that some reports just take off quotes from blogs for opinions on certain issues. is that lazy or uncreative?

anyway sidetrack..i found the blog of TT. a retired media person, except for, i think her contributions to D/A/R/E. TT, i had read her stuffs since her features writing days in one of the local mags to her rise as CE in another. now she is retired. more settled it seem, and 'holier'.

i liked her articles in D/A/R/E, except for the parts when she start spewing things from the bible. i guess that's her inspiration. but i just didnt like them there naturally. you read an interesting article about life and inspiration, enjoying it.. and then out of the blue some quote from mathew or watever crops up. i cant help but wonder if there is something sublimal going on there. puts me off abit.

here's TT's blog.
http://threezframe.blogspot.com/