Four days from today marks exactly one year since I first found out about my miscarriage ... August 8th, 2008. Which I remember because it was also the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Some of the people I care about will probably have some concerns as they read this... Is she in depression? Or going through an emotional breakdown? Maybe unable to let go of the past? I assure all concerned parties that I am perfectly fine. I have not been keeping track of that day all this time. It's something that I just happen to recall as I was scrolling through my calendar for the week ahead and that date just flicked across my phone screen. It is a very significant date... 08/08/08. One year. I never imagined time to fly by so quickly. How precious is this thing - time. But in between the moments when we do pause to marvel the preciousness of it all, the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, are like a watch in the night. Because it seems only just the other day when that sig...

Early on Saturday morning, the second day of the big spring clean , hubs heard a noise outside. Peering through the upstairs window, he saw dark figure rumaging around inside the skip bin outside the house. I got up to continue our cleaning work. As we walked outside with more loads of stuff to toss out, this spastic indian dude popped out and looked eagerly at the bundles we were carrying... " Jangan buang ya, saya mau ambik! " So we left the bundles by the skip bin for him to sort through which ons we wanted. Anything he found useful, he piled onto his little makeshift sidecar attached to an old scooter. And thus we got acquainted with the Amazing 'Karang Guni'Man! I had always heard of the 'Karang Guni' man but never met one myself. Apparently you don't have to look for him... he finds YOU. You could almost class his guy as some kind of super hero... he patrols through the streets looking for 'treasure'. He has the strength of ten men, well at l...

This recent holiday back to Malaysia (and short detour to Singapore) was great. We chose not to pack it full to the brim with itineraries and excursions and plans. We just wanted to chill, relax, eat all the yummy foods we missed, spend time with close family, and be pampered by mum and dad. Sounds very uneventful, right? Well actually... allow me to share one of 'interesting' things we got up to while we were there. We found out not long before our trip that hubby's dad had to go in for surgery for hernia. He then subsequently had to go for a second surgery to treat an infection that surfaced following the first one. I guess this trip was well timed so we were able to see him. He has been recovering steadily with the wound healing well. We took te opportunity to do something special with him by taking a (partial) family photo with him... I think he was very proud and happy and I'm glad our trip was well timed so that hubby's youngest sister could also be there. We ...

Here is the recipe for the homemade prathas I made yesterday Ingredients 1½ cups plain flour ½ tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ¾ cup water ½ cup ghee or vegetable oil Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre, add the water in and gradually incorporate with the flour. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest for half an hour, covered in plastic wrap. Divide the dough into approximately 6 pieces. Roll a piece of dough out to 3mm thick disc. Brush oil or ghee over the top. Make a light incision from the centre to the edge. Lift the dough and fold inwards at the incision until you have a layered cone. Hold the cone pointy side down, then use your other thumb to push the outer layered edges into the centre of the cone until you have a ball. Repeat this process or the remaining pieces of dough. Cover the dough balls with a clean, damp kitchen towel and le...

I am aware that I've not updated this space for a while. Been stressed out a bit lately... not sure why, but I've just been feeling very tired and down recently. Also I must confess that Twitter has been a little bit absorbing... ^_^ Anyway, I thought I'd kickstart a new post with one about food... here's a couple of things I've experimented lately... Homemade roti pratha. Will post up the recipe shortly. I think the homemade version is so much healthier as I can cut down on the amount of oil or ghee... and nothing serving up curries and sauces with hot, fluffy, rotis, fresh from the skillet. And with the assistance of my trusty breadmaker ... I made up these cinammon rolls. Super nice! Hot and fresh from baking, and I can be as generous as I want with the cinammon. We were at our investment property the other day to inspect the place after the last tenant vacated. We discovered that the garden, although not the prettiest one, had already a few well established frui...

Following the success of my Arab Cookies or Kuih Makmur ... this afternoon I decided to attempt making some sugee (almond) cookies They look quite cute with the little cherry pieces on top, but I think the kuih makmur tasted nicer. Recipe is roughly as follows: 70 grams butter (softened) 150 grams ghee Approx 1 or 1½ cups plain flour 1 cup ground almonds 1 teaspoon bicarb soda 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 1 teaspoon almond essence Glazed cherries for decoration Beat butter, ghee, sugar, vanilla essence and almond essence in bowl. Add flour, ground almond, bicarb soda and knead until it forms a soft slightly crumbly dough. Roll dough into marble size balls, place onto a baking tray and flatten slightly on top. Decorate with slivers of glazed cherries and bake at 170°Celcius for about 15 minutes.

On Tuesday night, hubs and I were chilling out in front of the TV watching the new gameshow Talkin' 'bout your generation . According to the definition from the show's host, the three generations are classified as follows: Born 1945-1964: Baby Boomers Born 1965-1979: Gen X Born 1980-1994: Gen Y Hubby wanted to play the quiz against each other, him Gen X and me Gen Y. I refused to, because truth be told I didn't agree that I should be classified under Gen Y. I'm glad I sided with Gen X coz' in the show, the Gen X team nailed the other two teams hands down... I did some Googling afterwards to check on the definition of the generations classifications and I found that there was no precise definition because there is certain to be some overlap between the generations. From piecing together a few of the disparate sources I came across the rough definition which seems to give a broader picture, something like: Baby Boomers : Post WWII to around mid 60s Gen X : Mid/lat...

So during the couple of days off I took just to chill out, I spent one afternoon making arab cookies or kuih makmur. I had come across the recipe online before and thought it was relatively simple to give it a try. I had to agak-agak the recipe, but it is quite easy really... only three types of ingredients: Approx 2+ cups plain flour Approx 1/3 cup icing sugar Approx 5-6 tablespoons ghee Extra icing sugar for dusting Mix flour sugar and ghee in a large bowl until it forms a soft dough. I found the best way is to start with a couple of tablespoons of ghee, and then add bit by bit as you go along until you get the right consistency with the dough. The dough should be a pale yellow and a just little bit oily, and be able to come together and not stick to the sides of the bowl too much. I couldn't take a photo of the dough while I was mixing it, but I found this pic online which I think is a good indicaton of what it should look like. Photo from babeinthecitykl.blogspot.com Roll teasp...

The year following the Igor's birthday surprise , I planned a dinner in the sky for hubby's next birthday... A three course dinner in a cable car! This is on the cable car ride from harbourfront to Sentosa Each round they will serve you a new course, and you carry on in the ride... I think thyey arrange it so you get to sit in the cable for about four rounds - one for each course, and extra one just to relax and digest a bit. This was the appetizer I think... It wasn't the best meal from a culinary view, but overall it was quite nice... something different, I guess... I recently read that Singapore is going to do a major overhaul of their Harbour Front cable car , which includes a new special Swarovski-encrusted VIP cabin!

I received a few comments (both online and face to face) from various people who seemed quite intrigued by the fortune cookie and star gazing surprise I had planned for hubby's birthday this year. So I thought I share another idea of a past birthday surprise present I had planned for hubby a few years ago... I think this was in 2003 while we were working in Singapore. I had scouted around for various ideas and activities for hubby's (boyfriend at that time) birthday, but I couldn't really make up my mind yet which one to go for. So I decided to let hubby choose... I made a list of a few mysterious possibilities and asked hubby which option he wanted. I can't find the list I made, but I think I probably listed it something like this: 1. Sky high experience 2. Bone-chilling horrifying and scary fun 3. Let's go classy I'm sure I phrased them way better than the above... but you get the idea. Hubby chose the second option... and not long after that, he received th...