Kuih Baulu

Kuih Baulu made by my mum.

Chinese New Year is right around the corner.

A favorite among many Malaysians of all races and ages, kuih baaulu is usually baked during the festive seasons such as Hari Raya and Chinese New Year. These sweet and eggy kuih go very well with coffee, and are always a crowd-pleaser during the festive seasons.

My fruit enzyme DIY

Grapes

Can’t wait to harvest it in 3 weeks time

I decided to make fruit enzyme (grapes) by myself. After some research, I roughly figure out the method, ingredients, control conditions, and etc and get all things ready yesterday.

The following are the steps of making the fruit enzymes:

1. Clean all the fruits, utensils, glass containers and let it drip dry.
2. Peel all the fruits and cut into small pieces.
3. Arrange 1st layer of the cut fruits (pineapples, green apple or grapes) into the glass container
4. Follow by another layer of brown candy.
5. Repeat step 3 to 4 till the content is around 60% of the container.
6. Arrange layers of lemon.
7. Cover the last layer with brown candy.
8. The ingredients should not more than 80% of the container. (Fermentations process will release a lot of gases and may overflow if the contents are too full)
9. Close the container tightly and leave it in dry and cool place.
10. “Rock and Roll” the container daily. Ensure all the fruits are immerse in the liquid to prevent mold / fungus growth. If required, add more brown candy
11. After 3-4 days, can open the cover to release the gases. (Note: should open and close immediately)
12. If observe for any mold / fungus growth (black dot), remove the affected fruits immediately and add more brown candy (high sugar content / low water content can help to preserve the fruits)
13. The enzyme should be ready to be consumed in 2-3 weeks.
14. Separate the fruit from liquid and transfer the enzyme into new clean glass bottle.
15. The enzyme shall be kept in the refrigerator to preserve it better.

Can’t wait to harvest it in 3 weeks time!!!

Kursus Protokol & Etika Sosial at UUM

EDC, UUM

EDC, UUM

EDC, UUM

Chicken Chop

Bread Pudding

Christy and Daisy

Sally, Christy and Daisy

Daisy, Christy, and Sally

Our Table No.19

I join "Kursus Protokol & Etika Sosial" on 9-1-09 (5pm-9.45pm) at EDC, UUM.

Kuih Kapit and Egg Roll

What is Chinese New Year without the ubiquitous Kuih Kapit and Egg Roll making an appearance? Go to any Chinese home during this festival time and you can almost be assured that you will be served some form of this biscuit.

Kuih Kapit/ Egg Roll made by my family and my friends.

I used to help my mom make kuih kapit yesterday. The mould being made of metal gets very hot, and you have to work very very quickly to roll or fold the kuih kapit before they cool and become too brittle. The rule is, the thinner and lighter the batter the more skilled you are!

The love-letter, or more commonly known as kuih kapit (a kind of crispy biscuit) is an essential feature of Chinese and Malay festivals. "To make, very time consuming. To eat, very fast" is an apt and colloquial way of describing the kuih kapit. While the women of the household sweat and strain over a charcoal stove, the younger ones wait eagerly to gobble it all up.

Making kuih kapit requires a certain amount of multi-tasking. The 'chief' cook juggles several tasks at one time – minding the fire, flipping the moulds, mixing and pouring the batter, cooking it to a perfect golden brown colour and then trimming the run-offs. The assistants on the other hand have to quickly fold the kuih kapit into a triangle while it is still hot and pliable and then arranging them into air-tight containers. Althought the latter sounds like a simple task, one must remember that folding of love letters must be done very quickly and neatly, before it hardens and becomes impossible to fold. An experience assistant will also be able to choose the 'nicer side' to face outward so as to make the biscuit look more presentable.

Membasmi nyamuk Aedes di DPP TNB

Baru-baru ini Dewan Penginapan Pelajar(DPP) TNB di UUM membasmi nyamuk Aedes dewasa melalui semburan dan ubat nyamuk. Pihak UUM membuat semburan kabus denggi di sekeliling bangunan DPP TNB. Kami semua penginap terpaksa berkumpul di luar pada pukul 6petang sehingga kabus tersebut hilang.

Semburan di Blok C, D, dan E

Semua penginap TNB berkumpul di luar

Semburan di Blok saya, Blok B

Mamma Mia!

What's the best movie you watched recently?
hehe...my answer is Mamma Mia!!! I like it.

Theatre director Phyllida Lloyd makes her feature debut with this star-filled but horribly saccharine adaptation of the stage musical, based on the lyrics of Abba songs.

The story of Mamma Mia! is wafer thin. Meryl Streep plays Donna, a 50something former showgirl who owns a dilapidated hotel on a Greek island. Her 20year-old daughter Sophie, played by Amanda Seyfried (the dippy blonde in Mean Girls), is about to marry her sweetheart Sky (Dominic Cooper),with the ceremony to be held at the hotel.

Having read her mother’s secret diary, Sophie has discovered that her father could have been one of three former lovers that Donna met over the course of a busy month years before. Desperate to meet her father before her marriage, she invites all three (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard) to come to the island.

Thus met, the gang then race around looking for reasons to sing Abba songs - lyrics crammed to fit the situation - before a predictably sweet and sun-kissed conclusion.

For Dancing Queen, they have a dance and crown a queen. I Have a Dream allows Sophie to dream of her real dad. Money, Money Money brings about a discussion of the hotel’s precarious finances. On it goes, a race through 20 songs from the back catalogue, each of the principals getting their moment centre stage, the story trailing along behind them.

So, it’s rubbish. Yes, it’s upbeat, inoffensive and determined to entertain, but rubbish nonetheless. The biggest challenge of any musical is integrating the songs into an interesting, credible story so that it feels ‘natural’ when the actors suddenly break into song. That never happens here.

Mamma Mia! is jazzed-up karaoke, a feeble excuse to run through the Abba classics, hanging limply from the bare branches of a clumsy, gossamer story.

Streep, who last sang on screen in Postcards From the Edge, has a fine, clear voice, with her natural exuberance covering most of Donna’s character inadequacies.

Likewise, Julie Walters gives it both barrels as best friend Rosie, belting out her numbers and kicking her heels to disguise a shaky, uninvolving presence. As the pair’s preening rich-bitch friend Tanya, comedienne Christine Baranski carries most of the film’s sense of camp - a burden that proves too much for her.

Of the men, only Brosnan shows any signs of having twigged the ridiculous nature of proceedings. He nervously warbles his way through a few numbers, his strained expression and awkward movements betraying his acute discomfort.

Firth, as the millionaire lawyer Harry, plays a former punk but that still doesn’t excuse his tuneless screeching. As the adventurer Bill, Skarsgard doesn’t even attempt an entire number, wisely delivering his few lines in a croaking sing-song and hiding somewhere during the more bombastic set pieces.

If the singing is a disappointment, the unconvincing sets and chocolate-box photography are even more so; the airy, fluent location exteriors crassly matched with the over-lit, unconvincing studio settings. Director Lloyd, who originated the stage show, lacks the basic technical and narrative skills to make the film bounce. Abroad, flat and silly film, Mamma Mia! is strictly for Abba fans.