Saturday, December 24, 2005
Maple's Profiteroles
Rachel (my sister-in-law) told me that the kids love profiteroles (especially Samuel), so I decided to try and make some on Christmas Eve.This is the first time I make profiteroles - thanks to Michelle Tennens for her recipe, it was really delicious :)
(Except she's right, one needs to stir for ages to make the mixture nice and glossy. My arms were so sore at the end of all that mad stirring. However, the results were rewarding!!!)
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Manik's Singaporean Side
Here's some of the Christmas decorations near Carrefour in town...
Not too bad yeah?
Manik and I went to Carrefour (not sure about the spelling...) to buy the ingredients for cooking 'the ultimate Christmas meal' (this year we decided to try duck, as turkey cost more :p).
While we walked past a sampling counter near the frozen section, a lady who was promoting cheese-flavoured chicken nuggets, offered Manik a small, tiny piece to sample. Immediately he gulped it down his throat and motioned to me to walk away.
This is a typical Singaporean behaviour!
It's very common to see similar types of behaviour among many Singaporeans. Whenever there's a sampling counter, there will be loads of people (usually married women though ) surrounding it. The worse thing is, most of the ladies walked away not buying the product. When attempting to board the bus, everyone rushes in to try to be first to board. This is referred as a 'kia su' behaviour.
'Kia su' is a phrase in the Chinese Hokkien dialect - it means 'afraid to loose', and refers to people who do everything in their power to be first in the queue or the ones who benefit the most from anything.
I was very surprised to observe this behaviour in Manik since he's less 'kia su' than I am ;) (I hope I have not influenced him negatively...)
Actually this behaviour is commonly found in Taiwan too, my country of birth. Whenever I'm there, many times, I will join the crowd and walk away shamelessly.
I guess although I'm not a Singaporean (yet? Or I am already?), I'm a 'kia su' Chinese after all....
Garlic Fingers
Yesterday I decided to chop up a whole lot of garlic so that I won't have to chop small small portions everytime I need them.
After the chopping was completed, I realised my fingers were full of a strong garlic smell!!!
I rubbed a bit of lemon juice on my hands, trying to get rid of the smell (just like getting rid of the smell of fish). However, it didn't work!!!
The whole day I had to endure the strong smell on my fingers...couldn't touch my hair, or Manik's face...
Help~does anyone know hot to get rid of the smell instantly???
Tri, you are the south-east asian food expert, any idea??
After the chopping was completed, I realised my fingers were full of a strong garlic smell!!!
I rubbed a bit of lemon juice on my hands, trying to get rid of the smell (just like getting rid of the smell of fish). However, it didn't work!!!
The whole day I had to endure the strong smell on my fingers...couldn't touch my hair, or Manik's face...
Help~does anyone know hot to get rid of the smell instantly???
Tri, you are the south-east asian food expert, any idea??
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Indian Meal
After reading some of our posts, some of you might wonder how come we often have photos of food...well, actually we don't eat out that often, it's just that we have had to do quite a lot of the Christmas shopping these days, and since we are out, we may as well eat outdoors, sparing Maple from cooking (although it's my pleasure to cook, honestly!!!).
Anyways, today we went to Mustafa, a very famous shopping place at Little India to get some Indian snacks like muruku, etc. There are many many good Indian restaurants around here, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. And since we didn't have Indian food for quite a long time, we decided to have some proper Indian food tonight.
Here's Manik with the South Indian Dinner set and my onion thosai meal, my favourite type of Indian bread, which is cut off at the bottom of the photo...anyway, it was yum yum...
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
The pathetic Snowman~
This is the most pathetic snowman Manik and I have ever seen in our lives...it was found at the regional library near our house...although it looks fine from the photo, it was so awful in close up. On one of the gifts there's even a note says 'Please do not touch snowman'...mm....I guess nobody wants to anyway...
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Carols by Candle Light
Place:St. Paul's churchDate:Sunday, 18th Dec 2005
Time:6.30pm
Sorry guys, this photo is a bit blurred. It was taken from quite a distance as you can see there were many heads in front of me...
Anyway, this is a Tamil chorus from the church's Tamil congregation. The singing was great. Enoch and Geetha will surely have enjoyed it.
Can you see where my mother-in-law is???
