媽媽的關心

有些時候，我覺得媽媽口說她在關心我們時，其實心裡有包含著許多擔心的元素。

例 ＃1 － 媽媽‘擔心’我

對弟弟說：

“唉，妳有沒有朋友或者朋友的哥哥可以介紹給姊姊認識的？

你那個 XXX 朋友不是沒有女朋友咯？”

例 ＃2 － 媽媽 ‘擔心’ 弟弟

對我說：

“唉，妳有沒有朋友或者朋友的妹妹可以介紹給弟弟認識的？

弟弟會做家務的，不錯啦。”

老媽呀, 你這次弄得我真的無言！
拜託在外時不要說醬的話好不好，我會不知道要把臉往哪裡藏地。
－＿－'"

Burst into uncontrollable laughter when Mumsy showed me an article in Wanbao earlier tonight, about a man convulsing and puking uncontrollably onboard a plane after getting a whiff of some pungent durians brought onboard by another passenger. No passenger would admit that s/he was the one who brought the durians up and that poor sock had to confine himself to puking in the tiny toilet cubicle moments after the flight took off, for the rest of the 3-4 hour (not too sure bout the duration actually) flight.

It wasn't that funny until I started imagining how comical it would be if that happened to YF too.
Not exactly the best sister around, if you don't already know by now...

the end of something good

After living what seemed like the new Dolce Vita for the longest time, my last vacation as a student finally came to an end two days ago. Looking ahead, I'm quite certain that my next prolonged period of idling won't be here anytime soon. 

And so, I'm feeling quite thankful that I'd been able to busy myself in the past few weeks with lots of catching up (with the same dear old people, of course), checking out ulu cafes, taking long walks around places that I never really got to stopping by previously, etc. Instead of having to meet deadlines or fulfill other academic obligations like we've been doing the entire semester, I was granted the luxury of learning to take things slow. Really slow. 

A slice of Antoinette ($9++) at Antoinette's

I learnt to take sips instead of gulps, nibbles instead of gobbles (of course, my Kindle made it a lot easier to do that), and pictures instead of mere snapshots. I made sure that nothing was too serious for me to fuss over, had plenty of time to mull over some issues in my life and it turned out to be such a wonderful time. 

Milk chocolate mousse cake infused with earl grey, topped with a bubble that oozes of tangy raspberry coulis when burst. The unusual sweet and sour combination worked quite well for me; both flavours balancing each other evenly. 

(I still think the bubble looks like a giant nipple though)

Oh, and this year, I finally learnt how to wrap bak zhangs at Grandma's place.

Wrapping's the easiest part of the entire process; preparation of the ingredients and cooking of the dumplings after they've been wrapped is so much more tedious. With quite a lot of difficulty, I finally managed to make mine decent-looking when tied; Aunt mentioned that the ones I'd wrapped look really tiny, just like the ones Mum used to wrap when she'd first started.

There were a little leftover ingredients so Aunt suggested that I bring them home so that Mum could do some wrapping too. I helped out with the preparation of the ingredients early morning (e.g. cleaning and shelling of salted eggs, chopping of mushroom, garlic and onion) and managed to wrap a few more bak zhangs before scooting off to NIE for a meeting with my practicum supervisor.

I thought my last weekend of the vacation was kind of ruined when I did something regrettable Saturday morning; spent the afternoon kicking myself in bed when I should really have been out windsurfing or making more out of the precious weekend. 

Thankfully, I reminded myself that I have the power to turn things round (it's all in the mind!) and things got so much better in the evening. Post-tuition, I met up with a smaller-than-usual KTOWY (everyone will be coming home soon though :D) at Zhen's for a barbecue dinner. The food items bought and prepared by Zhen and her family were marinated and grilled to BBQ perfection; Boss' meat joystick was a big hit (ok, sounds slightly inappropriate), Ah Long's beancurd tarts were delish, and the bak zhangs I brought were just to make numbers lol. Good food is often paired with awesome company and we had much of both that evening. Boss provided us girls with a breakdown of the different types of guys we're likely to come across (generally) in life and I suppose my favourite's the "gong dua dai" kinda guy - sounds cute, no? Don't judge me for picking a favourite based on what it sounds like please. We played In-Between too, for lack of better games, and my luck was unbelievably horrible. I make a mental note whenever I start cursing or saying swear words (raising self-awareness ahem), and records show that frequency is highest when I meet horrible drivers on the road, followed by times when I drop my sail while windsurfing, and finally, when I play In-Between wtf.

Sunday was great too even though we didn't have the best of winds; I had a really enjoyable time surfing and it's also partly because of the trash-picking that we did before that. 

Ended the evening with a cousin's wedding dinner and here are some snaps:

with Mumsy

YF

and Yihao! Like he mentioned on Facebook, it's been the longest time since the 3 of us took a picture together.

with the 'little melons'.

Mum and Dad :)

Weddings usually leave me going "Awwww... they're going to spend the rest of their lives together now. How sweet is that..." in my mind, but this one made me have cynical thoughts; maybe I've been thinking too much about the impermanence of life, love, and such of late.

And that marks the happy closure of my final vacation as a student.

Final practicum's finally started on Monday; things have yet to get busy (very soon though, I'm sure), and I'm really happy to be here - I hope I'm not speaking too soon since it's just the 2nd day so far. It feels wonderful to have my own workstation (finally!) and have superiors acknowledge my presence on the first day of work. Not to mention I have really nice CTs too; one of whom gave me a 'welcome gift' on my first day:

I'm feeling really blessed right now.

To show my appreciation for all that I've been bestowed upon,

I should really stop paying just lip service and start working hard! :)

mothers' day

 In the short history of mothers’ days that I’ve celebrated/missed, the one that’s just passed a couple of days ago left me feeling really horrible by the time the day was over. I dreaded coming home and I locked myself in my room the moment I got back. I suppose it should be considered a missed one, since there really wasn’t any celebration, so to speak.

At age close-to-24, I’m not proud at all to be announcing that I got into a fight with my mum. I thought this is supposed to be the period in my life where I can start talking to her about everything under the sun – e.g. grown up issues, where daughters and mothers start spending more time together to bond.

Apparently, I thought wrong.

People oftentimes have the impression that I’m best pals with my mum, I’m not. On occasions where it seemed to be the case, let me tell you now that I tried very hard to make things resemble that. Each time I tried to narrow the gap between us, I would be met with much resistance/reluctance (can’t differentiate the 2 when it comes to my mum) before eventual relentance. Through my daily interaction with her over the years, I also came to the conclusion that my opinions don’t really matter very much to her and this has resulted in me craving for acknowledgment from others outside (I curb to display this openly though).

I tried to reflect on why things turned out this way.

Maybe it’s an Asian mum thing; our conservative society’s made her out to be uncomfortable in displaying affection as openly as I’d like her to. Or it could be an age/generation difference thing; I’m quite sure she didn’t try as hard as me to come closer to grandma when she was younger (not that grandma would have the time for her, she had 9 children in all) so she’s probably not very used to the idea of mother-daughter bonding. Am I expecting too much from her by hoping that she’d someday realize I could do with more motherly love? Or maybe, just maybe, we’ve been taking each other for granted despite the countless times I’ve told myself to always be thankful for all that I’ve been given in my life.

Of course, I know not if it’s one, a combination or none of the reasons provided above that’s led to the state of things today. The only certain thing I know for a fact is that I will forever be indebted to my mum, no matter how terrible or frosty things eventually turn out to be. I used to shed tears wishing we were closer after seeing how intimate cousins or friends were with their mothers, but after the most recent episode, I’m going to stop wishing for that to happen. It takes 2 hands to clap, maybe we are just not cut out for such intimacy.

Things are still pretty frosty at the moment; we’ve been avoiding each other like the plague at home and not more than 5 sentences have been spoken between the 2 of us since last Friday (she mentioned that I really shouldn’t speak to her anymore in her fit of anger and I’m taking it very seriously).

I feel sad thinking about how great things should/could’ve been many a time, but to be frank, I know it’s really not much of a real problem; at least not after watching a heart-wrenching video on some young cancer victims some nights back. There are definitely things more worthy of your time and attention than reading about me whining about how unloved I'm feeling. 

So, no more moping – I’ll start by focusing on the positive things in life and how to make both others and myself happier.

Is this the part where things start going downhill?

#19 Someone that pesters your mind - good or bad

Mumsy.

When things are going well, thoughts about her can make me really happy. 

When things are not going so well, I often tear up just thinking about how things could've been.

I've been trying to talk to her recently, but each time she pushes me away. 

Little by little, she's been doing that till I am now sick and tired of her turning away. 

It's disappointing, and I guess I'll just stop doing it so much from now on. 

more love each time

I have more and more love for this place each time I visit. My last trip to Penang was more than 2 years ago so I thought it'd be a good time to go visit my family when Jetstar ran a promotion in early February (S$70++ to and fro!).

I love my hospitable relatives who would bring me round and round for good food and great fun. It's really a joy to catch up with aunties and cousins whom I've not seen for some time, and of course, my cute little grandma too.

I think it's no secret that Penang people love to eat, and it's not hard to see why when there's so much good food around. I feel really blessed to have relatives who know where to find all that delicious food around the island they call home.

One of my favourite aunts (and my cousin) recently opened a new restaurant that offers food of fine-dining quality in a casual setting, and I've been hanging out at their shop everyday for the time I was there. It's located conveniently somewhere within Gurney (to be more exact, it's Pulau Tikus) and it's been opened for almost a month now.

My aunt has been bringing me to this particular kopitiam in Pulau Tikus for breakfast because it's really near the restaurant, and the food's good too:

Having breakfast with the locals

The usual sight on a weekend morning.

Didn't make a note of what this lady was selling, but I'm loving those colourful pails at the bottom! Greatly contrasts the zinc/aluminium gray roof.

And here's some of what I've been putting into my tummy (from this Pulau Tikus kopitiam) during my short stay here this time round:

Popiah - Wetter (deliciously so with more gravy) than what we usually have back home, and you can find shrimps in them too. No traces of annoying coriander leaves make it extra satisfying.

Assam Laksa with a spoonful of hei gor - People usually have a love-hate relationshi p with this one, more hate than love if they're too used to the lemak version that they've been having nearly all their lives. I love it though, because I find the sourish taste (from tamarind) very appetizing (not too fond of the mint leaves though bleagh). I feel very excited whenever I manage to find chunks of fish flakes in my soup. Anyhow, the texture of the noodles used here is totally different from our thick bee hoon; it's softer and much more chewy. It's a pity that I haven't been able to find rice noodles of such texture outside of Penang so far.

Curry Mee - My absolute favourite amongst all the Penang hawker fare I've tried so far. 

Even though it's still coconut-milk based, I find it less lemak than the curry chicken noodles we can find in Singapore. Less on the coconut milk, more on the curry spices. That sort of makes it less cloying on the palette. I love the ingredients that comes in every bowl of curry mee: cuttlefish, cockles, tau gwa, shrimps and most importantly, pig's blood curd! It's such a pity that we've stopped selling that in Singapore now... I never fail to 'catch up' with it in my bowls of curry mee whenever I'm in Penang to visit. 

After having such filling breakfasts, cuzzie brought me out for dessert at Penang Road. 

PCK and Rosie were here too.

Business was bustling despite the hot weather; people didn't really seem to mind standing under the scorching sun to queue or have their bowls of chendol.

A nice, cold treat in hot weather. Yummy indeed, but maybe slightly overrated. Worth a try nonetheless.

And now, a break from hawker fare. Let's look at some of the offerings of my aunt and cousin's newly-opened restaurant.

The shop front. Named after the year my cousin was born in #somuchmotherlylove

It's basically converted from an old house; heard my aunt say that it was in a terrible and run-down condition when they first took over it from the landlord and they had to spend quite a bit on renovation.

The interior, pre-lunch hours. Very simple and down-to-earth setting and atmosphere, but a great place to chill out and enjoy fine food and wine with family/friends nonetheless. 

Cover page of their menu.

They specialize in a range of European-influenced cuisines as that was what my cousin learnt at culinary school some years back. And offerings on the menu include the usual courses like starters, main courses and desserts. I helped out with the menial tasks in the shop (e.g. wiping water stains off the shiny cutlery, plates and glasses, editing the Description of their Facebook page and new menu for the month of May - that's what an English major is good for) in exchange for some of my meals :p

For Starters, I had the Parma Ham and Rock Melon as well as the Niçoise Salad with Tuna Tataki.

Parma Ham and Rock Melon - A dish you can never go wrong with; sweet and savoury at the same time. This version was served with some rocket and balsamic dressing.

Niçoise Salad with Tuna Tataki - Rocket, quail eggs, red radish and sweet cherry tomatoes served slightly-seared tuna slices. 

Other starters that I've tried but forgot to take pictures of were the Mushroom and Minestrone Soups, Rocket Salad with Goat's Cheese and Poached Pear, Pan-Seared Scallops with Leek Veloute and Lemon Froth.

For main courses, I had Beef Tenderloin with Glazed Vegetables, Roasted Potatoes and Red Wine Jus, Linguine with Clams, Capers, Olives and Chili, Fettuccine Pomodoro, Baked Fish with Saute Cherry Tomatoes and Fennel Salad, as well as Braised Chicken with Red Wine and Mashed Potatoes.

In addition, I also had a taste of the ribeye that will be up in May's menu. Tasty, tasty red meat that goes well with those roasted potatoes.

Linguine with Clams, Capers, Olives and Chili

Baked Fish with Saute Cherry Tomatoes, Orange Segments and Fennel Salad. I'd thought initially that the fennel slices were raw onion slices -_-

And finally, for desserts, I tried the Gratine Sabayone with Mixed Berries and Home-made Vanilla Ice Cream as well as the highly popular Chocolate Banana. 

Gratine Sayabone - Someone stole a spoonful of it before I took this picture. This is torched custard made with Italian Marsala wine and mixed berries (underneath!); rich and sweet, but not to excess.

Chocolate & Banana - Textured frozen chocolate made from the luxurious Valrhona, served with coffee-infused crunch, brandy, banana espuma, mint leaves and home-made banana ice cream. This was really good.

Having such rich and hearty foods on a daily basis is quite an indulgence really. I've volunteered my proof-reading and editing services to my aunt for their monthly menus in exchange for more free meals when I visit them again in future. Looking forward to having more great food!

Anyway, if you're interested, you can take a look at their Facebook page here. Do drop by for a meal and say Hello to my aunt and cousin when you visit Penang anytime in the near future too. It'll cost about RM100 (plus minus a little) for a full-course meal and food quality's definitely assured.

My aunt also brought me to try some Penang Bat Kut Teh while I was there.

Bat Kut Teh along Gurney's beach front. There were so many of them and it somewhat reminded me of our very own Bat Kut Teh stretch along Balestier Road.

Gek Hui.

Sour and Spicy Fish Soup with Rice Noodles.

This is what I call chockfull of ingredients; meat-lovers would love this. The soup was really good too!

Headed down to Teluk Kumbar for yet another seafood feast with the rest of my maternal relatives one fine evening. 

Look at the fabulous sky that we were blessed to have witnessed that day:

Lovely colours that make me smile.

Our table. As we were busy eating, mozzies were busy feasting on our poor feet too :(

Fish braised in a big ceramic pot basin. It was so delicious when hot!

We spent the rest of our dinner time cracking lame jokes, asking riddles and making fun of each other. I had so much fun catching up with my beloved cuzzies.

And this is a drawing that one of my talented cuzzies did (it was printed into a postcard and given to me by her mum):

According to her, that's the three sisters in her family; eldest (purple), middle (that's her in green) and youngest (blue). I couldn't help but let out a WOW when I saw it - it's such a beautiful drawing and done by my cousin who's only like what, 15? The kids in their household are really talented - great academic results, they can sing well and paint well too; their mummy must be so pleased with them. I'm sure all of them will make it big in future.

Catching up with the relatives back my my Grandma's place. Times like that make me wish that I'm much closer to them (physically) so we can meet up and do more crazy things together on a whim.

Somewhere in the middle of the trip, I came to the conclusion that Penang to me is about 2 things: Family and Food.

Lubs.

still around

Submitted my final assignment last Friday (woohoo!) and got Mumsy to try out Penang Kitchen along Tanjong Katong Road with me after catching a glimpse of the shopfront sometime ago. 

Came across this cute picture on the wall as we walked from the car park to the eating place:

Mumsy would usually have the final say if the food at Penang eateries (in Singapore) we visit is passable since she's the only in our family who's born and bred in Penang. And it's usually not that easy to find good Penang food in Singapore... Assam laksas are usually too diluted and would be too sour if not too sweet, the broth of Hokkien Mees would usually not be 'prawny' enough. It's easier for Char Koay Teows to have a slightly greater resemblance to their Penang counterparts though.

Hokkien Mee (S$8.30)

Penang's version of the Hokkien Mee is very different from Singapore's version that we're used to. The first and most important difference is that Penang Hokkien Mee is soup-based rather than stir-fried like Singapore's Hokkien Mee. The ingredients used though, are quite similar in many aspects - yellow noodles, beehoon, eggs, shrimps/prawns, fishcake and sprouts. There's no lard in Penang's version though, and it's also not served with sambal belachan but with another type of slightly more running chili. The stock is usually rich with the taste of prawns/shrimps (I realized that smaller shrimps, rather than the juicy prawns are used more often in Penang's version) and boiled to a certain level of sweetness.

Char Koay Teow (S$8.30)

Another 'same-same-but-different' dish; it'd be exactly the same if not for the fact that dark, sweet soy sauce is not used. The prawns used in Penang's version are usually much smaller, unlike what can be seen from the picture actually. I thought this version was quite good; the wok hei lent a distinctive char-flavour to the dish and made the well-tossed koay teow even tastier! 

Mumsy's verdict: It's a Pass! It's probably one of the better Penang eateries around, though definitely not the cheapest. Guess we'll be heading back again soon when Mumsy has her cravings for Penang food.




In the same week, the primary school clique also had a belated birthday celebration for Robin at Peperoni's (Hill Crest Park). Atas neighbourhood ambience aside, I found the place to be really cosy and the pizzas yummy. While you are waiting for your pizza to cook in the furnace, crayons are provided so that you can doodle on the huge sheets of coloured paper with your friends. We had a few rounds of Draw Something and had a few good laughs over Siao's stripper that we did not manage to guess correctly.

There are a few sizes in which you can order your pizzas - regular, medium and monster (I think that was the nickname we gave to the largest-sized one), and we had the monster one of course! It's really huge; takes up about three quarters of the table top's surface.

Half Peperoni and half mushroom-ham.

We were trying to show how big the pizza is but I think putting our hands there created a counter effect instead.

In addition to this monster, we also ordered a regular-sized half-seafood, half-salmon pizza. The pizzas were awesome. One of the tastiest pizzas that I've tried in Singapore, not to mention largest! It does help that I'm quite fond of thin-crust pizzas; I will even eat the crispy burnt bits :p

To conclude the bit on dinner, yummy pizzas ftw!

Post dinner, Robin drove us back to Siao's, but not before we got ourselves some ice cream from Ice Edge. Ice cream flavours for the night were Bak Kwa (yes you read it right, it's bak kwa!) and Chocolate Crunch (or something to that effect). 

Bak Kwa ice cream might sound a little very strange/unacceptable, but I've probably made you very curious about its taste just by mentioning it. It tasted surprisingly like Bak Kwa (duh) and I love it when people come up with such wacky food ideas (especially if they're good), so it was a Yes for me. Can't say the same for the rest of the primary school clique though, seemed like they were a little reluctant to finish it up - guess it got a little too cloying towards the end.


That's just some of the foods that I've been trying in the last week.

Currently in Penang right now, and nursing a bad throat after downing some many pieces of crispy, deep fried chicken skin from Gurney Drive 2 days ago.

challenge accepted

Over dinner two nights ago, Dad went on about how I would always leave the toilet seat cover down after I'm done and the inconvenience that it'd pose to him and YF so... challenge accepted!

Have been lifting up the seat everyday now. 

Take that, dad!

why i am such a guy

Today, Mumsy shared with YF and I about how Dad refused to believe she was expecting a girl when she had me back then. Then she said that must have been the reason why I turned out to be a tomboy.

Might be feeling a teeny bit disappointed right now... :(

but I'm sure the feeling'll go away when I wake up later!

不健康的晚餐

Mumsy said, she came to Singapore 30 years ago when we spotted this poster outside ECP McDonald's. 

I'm not their biggest fan (nowhere close) but I guess since we were in the area, we could do one last visit before the place gets torn down. And I guess it now means a different place altogether when you arrange for meetings at ECP Macs, after tonight at least.

troll-farting

Must remember to do this to Mumsy soon!