Year end reflections

Today, on Monday 22nd of December 2014, I am on my annual leave. I managed to re-arrange my maid visit to the morning instead of the usual night session, and the maid who turned up turned out to be a little miracle. My home is shiny and clean and I bask in it, whilst the rain pours outside, the closest you'd get to winter in Malaysia in December. Boo is as usual all curled up on his blanket on the sofa.

This time of year, before the family reunion, after the feast with friends, amidst the gift preparations (just delivered some homemade XO sauce, granola and freshly baked vanilla butter cake with relatives yesterday), I manage to sneak in moments of reflection, thought and above all, gratitude.

Work has been very much a pain at times, but I am grateful all the same for the opportunity to contribute, to collaborate, for the means to live the life we want.

For my funny family. My dad and mum who adorably whatsapped their entire day itineraries whilst on vacation, for my brothers, with whom I swap ideas for Christmas presents for the 'rents, and the first people I told (other than the husband of course) when I first discovered I was pregnant. And the shared joy once I announce the gender of the baby.

For our Boo, who as of this year has been with us for 8 joyous, laughter filled years. Boo who cannot seem to lose weight despite starting his low fat diet, Boo who would come in between us and meow loudly/drop and roll his fat self on the floor when we argue, as if to distract us or tell us to stoppit, Boo who hogs pillows. Boo who loves house guests and will sit on their lap/rub himself against them/tag along house tours, no matter if the guest welcomes it or not. Boo who spends quiet weekend mornings with mama while she relaxes with her morning drink. Boo who immediately comforts his papa when he slipped down the stairs. Boo, without whom our home life would not be complete.

For the husband and our growing little family. For the husband who can't wait for the arrival of his daughter. The husband who gives the best career/work advice. Whom I force to tuck me in and adjust my maternity pillow when I go to bed. The husband who makes a mean hot chocolate, who gives in to almost everything I ask for (boy am I going to be sorry this pregnancy will soon come to an end). Who assembled the baby stroller the day we bought it. Who just can't wait to be a daddy.

And to our little one. I wrote this during my lunch break some time ago, and shall leave it as is -  a moment when my feelings were captured in words.

I think I finally get it.

The way I see it, pregnant mothers are divided into two camps – the mushy, I feel so connected, glowy  group and the poor long-suffering one . I think I finally figured out which one I belong to.
The baby kicks and rolls. She kicks and jabs during my meetings, and sometimes it's all I can do to sit there with a straight face, trying not to jump/wiggle from the sudden discomfort. Sometimes I feel that she does it when I am most agitated, as if she is trying to distract me. Or even that she is trying to get me to speak out more.

She somersaults during my shopping walks, causing me sometimes to pause and grab my belly - just to be sure everything is still OK.

When I am alone, as I was in the past two weeks during the evenings in the hotel after my work in the fabrication yard, she makes sure her presence is felt.

It's just so awesome. More than awesome - I feel like a mum. A mum. I confess, I’m still not sure if mum and me are a fit.

Now, almost every night, I lay in bed and expose my belly, and watch the bump rock and jiggle, and laugh.

So yes, I finally get it. I hardly think about whether I will get back to my pre-pregnancy size anymore. Instead I worry about her nutrition, whether I will be able to breastfeed her, whether whatever I am putting in my mouth, or physical activity I do, will affect her.

My mum's Awesome Chicken Wings

The most awesome recipe for the most addictive wings, courtesy of my culinary genius mum.

It all started when my dad, anxious about his upcoming stint alone when I deliver (my mum plans to come stay with us for one month once baby is born), decided that he absolutely needed an air fryer to cook meals for himself while my mum's away.

So of course they got one pronto, and mum started experimenting with it. We tried air frying potato chips (they turn soggy very fast once out the fryer), and my mum also tried frying some other stuff.

The other day she sent me a picture of the wings she made and they looked so good, I thought of re-creating them for our Christmas gathering. And they were such a hit - the first item to finish (well after the guacamole)! And the guests sang praises of them. My only regret is I didn't make more.



Gotta love her

As you can see she didn't really give precise measurements. I took note of what I used and how much, so here goes:

Recipe for 20 wings

20 chicken wings (with drummets)
A little peanut oil

Marinade:
-  1 cup light soy sauce
-  3-4 large shallots, peeled, quartered and crushed lightly
-  6 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed lightly
- 3 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp each garlic and onion powders
- 4 tbsp soft brown sugar

Pat dry the wings. Combine the marinade ingredients in a ziploc bag large enough to fit all the wings, else divide into 2 bags. Marinate the wings overnight, refridgerated

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Remove the wings from the marinade and let them sit and come to room temperature, about 30minutes. Pat them dry again with paper towels. You will need a roasting pan with a rack. Line the pan with foil (trust me you will want to do this as the sugar in the marinade will be your undoing), place the rack on, place the wings on the rack.

Roast for 20-30 minutes. I removed them after 20 minutes and re-arranged then to ensure each wing was sufficiently golden/dark brown and glossy.




Don't you wish???

 

Celebration!!

It's December, my favourite time of the year!

I bought a large tree (after, like 3 trips to 3 different malls), and went for (I'd like to believe) a silver, gold and winter theme with icicles, silver balls and translucent angel wings. Unfortunately I broke 2 icicles, and the weekly maid another 3 :(. Note to self: Perhaps it's not such a good idea to buy glass ornaments. Next year will get another set of lights and more ornaments, so the tree doesn's look so bald.

We hosted a Christmas gathering amongst colleagues/friends, with a heated gift exchange that included steals and bargains, and then played Taboo.

I ordered a turkey from Hank's Fine Foods. Ordering was a bit of a hassle in the beginning, but the turkey turned out pretty good actually - moist and tasty white meat! Such a rarity. I made my own mushroom gravy to go with as well - pretty easy. Caramelize chopped onions, then add chopped mushrooms (I used portabellos and brown mushrooms) and saute. I soaked dried porcini in hot water, then strained the mushroom liquid and finely sliced in the porcini for extra umph. Grate in a clove of garlic, leave to simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Voila.

Some other things I made:

- My guacamole, which our prep crew took to snacking on before the party started, and finished waaay too early. I should've made more! Next time next time.

- Mushroom pasta. Saute sliced brown and portabello mushrooms in olive oil, add chopped garlic. Let the mushrooms cook down. Add cooked pasta and a bit of the pasta water. I used about 5 cups of sliced mushrooms to one 400 g packet of spaghetthi. Toss over low heat, then add lots of freshly grated parmesan. I used my large oval Le Creuset to cook the mushrooms and toss the pasta with, and then as a serving vessel. Just before serving, sprinkle with freshky chopped parsley.

- My mum's awesome chicken wings, which is the subject of another post. They went down so fast I didn't even get to eat any!

- Early grey jelly with oranges and pomengrenate seeds

- Fudgy brownies using my favourite recipe

Some lessons I learnt on hosting:-

1) Get friends involved. We had one friend who was a general helper, helping to chop, slice, basically do anything I wanted doing. Another friend made his delicious rocket and avocado salad with olive and balsamic dressing, and artfully arranged the crudites in glass jars you see below. Yet another guy offered to make his Mojitos (virgin ones for me and another pregnant guest), which got the party started pretty nicely. You don't have to do it all yourself - and since our friends were guests as well, there was plenty of joking and mingling way before the party even started proper.

2) Prep as much as you can beforehand - I sliced my mushrooms, marinated my wings and made the gravy the night before. I also made desserts the night before. The day itself - roasted the wings, made the pasta and guacamole. With my friends around to lend a hand, this was easy and we had plenty of time to drink mojitos and snack on aforementioned chips and guacamole before everyone else arrived.

3) More is better than less! I would've liked to make more pasta, more guacamole, more wings - they went down so fast! And maybe order a ham. Again, something to keep in mind for next year

All in all, it was a good night. I know hosting something of the like is going to be a challenge next year with the baby and everything, but I'd love to make it an annual tradition. We'll see.

My precious gifts under my gold and silver tree - Boo's like, "Whatcha doin under MY tree??"

Turkey and "stuffing" from Hank's, homemade mushtoom gravy (in the large glass bowl), salad and mushroom pasta (left, partly visible only)

Our staircase - note that my Yogja skull has his Santa hat on!

Turkey from Hank's Fine foods - surprisingly tasty white meat. I would order this again.

The most artfully arranged crudites by our friend (veggies to be eaten with bought cheese dips), homemade guacamole with corn chips.

Mushroom Pasta

Boo staking his place under the tree again

Group photo of the night

Five months, and I'm wondering

The belly decided to show itself in full force in Month Number Six! And let's not go into details about my worst fear - arse expansion. For someone who used to be in complete control of her body, I find all of this to be new and terribly frightening. Pants that used to hang on me can't fit anymore. What if they never fit me again?? The horror!

But she's kicking, people! And squirming and doing somersaults. At least, that's what it feels like sometimes. We don’t know for sure if she’s a she, but we know she’s growing well, has developed a healthy spine, and – as all the lab tests show – is showing no indications of slowing down. 

Work has been a little crazy - so much management attention on this not so little project I'm in, especially in the space I'm responsible for.

I have had to remind myself not to get too negative at times. I’ve also subconsciously taken a step back sometimes in terms of my emotional investment in my work, because I was worried I was letting the pressure get to me and it would affect the pregnancy.

And this bothers me.

 

I have always been emotionally invested about my work – to me that’s part and parcel of my success so far. How does one put 101% and go the distance, otherwise? Work takes up most of my waking hours, and – whether I like to admit it or not - defines my very person. I (still) am ambitious and I make no apologies for it.

And so I've been thinking a lot about Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer.

Today I declined going to the construction site - not because I can't, but because I thought it was an unnecessary risk for me, my baby and the company to take.

Now I am wondering if it was the right thing to do. Sheryl Sandberg writes about "Leaning In", and not leaving the table until you've actually left the table. Did I just leave the table?

The construction site

It didn't start out like that, for sure. When I first discovered I was pregnant, I was determined to continue Leaning In. In my first trimester I travelled almost every week. I made it a point to put on my coveralls and visit the construction site, climbing over scaffolding and dodging heavy loads. I would always utter a prayer of thanks when I boarded the plane back home. It took enough from me to get through normal office days, much less athose that began before sun-up with a red eye flight and ending with me reaching home well after my first trimester bedtime. But I endured it all, for fear of missing out.

 

I have/would never call myself a feminist. I just want equal opportunity and no special treatment. I have seen some so-called career women manipulate terrified PC bosses into allowing them to deliver (as in work) practically nothing at to take days off at every whim and fancy - at the expense of their (mostly male and single female) co-workers. I have vowed never to be one of those women. I will  carry my own weight (in addition to the baby one - haha).

Look at the women people who condemned Marissa Mayer when she announced her plan to take just a few weeks off work (and work remotely during all that time off). As one of the commentators in this dialogue remarked “She has a legal obligation to maximize corporate profits for her shareholders. She’s not gotten to where she is today by forgetting her duties as a CEO.” I think that hit the nail on the head. I sometimes think that women forget that there is a job to be done. The world doesn’t stop because you have a baby. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. There is a business to be run and you are (or were) just one of the cogs in that gigantic machine.

 

But then again, maybe it's not that simple. There's a definite slowdown I feel in myself. Chalk it up to pregnancy exhaustion, or hormones, or just the fact that there's a little person inside of me who will be totally dependent on me and I need to be thinking more of her and less of everything else.

 

I guess there's no easy, straightforward answers - except to make as much time as possible, get help, and top fretting the small things (translation: our house is a lot messier than it used to be)

In the meantime, I shall give thanks for the fact that we can afford to hire a helper; that all signs point to AK wanting to be a hands-on dad; that our parents are so supportive and ever ready to lend a hand. I don't think I could ask for anything more. In the meantime I've re-started my early morning routines to try and catch some exercise time (to avoid the backaches that start appearing once I stop), so I can work late with the exercise part done for the day.

There's only so much you can prepare for really, mentally and otherwise. I will just have to navigate my wildly swinging feelings towards my child and my career. Onward to the unknown!

Pregnancy Joy

One of my friends, who has a two year-old and just delivered her second, encouraged me to document my thoughts and feelings throughout my pregnancy.

There's so much talk and information online on pregnancy hormones, antenatal depression, etc, etc. I don't know.

All I feel is happy.

I just feel so incredibly blessed right now. I get offered little tips and anecdotese from young mums all round the office pouring in, my parents constantly calling to check on how I feel, friends we go out with so eager to accomodate where I want to eat.

Most of all, my husband has been so incredibly supportive and downright joyful that we're finally getting the child he longs for so much, it's infectious. I think our cat has caught onto his excitement, I kid you not.

Sure, there's still fear, from the superficial (how am I going to get by on less than 7 hours of sleep at night) to world-weary (just look at the spate of bad news - child abuse, kidnappings, racial intolerance, ISIS - why would I want to bring a child into this kind of world? How do I protect her?).

But there's also excitement, and the feeling of growing and infinite love, that it will be more than OK in the end.

Miri Memories, and Sarawak Laksa

Current Obsession: Eating Asia.

 

Reading Robin Eackhart's writing makes me nostalgic for Miri and its humble vibrancy. The daily tamu's (markets), where they sell everything from live fish, sago worms, mud crabs, crocodile-skin fruit, where I used to buy rambutans by the tonne (I exaggerate of course).

 

I have of course come to realize, cooped here in my big city, how much more I miss Miri than having to drive only 5 minutes to and from work every day.

 

I miss the tamu's, where were weather-beaten little old ladies sell handwoven baskets and traditionaly beaded Christmas ornaments.

 

Where the locals' favourite vegetables grow wild (midin or jungle fern) - stuff that grew in the drains and ditches.

 

I used to love the dependencies (and respect) the locals had on the wild, the rusticity of it all - we had neighbours who kept chickens and slaughtered them for food. We must have been the only family that didn't have a small vegetable patch in our garden. A monitor lizard and catfish lived in the neighbourhood drains (we occassionaly saw the big guy swim languidly by - but he never bothered us). It was an almost daily even to spot electric blue kingfishers sometimes. And - oh, Miri didn't have crows, it had storks! Pure white birds everywhere. Sometimes we even spotted a hornbill or two.

 

I wish I captured more of the local wildlife and lifestyles, in words and photos.

 

The fact that I would spot men with nets and rods harvesting krill and catching mudcrabs and catfish on my drive home, where the ground is so fertile it's easy to live off the land. Where they warn you about crocodiles in the local park lake.

 

I loved it all, I confess. I loved our kindly neighbours, the gentle Sarawakian spirit, the muhibbah-ness of the place - where, truly, people of all races and religions live in harmony.

 

I also loved Sarawak Laksa - white rice noodles in a sour, coconut-milk broth flavoured with the essence of prawns and jazzed up with chilli and lime. Garnishes are strips of egg omelette, strips of poached chicken breast, prawns, beansprouts and coriander. It is about the only Sarawakian food I really miss. I could do without kolok mee (kinda like wan tan mee without the wan tan, hence loses its point), red wine mee sua or wild boar (Sarawakians are obsessed with wild boar, I don't know why).

 

And since my pregnancy cravings are hitting me full on, I decided I had to make my own version. I needed a good supply!

 

I researched online and to my surprise, there isn't a real recipe for the Sarawak laksa spice paste. Apparently it's a closely guarded secret, and even the manufacturers are few and between. Oh when will they sell a Sarawak-laksa flavoured instant noodle??

 

So the paste had to be bought - good thing a friend was visiting Miri and so I got him to get me two packs. 1 pack feeds about 6. The rest of the recipe was gleaned from here and here. I decided that mine would be kinda a hybrid of both.

 

We invited AK's parents and my youngest brother over for dinner, and it went down pretty well, I have to say. My brother kept saying how much he loved it, and my in-laws told me to open a stall :P. The recipe below fed the five of us pretty generously, with enough leftover gravy for another 2 servings the day after - just nice for AK and I. I think a repeat is definitely in order!

 

 

Notes:

- I was pretty generous with the prawns - you can use smaller prawns and reduce the amount.

- You can also use thick coconut milk, or add more milk if you like a richer gravy. Reduce the gravy further if you plan to do so, so as not to dilute the taste too much).

 

Here's my version of the recipe:

 

Laksa gravy:

1 packet "Eagle Brand" Sarawak Laksa spice paste (300g)
700g large prawns. Remove the heads, peel and devein them. Reserve the heads and shells.
2 bonesless and skinless chicken breasts
2 litres chicken stock (I used water and a generous few dashes of concentrate)
300 ml coconut milk

 

Condiments:

4 eggs, beaten with a little soy sauce

4 cups beansprouts, tailed
Enough rice noodles (beehoon) for 6 persons
2-3 sprigs coriander, chopped

 

To serve with:

sambal belachan
lime halves

To make the gravy, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the chicken breasts, lower the heat to a gentle simmer and poach the breasts until cooked (about 15 minutes).

 

Remove the breasts. Once cooled, shred them using 2 forks (or your hands). Set aside - this is to be a condiment.

 

Bring the stock back to the boil. Meanwhile, heat a pan with a little oil. Fry the reserved prawn shells and heads until caramelized. Add this mixture (make sure you get all that orange prawn-infused oil into the pot) to the stock. Add the spice mix and lower the heat. Simmer for an hour.

 

Blend up the soup (I highly recommend using an immersion blender, this saves the trouble of emptying hot soup into a blender in batches - because I doubt any blender is large enough to accomodate a large pot of gravy). Strain the gravy into another pot and keep warm. Before serving, bring back to a boil and add the coconut milk.  Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

 

Make a thin omelette from the eggs (I had to do 2 omelettes as I wanted them thin and my pan wasn't that big).

 

Before serving, poach the peeled prawns in the laksa gravy (about 5 minutes) until cooked. Blanch the noodles (1-2 minutes) and the beansprouts (30 seconds) separately.

 

To serve, let people help themselves to noodles, beansprouts, omelette strips, chicken strips and prawns. Ladle the hot gravy over. Garnish with coriander. Add sambal and lime to increase spice and sourness levels accordingly.

 

 

Ham and Any-Veggie Soup

Pregnancy gets me all wired up weird. All I wanna eat is spicy (and sometimes) sour stuff - I have been having the maddest cravings for Sarawak Laksa - and my tastebuds seem extremely sensitive to anything too sweet.

So I hardly want to eat the desserts/cookies I used to want to - which is fine, really. But even fruit tastes sickeningly sweet sometimes.

Which is no good, of course - if there are three main pieces of advice I take the most seriously about pregnancy, they are - exercise/stay fit, stay happy and stress-free and eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

I am a huge fusspot when it comes to veggies. I often don't order them, or refuse to eat a lot when someones else does - because too many places use excess oil, or I just don't like the taste. So I ate lots of fruit.

But now that fruit can be a real turnoff sometimes, I was feeling somewhat anxious that I was not providing my little jelly bean enough nutrition (yes, I hope it's a her).

Well - you know how it is - if you can't find what you want when you want to order/buy it, then you just gotta make it yourself.

This is a ham-flavoured vegetable soup, inspired (somewhat) by this recipe. For a meatless version one could always use parmesan cheese to add a little more flavour.

The vegetables are just what I could find in my nearby Jaya Grocer - organic carrots, celery and french beans, onions and fennel went into the soup. I also got very cheap ham chips from there. I made a big batch for consumption throughout the week (plan got a little thwarted when I had to travel on business). Everytime I reheated the soup I also added (organic) spinach leaves for a further veggie boost. oh, and I also threw in a can of pinto beans, but that didn't work out so well - the grainy texture of the beans kinda took away from the crunch of the veggies.

My guess is that this recipe adapts to whatever mild-flavoured produce you can find in your local grocery - cauliflower, green cabbage, even some fresh button mushrooms maybe.

In fact, it's hardly a recipe - just cube up the aromatics - onion, celery, carrots - and slice the fennel into rings. Get the bacon and ham going with a little oil in a big heavy-bottomed pot. Stir the mixture every now and then until the bacon renders its fat. Add the aromatics, and a pinch of salt. Stir to coat with all that bacon and ham fat. Reduce heat to low, cover and let it all sweat and for the vegetables to release their sweetness. Stir often to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom and burns. Cover with water/chicken/vegetable stock (I used water and added a few dashes of chicken stock concentrate). Bring to the boil, add the drained beans and sliced French beans. Cook until the veggies are still crisp and retain some of their bite. Salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add the spinach and cook just enough to wilt the leaves.

I like mine with lots freshly ground black pepper and spinach, and for AK I grate a little parmesan over as well.

When AK first saw what I made he expressed disappointment that I was making a "plain" soup. Then he promptly slurped down 3 bowls. Hmph.

 

Never be the same again

I never thought I'd say this. I'm into my second trimester!

It all started when I had to just stop my elliptical work after less than 10 minutes on the trainer. It is usually a drag for me anyway, but never have I felt like I just.couldn't.continue. Then my chest started to hurt like crazy.

In the middle of a particularly difficult day to get through in the office, it suddenly dawned on me that this could be signs of more than the flu or normal aches. One short gynae appointment later we were staring at little jelly bean on the ultrasound scan.

Some ups and downs of the pregnancy so far:-

-  I don't have to clean touch the cat litter. The hubbs is so fearful of toxoplasmosis infections that he has now taken complete ownership of this chore we once squabbled over.

-  I haven't gained much weight - some flesh immediately appeared almost overnight on my butt, stomach and upper arms, but nothing particularly alarming. And my stomach also has the tendency to be normally-sized in the mornings and then balloon like crazy after a meal. But other than that, I still fit into most of my clothes (I do confess a sudden preference for elastic waistbands) and on the most part look like myself.

- FATIGUE - The first few weeks of the pregnancy were the WORST. I felt like a truck had run over me most of the time. I couldn't sit straight,let alone work some afternoons. This plus the fact that I had to endure quite a lot of business travel (quite a few day trips ugh) which really drained the life out of me. Oh, and one Saturday we decide to hit a mall after brunch. After an hour of trekking through its labyrinths, I told AK I REALLY needed to get home. Once home I was knocked out for 2 hours straight - almost unheard of for me.

I have been desperate enough to catch some rest in washrooms and even my car during office hours. After reading some tips online, here's what helped me the most:-

- Eating a good proper breakfast. Take blackstrap molasses in my coffee.

- Take multivitamin supplements in the morning

- Ironically, exercise. Long walks in the neighbourhood, breathing fresh air, helped me feel less lethargic and I sleep better at night. I have also been doing quite a bit of walking during my travels. A business trip to Singapore where I took the opportunity to walk from my hotel to the nearby malls (and hit Crate and Barrel), getting myself thoroughly lost in the basements of Ion Orchard. Ak and I also went on our long-awaited vacation to Bangkok, where we walked Chatuchak, Platinum Mall, and Siam Paragon numerous times. Though we depended on cabs a lot more more than in our previous trips. My parents also paid us a visit over the Raya holidays and we took them shopping. So some walking there as well. unfortunately due to all the travel I had to do I couldn't do as much yoga as I wanted (boo).

- Turn in early. In the first few weeks I was in bed by 9 and in dreamland by 9.30, only to struggle to wake up at 7 to go to work. 
I am grateful though, as the weeks go by and I approach the second trimester, that the fatigue seems to be tapering off. My gynae warns me that once the fatigue goes off then comes the nausea and morning sickness, which I am grateful (for now - fingers crossed!) that I have not experienced.

- Heartburn/Chest pains - I can't eat the portions I used to anymore. My usual style is to inhale/gobble my food, which is really BAD for me now. I end up with severe heartburn and chest pains that can go on for hours. I don't have much of an appetite (although I have very specific cravings), so often I don't realize I'm hungry until I'm ravenous. Now I need to remind myself to eat slowly and pause in between bites. This in some ways has been harder than giving up my coffee. Like, for example, we had a delicious team lunch of (extremely oily) spagetthi aglio olio and the yummiest chicken wings I had in a while. I couldnt stop myself from eating 4 wings in addition to my pasta, and am still feeling the effects 4 hours later.

- I do have VERY specific cravings though, that AK has to scramble to meet :) We've driven around Lucky Garden 3 times in search of a parking spot for Sarawak Laksa, sweated our brains out in Paramount Garden for Curry Mee (reeeally excellent by the way); braved the jam to Paradigm mall for deep-fried squid, to name a few. Yes, all I want to eat most of the time are spicy curry noodles!

Other than that, our lifestyles haven't really changed. We still go out with friends. I badly want to do a bit more travel before I reach the 3rd trimester, but with our work commitments it's going to be tough. Still, we'll see. I still want to cook and bake and do everything I love to do. And there are so many things we need to line up to prepare for our new arrival - hire a helper, shop for the best post-natal treatments, attend antenatal classes. One thing at a time though, and it's still early days.

 

Portuguese Egg Tarts

These tarts are a result of the following:-

1) A silly bet with AK on Aragorn's age. Bet you didn't know that dashing Aragorn is 80 years old! Well, he is apparently a descendant of the Dunedain, and they live 3 times the lifespan of normal man, you know?

2) So I lost and AK demanded Portuguese egg tarts
3) I always wanted to try making my own puff pastry, so I decided to attempt it here

4) It took me a span of 2 weeks to make the bloody pastry, with work, work travel, and the usual weekend activities.

5) I used the recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery cookbook, which calls for European-style, high-fat content butter

6) My forearms burnt each time I rolled out that damned batch of pastry. I felt like I was attempting peacock pose for a couple of hours, no joke!

7) Portuguese egg tarts need to be baked at really high temperature, to caramelize that layer of casein that rises to the top of the custard filling when baking.

I followed this formidable recipe for the custard filling, and it worked like a dream.

Once you have the pastry sorted the custard making part's a real cinch, really. They turned out well, I must say - since AK ate 8 tarts in a span of 2 days and then promptly asked for them again this coming weekend. Think I am going to buy my puff pastry this time.

Rediscovering my Penang

Now that I am a couple of years into thirty, with a stressful job and a true-blue "KL" lifestyle (i.e. working beyond the timing in which it doesn't take an hour or more to get home, then hitting the mall for dinner and hanging out there until traffic reaches more acceptable hours, insane drivers, lining up for brunch), I tend to want my holidays to revolve around rest and rejuvenation. My typical trip would look something like this - book a luxurious hotel (I am especially partial to ones with Heavenly Beds), sleep in, do a little exploration (with shopping of course), return to the hotel, rest - you get the gist. Oh, and order room service and watch a movie - a most cherished tradition of ours.

So, it was with some trepidation that I agreed to join the hubs' friends for a trip back to Penang over the Labour Day weekend. The boys had a whole itinerary planned out - Day 1: ESCAPE (more details below), Day 2: Hike the Penang National Park. And - boys being boys - nights out for dinner and alcohol into the wee hours. I thought I would have preferred to stay at home, catch up with work, go for yoga classes, do a bit of baking and housekeeping. 

br />

But with all our plans for life,  it struck me that if I didn't do this now, with this fun bunch, I might not get the chance to do it anymore. So off I went.

I almost died, I tell you. There were times during the damned treetop challenges (especially towards the end when I completed the last and most challenging circuit of the series) when I just felt like leaving it all to hang and just allow myself to drift on my safety tagline towards the next platform. 

I don't know how I, I who always accepted that I had no upper body strength, I who still cannot manage a proper push-up - had it in me to finish. Maybe yoga helped, maybe it was that lingering thought of never having the opportunity to do this again, maybe it was a little of everything - but I finished it all. A curving-tree wall-climb that I saw many guys could not complete, four rounds of the gecko wall climb, one Level 2, one advanced Level 3 and the most difficult round, the ultimate Level 3 - I did it all! And I finished, damnit. I took my time, I breathed through my pain, I strategized my moves, and I never felt like I needed to prove anything or compete. I just wanted the experience to count. And it really does. I know it's probably nothing in the big picture of things, but I do want to indulge in a little self-satisfaction :)

Oh, and we went to China House for dinner that night, where we all had a little (or a lot of) wine, chatted and laughed and marveled about our ESCAPE experiences, laughed even more when one guy, in his attempt at trying to appear more sophisticated, attribute the dryness of the Australian red to the dry season in Europe, and enjoyed some great live music.

Unfortunately I have very few photos of my ESCAPE experience, it was raining heavily, and a camera/iPhone isn't exactly safe when you're dangling four stories up. I took photos of the sustainable practices I saw, and our friends who completed the course ahead of us managed to snap a few from below.

I expected to return from this holiday dragging myself to work, exhausted and worn out. Well, it turned out quite the opposite - I felt refreshed, super positive and strong, almost superwoman-like. I learnt something important here - I must learn to stretch myself every now and then - if only to feel stronger later.

Rainwater collection - a tap at the base for washing feet, and plants on the top.

Charming whitewashed old Teluk Bahang Dam staff quarters turned into washrooms, locker rooms and shops on ESCAPE grounds

Shooting off the Atan jumo

Here I am finishing the last leg of the most challenging of the treetop challenge series

Pantai Kerachut - I didn't see dolphins this time, but the beach was spanking clean.

Obligatory couple shot

Whitewashed walls and a little garden in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. Bangkok Lane.

What monsters have we become?

One of the most harrowing things I have ever watched, and it's all true, for goodness' sake. Globalization, industrialization, corporatized agriculture, this is the earth we built.

I guess this further reinforces my ever-evolving belief - I need to take a kinder approach.

A Kinder Approach

Where did all the time go?

Here's a list of stuff I'm digging, four plus months into 2014. Am I slowly turning into a hippie or what??!!

1) Yoga! I've started going to the classes sponsored by my company again. Funny thing is, when I tried out the class a year and a half ago, I was so impatient to move from one pose to another, and I was bored out of my wits. Now, I enjoy the gentle stretches and the not-so-gentle poses that force just a little bit more out of me. I love the focus on the body itself - the core, the thigh muscles, the arms and shoulders. I love the little transformational changes I see - like being able to touch my toes in forward fold after a couple of weeks. And, truly a life lesson in itself, the ever constant, gentle reminders to always, always, breathe. Whatever you're feeling at the moment, it too will pass, just breathe through it. Pain is fleeting. Breathe through the pain, breathe when you think you can't hold that pose for any longer. You're stronger than you think.

I admit, I am horribly inflexible, and am constantly playing catch-up at both my paid and sponsored classes, but I actually look forward to them. The weeks when I have to miss classes(most likely due to work travels), I sorely miss it.

2) I made my own Epsom-salt scrub! Hardly a recipe - just 1 cup of epsom salts (read all about its goodness (with further links) here), 1/3 cup coconut oil, and a few drops of your favourite essential oil for fragrance - I used lemongrass for a fresh tropical feel. I use it after soap in the shower. I am trying my best to reduce the use of unnecessary chemicals in our lives, and this saves money as well (total cost - less than 10 bucks).

3) My music of the moment:-

i) Sam Behymer's performances in The Voice. I am obsessed with Sam's performance singing Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran (she's the taller girl in pink) - graceful, ethereal and just a little bit kooky. Ed Sheeran sang the original with heated passion, Sam does it here with a beautiful tenderness and soaring desperation. I really wish Adam Levine kept her on the show :( (She was eliminated in the next battle round).

ii) Josh Kaufman's cover of Stay With Me by Sam Smith. I usually despise over the top stage effects, but I thought the pouring and splashing raindrops here was just so beautiful. I loved the effect it had, coupled with Josh's intense, beautiful vocals - now, that's a moment.



I am slowly but surely adopting a kinder, more natural lifestyle - I've planted my own spinach, I've partially eliminated chemicals from my cleaning routines. I consciously seek local organic (fresh) ingredients when I shop for my cooking - easy to do in Klang Valley. I am also attempting to cook less with meat (more water is required for production of meat, and check out this link comparing the carbon footprint of foodstuffs), and I now eat more tofu, soy and mushrooms. 

Finding peace

Look what happened when I tried to find some quiet time to meditate.

The minute I settled in, crossed my legs and closed my eyes, this fella scrambled on.

Check-in

I write this from my hotel room in JB. Tomorrow I have a full day workshop in the fabrication yard. Last week I was stuck in a ridiculous training session for the whole week. Classes started at 7.30 am and ended around 6 - 7 pm.

To cap off the relaxing week, we had an exam the last day. The week was capped with an exam, AND I came down with food poisoning.

Valentine's Day was spent eating banana leaf rice (really excellent, by the way). We spent a lovely Saturday eating, shopping and resting. Then I spent my entire Sunday catching up on the week's work and ended up working until 1 am. The week before I spent 2 days in another mind-numbing workshop AND we had friends over for housewarming/CNY twice.

I am EXHAUSTED.

Yesterday was the first time I worked out in about 2 months. It felt wonderful moving again, but I am sore.

What I am into these days:

1) IntotheGloss - More like obsessed. I stumbled upon this super cool site via one of my favourite blogs, then got really really hooked on reading about people's beauty routines. I love how they talk about their backgrounds, their philosophy when it comes to maintaining their skin (diet or product or both). Some of my favourite Top Shelf posts are this haute hippie cold-pressed juice bar owner's, this simple routine by a model-turned social entrepreneur.

I'm also lovin' this BEST OF list. And this fabulous post is really making me rue not opting for a bathtub in our home.

2) Oils - I'm really into them, - Cleansing oil, oil in my hair, on my skin.

I first purchased Neutrogena's cleansing oil, which was a mistake. My skin got red and splotchy, and I absolutely despise the synthethic scent. I switched to Shu Uemura's instead, looking up online on how exactly to use it (Massage it into dry skin, use water to lather and then rinse) and - and what a difference! Red patches GONE. My skin feels soft and lost its tight feeling. Neutrogena relegated to cleansing my feet and elbows now.

I also use coconut oil in my hair. I massage a good amount in my scalp and hair, potter about for a few hours, then rinse out with shampoo. My hair is all thick and glossy, for the first time in like, ten years maybe?

 I still use my all-time favourite H20+ sea salt-almond oil scrub. The price (for a body scrub) is a little off-putting (a large jar costs RM150 but it does last at least a couple of months), but I do want to experiment with making my own salt-or-sugar scrub when it's finished.

Oh, and another product ITG got me hooked on - Fresh Sugar Face Polish. Use this after cleansing, and the brown sugar, strawberry seeds, plum and grape seed oils really do wonders. Glow I believe is the word we're looking for.

What I started:
1) Yoga. Started, with ONE class. But to be continued - with all the crazy work stuff ongoing I want to learn to unwind and breathe.

2) I also started listening to this before bedtime (ITG again, I know). Anything to get more out my short(er) hours of sleep!

3) I made it a priority to do less social networking and more reading in bed. One of my greatest pleasures is reading in bed. I have finished 2 books so far this January - so excellent progress made there.

4) Oh, and on that same note, I have also been devouring magazines (January'14 issues of Fortune 2014, FastCompany, Vanity Fair, and Vogue India). I treated myself to a 1-year subscription of Monocle Magazine.