Too little, too late.

I've only discovered this after everything has taken place, and it leaves me with a sinking feeling in my gut. I was completely ignorant about the whole fiasco until I was going through some blogs that I like to read, when I realised what has happened. And I feel sick.

Three words: Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi.

I won't go into the details as others have already done so. These sites offer much more facts and details and have their opinions stated much more lucidly. I don't know what to say. I just feel very sick and sorry that a young life was snuffed out just like that. How can capital punishment be meted out so brutally, carelessly, unfairly? It's criminal.

*Grief*

Wet, wet, wet

On Saturday, Intuition and I went to the Singapore Zoo for an outing, since he had access to cheap entrance fees thanks to his company =) We were looking forward to it for we really enjoyed our last visit there, which was about 1.5years ago. However, it rained, rained and rained last Saturday, which was a real dampener (hur hur hur) to the whole experience. It really sucked for photo-taking too. Nonetheless, here are some shots from that wet, wet, day, with my wet and scraggly animal models =D Enjoy =)

My New-Old House

Ever since last Sunday, my house has been in an utter state of disarray. My mum wanted to repaint the whole house, since the last time we did that was a good 6 years ago. Actually, the house looked fine to me, but she wanted to repaint it, and my brother and I get some say as to the colours we wanted, unlike 6 years ago, so it was fine with us =)

It started even before last Sunday, in fact. Sometime in Dec 2006, my ambitious mother wanted to repaint the ceilings of the toilets and the kitchens within 1 day, and wanted my brother and I to stick around the house during the last week of 2006 to help with repainting the entire house. Well, that didn't happen, because she got caught up with work and I got caught up with holidaying :P She spent that ENTIRE day painting the toilet and kitchen ceilings.. no mean feat, considering that we've got 3 toilets in the house, she's working ALL ALONE and it's the blooming ceiling we're talking about! Painting ceilings are notoriously difficult O_o She almost fell off the ladder at one point, and there was absolutely no one at home! Chided her for that!

So last Sunday, we finally got around to painting the rest of the house. Initially my mum was adament that she could do it by.her.self. but after a while, she realised that it was indeed a gargantum task and everybody needed to chip in so that we can get the house repainted before the end of 2007 ~_~b . . .

We painted the ceilings on Sunday (and therefore I had to take Monday morning off.. too tired lah..), bought the paint for the rest of the house on Monday, painted the bedrooms on Tuesday (Intuition and I took the afternoon off from work to paint my room! So nice of him!), painted the dining room and hall on Wednesday, and last night, we finally finally painted the stairwell and living room. And cleaned up the humongous mess at home. And fixed up the curtains. Phew!

So now, my house has gotten a face-lift and we all have got pretty new curtains and pretty new colours for our rooms =) My room is now a sweet purple, my brother's a cool blue, the dining room a cheery green and the living room a restful light brown. I like my pretty, new-old house! ^-^

Banana Bread recipe

And since I'm going about stealing recipes off Pauline's My Space (refer to previous post for the stolen rum-cake recipe), I might as well snitch this one for future reference =) It looks really easy. I've not tried my hand at baking yet, but one fine day I certainly intend to, and when I do, I know where I can start =)

Banana bread
mix first
3/4 cup butter
2 eggs
part 1/2 cup brown sugar

then add in
2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

at the same time mash the bananas (about 2 1/3 cups), add in the remaining sugar (walnuts and raisins optional)
then add the mixture to the batter

bake for 60-65 min with 350F or 175C

How difficult does that sound? Not hard at all! This I'll bake, one fine day... Just you wait, Banana Bread, just you wait!

The Laughing Dinner Party and a Rum Cake Recipe

On Saturday, some of my (definitely quirkie) friends came over for dinner. It was a gathering of ex-colleagues and some of us have not met each other before, except in the online world. The chemistry was explosive and even before meeting up on the actual date, there were a lot of strange online exchanges going on via emails :P

We didn't have get to talk very much as most of the time we were laughing til our sides hurt :D It was a great evening of good food and company. Innocent words and phrases such as "Ahmad", "hotmail" (don't ask), "spicy" and "making space for rum-cake" effectively stopped us from eating as we laughed and laughed and laughed. We had to observe a minute of silence so that we can simply concentrate on eating our pasta, but even then, it wasn't a very silent observation :P I think the fumes from the red wine got to us while our stomaches are empty :P

The Mr Bing and Ms Krong talk show that evening was hilarious, hilarious, hilarious. It's the best comedy show in town, unfortunately tickets are not available to the general public :P No pictures are posted here to protect the innocent (i.e., the rest of us, except Ms Krong and Mr Bing...) If you're looking for entertainment acts, look no further.. just don't do it during dinner, for no one will be able to get a bite of food into their tummies!

We all laughed and ate to our hearts content =) Everyone brought something that evening, and all the contributions were great. After dinner, we had a round of Balderdash and laughed even more. If laughing can extend someone's life, we were saying that we must have had our lives extended by a week at the end of the evening! What a night!

The Menu:
Food:
Salad, made by Sheena.
Chicken wings, contributed by Bing Ren.
Meatball pasta, cooked by Yours Truly.
Rum cake, baked by Pauline.
Beverages:
Sparkling fruit juices, contributed by Ee Yuing.
Red wine, contributed by Gwen.
Mango tea, contributed by Yaling.
Others:
Paper cups n plates, by Matt.
Balderdash, by Matt.

I shall post the recipe for Pauline's rummiliciously delicious rum-cake. It's divinely delicious. My family had some of it for dessert on Sunday and were immediately huge fans of it! I have a tonne of superlatives for the cake, but never mind, here's the recipe. Go try it out! You won't be disappointed! And don't skimp on the rum!!

Rum Cake :):):)
1 cup pecan or walnut (toasted)
18 1/2 ounce yellow cake mix
3 3/4 ounce instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 bacardi rum
2 min high speed
bake for 1 hour 325F

Glaze 1 stick of butter, 1/4 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup rum
melt butter then add water+sugar
boil for 5 min
remove from heat and stir in room temp

The best way to spend a Monday morning

This morning, I tried to wake up many many times but I just couldn't bring myself to leave my warm bed in the cool of the morning. In the end, I decided that resistance was futile and there were many other things waiting for me to do instead of going to work this morning, so I took a half-day's leave =) I was so glad I did.

The sky was a clear blue and it was breezy. Singapore just experienced many weeks of rain, and the weather is just beginning to warm up, so it's not blazing hot, but a comfortable warmth that is perfect for a 9am walk. I went for a long walk with my dad and we chatted comfortably while he did his exercise. We went for breakfast (and discovered a great place selling hand-made paus!) and walked home.

It's not often that I can spend time with my parents so liesurely. When I was in school, it wasn't cool to be hanging out with your parents. When I just started work, I didn't have time for this either. Furthermore, dad was always away when I was younger, and we never really got to know him as a person until his work started to slow down and he started spending more time at home. That was when my brother and I truly got to know him as a person and as a father (better late than never!)

I'm happy and contented these days. My work allows me to wake up later than usual, and travelling to my office takes a mere 15min, which allows me to spend precious time doing other things, such as having breakfast with my dad or coming home earlier to cook or to simply rest. The pay may not be great, but it's decent and I get to save a lot on transport and food, so that works out well for me. Plus I've got great colleagues and truly believe that the work my organization does is meaningful, which is great.

Another reason for this peace and contentment is because the key relationships in my life are doing really well these few months. I've got great parents and I know I'm truly blessed because there are many, many broken homes out there. There are many examples of poor dads in the lives of the people around me, so i realise how truly fortunate I am to be able to enjoy spending time with my dad, something I won't be able to do so freely and easily when I have my own family next time. Just this reason alone totally justifies me taking the morning off =)

May there be many more Monday mornings like this one! It certainly takes away the blues of a Monday.

Perfect Substitute #2: Ice-Cream

I love ice-cream. During my childhood, I thought Marigold was the way to go, until Swensons and Haagen Daz came along and spoilt me in my adolescent years. In my college days, after I've contented myself with the flavours of Haagen Daz, I read about Ben and Jerry's success in my Marketing textbooks and wondered what exotic brand of ice-cream is this to have taken the American market by storm?

When I was about to graduate, I started noticing this colourful pint sized packages in Carrefour and NTUC--the legendary Ben and Jerrys! Plus my friends treated me to a sinful gorging on Bovine Divine (or was it Divine Bovine? Whatever...). Ever since then, I've been a faithful follower of their sweet, sweet ice-cream stuffed with chunks of chocolate chips, assorted nuts and sweets. After a while though, its richness and sweetness became too much for my palate. That was when I discovered Tom's Palette.

Tom's Palette was discovered during our rounds of walking around aimlessly while paktoh-ing. We were going through Shaw Towers to get to Suntec when this little ice-cream palour grabbed our attention. Home-made ice-cream? Never tried that! Must try it one day... And so we did. Boy, were we ever so glad we did! The service there is friendly and polite. The stall owners were always happy to let people sample as many flavours as they liked, and that is a real treat, considering the variety they have! The range of flavours are so special... There are the standard staples such as vanilla, chocolate, coffee. There are also the exotic ones such as Lavendar, Chrysenthemum, Soursop, etc... My personal favourites are the boring predictable staples, but Tom's Palette does it so well, these aren't boring anymore! The chocolate ice-cream is rich, creamy and chock-full of bitter sweet chocolate goodness. The vanilla isn't plain at all--it's simple and elegant, flecked with black vanilla seeds (they use REAL vanilla beans for their production, not just any el cheapo vanilla chemicals!). The rum and raisin? Oh you can get drunk with pleasure on that alone!

It's not just the ice-cream that gets the stamp of quality on it; even their ice-cream cone is delicious! They go through the trouble of making their own ice-cream cone! Is that just SO GOOD or what! Seriously, it's worth making a trip down to Shaw Centre just to eat the ice-cream cone. It's crispy, fragrant, freshly baked and just sweet enough. When you've got one of their uber generous scoops of ice-cream on that cone, I tell you, you're a happy camper.

I've been meaning to post pictures of this ice-cream for the longest time, but whenever I'm faced with one of their creations, I simply forget about the camera sitting in my bag and go straight down to eating it. Anyways, today I didn't forget! Here are some pictures of this perfect substitute. Please, don't bother going down to Haagen Daz or Ben and Jerry's anymore, when you can get this home-made goodness at $2.80 for a small cup. For an uber generous double scoop ice-cream cone, it's but $4, which will hardly dent your wallet. Just make sure your stomach has enough space for that rich, sweet, creamy goodness.

1 more reason to smile... or is it?

Been meaning to post these pictures for a while =)



This is a peace-offering from Shortstop who have used my Cranium (the board game, not the body part) more often than I have, and have discovered that the play-dough is mouldy O_o Also, read that little note there that says "Life can be sugary sweet... but at times it can also get chili hot!" ? A story of deception lies behind the kind words...

One fine day, as we sat through a seminar on the DaVinci Code and how many of the theories are pure fabrication, people started to pass sweets around to keep ourselves awake. So little Shortstop here passed me a little red candy, telling my friends that it's specifically for me (and they could take any other candy, BUT that red one). Unsuspecting me took it gratefully and popped it into my mouth.

When the flavour finally registered with my brain, I couldn't reconcile it. It was flaming hot!! But candy should be sweet, no? Something doesn't add up here.. Candy = sweet. This candy = VERY HOT. At this point, Shortstop was red in her face trying not to laugh (we WERE in the middle of a seminar!), and I was red in the face because MY MOUTH WAS BURNING UP!! Ptui!! spat it out and went to the washroom to rinse out my mouth which was still BURNING. (cue in Smeagol: eeet burrrnnssss.... eeeet burrrrnnnsssss!!)

Life lesson here? Beware of the Shortstops in your life, or they may just pull a fast one on you. (grrrr.)

MBTI Test: I'm an INTP

It says so here. I didn't think it was very true until I read it through a few more times, then I started to be persuaded that yup, I am rather like that (the bolded parts are when it's so me that I can no longer be in denial):

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them. (Note: When my brother read that, he affirmed this with a resounding "YES, that's you." I think my dad called it Day-Dreaming And A Lack Of Awareness :P)

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to most anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves. (Note: Which is why I quite enjoy languages but am a crappy debator.)

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems--potentially any complex system. INTPs thrive on systems. (Note: How shall I explain myself here? I do poorly in school for my maths and my line of work is more creative than systematic. However, I identify with the penchant towards logic and systems, for that's how my mind works. I pick up things like languages and software knowledge through such a mental process. My poor maths grades were more often than not a result of my laziness :P So far, for my major exams, I've aced my maths.) Understanding, exploring, mastering, and manipulating systems can overtake the INTP's conscious thought. This fascination for logical wholes and their inner workings is often expressed in a detachment from the environment, a concentration where time is forgotten and extraneous stimuli are held at bay. Accomplishing a task or goal with this knowledge is secondary. (Note: I find this quite true. Often times when studying, I wander off and read up on topics that interest me, but are of no relevance to the exams, and as a result, the task / goal is rather poorly accomplished =P )

INTPs and Logic -- One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic -- apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context.

Games NTs seem to especially enjoy include Risk, Bridge, Stratego, Chess, Go, and word games of all sorts. (I have an ENTP friend that loves Boggle and its variations. We've been known to sit in public places and pick a word off a menu or mayonnaise jar to see who can make the most words from its letters on a napkin in two minutes.) The INTP mailing list has enjoyed a round of Metaphore, virtual volleyball, and a few 'finish the series' brain teasers.

Feeling tends to be all or none. When present, the INTP's concern for others is intense, albeit naive. (Note: True, too. I find it hard to develop a genuine concern and affection towards people, so often my emotions are rather detached and nonchalent. But when it finally does happen, it's intense.) In a crisis, this feeling judgement is often silenced by the emergence of Thinking, who rushes in to avert chaos and destruction. In the absence of a clear principle, however, INTPs have been known to defer judgement and to allow decisions about interpersonal matters to be left hanging lest someone be offended or somehow injured. INTPs are at risk of being swept away by the shadow in the form of their own strong emotional impulses.

Famous INTPs:
Socrates
Rene Descartes
Blaise Pascal
Sir Isaac Newton

Try the test here!

PS: I also love to play Sudoku =)

Mee Siam Mai Hum Recipe

For Stephanie and Samuel's sake, I have decided to get off my lazy butt and to organize and transcribe the recipe of my grandmother's superb meesiam. This is my first attempt at a recipe that is more complicated than "Chop. Stir fry. Add sauce. Boil noodles. Toss.", so do bear with me! If you need visuals for the cooking process, most of it is up on my previous post =)

Mee Siam Mai Hum Recipe For 8-9 Greedy Folks

Sweet sour spicy savoury soup
Ingredients:
- 2 packets of tamarind (a.k.a. asam)
- 2 large (peeled) white onions
- 1 packet of chilli paste
- 1 tablespoon of salted soya beans
- 1 packet of rock sugar
- 4-5 stalks of lemongrass
- a handful of dried shrimps
- 1.5 packets of (peeled) shallots, 5 candlenuts (a.k.a. buah keras, not bacarrats, which is a game), a tablespoon of belachan
- 1 packet of tau-pok

Steps:
1. Soak the tamarind in enough water to cover over. Use your hands to rub off all the soluble stuff off the tamarind. That's what grandma did, anyways. Drain and throw away the tamarind seeds.
2. Add 1 tablespoon of salted soya beans and 1 packet of rock sugar to the tamarind suace. Add water to fill the pot (refer to picture in the previous meesiam post). Set to boil.
3. Add the lemon grass into the boiling put.
4. Blend the dried shrimps.
Blend the shallots, candlenuts, belachan.
Heat the wok and add oil. Fry the blend of shallots, candlenuts and belachan with the packet of chilli paste. When fragrant, add the blended shrimp paste. Divide to 2 portions: 2/3 for the soup and 1/3 for the beehoon. Add the 2/3 portion to the soup.
5. Blend the white onions. Add to boiling pot.
6. Rinse and squeeze the excess oil off the tau-pok. Throw into the boiling pot.
7. Turn off the heat and let it simmer for another 20min or so. According to my meesiam consultant, a good meesiam sauce is one that is "Sour, sweet and spicy enough." So make sure it puckers your mouth and burns your throat as you swallow!

Yummy beehoon
Ingredients:
- 2 packets of 400gm beehoon
- 400gm of beansprouts (or as much as you like)
- 50c worth of jiu3 cai4
- 1/3 of the stir-fried chilli paste+blended stuff(leftover from the stock)

Steps:
1. Soak the beehoon in water until it's no longer brittle.
2. Wash the beansprouts and chop the jiu3 cai4 to inch long lengths.
3. Heat wok, add oil, fry chilli paste + blended stuff.
4. Add in the beehoon. Fry, fry, fry... Make sure the chilli paste is evenly spread out among the beehoon =)
5. Add in the beansprouts. Fry, fry, fry...
6. Drizzle in 3/4 cupful of water to the beehoon, so that it won't be so dry. Drizzle in soy sauce to taste. Fry, fry, fry...
Meesiam consultant complains that many stalls outside don't bother frying the beehoon--they simply add chilli oil to make the beehoon look reddish, but frying it adds that much more flavour to it.

Meesiam additionals
Boiled eggs, boiled prawns, sliced fish-cakes, lime to taste. Add as much as you like to your helping of meesiam! Use the best and freshest ingredients! Meesiam consultant says not to skimp on the quality of the prawns: buy expensive ocean prawns if you must! Otherwise it won't taste fresh and springy and will likely turn to mush as you try to slice them. Words of wisdom indeed.

There you've got it. If you need to clarify anything, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll call my meesiam consultant and get back to you when I can ; )

Economical Date Ideas

Usually my income comes in at the end of the month. Last month being the month of Christmas and all, our pay came in earlier, which was good for the Christmas season, but it also means a long wait for the next paycheck. It's now mid-Jan, my Jan income is not coming in until the end of the month and my bank account is running dangerously low. Life still goes on whether my income comes in or not, and expenses are still incurred daily. Dating still goes on, too! I still have to meet Intuition and we still need to go out and eat and be entertained. Hence, I shall list down my economical date ideas so that we can still have a good time even if my bank account is drying up!

1. When the weather permits, go Marina Bay and fly some kites.
Intuition was badgering me for the longest time to go fly kites, but I've always been finding excuses to not go. Finally, I gave up and gave in grudgingly. I was pleasantly surprised, though! The weather was very fine that day--no rain, windy, and not too hot. We took a while to coax the kite up in the sky, but running about crazily in the field and tugging at the reluctant kite against the wind is all part of the fun. After that, you can lie down in the field and lazily watch the other novices try to get their kites up, while keeping an eye on your dot in the sky, making sure that another kite doesn't sabotage your line, or making sure that your kite is always just *a little bit* higher than your neighbour's :P Friendly competition; ) Kites are sold at $3.50 for the basic ones, which is good enough for me.

2. Go to the museums instead of to the movies
Movies are crazy expensive nowadays. At $9.50 per ticket on weekends, a pair of tickets can set you back by $19, which just makes me want to gnash my teeth, stomp my feet and throw something at those smart-alecs who have unanimously decided to raise the prices of movie tickets. GRRRRR. But thankfully, there are museums! Museums are more educational, cheaper and much more interactive. At the movies, all you do is sit and stare at the screen. The only interaction is probably when a scary scene comes on, then you squeeze your boyfriend's arm until the blood circulation gets cut off. So anyways, at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), admission is free on Friday evenings! Woot! and in Chinatown, there is the Chinese Heritage Centre (i think that's what it's called). Entrance fees for that is $8, but if you've got any card with any local bank (eg, an ATM card with DBS or UOB), you get in at half-price ($4!), which means that you both get to tour this museum at roughly the same price as ONE movie ticket! It's hardly boring, especially if you're a history or an art buff =) Or are dating one ; )

3. Enjoy a great, sumptious meal--at a hawker centre!
Singapore as a food paradise--not if you go food courts, Cafe Cartel, NYDC, MacDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Pasta Mania etc! These places serve terrible, terrible food! If you're a foodie like we are, you can easily enjoy a great meal at a nice hawker centre for a fraction of the price you pay at these overpriced yuckyfood establishments. Foodies on a budget should make a bee-line to some of the good hawker centres in your area and order or-lua, cheng teng, hokkien mee, soya bean milk and barbequed chicken wings and still have cash leftover for your bus ride back home ;)

4. Al fresco (and el cheapo!) dining
So maybe you're feeling peckish for some dessert. And since you're on a budget, you don't want to spend $6 on a cake and another $7 for a drink and shout to make yourself heard at a crowded, noisy and pricey cafe. Hardly a romantic date, either! What we do is that we go to the nearest supermarket (Carrefour or Cold Storage, since we're in town!) and pick out a dessert (yoghurt, perhaps? or a small tub of ice-cream) and a drink (a bottle of Pokka flavoured tea?) for a grand total of $5. Then we make our way out of the shopping mall and sit at one of the many benches that are outside. For example, at Suntec City, there are plenty of benches outside the mall. At Plaza Singapura, there is a quiet little park just across the road. You get to go far from the maddening crowd and enjoy a little peace and quiet by yourselves.

5. Go to the library
Both Intuition and I like to read, so ever since the National Library opened in town, we have been frequenting it. We will park our butts on the sofas and pile up the comic books next to us and read, read, read... until it is announced that the library is closing and could we please leave within the next 10 minutes etc. Nice =)

6. Take a hike
Well since I've talked mostly about eating on dates, here is a healthy activity that won't cause anyone to gain any pounds, unless you're talking about muscles. Take a hike at the Bukit Timah nature reserve, or a nice long walk along MacRitchie's tree-top walk. Or you could just walk along the many national parks that dots Singapore. There is Fort Canning, which is serene and pretty during the day time. There is also Botanical Gardens which has just been renovated. Of course, Mr Sunshine has to be out on that day, rather than Miss RainClouds =)

Of course, if you have great company and great conversation, who needs to go anywhere to be entertained? Just sit down somewhere and talk til the cows come home =) Anyways, if you have other ideas that are economical and fun, please drop me a comment and share it with me! Muchos gracias =)

Grandma & Mee Siam Part Deux

On 6 Jan 2007, I spent the first Saturday of the New Year with my grandmother, learning how to cook her meesiam. I went with her to the wet market at 6.30am and spent that morning learning how to manoeuvre the trolley that she uses. One thing about shopping with your grandmother is that people will defer to her (and therefore to you too!). They'll be like "Aunty, you go first!" Wet market preferential treatment ;) Not bad at all!

My Meesiam Morning
We plunged right into the work after we came back from breakfast and worked non-stop from 8:30am - 11:30am. Making meesiam is a lot of work @_@


My first job is to peel shallots. I just spent a lot of time peeling this 1.5 packet of shallots ~_~ My grandma said that at the rate I'm going, I can only start cooking after lunch time T_T


What became of a nice plump white onion and the shallots I painstakingly peeled =) My grandma blended the shallots with balachan and this white-nut thingey she called baccarat, though I'm not sure what it is. She also blended a handful of dried shrimps.


She added the blended shallots and white onion into this pot of simmering broth. There is 1 packet of chilli paste, 2 packets of asam paste, 50c worth of lemongrass, 1 packet of rock sugar and other things I'm sure I've forgotten simmering in there. She used the dried shrimps and some chilli paste to fry the beehoon. No photos of those, though!


Hard boiled eggs. See, I get all the important roles. I peel the shallots and peel the eggs. Notice how half of the egg-white came off with the shell! My grandma shook her head and tutted when she saw the eggs =(


Another important task done by yours truly: Peeling the prawns. Yummy stuff, prawns :D These are fresh ocean prawns that were briefly boiled. Notice the succulent, plump flesh.


After a morning of peeling, deshelling, blending and boiling, the varied ingredients miraculously transformed into a steaming, glorious bowl of meesiam. Note: It's not dry meesiam, the soup is under the ingredients with the beehoon, as the bowl is rather deep. Doesn't it look fabulous??

It tasted great, of course (since I hardly interfered with the cooking process) =) My grandma didn't think that 1 session with her was enough for me to graduate though. She saw the day as a warm-up session, since she was still showing me most of the things (how to peel the prawn without tearing off half the tail, how to peel shallots in a more efficient manner, what are the names of the ingredients...) I wrote down the ingredients and the recipe, will post it up once I get a better idea of what are the english names of the vegetables and spices that she used! I will also need to have a go at it by myself, according to my grandma (she said that this time, she'll just sit and watch :P). I sound like a culinary dunce =(

All that aside, it was a lovely morning spent with her as we chatted about family members, laughed together and shared anecdotes =) It's been a long time since I could leisurely spend a whole morning with my grandmother... The time spent together is precious. She's happy that there's someone she can pass all her cooking skills to (albeit v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y....) and she's already thinking about teaching me her laksa, asam prawns and salted veg duck soup :D

I think that even if I don't really master the dishes, the most important thing is that at the end of the day, I'd have grown to know my grandma just a little bit better and that we've had some fun times together =)

Looks good enough to eat

I like taking photographs and I like to eat, but not at the same time. Often when I want to eat, I seldom have the patience to take a shot of my food. Furthermore, the lighting at night when you're having dinner with friends is often pretty lousy for taking photos. Happily, there are exceptions. I hereby present a small collection of food shots and a short write up about where this yummy food is from =)


This is the pig kidney mee sua that is selling at Bedok North Blk 511 market. I like how the melt-in-your-mouth meesua soaks up all the thick soup so that you can really savour the flavours with each mouthful. It's recommended by Makansutra. This shot was taken with my friend's camera =)


This is my grandmother's kueh pie tee. This shot doesn't do her enough justice, for her kueh pie tees are actually topped with shredded fresh shrimps, shredded eggs, parsley and grounded red chilli. Money can't buy you this kueh pie tee ; ) I'm so lucky!


Intuition brought me to this cafe near Amoy Market where they sell sandwiches, burgers and baked rice. This is a burger that doesn't have a beef patty in it. Intuition recommended it because he liked the mushroom and ham combi, but it didn't really work for me because to me, a hamburger should have a sizeable meat patty--fish, chicken, beef, whatever. This one had ham, bacon, mushrooms and veg--but no meat patty! It felt incomplete to me =( You may like it though! I call it "Lite Burger" :P I posted this picture more because I like the photo than because I liked the food :P


What really rocks in that cafe that serves the Lite Burger is that they serve this home-made brownie that beats anything at NYDC anytime, anyday. (By the way, NYDC is also in my list of banned Overpriced Yuckyfood establishments. The desserts there are NOT worth the price and the effort! Are any of their brownies anything like what's shown here? No, non, nien!) This brownie is moist, very chocolatey, and is as soft as the ice-cream next to it! Well, almost ; ) Yummy yummy! Another reason to eat it: I remember it's less than $5. Woot!! See picture at the bottom to know the fate of the brownie when Intuition and I fell upon it. We would have licked the plate if we weren't in public :P

The World's Best Grandma & Mee Siam

I'm staying over at my grandmother's place tonight in my attempt to learn how to cook The World's Best Mee Siam Without Hum tomorrow! My grandmother is a real sweetie. She usually sleeps at 9pm and wakes up at the unearthly hour of 4am to do her morning exercises (Mondays to Fridays! Without fail! For as long as I can remember!), but tonight, because I'm coming over late, she stayed up til 10pm to call me and check on how I'm getting there. She also set aside some slices of rock melon for me to eat before I sleep =) I'll be waking up at 5+am to go marketing for mee siam ingredients with her tomorrow morning too. Gosh, 5+am... @_@

My cousins, brother and I owe a lot to my grandmother, for she's the one who brought us up when we were young. She would make sure that we were well fed, that we got to school and back, that we were clean and well scrubbed, that we did our homework, that we didn't destroy the flat when her back was turned. All these and more =)

When I was lower primary, I stayed with my grandma while my family was in Malaysia, because my dad wanted me to have a Singaporean education, and my brother wasn't old enough for primary school yet. My cousin also stayed with my grandmother. I remember that we had many things to talk about and will chitter and chatter as we lay on the mattresses in the same room as my grandma while my grandma tried to sleep. Finally she would have had enough and the cane will come flicking randomly in our direction :P If you were unlucky, you get the stinging end of the flick. That tactic usually quickly puts an end to our hushed conversations :D

As mentioned before, my grandma is a great cook. She's also a very curious and experimental cook. There was one wedding dinner that we attended and a dish made a deep impression on us, an impression that I still have today. But because of my appalling lack of knowledge regarding vegetables, all I can say about it is that it's a wonderfully savoury and brothy leafy-veggie-thingey that has the flavours of a very good ham infused throughout. Even veg-haters (it was cool to hate vegetables at that age) like me couldn't resist going for seconds. While we were raving about this dish, my grandmother just ate it quietly and thoughtfully.

The next day, when we were having dinner at my granny's, this dish reappeared! My grandmother replicated the dish! The fact that we can recognize the similarity in flavours says a lot already =) Of course it wasn't as exquisitely tender and flavourful as what the hotel offered, but still, I think that's pretty cool =)

So anyways, back to mee siam. I never liked to eat mee siam in hawker centre and coffee shops. Even at places where they serve supposedly "famous mee siam", whenever I taste it, it never fails to disappoint. I always thought it was because I didn't like mee siam, until the reason struck me recently (and admittedly rather belatedly!).

It was because I grew up on my grandmother's mee siam! Soup that is so sour it makes your lips pucker, yet delightfully savoury and spicy, with as much prawns and fish cakes and fried tofu as you can eat, with the melt-in-your-mouth taupok, with crunchy fresh beansprouts, with perfectly hard-boiled eggs (my grandma's hard-boiled eggs are also the best in the world, no kid)... how can I eat the dry tasteless offerings outside and be satisfied?? Hence, I resolve to learn the art of her mee siam in 2007! Wish me luck!

Quirkie Creations: Blessed New Year!