One Night in Johore Bahru

Thursday night was spent in a city I am all too familiar with - Johore Bahru. I studied in UTM for four years after high school.

I spent more time travelling than working, to be perfectly honest - altogether 12 hours was spent in and out of the plane and the airports. The actual work was all wrapped up in just half a day(!) I even had time to do a little shopping before catching a cab to the airport.

I stayed in a rather old hotel in the city, the Mutiara JB. Nothing really spectacular. There were supposed to be 142 rooms "just refurbished:, but I doubt that my room was one of them.

What I did like about the place, however, was the availability of wireless internet access almost throughout the whole premise



IMHO, JB still looks the way it did about five years back - wide roads and buildings with little character. Unlike Penang with its colonial history, or always-evolving KL. I wasn't about to stay longer than what my work called for.

What did pique my interest in JB this time was this restaurant located at the Tebrau area. Our contractor, who played host, drove us through the industrial zone, then through an urban housing area and finally through some brush to reach the place.














The restaurant was located in the middle of a fishing village. What struck me about this place was that it directly faced the Johor-Singapore Causeway and, more interestingly, the ultra-impressive Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore. Close enough for a swimmer on an energy-efficient front crawl to reach, it looked.


It was a rather stark contrast - wooden houses on stilts above the water, with shirtless children at the helms of small wooden fishing boats cruising past the huge ships (including this gargantuan FPSO under construction).


Whatever faults JB has, I don't see them at the Senai airport - shiny and themed on the malay wau and pottery (tembikar). I had tea at the Lavender Bistro, where I fell in love with the decor - pretty glass jars filled with water and a single piece of foliage.



The sunlight streaming through the display and the floating foliage lend a rather ethereal aura to the whole place. It was a really pretty way of segregating the seating areas.














I had two dinners! One at the MAS Golden Lounge - one of the nicest Mee Jawa I tasted in a while, and a prawn sambal meal during the flight itself.

After 40 minutes in the cab, an hour and a half at the Senai Airport, another half an hour in KLIA and another 2 and a half on the plane I finally touched down in Miri.


Now - let the weekend begin!

I've Learned

As I inch nearer and nearer to end of my offshore stint, there are a few things I've learnt and never want to let go, as I know I probably will never have the same feelings about another job again.

I love my work offshore for many things - most of all the comraderie I share with my collegues, and, I believe, true friendships borne out of living, working, tolerating, and, in the end, celebrating each other.

How many jobs offer so many laughs in one day? In other places, many hands make light work (to me) is a saying - after work we go back to our own homes, families and private lives (as we should). But offshore, the platform is my home, and I share it with my collegues, who are my family and there is virtually no truly private life, except, fortunately for me, in sleep. But even in sleep our time is not ours - the plant, should she feel neglected, might call, and we have to answer.


I could go on about how we are cut off from the rest of the world, about "losing" pieces of one's life when offshore. About how, for these 2 weeks, our lives are totally, one hundred percent devoted to work and little else (after all, what else is there??) Where we are at the beck and call of the plant, and being waken up in the middle of the night to go out to the field. Physical work, or attempting to solve problems that persist for 30-odd hours straight is just part and parcel of offshore life.


I will be forever grateful for the past 2 years offshore. I have learnt more than I could ever expect, cried some, torn my hair and endured chest pains and hallucinations on many an occasion. But it was offshore that tested my personal courage, my patience, my ability to keep on going when I thought I could not.

I learnt that even when you are having one horrible day, when someone comes to you you still have to just put on that smile - because you have to live, work, sleep, eat with that person. And - the magical thing is that when you do force that smile out the corners of your mouth - one smile leads to another, and something funny gets said, or something great gets done - and your heart smiles (laughs) too. Sometimes it does not even have to be some work done, it could be a joke, a compliment, the sun coming out and making the water sparkle, or the wind suddenly blows into your face and feels like a hug - how to keep up the bad mood?

I do believe that work outdoors - under the sun and with the wind full in one's face - this is how work should be (romantisizing the oil and gas industry - am I the first?? :) ). I'll be the first to admit that this is no farming or gardening - no weeding or feeling the soil in your hands or watching things grow. We have running pumps, an engine designed for a Boeing 737 and flammable gas everywhere to work with.

But most importantly, we have each other. I am not sure about the rest of my crew since I am comparatively very new and they have truly been through a lot more than me. That said, we did go through some trying times together in the past 2 years, and it is an honour for me to have these people with me during these times.

When I read this in a forwarded email, some of the verses rang so true to me:

I've learned -
that it's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do about it.

I've learned -
that you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I've learned -
that we are responsible for what we do,
no matter how we feel.

I've learned -
that either you control your attitude
or it controls you.

I've learned -
that sometimes the people you expect
to kick you when you're down
will be the ones to help you get back up.

I've learned -
that sometimes when I'm angry
I have the right to be angry,
but that doesn't give methe right to be cruel.

I've learned -
that our background and circumstances
may have influenced who we are,but we are responsible for who we become.

I've learned -
that sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.

Yes, I've Learned Many things. And I hope I never forget.

Mise En Place & An Italian Dinner

A tremendous sense of accomplishment - since this post.


I actually practiced mise en place today - dutifully preparing my onions, garlic and thawing my minced beef for my spaghetti bolognese sauce in the morning. I sliced my button mushrooms. I even took the time to caramelize my onions for my pizzas. Yes, I am naturally scatterbrained by nature - so cooking is good practice in disciplining my thoughts and actions (yes it's an excuse but it's a good one, no?)

Ahh - mise en place (can you tell I love this phrase?)

Did I mention yesterday that pizza dough is a breeze? Well, today that statement came back to bite me. What happenned? I measured everything and proofed my yeast like a well seasoned pro. Then when I poured the yeast mixture into the flour and started to stir the dough it remained sticky and refused to leave the sides of the bowl. No sweat, I thought - I followed Giada's advice and started feeding it 1 tbsp of flour at a time and then stirring again to incorporate.

After ending up adding more than 10 tbsp's flour extra (one tbsp at a time and each time the dough got stiffer and stiffer) I start to understand why other bloggers recommend a stand mixer for this. I ended up wrestling with the dough, after each tbsp of flour I willed the dough to come together and got more and more worried. It got to the point that I actually fretted that my negative vibes might have an effect on the dough - yes I just said that.

With sweat dripping down my face and arms burning - finally things started to look more familiar. Instead of leaving the whole ball of dough to rise, I divided it into individual balls of dough - ready for punching down and rolling into pies small enough to fit into my little toaster oven.

Despite my worries about the bad mojo, the yeast were not affected and merrily set to work. In the 1 hour the balls of dough puffed up nicely and swelled to more than twice their size.

White sauce for topping:
Milk
Cornstarch
Herbs - I used dried parsley and oregano flakes
Cheese - I used ordinary cheddar and some stronger gruyere

Heat milk in heavy bottomed saucepan. When warm, remove app. 3 tbsp and whisk in cornstarch till dissolved.
Return the hot milk mixture and add herbs and cheeses.
Continue reducing the mixture until it looks thick and sticky.

For the topping, I tossed my button and oyster mushrooms in some olive oil and salt, and caramelized some saute thinly sliced onions in olive oil over low heat until soft and starting to colour, add sugar to taste and stir stir stir).

We made mini pizzas and each one took app. 4-5 minutes to prebake. Once the top was cooked and slightly puffed up I topped the base with the sauce and scattered my onions and mushrooms, the continued baking for a few more minutes until cheese was bubbling and the crust looked nice and crispy.

Would I do this again? Definitely. The crunch of the thin, crispy crust against the gooey cheese sauce, along with the salty, earthy, slightly chewy mushrooms.....AK said that it reminded him of the thin-crust pizzas we practically lived on in Rome.

Barley-Beancurd Soup (I think) for Bfast

Woke up this morning just in time to rush to church.

When I got back, the first thing I did was remove my barley soy tong sui from the freezer. I had made the tong sui some weeks back and froze the leftovers.

I love simple tuff - and this is the epitome of simple.

We need:
Pearl barley,
Beancurd sheets - just a few
1 or 2 pandan leaves (don't omit this - they lend a wonderful fragrance to the dish)
To serve - soy milk (optional)

Soak the pearl barley, overnight or a couple of hours. Rinse and drain.
Soak the beancurd sheets in hot water.
Place the pearls, beancurd sheets and pandan leaves in your pot - add water to cover.
Bring mixture to a boil - slowly, at least until the pearls have turned translucent. Ideally, cook over low heat until the beancurd disintegrates. (Mine refused to do so - it was good anyways)
Stir often to prevent any bits sticking to the bottom of the pot
Be careful while boiling - the mixture does tend to bubble over.
Serve warm with soy milk.

Simple goodness

I am thinking that this would be much easier to do this in a crockpot - might try that next time.

Deep Fried Mushrooms

Deep frying at 2 in the morning...

Today AK requested for pork rib soup with lotus root, and a deep-fried mushroom snack for supper. I made both, cos what is cooking if not done for love? Plus, I like cooking too

Deep fried mushrooms! The act of transforming the healthy, low-calorie piece of yummy fungus into an artery-clogging, heart-attack inducing, sore-throat a-beckoning even yummier piece of fungi.

The hardest part to me is controlling the oil temp during the deep frying process, and the subsequent cleanup after the deep fry- both my kitchen floor and my hair.

Here's what you need -
Oyster mushrooms
Beaten egg
Flour
Oil for deep frying

Have flour is 2 bowls, and beaten egg on the ready. Sprinkle some salt and any othe flavouring into one of the bowls and mix with the flour. I used plain salt.
Try to get the pieces to be of even size - they cook more evenly.
Dredge mushrooms in flour, then in the beaten egg, then flour again.
Heat up a heavy-bottomed pan filled with oil for deep frying.
Test a small piece to ensure that the temp is alright - it should sizzle but not brown straightaway. If it does brown then the oil temp is too high, turn off the heat and wait for the oil to cool a little.
Deep fry the mushrooms till golden brown, about 1-2 mins per batch.

Like all deep fried stuff, this is only worth eating hot off the fryer, still glistening with grease in all its glory.

3 am: Now, off to mop the floor and wash my hair.

What I'm Spending all My Money (and tummy space) On

Remains of the carnage

Cannot. Stop. Eating.

It's rambutan season in Sarawak and I'm making the most out of it. A kilo (or, erm, two) a day equals great happiness.

Ahh....fructose-induced high. Sticky mouse and keyboard. Ants all over the place (rambutan fruits seem to be their preferred habitat). :)

The Great Dough Metamorphosis

I had the greatest day today .

Nothing particularly spectacular - woke up in the morning with the urge to make pizza dough. Yes, folks, it is a sleep filled with great anticipation and a wakening at 6.30 in the morning with an unbounded enthusiasm to play with flour, yeast and water. Lemme at it!

Background:
We've been going to themeless potlucks for the past few weeks. This time, all of us decided that we should theme our potlucks, and, as luck would have it, the theme was Italian.

Erring on the side of caution, I told everyone that I would be bringing spagetthi - my mum has this fail-safe recipe which involves a Maggie bolognese sauce premix and canned cream of mushroom soup. It's mum's recipe and everyone knows that mums's recipes are untouchable and sacred, so am sticking to it. BTW, it is also extremely yummy.

So - even if the pizzas didn't turn out, I would have the bolognese to fall back on and no one would know the better. *Rubs hands at own cleverness*

I read Giada de Laurentis's recipe in my second-hand issue of Bon Appetit (it's available online too), plus I read some other recipes, some simpler and some not so simple. (Note: To anyone who is asking, yes, I did put as much effort into my thesis as I did this project)

I am engineer (proudly), so after my extensive (ahem, ahem) research and reading the recipes again and again, I believed I nailed the basic formula.

Equipment and ingredients:
I don't exactly have an oven - just a small toaster oven and a grill pan. I also did some research on how to overcome this (ok, ok, I stumbled on it) - to my dismay, it seems that one needs a really hot oven and even heat distribution (thus the use of a pizza stone) for really great thin-crust pizza. I don't even know what my toaster oven temperature is. This is when my engineer/McGuyver instinct kicks in - I'd grill it perhaps? Makeshift oven with my virgin griddle and a plate?

I had 2 types of flour - atta (whole wheat) flour for making chappatis and Hong Kong flour (bleached flour) for making pau's - neither of which I have started to make, by the way. For the life of me I could not find a bag of flour that said "all-purpose" in Miri, why??

It's alright! We shall soldier on! I settled on a combo of the two - slightly more atta flour (just because I had more of it:) )

Ms. Laurentiis's recipe was easy enough - I made sure I measured the ingredients before hand. I halved everything and made sure everything was on standby and waiting to be added.
It went smoothly enough - the dough acted exactly as the recipe said it would and obeyed me nicely. Now I understand why so many bloggers insist on making their own pizza dough - it's not difficult at all.

Baking the dough was a different story though.

The Yummy Chapati
- erm, at first I tried to grill the dough because I thought that would give the same effect as the hot oven. But I ended up with a really tasty, light chappati - which wasn't bad at all but could never pass off as pizza. Also, I rolled the dough too thin (almost transparent). But it really tasted good - in fact, the reason why I don't have a photo for this is because I ate this 1st mistake.

The Pita Pretender
So I rolled them out thicker (app. 3 mm thick). I also decided to pop them the toaster to bake. This is the result - puffy pita bread lookalikes. Once cooled they were like thin, crisp rocks.

Pita bread?

I was running out of ideas.

It was when I was rolling out my final piece of dough that I recalled an article in a book I had as a child - that pizza is actually bread but with toppings to weigh the dough down. Duh!

Ta-Daa!
Well - I topped the final base with a couple of oyster mushrooms and some cheese after it sat in the toaster oven for a couple of minutes. and then baked it for another few minutes, totally expecting the dough to still puff up and toss my fillings all over the oven - but it didn't. Miracles of miracles - pizza!!

I was so happy I immediately woke AK up, to do a bit of showing off.

My first batch was slightly too thick - so tomorrow, for the potluck, I will be using more HK flour to reduce the heaviness from the atta flour.

Here is AK, rudely awakened by me to have my virgin pizza shoved down his throat

I am posting my improvised recipe, made with the ingredients I had on hand with my measly bunch of equipment. Servings are approximately 5 pizzas that will fit into my little toaster tray (20 cm by 20 cm), made with ingredients easily found in sundry shops across Malaysia, and Miri specifically

Thin Pizza Crust

3/4 cup atta flour (Indian whole wheat flour)

1/4 cup Hong Kong flour (bleached white flour)

1/2 packet instant yeast

Slightly less than 1/2 cup warm water (warm like a bath warm - 1/4 cup boiling water to 1/4 cup tepid)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Place yeast in a small bowl. Pour the warm water and let it stand for about 10 minutes.

Ensure that the yeast has bubbled up and expanded - froth will appear and cover the the surface of the liquid

Place the flours, salt and oil in a large bowl.

Add the water - yeast bubble mixture and stir, stir, stir until all have been incorporated and the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. If it doesn't, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time and continue to stir.

Knead the dough until smooth. I rolled them into 6* doughballs and placed them in my oiled slowcooker pot (slowcooker off) and placed the lid on. For 1st-time yeast proofers like myself, it is pretty amazing how they expand so if they look small at first, don't fret - it will be enough.

Let the dough rise - in our tropical weather, about half an hour to 45 minutes.

Once they have puffed up nicely (they should be crowding each other now), take them out. Punch them down (mine were so small I kinda just used my palm to slap them down) and now you're ready to roll them out - 4 mm thick should do nicely.*

If you own an oven toaster like mine, then prebake for 4-5 minutes until you start to see the dough puff up like a pita being inflated. Once this happens, quickly take it out of the toaster, poke the puff with a fork to deflate and top with fillings of choice. i did this without removing the crust from the baking tray. Then bake until the crust becomes golden and your cheese melts.

*I suppose if you have a real oven you can roll into just 3 balls and save yourself the time prebaking, topping and baking again 6 pizzas one by one

*I rolled them on a clean, dry wooden cutting board which I floured slightly with an old ginger ale bottle I was saving for recycling

Growing Things

About 2 and a half weeks ago I planted some pumpkin seeds (= sprinkled the seeds from the hunk of pumpkin I bought and microwaved - another story) around the garden.They actually sprouted and I took some time to weed the surrounding areas (erm, appr. 2 - 3 inches surrounding the seedlings - seems pathetic now but seemed like a lot of work then) to allow them some room to grow.

I've been offshore for the past 1 and a half weeks now and told AK to look after them and not let the gardener mow them down - but he's outstation as well. Well, hope they're doing ok. I'm not really expecting them to start sprouting Cinderella coaches anytime soon.

I'm back!! And they're still alive!! Abeit slightly deformed - some of their leaves look eaten and almost all look as if they are starved for sunlight - yellowish leaves.



This morning I weeded the area again - pity about the lack of sun though. Anyway, will try to administer as much TLC as I can to these babies...

In need of nourishment....

My mum sent me these bird's eye's chilly seeds months ago. Only today - with no shovel/spade - I did find an unused length of garden piping though - I filled a pot with soil from the garden.......by the time I was done filling the pot I was dripping in sweat. To quote a famous phrase from my work - Use the Right Tools for the Right Job - springs to mind.

My "wish list" of plants I want to have in my garden:
1) Lemongrass - we have so many growing outside our house - but how does one transfer a bunch of lemongrass from one plot to another??? \
2) Pandan - love love love pandan flavoured anything
3) Mint
4) Curry leaves, or Karuveppilai

But first - off to buy my shovel and spade!

My 2nd (or 3rd - or 1st???!!) Home

For the past 2 years this place has been my home - in the middle of the sea, 178 kilometres off the nearest coast.

Some tips if you ever wanna work offshore (in a tropical country, not the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico or Russia - I have never been there and so far have no inclination to work in those regions)

1) You MUST NOT have a fear of heights - space is a valuable commodity offshore so everything is built upwards - which means a lot of climbing and scaling of ladders. When I first got offshore I was holding onto the handrails for dear life - the entire place is open downwards to the sea. The first time I scaled the crane here I got jelly legs (repeat after me: don't look down don't look down don't look down........yikes!!), but now I am proud to say that it doesn't affect me anymore

2) For people who care for their skin - sunblock is a must. The sea reflects the sunlight, so skin protection is essential - to me at least. Of course one does not expect rough-and-tough guys to adhere to this piece of advice. But if you do care, then a heavy-duty, sweatproof, long lasting one is a must. I have no idea what 2 years of exposure has done to my skin - yet - will update in a few years' time if I do see any pigmentation)

3) You gotta learn how to not just work with all kinds of people - you gotta live, eat and spend most of your waking hours with them. There's no place where you can drive off to - we all live, eat and sleep in the same place so you have to get along somehow..work is home and home is work

Hmm...not much else I guess - except waking up at 5.30 every morning, of course. Offshore, the days start at 6 am in the morning and ends at 6 pm or later. I'm grateful for the fact that at least I have my own room with its attached bathroom - for the the guys, it's 2 persons to a room, 2 rooms to a bathroom so they have to take turns. As I mentioned, space is a pretty valuable commodity offshore.

As for waking up early, I have gotten so used to this that even when onshore, I sometimes wake up at 6 feeling hungry and I never get out of bed later than 8 am, no matter how late I slept the night before - there's an offshore girl for you!

So much for this post - here are more photos to share. We have a total of 4 platforms which make up our gas complex - all linked by bridge walkways.

One of the platforms at dusk

Our standby vessel coasting by

Another platform - bridge linked

Offshore - Helicopter Travel

A little bit about offshore life. This will be the first of many posts on my life offshore, which took up half of my life for the past 2 years.

I work on a gas producing platform about 178 km from the shore of Bintulu. We travel about 45 mins - 1 hour via helicopter from the helibase in Miri (just beside the Miri Airport) to our platform.

The 1st time I travelled 2 years back, it was a pretty unnerving experience. Travelling on a chopper is way different from, say, in a Boeing 737. The noise and vibration, and, for the older birds, lack of air conditioning makes this experience vastly different than in a 737.
We wear life jackets with re-breather units (kinda like an emergency scuba set, but you use your own air to breathe), and the risks of the chopper ditching is pretty high - but I won't go into that. Fellow offshore travellers will know :)

You can feel yourself being lifted vertically as it takes off and hovers, then it dips its nose slightly and propels forward. Landing - you hover a while, then lose some height in increments until you bounce nicely on the landing gears.

Anyway, to share, here are a couple of photos of the new chopper (not sure why - we never call them helicopters, it's always chopper - maybe it's an offshore thing) - landing at our platform.

The chopper name is C-GOHA, or as I hear the pilots calling it - Charlie Hotel Alpha. It's a Sikorsky 92.

Approaching the helideck

About to land

Contact!

Safely landed

The guy in red - he's the HLO (Helideck Landing Officer), the other guy in navy (near the tail) is the pilot

The chopper name is C-GOHA, or as I hear the pilots calling it - Charlie Hotel Alpha. It's a Sikorsky 92.

If you're in the chopper, that means you've just arrived and you've got 2 weeks to get through. If you're about to board the chopper - that means home sweet home here I come!!