Oh, Cola Chicken?

Oh!

The Waiting Colas for Cola Chicken?

What do you all think?

Why shouldn't I?

Okay, stay tuned!

Wish me luck!

Waiting Colas

I have a new green umbrella, sitting in the car now. There are also 2 cups full of cola drinks sitting in the fridge since last Sunday. They are still there awaiting their fate because neither me nor Wonderful Guy wants to take a go at them.

Also, I've gained a kilo or thereabout since last weekend while I believe Wonderful Guy has added an inch, at least, around the waist, judging from the pudgi-ness that sticks out whenever he sits down without his shirt on.

We have all these now because of the by-product of an excellent marketing campaign by the proprietors of our Sunday dinner. Salesman with a spot on sales promotion on a rainy season. Buy the promoted meal and get an umbrella for free.

It was a real value for money deal. Pay only for the meal which was large enough to feed four persons and get one good quality umbrella for free. An excellent bargain as we could use an additional umbrella for the new baby, the car.

The only small problem was the meal was for four but there were only two of us. We managed to solve it by dividing the food for 3 meals, consumed over 2 days. Nothing wasted, only fat gained.

Ah but alas! The 2 cups of colas still awaits their conqueror, in the fridge.

maiden Assam Fish

My very own self-cooked Assam Fish!

I finally cooked Assam Fish for the very first time. It was excellent! After panic attacks in the beginning, the final product was just wonderful.

Of course, I have to share the cooking credits with my mother and also my mother-in law. The former for preparing the spice needed to make Assam Fish, and the latter for providing the fried fish. Yeah, for the purist, you could say that I technically did not cook the dish at all. All I did was to put all the ingredients together and create the dish.

But I begged to differ. Assembling all the prepared ingredients takes a lot of effort and skill, and in this case of mine, lots of energy and a bit of googling.

Remember I said earlier there were panic attacks? Well, the story goes like this.

This idea of mine, to cook the Assam Fish had been brewing in my head for quite a long time. So it just good timing that on the my last trip back home, mom had cooked some Assam fish and had actually prepared extra paste. I, of course jumped at the offer when she offered me some to bring to Krung Thep.

Fried fish was supplied by my mother inlaw. She had since the last 2 trips, been supplying some fried fish to us. She would painstakingly deep fry pieces of fish and then pack them in plastic bags before freezing them. She would them pass these packs of frozen fried fish to Wonderful Guy, who would bring them over. Well, for the last trip, I guessed she must have handed a few packs of these frozen fried food to Wonderful Guy and he, I guessed must have just taken them and packed them up, assuming that they were all frozen fried fish.

I didn't really check them either, and when I opened the fridge and took a bag out, I assumed that they were all the same, fried fish. So there I went, placed that bag along with the bottle assam paste and placed them nearby the stove to defroze.

Happily, nearing dinner time, I went about to start my cooking Assam Fish. I heated the saucepan on the stove, adding some oil. While waiting for the oil to heat up, I took out the pack of lady's fingers from the fridge and jar of tamarind paste from the cupboard. When the oil was hot enough, I put some spoonfuls of the assam paste into the saucepan. The smell that permeated was just wonderful. I gave it a light stir before deciding that it was time to put in the fish as well.

So imagine my surprise when I took the pack and untied the rubber band holding it, and saw chicken in it! Hah, I was stunt momentarily. I cursed, I have to say, I did. The paste was already cooking in the hot saucepan. I quickly poured some water into the saucepan to avoid them paste for burning.

Frantically, I opened the freezer door and rummaged through to find the fish. The elusive fried fish. I had wanted to use the pieces but alas, they were not more! Only 2 big pieces of fish were there, so I took those. I them dropped them into the saucepan. Phew, luckily. I took a breather, but I guessed, a tad too soon.

Assam fish needs tamarind paste in its sauce. I had to put in the paste early to allow the fish to boil and absorb the taste of the sauce. I took the tamarind jar, just bought earlier of the week after searching high and low for it for quite some time, and tried to open the lid. It just wouldn't budge!

I tried and tried, using my right hand, then changing to my left, then try by cover the lid with clothe, it just wouldn't budge. I got a little panicky again. I lowered the heat of the stove. I tried to think what else I could try. I sat of the floor, jar between by two feet to hold it in place, and with both hands, I tried with all my might to turn the lid. It still refused to loosen its grip!

I got even more frustrated. The soup was heating up, reaching a boil very soon and the jar was still intake, the tamarind paste untouched. I took to google. Tap the left side of the bottle, right side of the bottle, bottom of the bottle, top of the bottle and then try again, one of the many tips I found. I tried, no avail. Didn't try running the lid under running water though. One tip I chanced on, if all fails, try to wedge the lid from the glass bottle using a butter knife or anything possible.

That stuck in my head, I took the can opener and with its sharp tip, I wedged it at the holding point between the lid and bottle and applied a little pressure. I felt the lid loosen up a little. Again, I tried to unscrew the lid, but it still couldn't open. The soup was almost boiling already. I guessed that left me with no choice but to do that, the little wedging thing at more points. I think in total, I did that to about 5 points, spread around the lid. After all that hardwork, I tried once more, praying hard and finally, the lid opened. I could have my tamarind paste!

Wasting not time, I took spoonfuls of the paste and added to the soup in the saucepan. Luckily, still in time as the soup had still not boil at that time. I stirred in the paste and turned the heat up. I relaxed. Finally, I could feel my Assam Fish coming along well.

It did and it turn out great! Just delicious! The lady's fingers were not overly cooked and the fish was not too soft. The Assam gravy itself was excellent, not too watery. Overall, I am very satisfied. After the panic attacks, I am just proud of my maiden Assam Fish. Wonderful Guy missed the it, but not to worry, there's a piece of fish waiting for him and I saved some gravy.

Shut down

Monday was a bewilderment.

In what could be a day ending on a high note, it ended terribly, unexpectedly. I felt confused. A confrontation bubbled up from no where and it seemed, by me. A confrontation that was not supposed to be, in the very first place.

My usual self once again caught off guard. In a 180 degrees turn, what was a sweet and lovely telephone conversation suddenly became confrontational for a comment that I decided to voice out.

I wonder now, if that biting anger was roused from the sleeping green-nosed pig by my reaction towards a comment I received, which I overtly mentioned was rudely addressed to me, before I voiced out my opinion.

An eye for an eye. Again. I really must learn to shut down.

Even though recovery was faster, this time.

Running Myself

Forcing myself to start tracking my expenditure right down to the cents. From both bahts to ringgits, I had decided that in order to better manage whatever little monies I have, I have to keep a hawk's eye over my personal finances.

Having the chance to look over some corporate finances for the past few months also somehow influenced me to do so. Then, I had the chance to view how the finances of a corporation, not large though, was being tracked. Every cent was accounted for and every expenditure was justified, well almost. I was able to see the yearly estimations, the expenditure, the details breakdown in expenditure. In all, I was practically given the first hand tutorship on how a corporate finance is run. I was inspired.

I had always thought that my personal expenditure is spiraling out of control. I feel that I am always buying things that I don't need, especially from the supermarkets. And since I don't have an income, this is really a worrisome behaviour. My monthly allowance barely sees any substantial balance come month end which could be called savings. Yet, when I look around, there's nothing to show from all my purchases. Except, fat, if one could be proud of that.

Thence, the birth of my very own corporation, myself. Running my finances like how I had been tutored in, noting the purpose of each and every satang and at certain times, sen, and tracking it down. I stop short of creating vouchers or official documents as how companies would, for traceability. Perhaps, if there's a need, I would introduce it later, but certainly not now.

Discipline is really important in this exercise. One really has to try to abandon the thought that our memory will not fail when it comes to remembering what we spent on. I know I have to change my school of thought on that. Everything is track now, in file. With Office, everything is made simpler.

So far, in this first month of running my company, it has been smooth. I tried to backdate as much as possible, especially in terms of noting down the movement of the monies but I resigned to the fact that accuracy can only start this month. The rest are just estimates.

My biggest challenge is yet to come, when I fly back this weekend for a friend's wedding. I know I have to continue to this exercise diligently but I don't plan to bring my trusty laptop, where this is written now and files are being kept, so I'm currently formulating alternative plans on how to continue this. I might have to just make do with the notebook in the phone. Furthermore, being at home is really like going on holiday. I always OVERSPEND on these occasions. There is always a someone to treat, a dinner to partake, a present to get, a something to buy to bring over.

Diligence is the key, if you want to manage your finances successfully. And I would love to have that.

Like a seesaw

Like seesaw, that's how the weather is like over here in Krung Thep of late. The morning can be so hot that it forces you to get up and leave the bedroom, if you like lucky me to have the morning sun shining into the room. Then, as the day progresses, clouds will slowly loom over the sky, creating a grey overcast. Then, the rain almost never fails to fall. Occasionally it's just a slight shower. If you are unlucky, heavy rain fall might catch you while you are out and about on the streets, almost always forgetting to bring that little yellow umbrella along as it was just too bright when you left.

This is the weather in Krung Thep now. I've learn to always stop a moment before leaving apartment to check if the umbrella is my bag. My failure rate is 10% so far. Never been caught without an umbrella during rainy days. Lucky me!

However, there are days when the strong winds accompany the rain. I've had the opportunity to observe falling rain from my unit once. The wind was blowing quite strong on that particular day, and without a particular direction. From the little balcony, I saw a little storm of rain water swirling on the roof of the nearby building, creating something not unlike a mini tornado. On those days, I pray that my trusty umbrella can stand the battering of mother nature.

Sometimes, the rain decides not to stop for a day. It will drizzle and drizzle, just hard enough to keep the roads wet and excite your sleepy genes. On those days, I find it hard to do anything, at all. The bed beckons with open arms.

Other times, like today, it would be so hot, it burns. When you are under it, you can feel your skin just heating up, really and all that you want is be under a shade, if you are out. Me, today is out of character. I usual am not fond to go out in the blazing sun but today is a miracle. I can still feel the heat on my skin.

And just as though it wants to prove it's point, it drizzled on my way back. Ah, the weather in Krung Thep now. Like a seesaw!

Paying for Hassle

When the society that we live in is not simple, we should not make it less simple anymore than we could.

In a very disturbing way, the lawyer engaged to deal for our certain transaction has yet again proven to be very unprofessional and almost juvenile in his conduct.

Hazy explanations, undecided instructions, unprincipled way of working has led us into quite a fair amount of mental stress and messy situation, when, in the very first place, if he had thought it through, all these the muck could be avoided.

I think I have a quite a tolerable amount of patience towards people in the service area, as I think that so long they try hardest and their best, mistakes can be forgiven. Once, twice or thrice committing the same offence when they still green at it, I believe I can bear.

However, when the said is supposedly a pro hand in their trade and has had, supposedly, a decent and fair amount of years of experience under their professional belt, this kind of incompetency is just not tolerable. Or justified.

It frustrates me that we have to pay such a high price for a service which gives us more headache, mental anguish and unnecessary runaround when in the very first place, all could be done very simply. This doesn't seem right, at all.

It's high time the lawyer gets fired, once this is over. Paying for hassle is NOT CLEVER.

Happy Malaysia day!

Happy

M A L A Y S I A

Day

Malaysians live as Malaysians,

Malaysians listen as Malaysians,

Malaysians grow as Malaysians,

Malaysians learn as Malaysians,

Malaysians love as Malaysians,

Malaysians are Malaysians,

Malaysians for Malaysians!

Happy birthday, Mum.my

I have been a very bad daughter, I believe. I didn't do and take enough actions for my mother to remember me, not even for my bits and pieces. Either that, or she just doesn't believe that I would go into much trouble to send her a birthday card to wish her on her big day. At least not when I'm not in the country.

Two days ago was her birthday and I am still out of the country. Yesterday the postman brought her a birthday card, from me and Wonderful Guy. In most likelihood, the postman around noon. In the late evening, I got a mail from her, informing me she got a card from Wonderful Guy, and that she sent an sms to thank him but it had yet to get through, then. She wanted to get his email from me.

I was a little disappointed. It was my idea to get the card, I chose and got the card, wrote on the card and the details on the envelope. Wonderful Guy signed it beneath his name, and brought it back to help me get the card posted, since he was travelling back.

Had my ugly and unstable handwriting finally be my undoing? It could have been so unrecognizable that the only clue to ascertain the sender of the card was from the postmark, which was of course from where Wonderful Guy dropped it off into postbox, in his hometown. Or, my track record made it quite not possible that I would be the sender. Or, so smitten she is of Wonderful Guy, she has forgotten me? Oh my, might this be the first case of Kulit Lupakan Kacang?

Nah, I guessed she just didn't expect that I would send her a birthday card. Furthermore, since I've not made any mentioned at all to her on this on the her birthday call or in any one of the mails I sent her, or during the calls we had over the net. This does make me realize that she doesn't recognise my handwriting or style of writing, if that's possible.

Happy birthday, Mum.my. Remember me, please, for the good stuff too. I'm possible for those, as well.

Macam nak Sambal

Rasa macam nak makan nasi dengan sambal! Tak kisah jenis sambal, asalkan sambal tu cukup rasa, cukup pedas, dan cukup!

Back to the days of my childhood. Didn't think that the simple pleasures of growing up in the village can be so hard to come by now. As a child, I loved having sambal, blended fried chilli paste. I could just have it with rice, and I would be happy. It was that simple. My father could never understand, it wasn't how he grew up. My mother had to teach the art of restrain to me, after all there were others who had not had their meals.

Right now, sitting in front of the telly, having just woken up after a 2-3 hours sleep, my mind is in a blur. I feel uncomfortable. There's a funny taste in my mouth, like I need to vomit but not so just yet. The side effect of sleeping, or not sleeping last night.

I want to have something familiar. Some comfort food. Like sambal. Right now, I only have biscuits on the plate and coffee. Sigh. No sambal.

The Wonderful Mooncake Tau Tsar Pneah

I accidentally made tau tsar pneah! And I'm not kidding at all.

Today, after a day out of the oven, my failed mooncake tasted even more like tau tsar pneah. For the uninitiated, tau tsar pneah is a type of round, Chinese biscuits with flaky skin and grounded mungbean filling fried with shallot oil, I think.

Mine was baked, with oats filling. The skin was not flaky but it wasn't as hard yesterday when it just got out of the oven. It was crispier hard yesterday, but today, it was crispy nice. The oils must have had time to seep into the skin, I guess. Else god pitied me.

I actually set out in the attempt to make my own mooncake. The thing is, if this is your first time baking mooncake, ideally you should follow the recipe to the dot. Well, me being my ambitious self, decided to improvise.

First, I had the wonderful thought to try my hand at creating a sugarless mooncake, but of course without spending extra on getting some sugar replacement products. Sugarless means not using sugar at all.

Secondly, I didn't have any beans to make the paste filling and was too lazy to slog away over the stove to prepare the filling. So, instead, a bulb lighted up in the crazy head and I got the idea to substitute the beans with oats, with flavour, of course. The health conscious me chose green tea.

Finally, I missed read the instruction to prepare the skin. Reading it again, I realized most of the recipe called for the dough for the skin to sit and sleep for hours, not minutes. I only rested mine for a mere half an hour!

No wonder it failed. The skin came out to hard. The thickness was of course way off, as I really cannot estimate well the amount of dough and filling I should prepare. I decided to just use up all and not have any leftovers, so everything went in, nothing wasted.

No rolling pin also made it slightly inconvenient to flatten the dough properly. I used a glass, the only one in the apartment, which was not even a straight cylinder. It was a sexy glass, with curves. Rolling tough dough with a sexy glass was stressful. Too soft, the dough won't flatten out, too hard, well, the glass might just break, right?

Since this was the maiden attempt, well, I didn't bother to even get the mooncake mould. No one would even guessed what I used to make my mooncake. Get ready for it, the cut out base of a mineral bottle! Yup, that's right! I actually cut out the bottom portion of a small mineral bottle, about an inch from the base and used that to mould my mooncake. There were some marks for the patterns, but nothing fancy like intricate designs in proper mooncake mould.

I managed to get 5 small mooncakes. And when I had finished mould them, I didn't think that it would fail so badly. I knew they might have slightly thicker than normal skin but it didn't cross my mind that the skin on the five was going to be crunchy hard!

The first 10 minutes I was actually still optimistic. It was towards the second half of the baking process that I knew it was going to fail. The dough started to increase in shape and then I could see the skin getting crispier. Then later, the base of the mooncake dough cracked open, spilling out of the filling. That was when I knew, this attempt failed.

Trying out the first piece was like having hard tau tsar pneah. And the taste was bland. Very bland. No green tea. Nothing. The filling tasted, well, very oatsy! As I was struggling to finish the mooncake, my mind cringed at the thought of this was only the first!

This morning, I had my second mooncake tau tsar pneah for breakfast. It was a pleasant surprise. Like I mentioned earlier, god must have pitied me, thus making the mooncake tau tsar pneah, the outcome of my mooncake experiment gone horribly wrong, tastes better. In better, it means, bearable! My wonderful accidental creation, Mooncake Tau Tsar Pneah!

Stuffed, but dinner awaits!

Stuffed to the brim!

The seams of my body is bursting, if there is anything of such.

Today was like gorging day.

While pouring rain flooded and overflowed Krung Thep, this mass of body was overflooded with food.

Non-stop eating since last night. Terrible.

Dinner with ten dishes for 3 persons yesterday. No, we over ordered and over indulged. Some of them had to be packed and brought home. What do you think, how ever we were going to manage, with a whole fish, barbequed pork, a piece of chicken thigh, somtum, plate of fried greens, crabs, lala, snails, fried minced pork with basil leaves, and fried oysters. Add 3 beers to that, I would be amazed if we could finish them last night.

Today, again, the eating frenzy continued. Lunch of duck noodles, then followed with some slices of jackfruit, a sip of cool coconut water, 2 small bowls of soup, some meat, veges and then a big bowl equivalent of black glutinuos rice for me. The stretching had begun then.

Back home, fried banana fritters. Gobbled down at least 15 pieces of them!

And now having my coffee.

Stuffed! Stuffed!

But dinner awaits ...

Oh, manboy!

I was given a brief introduction earlier this year to the term manboy.

Phone isn't my top priority and manboy disease is especially rampant amongst asian first persons. Couple days ago, my phone was on silent, and whilst I was waiting, of course, in vain to hear in ring, I actually had three misscalls. A barrage of strong worded stuff later, I was stunt silent, muted beyond ability to penetrate the attacks with any reasons of clarifications. My saviour is now my downfall.

I tried to loosen the tension a little, especially during our maiden ride to work together in the new car. It was a route too familiar to me, thanks to my 2 weeks bus ride experiment. I thought I was helping by sharing my thoughts on how the traffic might behave, but clearly I only succeeded to irritate the royal driver. No, I don't want to drive! Silence ensued.

Fast forward couple days later, I got very upset when I was accused of not being fast enough to bring milo bars at the behest of his royal highness. He had just started a game then, and was sitting at the bench when I came back, bearing 2 milo bars. I was probably gone for 5 minutes, less than 10 minutes, I reckoned. I might be totally off with the guesswork, though.

His royal highness barked at me on my slowness. Instead of letting it go, I was stunt and I felt myself glaring at him, enraged. His selfish behaviour was just not getting into me that time, it was no joke. That was the left foot trying to stomp a little too much. If I owned a magic lamp and only need to do the rub to get unlimited wishes fulfilled, then I could be faster. But when you had to run down 2 flights of stairs, walk a distance to the entrance, cross a very busy street, then queue up to pay for 2 milo bars, and then do all of that again, but in reverse to get back to your start point, just to try to fulfill the behest of his majesty, I think 5 minutes was reasonable. I guessed, only I had that thought.

The lioness roared and told him off. Passed him the bars and left for my seat and started sweating again. All these for a bark??! An apology was too late, a joke disclaimer sounded so insincere and the eagle has landed. Oops! No eagle anywhere. When you get a shout with a glare from a player in the middle of game while you were waiting for him and was cooling yourself down and then did your best to be quickest to execute the task, only to be greeted with a bark, you might lose your cool. You might get snappy. I got angry and I got snappy! Get a real dog if you to bark your instructions and assert your authoritativeness.

Conversations thereafter cannot bury the hatchet that was dug out. 2 whole days, civility ruled. So why change? Manboy had never been so exemplified until then, smacked right in front of me. A personal attestation, or at least I think so. You could made a left turn rightaway without needing to follow the red light or you should have gone straight and made a u-turn, I wasn't driving, wasn't I?

Oh, manboy! Of the royal kind!

Hilariously funny

Hilarious!

Hubby just bought a car, and the gang in the Saturday group, lets call them Saturday Matinee, well, it seemed they all posed in front of the car, before leaving for dinner!

They stood in front of the car, got someone to snapped a photo of them, and then posted the photo online! Not too sure how many poses were taken, but for sure I knew that one with 2 pretty ladies standing in front of the car, smiling brightly, were taken.

The funny thing was that we weren't there! Neither me nor hubby were there! We were still in court, me waiting for hubby who had his second 2 hour session.

I thought it was cute!

I thought they were hilarious!

But I thought they were sweet, too.

New Adventure!

Paid 15baht for a new adventure! Really? Yes!

But of course, that was only part of the truth. The real deal wasn't that cheap, for sure. However, it was well worth it.

Stopping by the office in shorts during my day off wass great. I got to head out at lunch time, hopped on the bus as suggested and after about half an hour's journey, the conductor's announcement hit my ears, seacon na ka.

I looked outside and saw a huge building, spanning an area of 2 bus stops wide, if I could use that as a measurement. The first sign that caught my eye was the name of the building, Seacon Square. I guessed no reason to get agitated and afraid of getting down at the wrong stop. That was a building no one could missed!

Anything new is good, right now. Getting settled down into a routine dwelling and having favourite digs are signs of a muddling mind. I got into Robinson, then saw Tops, walked along the IT part, before seeing the signage to Tesco.

The auntiness of me kicked-in when I saw racks fulls of fresh fruits and greens. Saw nice carrots and pretty tomatoes. And there they were, out of the heart of Krung Thep! A carrot, 2 tomatoes, 2 beautiful tomatoes, and 6 limes, those were the few things that I allowed myself to get. I had to let go a bundle of longans, for it got too heavy in the basket. Of course, I had to pass on the fresh meat too. Oh well, the disadvantage of moving in public transport!

I believed I spent 60% of my time there grocery shopping. I realized, after a while, there weren't that many golden haired or fair skinned there. Only thais and thai-speaking people. I was the alien, but then again, I was mute. So no one knew.

Leaving tesco after lunch, I stumbled upon a corner with lots of clothes shop. The fashion was nice, and the prices were reasonable. I just breezed through, not wanting to stop and browse. The shopping bags made it a little inconvenient.

I left the place, not finishing my exploration. As I walked on the overhead bridge towards the bus stop on the opposite side, I saw another sign, Paradise. I had been told, it is a shopping paradise over there and that I should go and take a look. And that between these 2 giant structures lay a huge park, a green lung for the tired, overdosed shopper.

Heading back, I was already psyched myself up for my next visit. Yes, I want to come back! For the park, for paradise.

Waiting for the day! Make it happen, I will! Jing ngor!