Kung Hei Fatt Choy

Kung Hei Fatt Choy to one and all.

We are about in the middle of the festival. Tomorrow is the 7th Day of Chinese New Year. To the Cantonese, this is the 'Day of Humanities', which means every body's birthday. On this day, it is traditional for the Cantonese to eat 'Yee Sheng', raw fish, and glutinous rice balls. Nowadays, 'Yee Sheng' is consumed throughout the festival.

This year's Reunion Dinner, on 25/1, was held at a seafood restaurant near where I live. It went off very well and everyone were fed full. Despite the crowd, the food quality was good and the service did not suffer much, plus the convenience of parking space and within walking distance to my place. Everyone adjourned to my place after dinner.

On the first day, 26/1, everyone congregated to my place by lunchtime, for the traditional visit to the Lee's Mansion for lunch. The family has been doing this for years as a gesture to my very good friends Liz and Kip. I have known Liz since our school days and she has been part of my family all these years. We enjoyed our younger days when my sister was still alive, and Liz used to stay overnight and she was always included in our family functions. Liz has not been in good health due very much to her obesity, and it was disheartening to see her on a wheel chair periodically. Kip himself has aged and is a little better off than Liz, albeit being much older.

It was also good that during the lunch, I was able to catch up with my brother, whom I very seldom meet up. As I looked at him and he looked at me, we realised how much we have both aged.

During the lunch, I was very impressed by my little Emma, who sportingly went up to the microphone to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", twice over. We all felt very proud of her and I recorded her singing on my Handycam on HDMI as well. The previous evening, I had recorded her singing several tunes including her now famous "Hug! The Herald Angel Sing". When I reviewed the video, I felt a lump in my throat.

After dinner that day, my son swiftly left for Spain on a holiday with his new girl friend.

Last night, 30/1, Jason and Karen held their house warming. Earlier, I had lunch with Joe and Jenny, who later in the evening drove us there. Although I have been to the new place, one right turn eluded me and I ended up lost. Lucky for mobile phones, we were eventually directed to the right house. Even Uncle Ben, who knows every streets, got lost. Yet another feast, which did not help me in trying to control my weight. I shot the event with my Handycam and I suddenly realised that my other 'little' Samantha is no longer little, as she has now grown up as a teenager. Timothy is just as crazy with the television and his video games. I wish he can be better behaved and stop getting into trouble.

I was told that there was a Lion Dance at three yesterday afternoon, which frightened little Emma, who ran crying up into her room. What a pity.

Today, being a Saturday, I was alone at home and decided to call Denis for lunch at Empress Market. I had wanted to taste the new stall selling beef hor fun. Supposedly from Hock Lam Street, which was famous for this noodle, I was disappointed. The soup was mild and lukewarm, unlike the original with its fiery pepper. My Godfather joined us and gave the noodles a thumbs down as well. At $5.00 a bowl, it is over priced.

After the lunch, I went out to Rochore with Denis and bought some roast pork home. See again, food and more food! This stall has been selling very good roast duck and roast pork. I also bought my medication, which was the main purpose of the trip. Honest! Boarding the bus home and after a few stops, who should get in but my wife and her friend. Singapore is not that big after all. Luckily I was not involved in any 'hanky panky'. On reaching home, I was able to convince the wife that I will buy a Hainanese chicken for dinner to complement the roast pork. My daughter and her two kids were coming home for dinner.

Till then....

Hello 2009

It is now 20th January, 2009, and my mind has not quite settled into the new year.

As I write this, I am nursing a cough and cold, ironically shortly after I had my flu shot, given by my GP. Last Thursday, I had lunch with Fr. T.O.N. and a friend at the Club, and after the lunch, I felt sick with a sore throat. By Friday, I was coughing and felt the effects of a cold. There was no fever though. So I decided to take the cold relief tablets. Although I was not all that sick, I started having urinating problems.

Yesterday, I saw my GP, who advised me that the cold relief tablets that I took has a side effect of enlarged prostrate. No wonder I suffered for that. I am now on alternative medication from my GP. Today, I rested at home and I am glad that the effects of the previous medication is wearing off and my prostrate is slowly returning to normal. But I still sound like a frog. I have since warned some of my elderly male friends, against taking such medication off the shelf.

I have been cooking lately, since my Christmas turkey. On New Year's day, I roasted a rolled pork, using the long low temperature method. It took me four and a half hours of low temperature roasting. Unfortunately, there was not much fat and the pork turned out rather dry. It would have been alright, if we had eaten straight after roasting, but left it quite late and by that time, the meat had dried up considerably.

Last weekend, I again roasted belly pork. This time it was nice and the skin was crispy. In addition I also roasted a chicken. The family enjoyed the dinner. If I keep cooking, I hope to improve in time.

My little Emma, who has now been called 'Princess', has been hogging the limelight in the family. She really enjoyed the Christmas season and had wished that it would never end. She was finally able to sing the "Hark, The Herald Angel Sing", from start to finish.

She started Nursery School this year and had the privilege of Uncle Ben fetching her from school. On the days that she came to us after school, she was very happy, singing and dancing. Even my neighbour called her 'Chilly Padi'. On every family gathering, she has been the star and live wire.

I have another problem now. With all the eating, I have gained weight. I must now cut down to my pre-Christmas days. But with Chinese New Year next week, this is going to be tough. Kicking off the celebrations will be our family reunion dinner at a restaurant near we live. This will be followed by the perennial Chinese New Year lunch at the mansion of the Lee family. Goodness gracious me, what shall I do?

Till then....

Goodbye 2008!

As 2008 is coming to a close, I am reflecting on what has happened since. The highlight of the year was my relocation of my home in August. Prior to that, there were anxieties over the en bloc process, and whether there were anymore hiccups. Fortunately, everything fell in place and the completion was as planned, right up to the day of payment.

I can still remember 12th March vividly, a rainy day, when the sale was finally completed and payment made to all the owners. The sale was a miracle under present financial situation.

All that is behind me now as I poise myself for the new year. I do not believe in making new year resolutions as I believe in meeting events head on.

It has been a very nice Christmas with the family in the new home. There was good food and much merriment within the family and some friends who visited us. I helped roast the turkey, which turned out better than expected. The ham from Mandarin Meridian was super and the salmon/halibut was nice and rich. My son cooked ribs which went well with everyone. I am now becoming more confident with the new oven.

Little Emma was the darling in every one's mind. Within a few days of listening to the carol 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing', she is able to sing the whole tune now. Earlier, she could only sing a few words and improvised the rest of the lyrics. It was very funny. To her, she is wishing that Christmas will never end. She is going to Kindergarten next year.

To the other two kids, well, they certainly enjoyed themselves and spent several days with us when their mum went to Spain.

Last night (28/12), we had a neighbourhood pot luck dinner for all the residents on the same floor. It was very successful and there was so much food. Everyone got on well and there was much goodwill among the residents.

And so to all those who bothered to read my blog, may the new year bring you much happiness and good health and God bless you all.

Till then....

My High-Tech Kitchen

I am coming to grips with my high-tech kitchen. Since the demonstration by the manufacturer, I am getting some experience in cooking both with the oven and the steam oven. Fact that my wife still cannot use them since she is computer illiterate, I am forced to help out.

For one dinner, I had to steam rice and fish head. The rice came off well, but the fish head was not as soft. A little more cooking time should resolve that, I think.

One day I bought two pieces of veal steak, intending to cook them for dinner. For lunch, we were supposed to eat at the Food Park. Unfortunately heavy rain fell and we could not go out. So I had to cook the veal for lunch instead. I did a quick marinate of the veal with olive oil, chopped garlic, black pepper and some sea salt. The veal was delicious and tender, served with butter head salad tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Using the induction cooker, I heated up the vegetable soup. It was a nice lunch which gave me confidence to cook with the new equipment.

Last Saturday, my daughters decided to come to put up the Christmas tree and to have dinner with the kids and one husband in tow. My son eventually turned up as well. Roasting two chicken and steaming rice and one fish, I tried making Char Siew.

At 3 pm, I started marinating the pork with Char Siew sauce. By evening, I positioned the meat inside the oven and started the cooking program. After about one hour fifteen, the meat was ready, but I re-positioned the Char Siew under the high grill to burn it more.

The Char Siew was a success and while chopping it, everyone came to sniff and pinched so many pieces, that I had to use a small plate to serve what was left. Needless to say, there was no left over.

The chicken was delicious but not as good as the one roasted on the rotisserie, when the chicken was not so mushy and the skin more crispy. One lesson learnt.

The fish was undercooked because my wife tried to steam it for ten minutes instead of fifteen to tweny minutes. So was the rice too.

All in all, a very nice dinner and everyone enjoyed the evening.

Till then....

This 'High-Tech' World

For the last three days, I was frustrated by my computer in trying to edit a video I shot with my new Sony Handycam.

In the process of packing and moving house, I had bought a new Sony Handycam, which is the latest model capable of shooting HDML into a 120G hard disk. I had shot a series of video clips of my old estate, and since I was so busy, I had no time in editing the video.

As I am now settled in, I decided to edit the video, cleaned out the disk in preparations for the Christmas season. Tried as I did, I just could not import the video into the computer with my handycam. I remembered I had copied the entire video into a DVD. So I tried that. Eventually I managed to import from the disc into the editing software.

Having got the video in, I then had problems burning the DVD, for some obscure reasons generated by the computer. After half a day of fiddling, I finally burned the DVD. When I played the DVD on my home system, I discovered that the video repeated itself towards the end.

On the third day, I painstakingly tried again. I edited out a lot of bad video, added the sound tracks and reviewed a rather nice video with nice background music. When I tried to burn to DVD, problems started to surface again. The %#@&#! computer told me that it has determined that the contends were too big and required a bigger disc! How much bigger can a DVD get????

So I deleted every damn thing and started from scratch again. By 10 pm last night, I managed to get everything together and burned the DVD. Eureka! The DVD was successful. By the time I finished and shut down, it was past midnight.

I had spent $14k buying the latest kitchen equipment for my new kitchen. So last Monday the guy from DeDietrich came to demonstrate and teach us how to use the oven, the steam oven and the induction hob.

They are all so high tech and fully computerised. They practically cook for you and you only have to put the food inside. It was very impressive and the choices were many. The 'chef' inside the computer will work out for you, the temperature and cooking time. You only have to key in the type of meat, ingredients and type of cooking. The program will do all the cooking and you only have to project what time you want the food to be ready. For instance, you decide what you want for dinner, get all the ingredients together, and utilising both the oven and steamer oven, you program the dinner time. When the food is cooked, the oven will keep the food warm and when you come home, the food is ready in the oven.

So last Monday, we tried it out. The steam oven cooked the rice, steamed minced pork, chawan musi and broccoli. Into the oven went one chicken on the rotisserie, a chunk of pork belly (my own choice) and potatoes. After about two hours, the food was ready except for my pork belly, which I had to put under the grill to make the skin crispy.

The chicken was very delicious and looked like Obama colour. My pork belly was good with crispy skin, but I feel I can improve in time. Unfortunately, I had mild diarrhoea the next morning.

All in all, it was a very good and enjoyable cooking session with everyone laughing away and having a good time eating. I must improve on my pork belly roast. I would also like to try my hand in cooking veal, and making noodle soup on the induction hob.

Recently I bought myself an MP3 Walkman with FM radio. Could not figure out how the darn thing worked until my daughter came to my rescue and set it up for me. I am planning on buying a Sony PS3 to play Blu Ray disc and some games. Wonder what awaits me!

Since we are all in this high-tech world, there is no way getting out of computers and gizmos. For us old folks, this can be very humiliating and frustrating. Even some of the old technologies have trouble catching up with the new. That is why systems clash and crash. Although I consider myself quite savvy with my computers and cameras, I find myself dumbfounded by my hand phone and MP3 player.

Till then....

Home Sweet Home 2

Home Sweet Home

My new home has been blessed by Fr. T.O.N. With some family friends, church friends and the neighbourhood, I had more than 70 people who turned up for dinner.

To feed such a multitude of people, I brought in the prata man, who set up his hot stove and started to make roti prata to order. There was prata with eggs, onion, cheese, banana, mushroom or plain. To back up, there was nasi briyani, chicken masala, mutton rendang, fish curry, ladies finger masala, samosa, papadam, teh-tarik, lime juice and honeydew sago.

On top of all that, my daughter made several trays of tuna sandwiches, the maid made fruit platter, there was a 3.5 kg birthday cake of a castle, which I ordered for my grand daughter whose birthday was just three days away. I specially ordered a cheese dip in the form of a brain in order to freak out my daughters. I told everyone that it was the brain of some animal which brought a lot of squeals. My son cooked a mixed grill for the priest because the priest could not take hot curry.

I wanted to invite more of my friends but when I hit 80 on the count, I immediately freezed up because it would be impossible to have so many guests in my small place. As it was, I had problems coping with so many guests and I was so busy that I hardly spent more than five minutes with each one. Fortunately next to my place, there is this void deck one floor below which I utilised to accommodate the dinner and food. So all the eating action was confined in that area. There were insufficient chairs and a neighbour brought out her stools.

Fortunately, the evening went quite smoothly and everyone had a good time. My neighbours, some of whom I met for the first time, were great and there was much camaraderie and merriment. Despite the numbers, there was much food leftover. Some of the guests packaged some food home. I was still eating some leftover food four days after the event.

I was very relieved, when some of the guests told me that it was a successful evening, and complimented me on the event. Many asked for the caterer. During the entire evening, I was actually nursing a flu. I felt sorry for neglecting some of my guests but I had my hands full and by late evening I was very tired. Anyway I managed to get up at five the next morning to go to church.

All's well that ends well. I am grateful to my family who helped and backed me up. To those who came, a big thank you. To my friends who read this and to whom I was not able to invite, my humble apologies. Get in touch with me and I will make it up with you. In my next post, I will put up pictures of my new home.

Till then....