I love home-cooked food: Hot Soup

Sunday morning.
I feel the love. Or rather, I smell it.
The smell of sweet comfort food wafting from the kitchen.

Presenting my mother's 10-minute soup.

Old Cucumbers. Wash, cut, remove cores.






































Dried Mushrooms & Scallops. Rinse and soak. Slice mushrooms.






















Pork Bones. Rinse. Defrost if necessary.






















Water. Boil. Add salt & pepper. Add pork bones. Add mushrooms & scallops. Add old cucumbers. Bring to boil. Plonk pot into handy thermal pot (in which the soup keeps cooking all day without the need for a continual fire.)






















With this soup cooked, all that remains to be done is to come home after a busy day, cook steaming hot rice, re-heat soup and serve. Voila, home-cooked goodness. Slurp.

A Friday Afternoon in the Month of December

At this time of the year, things are delightfully peaceful.

I have no meetings! Email has slowed down to a trickle! I can send off an email and not have it boomerang back with 3 or 4 responses! I have time to get my belongings in order!

And also, I have time for the nice picnic-style lunch I always wanted to do, as seen here.

I love snail mail

My brother visited the Vatican and sent a postcard back. He arrived home many days ahead of his postcard but still, it was a nice momento.

Muffins on a Vintage Plate

My mum's marvellous muffins for tea time!

The old school carnival

It felt good to be back.

I have a lot of good memories in this place, seeing as my batch of schoolmates & I probably spent more years in this place than any others because of school-building projects.

My mother and aunts raised money for this school when they were in school.
I did my fair share of spell-a-thons and walk-a-thons too. At least I got to enjoy the new place.

Some things never change, for here we were attending a carnival to celebrate the school's 80th anniversary and well, the money goes into some upgrading projects, I'm sure?

It was an impressive carnival. Huge! Three bouncy castles!








































We soaked in the atmosphere.

It felt good to walk across the field once more.

We went back to the hall where we'd had performances, overnight camps and O'level exams.


















Back to the courtyard where we'd had art lessons like drawing still-lifes of these statues. I think my fondness for museums and literature was nurtured in my time here.

I remember a piece of calligraphy pinned up on a noticeboard near the statues. It read: I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as a tree.
In some funny way, that has stayed with me all these years.


















Retraced steps where we'd scampered up and down as little girls and later on as more sophisticated teenagers. And peered at the staff notice board where we were astonished to see that some teachers were still there (bless 'em) and astounded to see that the most unlikely of people had become teachers themselves and returned to the school. Life is funny.























Am glad that all that fund-raising helped to build such a beautiful place :)

Comfort Soup

Soup! Slurp. Shown here is my mum's radish soup with carrots, diced mushrooms, dried scallops and pork bones.

Yummy.

Sometimes, all I need for dinner is a hot bowl of soup and plain white rice.

Ye olde mixer

I don't know how old it is.
But it is certainly from a different era, waaay back in the day...
I like the brown. The old-school stuff has a certain colour palette.

Baking with my mum

As you can see, we made cookies today.
They were remarkably simple to make and oh! they taste. so. good.





















They went right into these trusty containers.





















Figuring we'd need a savoury snack for tea, we made sausage rolls too. Yummy.
















And all the baking was done by 12 noon, after we had a morning walk and cooked mee siam :)

Retro Biscuits

Totally ka-poed this photo from my brother.

I think I may have bought the biscuits, though.

Pretty, huh?

On google and travel

My brother is off on his first trip to Europe this week and has been thoroughly enjoying the fun of reading guidebooks and doing travel research and making the hotel/transport arrangements.

Ahh, it brings back memories of Paris.

Like this restaurant in the Marais area (I think). Asian-inspired.

Le Petite Marche
9 Rue de Béarn 75003 Paris, France

Enjoyed the duck (below).
























Maybe it's best not to over-research travel plans and to just go with the flow instead.
But if you wanted to read some reviews, you could (Summary: the food's nice and good value for money but the service is allegedly better for locals). And if you wanted to see what it looks like, you could, courtesy of google map's street view (hey! that noticeboard below the word restaurant is still there!). And oh yes, I remember the outdoor heaters that are the secret to how one can sit outside on a cold day and look warm :)

Door

They don't make doors like they used to.

Bali 2010: Seminyak

One of my favourite things to do in Bali: take a long jaunt along the streets of Seminyak. Target destination: unknown. But how fun to amble past single-storied houses, admiring the displays and ducking in when the fancy takes you. Back out onto the street, traffic whizzes by you and moves in fluid motion to accommodate tourist jaywalkers and locals on bikes that appear suddenly from small lanes. Stop for a drink and a nibble if you want to. And hey if you get tired, it's really easy to hop into a bluebird taxi to get to your next destination.
























Love the embroidered look of this chair in Chanti, a fusion restaurant along Seminyak.
























A random burst of pink. Enjoy!

As sweet as a meringue

Memories of a happy tea time.

Love... Pretty plates, chocolate cake, pastel-pretty meringues, cute
tiny cupcakes...

Breathtaking sky

Oh, the joy of sight.

(Took this photo one evening from my window. God is awesome.)

Good times

Calamari, pasta, lava cake, and good times with my peer group at
church, yay (yay about the people, that is.) We used to hang out so
much more but these days we are so much busier with work, different
areas of service in church and so on. I guess in some way it makes our
times together more valuable.

And we're back

Am back home... and missing the view.
But it's home, sweet home anyway!

We're going on a trip, in our favourite rocket ship...

My Auntie Moment

Location: soft serve ice creamshop. What's soft serve, you might ask?
A shop selling smooth Japanese ice cream...

So we stood at the shop.

Me (mumuring): it's quite expensive, right... Macdonald's is only 60
cents...(auntie moment!!)

15 year-old cousin: it's different! And it's 70 cents, b-t-w...

Anyway, it still looked exactly like the same ice cream you get at
macs, minus the extra toppings which don't matter to me because I only
need chocolate... Still, I liked the design of the shop :)

Back to the 80s

My heart starts aching
My hands keep shaking
and you know, you know, you know...

It was a nice, though rather warm, night and it brought back memories of being 12, listening to Debbie Gibson warble on my classmate's walkman during recess time (talk about old school).


















A sizable crowd had gathered at Fort Canning.

















There was chilling to be be done.

















We also got to our feet and sang along. Words that I hadn't suspected I'd remembered came out on cue...

Oh and Rick Astley was in fine form. The crowd clearly approved.


















And just to leave you with a perky number for the week... (I was in a cab 2 days ago and it came on the radio. Good memories :)

Sunday lunch menu

The last time I was in Bali at one of my favourite restaurants, I had a delicious grilled chicken with avocado salad, or something like that.

I wolfed it down before I remembered to take photos but I do remember thinking I could replicate it at home.


















Something was missing...

I bought ingredients for a balsamic-vinegar type salad a week ago. Namely, balsamic vinegar, rocket, mustard seeds, raisins, cherry tomatoes. And the rest, like olive oil, I already had at home.

We had the salad 2 or 3 times this week, accompanying different dishes. And for the balance of the salad, I was dying to cook something for myself this beautiful Sunday after church. So I hotfooted it back home, seasoned the chicken breast with salt, pepper (I like adding both finely ground and coarsely ground pepper seeds) and lemon juice.

While the chicken sizzled away, I tossed the salad and plated it, mind you (a-la-the food network and TLC...). I turned the chicken a couple of times and placed it carefully on top of my artistically-arranged wild-and-organic-rocket salad. Voila. Jamie Oliver would be proud.

ukulele

image from Ukulele Movement

I have ukuleles (pronounced YOO-Koo-leh-lee...quite singaporean huh?) on my mind.
I saw someone playing at a seminar about a month ago, and I had fun strumming nonsense yesterday on the BFF's little guitar...

For the un-initiated: the ukulele is a 4-stringed instrument, unlike the guitar which is 6-stringed.

I cracked up when I saw this. If this boy can do it, so can I (drive my friends up the wall I mean).

I guess I just want to try something different.
Learn a musical instrument.
Strum a little tune, sing a little song...

Well, we'll see! I'm gonna sit on this and see if the fancy fizzles out...

Bali view

I love this view from a cliff-front villa in Bali.
In the morning and evening, seaweed harvesters would glide on little boats, like Venetian gondolas, gathering seaweed (the dark patches on the seabed are seaweed farms). So that's where all that yummy seaweed comes from... Anyway, it was so lovely.

Have a lovely week ahead.

Think of good things!

My grandma's curry puffs

This morning, my grandma stopped by en-route to my aunt's place bearing fresh, home-made curry puffs.
When she says it, it sounds like 'curry pups'.
She is probably the most ingenious and resourceful person I know.
Nothing is unattainable, nothing is wasted.
It hurts her economical soul to have her grandchildren buy deep-fried squid head from old chang kee at slightly over a dollar a stick. When she found out, she promptly bought a whole kilogram of squid from the market and made her own. Hee. She rocks.

Crafts-man-ship (no pun intended)

A newly discovered blog by a guy (tis nice to read about more er manly things), and a link to an inspiring video on beautifully crafted hats.
http://www.acontinuouslean.com/2010/09/09/made-in-chicago-optimo-hats/

Friday night out!

It was an intensive week at work.

Which made the (rare) Friday night out extra sweet.

I felt footloose and fancy-free, how delightful.

Tapas with the BFF (part 1 of 2) for dinner. Tapas always reminds me of past holidays.

We sat at the bar, with the lights of Orchard Road gleaming softly in the background.

And chatted, without having to fuss over any children (adorable though they may be) :)

Hanging out in a civilised manner is great fun.























We plotted holidays while indulging in gelato and people-watching.
Lovely night!

Badminton Nite

Sunday evening.

Badminton with my cousins and brother.

The hall is filled with badminton enthusiasts. The sound of
shuttlecocks being smacked across the courts permeates the air. Little
children in bright uniformed shirts a size too big for them are in
training. They look like they are having fun, and developing a good
technique to boot. At such a young age. Gosh, I am amazed. Exercise
was always an informal & unplanned activity in my childhood.

I got a good stretch and a mild workout. Great for building up
momentum for more regular exercise And my brand-new yellow yonex
racket (a surprise birthday gift from said cousins) got a little airing.

It was a good & productive weekend for me. I feel blessed :)

For friends on maternity leave (you know who you are)

... and also for friends with kids or kids on the way!

This blog is quite cute. I'm impressed that she has kept it going!
And because I am a bit of a neat freak, 'Laundry Day' particularly appealed to me.

Have a good week!

Quiet Sunday

Hope you had a restful weekend,

preferably in a cosy nook or comfy chair

... with cheery cushions






















... that match the artwork (and vice-versa).


















I'm not really looking forward to the week but God will give me strength to face the challenges that crop up and the knowledge that He is shaping my life through it all :)

In the day when I cried out, You answered me,
And made me bold with strength in my soul.
Psalm 138:3