Bak Chung Lesson

All these years I've only eaten and enjoyed kngee chung (plain glutinous rice dumplings) and tau chung (mung bean and glutinous rice dumplings). I have always steered clear of bak chung because I don't like pork and bak chung is essentially glutinous rice dumplings with pork, salted egg yolk, chestnuts, mushrooms and dried prawns.

Last year I received 2 homemade bak chung from a good friend and for the first time in my life I found that I liked the taste of bak chung. So I bugged her to teach me how to make bak chung the next time the chung festival comes around. Well the Chung festival is only a few days away and so this morning I went to her house for a bak chung lesson.

When I walked into my Sifu's kitchen, I found that she had already pre-soaked, cut and prepared most of the ingredients.

Clockwise from the top: pre-soaked and drained glutinous rice, sliced mushrooms, salted egg yolks, pre-boiled chestnuts, washed dried prawns, pre-soaked red beans that were so big that I mistook them for peanuts, and some leftover glutinous rice from an earlier bak chung making session. In the middle are the marinated pork, minced garlic and sliced shallots.

The chung ingredients have been fried (left) and are now ready to be wrapped with bamboo leaves and tied with hemp strings (right).

From top: Putting the filling into the bamboo leave cone; I managed to successfully wrap my first bak chung; the fruit of my labour - 2 bunches of bak chung, 14 dumplings altogether. My Sifu is camera shy so no photos of her here.

See my beautiful chungs! I expected some of them to unravel but none perished. All of them survived the 2-hour long boiling process.

Thank you my Sifu Priscilla for so generously sharing all your little secrets. Thank you also for the chungs.

Very paiseh la. Not only did you teach me FOC, you also refused to let me pay for the ingredients and served me lunch too! I dunno how to ever repay your kindness to me.

God bless you and your wonderful family.

Ang Zhao Mee Suar & Other Side Dishes

A few weeks ago Baby Sis organised a dinner for a group of us at Lynn's kitchen (not sure if there's a proper name for the place), which is located at 22 Padang Victoria Green.

Lynn Teoh is a painter specialising in Chinese ink painting as well as water colour and oil painting. Cooking is her hobby and her specialty is Ang Zhau Mee Suar or Red Yeast Wine with Rice Vermicelli.

The table nicely set up for the 16 of us. Those beautiful place mats are laminated copies of Lynn's paintings.

A cup of cold herbal plum juice that Lynn had brewed that day to start off our meal. Love it! So delicious and really refreshing.

Lynn's signature dish - Red Yeast Wine Chicken served with Amoy Flour Vermicelli. You may choose to have bee hoon instead of the mee suar (flour vermicelli).

This is pumpkin dumpling yen-pi and meat balls, a Hock Chiew speciality.

This is a Hakka dish called "shin pun zhi". The little discs are made from yam and tastes fantastic despite its unimpressive appearance. Four of us were supposed to share each serving of side dishes but I ate more than my share of this!

Everyone had high praises for the Pork Chop Noodles. We couldn't understand how it could be so tasty when it looked so plain. I don't know about the rest but I actually preferred this dish to the Ang Zhao Mee Suar. The crunchy pork chop had been marinated with red yeast wine and then fried. Delicious!

The complimentary red yeast wine tasted horrible.

Our meal costs RM18 per pax excluding the plum juice, which costs RM5 per 500ml bottle, and the wine.

Lynn serves lunch but reservation is required for dinner (min. 16 pax). Parking is available inside her compound subject to availability of space.

For reservations please call Lynn Teoh at 012-757 7909 or 016-430 3868.

Grandma's Bragging Session

Warning! You are to enter a Grandma's bragging zone. Visitors run the risk
of turning green with envy.

I'm not allowed to post photos of my grandson on social media. Since blogs are considered part of the social media scene there won't be any photos of grandson even though a picture paints a thousand words. That's a pity 'cos my blog hardly commands any traffic at all.

Without the no-photo-on-social-media restriction I can assure you we would have uploaded a ton of photos for the world to see. Anyway, a post about the most adorable baby on earth would be quite meaningless without a photo so here's one of me carrying my precious grandson.

Haha, all you can see is his back! But that's better than nothing, right?

See his hair. He was born with a full head of hair. When we showed his photo to Hubby's nieces they went goo goo gaga over his hair; said that it was so "stylo" and asked us whether he used gel! What on earth were those girls thinking?

And he used to have golden streaks at the ends that looked like highlights. The highlights were snipped off when he had his hair-cut. :( Thank God they didn't shave him bald at Full Moon according to tradition.

The nieces, as did everyone else, also loved his eye-brows. Such thick, manly eye-brows! Many people have commented that his features are very "man". There's no way you can mistaken him for a girl.

Praise God, he is a happy baby with the most happy smile. And when he smiles dimples appear! Not just one, but two dimples. And when he laughs he really opens his mouth wide and his big eyes would disappear into slits. I am not the only one to notice that on such occasions the resemblance to my mom is uncanny.

Caden is also remarkably expressive. I've taken photos of him continuously and almost every photo manages to capture him with a different expression.

He also loves to talk. More so when he was younger. From the time when he was a month old he already could interact and verbalise as if he is having a conversation with you if you would talk to him.

And I love the times when he gets all excited and starts shouting, and flapping his arms and kicking his legs. Like a windmill! And oh yes, he's got such strong and sturdy legs. He loves to jump and always wants to stand up. In fact he managed to stand on his own when he was barely six months old! And that's before he could sit up or crawl.

One thing is for sure, the boy is an early developer and has been since he was born. When he was only 20 days old he kept rolling over onto his back whenever his mom put him lying faced down! I couldn't believe it until my daughter sent me a video proof. Isn't he simply amazing?

He also has a very strong grip. He doesn't just grab your finger. Once he has a hold on you he will start turning his wrist. Hubby says he'll make a good badminton player with such good wrist work and eye-hand coordination whereas his dad thinks he should be a tennis player. Que sera sera, maybe he'll end up being a swimmer or footballer.

Look at those busy fingers! He is always grabbing and feeling things even while while he's feeding.

It is very clear that I love my grandson to bits. Every single bit of him from head to toe.

Because I Have A Sister

...I always have a friend.

She has known me for the longest time. We have history and because of that she understands where my insecurities are coming from and my idiosyncrasies make sense to her. She has seen me at my worst and still thinks the best of me.

I'm so blessed.

Lunch at Tanjung Dawai

We were invited for lunch at Sungai Petani but it came as no surprise when Mr Tan, our host, requested that we hop into his car to go to a seafood restaurant that is located elsewhere.

Mr Tan is a foodie and he knows all the little nooks and corners in Kedah that serve the most amazing and delicious dishes.

After half-an-hour of meandering through padi-fields and small kampungs where villagers seem to be holding kenduris (parties) at every turn, we arrived at Tanjung Dawai, a small fishing village on the coast of Kedah.

The first thing Mrs Tan did was to head for the little jetties to buy prawns. Unfortunately there were no prawns in the catch that day so she bought crabs instead.

Meanwhile we took photos like any good tourist would.

The beach. In the backgroud is one of the many jetties where the fishermen land their catch.

Some fishermen preparing to go out to sea. Across the sea is Pantai Merdeka, the first beach Hubby visited when he was growing up in Alor Setar.

One of the rare times when we have someone to take a photo of us together.

While we were at the small jetty we also saw how the people made salted fish.

Hmmm, this part of the process doesn't look very hygienic to me

Then we headed over to Chooi Peng Seafood for lunch.

Our lunch. Clockwise from top left corner: Sea Cat Fish & Shark Curry, Crispy Battered Squid, Prawns Steamed with Egg White, Baked Jumbo Mantis Shrimp, Sea Crab in Spicy Gravy and Steamed Sting Ray

We ended up with a combo hai t'hor sart (sea cat fish) and shark curry because both were so fresh that the host could not decide on which to choose for the dish. So he did what any dedicated foodie would do, take both!

That's the sea cat fish meat on top and the shark meat below. I like that the sea cat fish doesn't have the muddy smell normally associated with cat fish.

The squids and prawns were not outstanding but the baked (not sure but they looked baked to me) mantis shrimps were really fantastic.

Live mantis shrimps in the aquarium

Look at that! That's how big the shrimps were and they were packed with plenty of sinfully delicious roe. You would have thought that
I was holding a sausage roll.

The sea crab is not a flower crab. It looks like a normal mud crab but it is found in the sea bed. Its meat is 'springier' than those of the mud crab. Its shell is also thinner so I could eat it with my fork and spoon!

Unfortunately there was only one sea crab left :( I wouldn't mind more of the crabs.

Finally, there's a steamed sting-ray that tasted better than it looked.

Their specialty is seafood so the fried yau mak was lacklustre (hence no photo). But we were told that the proprietor-cum-cook has a signature dish that he prepares with egg-plant. Must try that on our next visit.

See, it was so good that we were already planning a return visit before we even left the place.

On the way back we visited the Archeological Museum at the Bujang Valley. It was soooo terribly hot that I came back with a headache. We were crazy to walk in the hot sun without an umbrella or hat.

That's me with Mr & Mrs Tan. We even climbed steps in the hot afternoon sun. Crazy or not?

Hubby standing at the reconstructed site of one of the ancient Indian temples. Notice how colour coordinated he is with all the surrounding greenery.

We saw mangosteens for sale by the road-side and we just had to stop to buy some.

Hubby choosing mangosteens. He's the fruit expert in our family.

See the white flesh! Simply irresistible!

No thanks! We don't eat petai or stink beans.

At Sungai Petani we said farewell to our hosts. Reluctant to leave SP, we went to Secret Recipe for tea before leaving for Penang.

This is a rare occasion. Hubby normally doesn't frequent places like Secret Recipe or Starbucks. He's more of a kopi tiam guy.

We have already received a request from Bee Yoong in UK to bring them there the next time they are back in Malaysia.

So see you again Tanjung Dawai!

Shape, Money and Clothes

I was chatting with Baby Sis and we were lamenting over our shape, or lack of it, when it occurred to us that...

When we were young we had no shape, and no money.

Those were the days when we were skinny as a rake and we only had one new dress a year that was sewn for us by our paternal grandmother. We had no say in the choice of material nor the design of the dress.

There was a year when she bought a lovely rose pink material and she sewed us dresses with lace on the bodice. I really loved that dress and my memory of it remains as fresh as if it is still hanging in my wardrobe.

Unfortunately we weren't always so fortunate. There was a year when she sewed us dresses from a piece of ugly, brown cloth. I hated the colour and, to make things worse, the cloth was very scratchy.

Those were the two dresses I remembered out of the many that she sewed for us over the years when we were growing up - the one I loved most and the one I hated most.

In those days we hardly ever bought clothes. Most of the time we wore hand-me-downs that friends and relatives gave us which our mother would send for alterations before we could wear them.

As we grew older, we had the shape, but no money.

We filled up as we grew older even though we were still on the skinny side. That made it very easy for us to buy clothes and to look good in them. However, money was still tight because we were starting in our careers and our pay was low. Moreover, being a sandwich generation, we had to care for both our children and our parents.

Now that we are in our golden years we have the money but no shape.

Our parents have passed on and our children are already working, except for my nephew. We are now able to indulge ourselves but, unfortunately, we have lost our shape. The pendulum has swung from being too skinny to being too fat. And all in the wrong places. :(

We used to wear S, XS or even XXS size but now we have to request for L, XL or XXL size. To make matters worse, some of the clothes are imported from Korea and China where people are really tiny. To our chagrin, there are countless occasions when there isn't a size big enough for us to fit in!

Of course, we can always have our clothes tailored but one thing I've learnt through the years is that dress-makers often fail to deliver. The beautiful dress I picture in my head seldom ever materializes at the hands of the dress-maker.

So why, oh why, is it always a no-win situation for me when it comes to clothes?

An Irrational Fear

I was looking through my wardrobe when it struck me that I have a number of new clothes that I have not worn and some clothes that I really like that I seldom wear. Simply because...

Isn't that silly? But that's me. I'm never one to "waste" a new or beautiful outfit on a humdrum and ordinary day.

That also goes to show that I don't get invited to enough events that warrant a memorable outfit. I need more excitement in my life.