My Name Is...

Annabel started to say her full name sometime last week, at 29 months. Of course prompting was required initially. It was always difficult to get her to 'act' the part whenever we want to video her. So this video shows her jumping while saying her name. Enjoy!

Annabel Elisha Rajah!

Whatever Will Be Will Be

I'm wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin'.. plannin' and dreamin'..
We can only do so much but God decides.
Whatever happens, we will definitely make the best of it.
Whatever will be, will be, for God knows best!

Busygran's Stewed Chicken in Soya Sauce

Came across this simple and easy recipe from Busygran's blog. I knew I just had to try it. I added some oyster mushrooms and sneaked in another tablespoon of chinese cooking wine. Besides that, I was true to her recipe. Really simple and yummy.

Fried Eggs with Onions and Soya Sauce

Eggs are so versatile. You can steam them, fry them, poach them, hard-/soft-boiled them and loads more. And if you're feeling lazy but still need to cook, egg is the answer! I was having one of those lazy days. And instead of the usual fried eggs, I decided to add some 'flavour' to the eggs - stir-fried onions with kicap.

It's so easy - stir-fry the onions and add some cili padi. Then add in light soya sauce, dark soya sauce, sugar, a pinch of pepper and a little water. Stir and mix the ingredients well before dumping everything on the eggs.

A Typical HK Breakfast

These are char siew paus hubby bought for breakfast from a nearby pau shop. The ones back home can be quite dry. I like mine with (sufficient) gravy oozing out. Hubby dear, it's time for another round of 'pau breakfast'!!

Fusion Curry

Chicken curry is one of the dishes that I now can cook without looking at the recipe *ehem*. I joked with hubby that now I can cook it with my eyes closed! Although I am quite satisfied with my chicken curry (dry or with gravy), I think it can still be improved. But fish curry is a different story altogether. I was never really satisfied with my fish curry. I can never get that same taste as my MIL's no matter how I followed her recipe. Probably I haven't cook enough and I think I need to sit through a cooking session with her!

Last week I tried cooking a fusion chicken curry. Fusion because I had in mind to add in some lychees! I could almost hear hubby shrieking there! And I did. I first had this lychee in a curry experience at a nearby Thai restaurant in the form of a bowl of yummy Thai green curry. What a pleasant surprise I had, to find the lychee sweetness amidst the richness of the curry. Then I stumbled upon a blogger Rita's grilled chicken red curry with lychee recipe, and thought to myself that it should be alright to add in lychees in any chicken curry recipes (with gravy). And so I did.

My fusion chicken curry with gravy. A combination of recipes from MIL, mom and my own.

How to:

1. Marinate chicken with garlic-ginger paste, curry powder and light soya sauce overnight.

2. Heat oil. Throw in cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, star anise and cloves. Stir a little and add in chopped/ground shallots. Stir till fragrant.

3. Then put in the marinated chicken and mix well. Add in the curry paste and enough water to cover the chicken. More gravy = more water (add in ground almonds or cashews for thicker gravy - a tip I got from mom). Throw in some potatoes. Let the mixture simmer. Add milk / coconut milk / yoghurt and continue simmering.

4. When the curry is almost done, add in the tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, lime juice, lychees (with a little syrup), and salt to taste. Simmer a little bit more and your curry is ready!

I like it! And it could certainly do with more lychees and syrup (I was a bit careful with how much lychees I put in as I'm not sure if it'll turn out alright). But hubby doesn't seem to quite fancy this dish. He said it's as if the lychees accidentally dropped into the pot of curry!! Yup he's a stickler to traditions esp when it comes to the food he's used to!

Local Pudding

Got these cuties (and yummies) from hubby's patient. Looks like the wood husks pudding from Your Restaurant (as stated in my makan guidebook "Eat Your Way Around HK") but cuter.

Yummy pudding layered with biscuit crumbs...

... superb combination.

Chap Chye Inspired Fried Bihun

As the title says it, this bihun was cooked using the basic ingredients of the chap chye dish. This is my second bihun attempt. The first was a 'disaster' and from there I learnt that hubby likes his with some colour! Since he likes taucheo-based dishes, I surely cannot go wrong with this! His verdict: so much better than the first time.

Oyster Egg

Had been asking hubby to tapau back some 'oh-chean' or oyster egg (?) for supper and so finally hubby did with the help of HL ;p

Seriously no big deal (HL already warned us). I very much prefer the ones in Mlk. This one somehow had a very mild porky sort of after taste. Hubby was saying that they used the same wok. And it didn't help that no chili sauce came with the 'oh-chean' - only a small packet of fish sauce, which we discarded.

However the one thing that I like about it was the generous amount of oysters!

Wesley Stace

Discovered one Wesley Stace while on facebook last night. A friend uploaded a pic of the book cover of Misfortune (the purplish one) and that got me intrigued. So off I went and googled for the author. I wasn't disappointed. His writings look interesting. Only thing is that HKU library didn't have his books!

Review by Colin Greenland on The Guardian

One day in 1820 Lord Geoffroy Loveall, the fey, neurotic heir to the richest estate in Britain, traverses the capital on a pointless errand from his mother. At the foot of a putrid, mountainous rubbish tip he spots a dog carrying a ragged bundle in its mouth. On an inexplicable, uncharacteristic whim, he sends his manservant to investigate. Inside the rags they find a human baby. Lord Geoffroy decides to adopt it and bring it up as his own. He will call it Dolores, after his beloved little sister killed some two dozen years earlier in a fall from a tree. Dolores will be his heir, the next Lady Loveall. There is only one difficulty with his plan. The baby is a boy.

Misfortune, Wesley Stace's first novel, is the story of that boy. Renamed Rose, he is brought up by his doting father and Anonyma Wood, the Love Hall librarian, whom he has married for the purpose. Though she connives at her husband's wilful delusion out of consideration for his fragile wits, Anonyma has in any case contracted a metaphysical passion for androgyny from Mary Day, a visionary poetess she studies obsessively. Innocent of the machinations that surround and support him, Rose enjoys a blissful childhood. It's after that that the trouble starts.

Despite its setting, a glorious facsimile dustjacket, and the rich Gothic potential of the material, Misfortune is no kind of 19th-century novel, not even a pastiche. Conversant with the scientific principles of psychology, from unconscious sabotage through "gender roles" all the way to "conflicted feelings", Lord Rose is a creation as anachronistic as he is anomalous.

Structurally, too, the book is flexible and free. The opening chapter - the best, in many ways - is a vigorous, omniscient narrative (by God, as Rose afterwards explains) which takes the viewpoint of Pharaoh, the autistic boy sent out to dump the baby. In the second, God switches viewpoints to Lord Geoffroy's own, to relate his momentous discovery and its immediate effects. After that, we descend into a memoir dictated by Rose himself in old age, though even that will be interrupted, when he collapses in Turkey, by an excerpt from the journal of the archaeologist's daughter who nurses him back to health.

Chapter by chapter, twist after twist, Stace conducts a rationalist, secular study of sexual politics, of the glory and the grief of enforced transvestism. Though many incidents of his life are dismissed with the baldest summary, the successive formative sexual crises of the boyhood of Lord Rose are described in detail that is explicit, not to say excitable. A great deal of straddling takes place. Skirts, his own and others', are teasingly hitched up before being defiantly hoisted. Few novels can have devoted so much attention, or so much sympathy, to the anguish of erection to a young man alienated from his own penis.

Born in Hastings, resident in Brooklyn, Stace is also a professional musician, performing as John Wesley Harding. There is something musical, almost symphonic, about the sweep of his novel, its single-minded pursuit of themes through sections strongly distinct in mood and approach. He clearly knows several albums' worth of ballads about young women dressed as men, and enough associated folktales and classical myths for a thesis in anthropology. In a sense, it's these old tales that are to blame for the book's one catastrophic flaw, which is the thumping great coincidence that you start to foresee somewhere around page 35. "Surely he wouldn't," you think; and then, with a growing sense of dread: "Surely he won't." But he would, and a great meal he makes of it when he finally does.

Coincidence, as a plot device, is absolutely fundamental to the dynamics of ballad and folktale. It's a device that Shakespeare and Dickens were happy to perpetuate. But Misfortune isn't a ballad, or an Elizabethan play, or a popular novel of the 19th century. It's a novel of 2005. It wears its liberal political conscience on its sleeve. It engages boldly, even polemically, with the forces of social oppression and sexual repression. And coincidences like this one make the world seem suddenly very much less various and capacious, not more.

Review by Patrick Ness on The Guardian

You may not like to admit it, but I'm certain you have them, too: those subjects which when approaching a book - no matter how interesting the novelist, how well-regarded the novel - can't help but make your heart sink, even though you know they shouldn't. I'm not sure I could bear another American civil war novel, especially ones written by white southerners about other white southerners who treated their slaves really well. Ditto tragic coming-of-age stories set during Northern Ireland's Troubles, and I'm afraid middle-class New York post-9/11 tales are also working their way off the menu.

Had I even known there was such a thing as a ventriloquist novel, I might have put it top of the list. Ventriloquists are even creepier than clowns; men who dress their id up as a green duck in a nappy or a Parkinson-biting emu? Surely a novel about them could only be a Hammer-style horror show. Yet lo and behold, here's Wesley Stace's overcrowded but entertaining By George, about ventriloquists and their "boys" (the term they prefer to "dummy"), and it manages to be touching and engrossing rather than just disconcertingly odd.

Evie Fisher, aka Echo Endor, and her "boy" Narcissus are grand stars of the pre-second world war variety stage. Voted Ventriloquist of the Year three times in a row, Evie doesn't quite put the "evil" in vaudeville, but she's still imperious, demanding and entirely controlling of her son Joe. He's working on a different sort of voice-throwing act, but Echo buys him a "boy" called George anyway, more or less forcing him to follow in her footsteps.

In 1973, meanwhile, 11-year-old George Fisher, Joe's grandson and named after his dummy, is bewilderingly packed away to boarding school. His mother Frankie took up the vaudeville life of her family and tours the country in pantos or farces with titles like Exit, Pursued Bare. George is used to travelling with her and grandmother Queenie and is mystified to be sent away, unsure even how the fees are being paid.

He grows lonely, and when his great-grandmother Evie dies, George begins to pore over the books left to him in her bequest, books written by his grandfather Joe that hint at the powers of ventriloquism and reveal family secrets that George starts to wish he'd never learnt. Joe, it seems, fled from his marriage to Queenie and into Ensa, the second world war troop-entertainment organisation, performing his act on the frontlines and dying a hero in Italy, though not before falling in love with someone entirely surprising.

These overlapping stories sound confusing, and they often are, especially because the second world war storyline seems to be narrated by none other than Joe's dummy George. Puppet George even falls in love himself with a beautiful female dummy (a "girl"?) called Belle. But there is more to be revealed, probably too much, as the last section takes a less energetic detour into living, breathing George's own parentage and depressive illness.

Stace is the real name of the folk-singer John Wesley Harding, and this is his second novel since Misfortune, a gender-bending Victorian tale that was longlisted for the Guardian first book award. Stace's grandfather was a real Ensa ventriloquist, and the materials are a rich bouquet that needs more space to breathe. In a country where short works are given primacy, it may seem a peculiar criticism to say that By George could benefit from another 100 pages. Stace, though, is a Victorian novelist at heart and clearly yearns for a bigger canvas. But there's still good fun to be had, smart set-pieces, and ultimately proof that a novel about ventriloquists needn't be at all creepy.

Not Tuckshop but Canteen

This is another one of our frequently visited cafe esp for sunday lunches (but it seemed less often these days. hmmm.. thanks to the delightful temptations from Tsui Wah). Canteen has a concept somewhat like Cafe de Coral and the likes - fast food HK style.

HK style milk tea. I like.

Hubby's bbq pork and chicken combo meal.

The ginger dipping sauce that comes with it. Sorry no chili sauce here.

My stir-fry beef rice noodles. Not bad but it was a little on the oily side.

The Dessert Shop Opposite Our Flat

Sweet Classroom opened sometime last year but we only went there last month, twice at that! Here are the collection of photos from those two visits.

Supposed to be Sweet Classroom but it looked more like Smeet Classroom! That's HK for you!!

Interior deco pt one.

Interior deco pt two.

Sweet potato with ginger syrup. Reminded me home.

Mini chocolate cake with some melted choc action inside, and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream on the side.

Mango galore - ice-cream, pudding and the fruit.

Apple strudel with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream on the side.

Annabel enjoying her dessert with Aunty HL.

Little Conversations Pt Two

When she does something wrong or when she knows that I'm not happy with her, "Sorry mommy.." At times through sobs.. awww..

"Papa, throw the rubbish!" Bel on repeating what I said.

I was playfully nibbling her arm when she said, "What you doing mommy? Don't eat my hand. You only eat your food!"

Mommy: Do you want to touch Pepper?

Bel: No. Pepper dirty. Only Kong Kong touch Pepper!!

Pepper is my seven-year old daschund.

While bathing she likes taking the shower head and 'bathe' by herself. She will go, "I wash my armpits, I wash shoulders, my body, my backside, my knees, my toes, my mouth, my neck... oh no I forgot to wash my ears!!" Yes, she is a real mak nenek!

Mommy: What's your favourite cartoon?

Bel: Hmmm... spongebob squarepants and the fairly odd parents!

Spicy Fried Chicken, Alesia's Way

I drooled over the pics of Alesia the home cook's ayam goreng berempah and so therefore decided to try the recipe. This I would say was the best batch of fried chicken that I've ever cooked (I still haven't mastered the art of deep frying). But it can still be improved. I didn't have cumin and coriander seeds so I only made do with powdered ones.

The egg and flour gave the chicken a crispy skin-like texture. Nice.

Juicy.

I Hereby Officiate 'The Indian Kitchen'

'The Indian Kitchen' is filled with delicious mouth-watering treats that I wish I could just poof up instead of cooking from scratch. Why, you ask? Good Indian dishes are always prepared with loads of spices and at times hard-to-get ingredients, not to mention that extra cooking step to make it its own. I decided to whip up one carrot-flavoured rice and spicy goan chicken curry - they seemed simple enough and most importantly I have them ingredients.

Gajar Ka Pulao

Heat oil in a pan. When it is hot, add the cassia stick (I replaced it with cinnamon bark), cloves and black peppercorns, and fry for a minute. Add the rice (I used two cups) and fry until translucent. Throw in the grated carrots (I used one big carrot) and 4Tbsp cashew nuts. Fry for a couple of minutes before transferring the rice into a rice cooker. Add the salt and hot water and stir the mixture well. Leave it to cook!

All ready - my carrot-flavoured rice!

The second dish for the day was one Komdi Vindaloo

Ingredients:

Cooking oil, potatoes, large onions, 4 chicken drumsticks, cloves, black peppercorns, cardamom, 4 green chilies (slit lengthways to expose the seeds but the chili is not broken in two - this description immediately made my mouth water ~spicy!), 1tsp sugar, salt. 4Tbsp malt vinegar (I replaced it with calamansi juice).

Grind to a paste: 1tsp cumin seeds, 1tsp coriander seeds, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1tsp chopped garlic, 1tsp chopped ginger, 4 dried red chilies, and a large pinch of cinnamon powder (I didn't have cumin seeds and coriander seeds, so I replaced with powdered ones).

How to:

1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the potatoes until golden. Set aside.

2. Fry the onions till translucent. Add the chicken, cloves, peppercorns, cardamom and green chilies.

3. Fry until the chicken is well browned. Add sugar and salt and stir-fry for about five minutes.

4. Add potatoes and the ground spice paste. Cook till the chicken is done.

5. Stir in the vinegar and simmer for five more minutes. Enjoy!

*I added a little water during the cooking process as the ingredients began to stick to the pan.

Presenting my spicy Goan chicken curry

Tsui Wah Again?!!

Iced coffee. Really coffee-licious. Wonder why we didn't order this previously. Must be the milk tea punya pasal! Next time must try the coffee-tea mix. Takkan wanna leave hk without ever trying that?! >< Champagne milk tea. The perfect blend. Gonna say hello to crappy milk teas in a few months time..
Sizzling king prawns with fried noodles. The jalapeno-looking dried chili is a perfect addition to the dish - sweet and spicy!

Eggs and shrimps with rice. Yes, prawns ruled over our lunch that day!

Little Conversations

We are able to have conversations with the little darling now. It's cute watching her talk - full of expression and her pelat-ness. Here are some examples that I could think of at the moment. Have a good laugh!

She's also quite mindful with her of her 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me' and 'you're welcome'. "Koomi Papa, I want to walk!"

Mommy: Did you poopoo?

Bel: No poopoo. Poopoo go away.
Mommy: Go away where?
Bel: House.
Mommy: Where's poopoo's house?
Bel: My pampy!
Mommy: Pampy?..
Bel: No... my backside!!


Papa: We go Ocean Park next week ya.
Bel: I so exciting!!

Her mantra before bathing, "I don't want to wash hair". (hmmph.. she knows how to bargain d!)

Bel: I Bel. Mommy is Pearly. Papa is Daddy.
Mommy: Papa's name is Dharma not Daddy.
Bel: No, Papa is not Dharma!! Papa is Daddy.

When giving her bread, I usually tear the bread into smaller pieces. So one day she wanted to help out with the tearing, "I kopek!".

One day while we were out grocery shopping and were passing by the canned fruits aisle, she suddenly exclaimed excitedly while pointing, "Mommy look spongebob sqaurepants house!!" I was so blur that I didn't get it. Papa was quicker (than usual) and replied, "Oh ya pineapple!", much to my amusement!

We were snapping away while waiting for the mtr and she went, "Guys, stop taking photos!! Choo choo train coming d!!"

After I cleaned her teeth, "Mommy wipe for me. No more choc at my teeth. Thanks mommy!"

While I was admiring her recently cut fringe, "Mommy cut my hair. Thank you mommy!"

When in a lovable mood or when we promised her things or when we got her stuffs that she likes, "I like you mommy/papa!!" while hugging us.

She loves playing make believe, "I Spongebob Squarepants, Papa is Sandy, Mommy is Patrick!". Another variation on the chipmunks, "I Alvin, Mommy Britney, Papa Theodore!"

Some cute words: cucumber = cu-cu-bear-bear, everybody = all the birdies

Fried Bittergourd

Hubby loves fried bittergourd especially when his mom makes it. It's one of my favourite dishes too. And the little girl's! This is among the few spicy dishes that she would tolerate, armed with her red cup of water nearby (the other being Ebeneezer's beriani. yes, I'm training her to enjoy her spicy food hehehe).

It is quite simple preparing this dish.. the only leceh part is that you gotta stand over the stove while frying and it can be quite hot esp in a tiny kitchen like mine! Although simple, practice really makes perfect for this dish - too long in the hot oil and the bittergourd will be burnt, or if insufficient oil time then it'll be soggy and not crispy.

Fried bittergourd (MIL's recipe):

Mix chili powder, turmeric powder, rice flour and salt well before adding in thinly sliced bittergourds. Heat up the oil and deep fry the bittergourds. Good luck and enjoy!

Here's to My Blog Readers

When you have a blog, of course you would want others to drop by. Hence the appearance of widgets to monitor your visitors. Lately, my 'live traffic feed' displayed a variety of flags besides the same ol red one (no, I don't do statistical graphs and analysis for my LTF!). I have regular clicks from Spore - probably from Su, Busygran, Kor and Karen. There's one from Havant, Hampshire which I have no idea who. There seems to be a constant visitor from Butterworth, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan respectively which again I am not too sure of the identity. Then there are some random ones from HK, probably hubby's colleagues. Well, it's nice to know who reads your blog. If any of you are reading this, feel free to drop me a shoutout ya. Hope you enjoyed ur visit and thanks for dropping by.

p/s: Hmm I wonder what happened to Jackmob. He used to be quite regular on my 'old' blog..