Kitchen Workout - Albino Kuih with Nyonya Kaya

I used to be a bit of a health freak and somewhat borderline anorexic. Lay off the fat, sugar, etc etc.

Well, after the weight gain in 2004 (that's a loooong story - 1 bad breakup + the discovery of an underactive thyroid) and EAT EAT EAT is all I can think about lately. And this coming recipe is probable one an anorexic/health freak might not want to touch at all - eggs, coconut milk, sugar.

In the spirit of the global effort to eat local (I know this sounds like an oxymoron but it really isn't), I decided to make one of favourite nyonya kuih - as I call it - Blue Kuih with Kaya. It does go by many other monikers - Pulut Tekan, Pulut Tai Tai.

(Ok, ok, actually I was planning this since I was offshore - oops...)

It's made of glutinous rice, plenty of coconut milk and is coloured with a natural dye derived from a local flower, Bunga Telang (Googling this name produced the scirentific name Cnesmone javanica). And it is served with kaya, our local egg-coconut milk curd.

Not just any kaya. I gotta have the nyonya kind like the ones we buy from the aunties in Penang - thick, rich and smelling of pandan a mile away. The runnier Hainanese type (which tastes mostly like a burnt sugar paste anyway) just won't do.

Of course, I have to ask for trouble. Feeling especially industrious, I made my own nyonya kaya, and blue kuih to go with it. I got the recipe from here, but I did not have any bunga telang (which provides the natural blue colouring) and did not want to buy blue colouring, so it became Albino kuih with kaya.

The kaya recipe is an improvised version of this recipe. I improvised it, omitting the final steaming and just kept stirring it over my makeshift doubleboiler.

The process came up to something equivalent to an arm workout. First of all, I was determined to make it as natural as possible, so I bought my own freshly grated coconut and squeezed the milk from it.

The pandan leaves came from my neighbour's garden, where the plant grows by the fence. Sneaked into the garden in the wee hours in the morning (a habit I developed from working offshore - I'm usually up by 6.30 in the morning, before most people - including my neighbour)

Arm Workout Nyonya Kaya - enough for 1 jar (say, 200 mls?)

4 eggs - as fresh as possible App. 7 tbsp of caster sugar (or to taste) 150 mls coconut milk 1/8 tsp salt 4 pandan leaves, washed and bruised
Combine eggs, salt and sugar in a bowl, stir to combine. Place 2 pandan leaves and the coconut milk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Gently heat till just boiling. Slowly pour the coconut milk mixture into the egg mixture, stirring stirring stirring all the time to avoid the eggs scrambling Prepare a double boiler - I just placed a large bowl over a pot of water. Strain the mixture into the double boiler. Add the remaining pandan leaves. Keep stirring until mixture thickens and resembles curds. Don't stop stirring! It took me about 1 hour to reduce my mixture to a curd like texture.

Albino Kuih with Kaya

Life in My Hands

Warning: A bit of drama and plenty of self contemplation ahead...

NO, I did not just give birth. And no, I'm not pregnant either.

It's my job, what else?

What exactly do I do offshore anyway? Pick one:

1) Charm hapless guys to work -

2) Cook for the guys - I catch the fish myself and harpoon turtles, which taste great stewed in a claypot.

3) Offshore entertainer - I serenade men on a cheap karaoke set so they go to sleep happy, albeit slightly disturbed
4) As one of my friends put so eloquently - drive the "oil harvester". Yup, I operate a bad-ass machine with a drill bit the size of a Range Rover. Me and my mean machine, burrowing into dirt at 120 metres water depth, churning up rocks and occasionally accidentally grinding up a fossil or two.

Sorry. Heheh. (and there is no such thing as an oil harvester, or, at least I have not heard of one)

Actually, my work is to, well, give out work. I hate calling it telling the guys what to do, but that's essentially what I do offshore. I don't have the strength to open bolts the size of my fist, so I tell people to do it.

A big part of my job is also making sure people working here are safe. In a live plant, with gas everywhere, every job requires a Permit to Work. Something virtually unheard of if your job is a secretary, teacher, IT guy, eh? Imagine, needing to get permission to do work???

Well, offshore you do. We draw up a legally binding contract where everything needed to avoid certain injury is spelled out and then we sign on it. Like I said, it's legally binding, that's why we need the signatures.

Say, for example, Mr. Big Guy wants to replace a light bulb. So the contract will go something like this:

1) Mr. Big might get electrocuted while he unscrews the lightbulb - so shut off the power supply

2) Mr. Big might fall off the ladder should he reach too far - so assign someone to hold on to the ladder

3) Mr. Big might get blown away if the wind gets too strong - so check the weather forecast 1st

And I make sure that the power supply is shut off, the ladder and the partner are all in place. Then I sign the form. Oh, I try to influence the wind and rain too, not always with success.

I am the last one to sign off, the final gate, if you may. Work starts after that. If do not sign and the guy works, then it's his responsibility if anything happens. After I sign, it becomes mine.

At times, the sheer thought of life in my hands, at the stroke of a pen, overcomes me. You see, I have this innate eager to please, "chin-chai-lah" nature. The quissential Asian. It is natural for me to reason away people's bad behaviour. Maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he's having a bad day cos he just quarreled with his wife. I call it seeing the glass half full. :)

But this will not do offshore. You see, people tend to be lazy. And complacent.

"It's only for a short while, no need-lah."

"I have walk all the way back to isolate the power...nothing is going to happen, Miss, don't worry"

"Why don't you sign first, we'll take care of it later"

"I've been doing this for twenty years - no need to tell me lar (to themselves: you young disrespectful ungrateful know-nothing busybody- sometimes I can practically hear people think this)

Me (fake smile): Pls do this favour for me pls pls pls- and thank you for giving a damn about your own life. (what I really want to say: No wonder-lah you're still doing the same thing after 20 years)

It did not take me long to comprehend that that me being too flexible might also mean me signing a death warrant. *Damn drama!*

It was last week when it happenned. The guys were taking out one of our turbines and replacing it with a new one. The turbine weighs about 4 tons. The engineer, someone whom I deeply respect and have heard nothing but good things about, unscrewed the bolts from the base of the turbine support. Then he gave the go-ahead for one of his techs to unbolt the other side, located underneath the turbine. I saw it happenning - like slow motion - the 4-ton turbine slowly tilt downwards and I put my hand on the shoulder of the tech before he was to go underneath it. The turbine keeled over, and breaking its final support, and crashed down. Had the tech continued what he was doing, the turbine would have crushed his head and upper torso.

I could not sleep that night. We never really know, do we? Life, like some flickle butterfly, can seem to take off in a fleeting. I wondered how we could have avoided the fall in the first place. I wondered how to tackle the always conflicting voices in my head - should I tell him? I might lose his respect, he's THE expert, he should know better than me. I don't want people thinking of me as some kind of paranoid control freak who gets off telling people that they're doing things wrong.

I am no saint. And while I'd like to think that I genuinely care for the guys, I have to sign quite a number of permits in one day. It's difficult, not to mention tiring, to care for all of them. Plus there's always the bloody voices in my head. And always resistance. I want people to like me. Why the hell am I getting into a fight with someone to safeguard his life? Why in the world should I give a damn?

For very selfish reasons. Because I don't want the burden of guilt. Because I have read about too many real life cases where lives were lost or destroyed due to lack of control and precaution. Because I know you have a life, a family to feed back home, and I never want to be the one to face them and tell them that I did not do everything I could. Because, even thought we both don't like it, I am responsible for you. Ad I'll do my damn best to make sure that you're as safe as possible, even if you hate me for it. Even if I hate being hated.

So I'll do my best to cajole, wheedle and pretty please and (bloody) thank you to someone so he doesn't get too mad putting his safety stuff in place (it usually involves quite a lot of extra work). I might be a pain in the a**, but I'll try to be as nice a pain in the a** as possible, cos I'm young and trying impress upon people that I have a good attitude.

Just you wait till I rack up my years. Then, I might not be so nice. Heheh..

On the day I was supposed to come back to shore, the abovementioned tech came and shook hands with me, thanking me for "pulling him out". I almost cried there and then. Guess there are rewards for doing this.

Fishing Season

It's fishing season here offshore!

Actually, it's fishing season all year round. Fish here thrive on the food scraps we dispose of into the ocean. Of course, there are other scraps that we throw into the ocean too, if you know what I mean (we're 120 kilometres out - of course it all gets flushed to the sea - after some, erm, processing of course)

Back to the fish. A large school of tuna-lookalikes thrives under our living quarters, ever ready for anything we toss into the sea. Anything that drops down, edible or not, is descended upon like a pack of wolves. It's pretty fascinating to watch.

Almost as constant a presence are the fishermen. While ours is a so-called restricted area, we don't mind them so much as long as they don't endanger themselves hanging out too near our platform. Of course, one never knows if the innocent looking wooden dinghy with the national flag is actually a masquerading member of the Abu Sayyaf or a pirate - but most of the time these folks are actually endangering themselves more than us.

Mind you, we have tons of flammable gas in our piping. Put together a sudden release and a fisherman lighting a cigarette...well, enough said.

Everyone has to make a living right? Cari makan. Company procedures dictate that we should get our standby boat to drive them away, but we try not to set our standby vessel on them if they stay in the "clear" zones. After all, it's a hard life, rocking in their tiny boats and at the mercy of the sun, sea and storms. I wonder how many days at a time they are out, and how their boats hold up to the strong wind and waves we've been experiencing lately.

One of the fishing boats apparently gifted our standby vessel with a catch of theirs - one of the lot living under our quarters. From 20 to 30 metres up where we stand on the platform, they don't look all that big.


As you can see, they are not at all like the average fishes one gets at the local market.


This one was pregnant.


Apparently the flesh is too tough to eat fresh, so our catering crew will salt and dry the flesh. Guess this monster will provide enough salted fish for quite a couple of months. And yes, it is edible, albeit not very delicious. But hey, nothing beats fresh fish right out of the ocean, right?

Disclaimer: Fishing from an offshore platform, is, by my company's rules, illegal. WE DID NOT CATCH THIS FISH.

Just one of the gorgeous views we get every day...

Can't resist showing off (just a little). Looks like something out of a movie, isn't it? The sun's rays shining through the clouds - there's something heavenly about this scene.

Walk on the Beach, 30th Of September

The weekend before I was due to come offshore, AK asked me if I wanted to go to the beach. Lethargic at first and enjoying the comforts of my bed and air conditioning, I was a little reluctant.

So understandably, after I managed to drag myself out of bed, it was a little late in the evening when we got there - the Miri beach named, if memory serves, Hawaii Beach (why, I have absolutely no clue).

And I totally regret that we did not leave the house earlier.

Now, Miri's Hawaii Beach is nothing to shout about, no Phuket or Perhentian. It's no Sabah either. The water quality is dubious, and swimming is usually not recommended, thanks to the nearby offshore platforms and worse, the timber factories upriver.

But it is not all that bad.

When we got there, the waves were rocking and rolling, the wind was blowing salty mist into our faces (made me wonder how my folks offshore were doing - it would be twice as bad offshore).

The beach was surprisingly clean. We saw families clearing the last of their picnics, and met with children putting finishing touches to their sandcastles.

We played with the tiniest little hermit crabs and tried to coax some photos out of them, but found them to be shy little fellas :)

Think this one here is the best we got.


Tiny little things they are.


We did not realise that the sunset was almost upon us, but managed, just in time, to capture it before the sun exited and we were, literally, left in the dark.


Portrait of me in the sand, by AK.

When it got too dark to see clearly (and it did get that dark pretty fast), we had a simple little dinner in town, at a place we had never been to, just to be (a little) adventurous. The food was nothing to shout about, but we did have the best time, just the two of us.

It was one of those times where we were just immersed in the moment, not talking about tomorrow or yesterday. The sun is setting. The children are playing. The wind is blowing. Notice the present tenses? Notice how wonderful it sounds? (to me anyway)

Even now, writing from offshore, I remember almost every detail of that evening because we were in the moment. I'll be the first to admit, we had been living life a bit too hecticly, both of us totally caught up with our work. We still are, but it's nice to take a few pauses now and then.

It may be a sign of getting older, or maybe my Carpe Diem tendencies are not of a high enough standard, but the below realisation has just come to me.

I don't need no exotic vacation or rockin' nightclub to make my weekend worthwhile. (Come to think of it, a vacation to Bangkok or even Sabah sounds good..hmmm...) The walk on the beach (ahem, Hawaii Beach, Miri) made me pretty darn happy.

Nose to the Grindstone

And so ends my 2 weeks of onshore leave. I had a really fulfilling time off - I believe this trip back onshore has been the one where I spent the least time working - only 2 days in the office, and 2 days spent in JB.

Summary of what I (we) did:

1) Experimented with cooking oyster, button and flower mushrooms - roasting, microwaving and deep frying - we like the roasted oyster mushrooms best
2) Made pizza from scratch
3) Hosted friends for dinner - first time that it was me and only me cooking - and it was great (no post on this though because I did not take any photographs - pity)
4) Planted more pumpkins
5) Made Penang prawn noodles from scratch - success!
6) Adopted a stray cat and made him our baby
7) Went for a walk on the beach - also will post on this soon

On top of all that, I was also running around town sorting out some personal stuff, which I normally dread doing but this time is was for a great reason.

All in all I would say I had a great time not working and doing all of the above (except the errands). I feel refreshed, happy and contented as opposed to the previous trips when even my offdays were spent working, which resulted in me returning offshore exhausted and sullen.

After all, it was during my last offshore stint, when I felt like that, that I started this blog and vowed to do a whole lot more than return to the office during my leave days. I wanted to make the most of my time off and do stuff that actually made me happy.

I work to live and not otherwise. I work to live, work to live. Work to live. :)

BUT it's nose to the grindstone now for me. No more kitchen experiments for the next two weeks....I am in my offshore mode, here to earn my living so that I may enjoy all the rest of the stuff I am into now.

Let the countdown (to the 17th of this month) begin.

Our Baby

Introducing the latest addition to our home!

We have yet to name him, but I will call him Baby for the time being. He is the sweetest, most loving cat I've met. In fact, I get the feeling that he is starved for love. Well, he shall starve no more - I plan to lavish as much love as possible on this sweetheart.

My baby comes to us and meows really loudly, and will not stop until we pet him and stroke his chubby little chin. He actually follows us around whenever we walk outdoors, and accompanies me when I hang the laundry out to dry. He tries to get as close as possible to us, jumping up onto the higher railing just so that we can pet him easier.


Unfortunately he is not allowed into the house as he is a bit of a wild thing - we actually witnessed him catching a mouse some days back, hopping into a drain and emerging from it with a mouse wriggling in his mouth. I am taking this positively as I guess it means that he keeps those vermin away.

But he is our baby now, make no mistake.

He snoozes in our front porch while waiting for us to either come home, or open our house door. Then he tries to let himself into the house, but knows that it's wrong and quickly scurries out again when we admonish him.

He is also terrified of lawnmowers and once ran into the house unnoticed and camped out in AK's room (for quite some time we believe) before AK found him.

He has refused to eat leftover bolognese sauce, but happily gobbled down leftover stir fried beef strips. So I am thinking of a Chinese name for my baby.

We will also be giving him a bath and de-flea-ing (not sure if this is word) him when both of us get back.

Sad thing is that both AK and I are not at home with him - I'm offshore and AK has work in KL.

I just hope that he still remembers me when I return home after 2 weeks.

Thoughts on The Saffron Revolution

I have been following this for some time now - news of the Myanmar (Burmese) uprising, and the brave march of the monks in protest against the military junta.

I watched the video of their ruling general, Than Shwe's daughter, Thandar Shwe. It was, for lack of a better word, disgusting. Decadence and excess while people starve on the streets.

It is stark reality for me that Burma is a neighbour country, and I am no elite in mine. Had I been born in Burma, where would I be now? Working for the government to ensure my family's safety? In hiding? I do not believe that the men and women in the military want to hurt their people - if you have children, a family to feed and sustain, you do what is necessary, I believe.

All the same, I have nothing but the utmost respect and reverence for these monks, and tears came when I saw the news coverage - Burmese military and plainclothes policemen beating them into submission and herding them to prison. They are abandoning what could have been a comparatively peaceful life (in Burma) and standing up for what is right. They are risking capture, torture, starvation and death standing up for what is right, facing down the might of the junta, the military and the silence of our countries' leaderships.

Yes, despite our lofty lessons to our children about standing up for what is right (berani kerana benar - one of the Moral Values learnt in school), the chase for resources, for wealth, will always be the overriding factor, succintly put in this article in the Economist.

I place this link here, from someone who has actually met and spoken to the brave voices of journalism and dissent in Burma. And I have read the Irrawady Post, especially this article on the women of Burma.

Again, the world, me included, lets the opportunity to do what is right pass us by. We passed on our chances in Rwanda, during the Holocaust, in Tiananmen Square, East Timor, Darfur - we wait, and wait for blood to be shed before standing up and saying this is wrong, and we can - we NEED to do something about this .

Perhaps, in the past, we could have blamed our inaction on the lack of information - that we know too late. But in this day and age of CNN, of YouTube, of the Internet - we have run out of excuses. Those citizen journalists in Burma are risking their lives to show us what is happenning there - they are trusting us to tell their story and take action - how will we respond?

What will we do for them? What can we do for them?

I read, and I write in the hope of spreading awareness amongst us more fortunate ones on the plight, the FIGHT of the courageous monks, ordinary people and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. They will be in my prayers.

What can we do to show our support for the people of Burma? Lend them a voice - you can click below and print out the banner below taken from http://saffronrevolutionworldwide.blogspot.com/. I will be posting the photo of my banner soon.



"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people"

- Martin Luther King