We Ate for Charity!

When is the time you get to be tham jiak and eat indulge all you want but for a good cause? When is the time you get to eat durian to your heart’s or rather tummy’s content and still feel justified? When is the time you can tham jiak for charity? When is the time you can eat durians by truckloads in just RM10 and have a t-shirt to flaunt it later with just RM20 and above? This is when:

Menu for Hope V

Menu for hope is once again back! What is it, you ask? Well, quoting from Chez Pim:

Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising campaign hosted by me and a revolving group of food bloggers around the world. Five years ago, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia inspired me to find a way to help, and the very first Menu for Hope was born. The campaign has since become a yearly affair, raising funds to support worthy causes worldwide. In 2007, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100K to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too - can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of their choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

This year Menu for Hope V will be from 15th December to 24th December 2008, so please do not miss this opportunity to donate and maybe get a prize for that. We have our very own dear Malaysian food blogger Babe in the City KL, which did her pledge of prize here! Head on to her site to see if the prize interest you or you can choose from the master list of great prizes at here.

Please join all of us to help UN World Food Programme feed the hungry!

Me, Myself and My Food

I had been tagged last year (that sound like ages ago) by Jake from Lovely Malaysian Food by a meme called “7 random facts about myself”. Then I was re-tagged by Mochachocolata-Rita on "5 facts about me". I was thinking would anyone be interested in 5 facts about me what more 7? Maybe yes, maybe no, but oh well, as the rule of the game, tagged I am therefore I write:

1. Besides playing with kitchen appliances, I play guitar and drums. Yea, I was a cool teen; I used to have an all girl band name Addicted to Bliithe where I was the drummer. If you have been a long time reader, yes you can guessed it, it were consisted of my 1984s friends. We played in gigs, joined some competitions and even just 'jam' for fun. Does this make me similar to Jamie Oliver, the drummer who cooks?

2. Despite the fact that I am a Chinese, and my grandparents are from China, I do not even know how to read or write Chinese. Luckily I do know my dialects, such as Hokkien and Cantonese. So currently I am on a self learning journey in quest to learn Mandarin.

3. I have a bachelor degree in Business Information System, currently doing something with a mixture of business, finance and IT. I am happy with what I am doing, pretty challenging (the way I like it) yet it still feels like something is missing. This is because my ultimate dream is to have a business of my own, and of course it would be a food business. Food writing comes a close second.

4. I grew up in a lovely town call Taiping, up north in Perak, Malaysia. It is a place where people grew up and grow old. Somewhere in between are people like my mum and dad. Most of them are children and senior citizens. There is a really beautiful Lake Garden there, which was previously a tin ore mine, now made into a wonder garden of lushes trees and sparkling lakes.

5. Recently I had just bought an apartment with J in the heart of PJ, waiting eagerly to get the keys and start unloading all my kitchen gadgets into it and hopefully then, churn out more goodies for me, J, family and friends to enjoy and for you to drool on from this blog.

6. I secretly harbour the desire to knead and bake my own bread, but I have yet to get on with it. Once I bought a bottle of instant yeast and it was left in my shelves for ages and never got into bread making. I was never really a bread person, as in I do not take bread just because (with the exception of my morning breakfast of eggs and toast bread), and I am really picky about what makes a good bread, occasionally only manage to find it in posh restaurants or good bakeries. No, the usual roti canai, Malaysian’s favourite does not make it as one of those bread I desired to make. I want to bake rustic looking bread that would make good sandwiches, not those white bread sandwiching some sad looking lettuce and tuna.

7. I started a mini project in this blog called Exploring My Origin, where I am still very much interested to carry on. I want to learn and understand all there is to know about Chinese food origins, how it is to be made and what makes it so good that it lasted for generations. I am always so worried that these traditions would be lost in our era. If time and place permits it, I will definitely seek it out, practice and make it till it is right and then share all of it here.

There, five non-food-related facts about me and 2 tham jiak facts about me, to kill two birds with one stone. 7 is more than enough I'm sure, and I do hope you enjoy it!

A Day Without Food Blog

I had read this earlier on at Tigers and Strawberries and then at Chez Pim, which then dawn on me the severity of the matter. I remember vaguely that I had read about this issue before earlier this month (or last month, I’m not sure) on the newspaper at the Tech section, and had thought it was totally baseless. I thought it was just an issue that came across the service providers’ mind, but now it seems this crazy idea could actually be the next thing of the future.

For this matter, I would join in with the rest of the food-gang against this and make today a day without food blog!

Tagged with: Net Neutrality + Day Without Food Blogs

A Foodblogger's Meme Around The World

I have been tagged by Tazz on this wonderful meme. I read it the first time at FoodFreak that had made my day, and from there on I found many more blogs and interesting recipes through everybody’s recommendations. So on with mine:

1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try:
   

   

   Walnut Coffecake by SeaDragon from Café of the East (I had tried this, pictured above, J and I loved it!)
   Gingersnaps with Crystallized Ginger by Nic from Baking Sheet
   Dal Kachoris by Meena from Hooked on Heat
   
   
2. A foodblog in your vicinity:
   I got a whole list at my Malaysia links on the right



3. A foodblog (or more) located far from you:
   My Mom’s Recipe and More, Chanit in Israel



4. A foodblog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?):
   Audrey Cooks (a Malaysian blogger I discovered recently from links)
   Pusiva’s Culinary Studio by Pushpa (I think I got to her blog from her comment at mine)
   Saffron Hut (through Anthony’s Curry Mela)



5. Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this Meme?
   Well, I suppose I’m one of the late ones in this. If any of you have yet to do it and wanted to, you’re most invited to.

From USA with Love

Finally I am posting up about my package of BBM4. It was really really sweet and lovely, from Rorie, at Milk & Honey. It was flown here all the way from USA.

The whole idea of the package was full with love, also in conjunction with the Valentine. The only thing is I collected the package late, I am so sorry Rorie. The package apparently came much earlier, but I was not in. Then they left a card, asking me to go and collect it at a post office I am not familiar with. The lateness is due to my house people, and my bad habit to only check the mail once in a blue moon for bills. So when I saw the card, it was about a week late, then I got hung up with work and finally got it last week.

On to the package, no more excuses on my side. The package came packed with fabulous stuff. Look at it!

I mean look at it! Looks good isn't it? From the front left, it is a packet of Mexican Spiced Chocolate, and it is just right! I always wondered how Mexican chocolate would taste like, and this is even spiced. No I haven’t try it yet, still admiring it. the white packet beside it is another chocloatey drink, which is Green Chile Cinnamon Hot Chocolate Mix. Sounds really interesting! Then next is a packet of Montmorency Cherries. This one, shamefuly, I have snacked finish it. wanted to make oatmeal cookies with it, as Rorie had suggested, but this tart cherries is simply irresistible. One pop and I am hooked. Then it is a packet unsalted dry toasted Slivered Almonds. Yummy! Just my favourite kind of nuts.

Up the top is the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate baking chips! I can imagine all the lovely thing I can bake from this. Just can’t wait to have the time again to make my favourite desserts. Then there is also Scharffen Berger Mocha bar (dark chocolate with freshly roasted coffee)! I loved dark chocolate, who doesn’t? Next came two bottle of spices, one vanilla beans (finally I got it!) and another is cinnamon sticks.

Other lovely non-food goodies is, you can see a vintage heart cookie cutter (somehow I suspect Rorie knows me inside out, I have all the while been searching for a heart shape cutter, to make lovely goodies for J), then a sweet looking silicon pot holder, a valentine’s photo frame (with magnet, now my refrigerator), vintage dish towel, you can see all the one below all the goodies and a well compiled love songs. Oh, and with a personalized card too!

Thanks Rorie for all the goodies! I can’t wait to try all of the yummy stuff out and do some baking and cooking with it.

Me, Me and Me

Tagging Meme had become a phenomenal nowadays in the blogosphere. I do enjoy Meme-ing and passing on the baton, but how far the tagged person enjoy it I do not know, but I just hope we all join in the fun (if that is not how you feel, you should). My first Meme, was on my Top Ten Favourite Food, tagged by Kalyn. Now, I have two Meme on my list, and they are crying to be pass on day and night! I no longer could keep this here, else it will die here, where the I am the cause. So here goes:

Mumu from A Curious Mix had tagged me with “The Things I Carry”, which actually ask what one would bring when cooking in someone else’s place. Then the witty Mumu, came up with her own version of the other way around which is “What would you hijack from someone’s else kitchen”. How cool is that. I feeling pretty adventurous would be answering to both of this.

I have yet to cook at other person’s place which would be far less equipped than me, shamefully yes, who can ever be less equipped than my poor kitchen of an university student who have yet the income to invest in tools she is dying to have and have yet to have the time to fully utilize them even if she does. But I do know a kitchen that is less equipped than mine, which was my aunt’s, just 5 minutes drive from my place, who do not cook at all. As I remember, as she has, a HUGE refrigerator (where is the justice????), microwave and two gas stoves with some basic pots and pans. I always wanted to go over, cook a feast and feed her and my two skinny cousins to the brim! So if I ever go over to cook, these are things I am most likely to carry along, as I would not do without:

Wok
Granite Pestle and Mortar
Chinese meat cleaver and chopping board plus my trusty mini knife
Blender and grinder
Rice cooker
Olive Oil
Rack of spices

As for hijacking things from someone’s kitchen, I would definitely be choosing my Nanny’s kitchen. Hers is well equipped with years and years of feeding three children and her dear husband. I would also add in my Ah Ma’s kitchen, which she had used to feed me since I was barely walking properly.

Complete supply of Chinese herbs, spices and all the necessary ingredients to cook authentic Chinese cuisine from my Nanny’s.

My Ah Ma’s ‘3-stone fire’ clay stove that uses charcoal as fuel. Ah Ma double boils her soups on this to the perfection!

For thisI would like to tag Barbara from Tigers and Strawberries, because I like to know what she have and treasure in the kitchen. I am always in awe of her overwhelming experience and cookery skills!

Next is 7 Meme for 7 bloggers, which I was tagged by MM from Mana Makan – The Feast Crusade.

7 things to do before I die
Travel to places I have never seen
Eat food that I have never eaten
Record our own album for my band – Addicted to Bliithe
Fly my own jet plane
Have my own business empire

Build a loving and happy family
Learn to speak, read and write Mandarin

7 things I cannot do
I cannot sing for the life of me
I am ‘buta 3D’ – basically mean I cannot direct my character in a 3D game to walk in a straight line, as in no sense of 3D direction.
I cannot grow to the height I want!
I cannot cry in front of people – well at least I tried
I cannot seem to find ‘7 things that I cannot do’

7 things that attracted me to blogging
My tham jiak-ness
My love of writing
My need to be heard
The joy of sharing what I know
A place for me to rant and rave
To promote one self - you never know who is reading out there!
Most of all – the family sense in the blogosphere

7 things I say most often
I love you!
If etc etc etc … how?
Have you eaten yet?
What the hell!
Serious?
Funny!
Oh no!

7 books I love
Anne Rice’s Lestat
Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings
CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
R.A. Salvatore‘s The Forgotten Realms
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

7 movies I watch over and over again
None in particular, I love movies, but not fanatic enough to have one that I would watch over and over again

7 tags
Now for my 7 victims, please do not kill me!

Anne from Anne's Food

Nic from Bakingsheet

Indira from Mahanandi

Glutton Rabbit from Pearl of The Orient

VK from My Dhaba

Meena from Hooked on Heat

Foodcrazee

Late Meme: You Are What You Eat

I had been late on this meme from Kalyn (bowing my head in shame), although I had been tagged since early this month. I am really sorry Kalyn, it just had been a busy month with Christmas and new year approaching. I had written it long time ago but have yet to complete it. I will update this post when I finally get the rest of the pictures together, which was the main source of this late post.

Now on to my top 10 favourite food:

Chocolate
Every woman’s secret vice. Chocolate is known as the food for Gods since ancient times and it is not a wonder why. Chocolate is one of my comfort food that bound to help most of the time. Whenever I’m down, chocolate is needed to lift me up and when I’m happy, chocolate is needed to share the joy. So, basically I need chocolate all the time. Naughty me! For me, the darker the chocolate, with richer cocoa taste the better! I eat chocolate anything, from plain chocolate to chocolate cookies to chocolate cakes to hot cocoa to anything! I just have yet to try mole, chocolate with meat, which one day I must!

Cheese
Need I elaborate more on this milky goodness? Yes I do. I had mentioned that it had been J’s weakness; well I must admit it does have quite an effect on me too. I love it in both sweets and savouries. I bow to cheesecakes; I love a thick carbonara anytime and whatever cheesy, you name it.

Milk
I would need a glass every morning (or the time I wake up) to start my day. I had been having it since my pre-school days up till now. Nothing beats fresh milk and now for me, fat-free milk.

Egg

It is the most versatile food I have ever known. If you’re lazy, just fry it and you will have a sunny side up. Or just whisk it around and fry it plain or with anything else that you want. One of my favourite ways is fry it with long beans. Not too sweet and with the right crunch compare to the eggy texture. You must try it if you get your hands on long beans, and I’m sure you have eggs at hand! Besides, eggs are the base for most delicious desserts isn’t it?

Vegetables
Oh, I do eat my greens. When I was young, I refuse to have anything green into my mouth but not anymore. I learn to love my veggies since quite sometime ago. Not only nutritious but it is actually really delectable. Cooking each veggies the right way would make it interesting. But somehow, I love the way we Chinese like to cook it; stir-fry it with some garlic, dashes of soy sauce and chicken/vegetable stock if you’re lucky or water if you’re not. Rest assured, it is one of the best way to enjoy your veggies!

Soup

Ah, one of our Chinese secrets! As I had mentioned, our Chinese soups are blends of the most natural tastes of the ingredients meld together into something really wonderful. One of my comfort food I might say. When I was young, I love to drown my rice in soup and then eat it with dishes; in fact it can even be a complete meal itself. It was Ah Ma that had brought the love of soup to me, and now I must pass it on! Do try out our various soups and indulge in the wonderful flavours.

Sushi

My housemates and I simply adore sushi! When we had the opportunity to eat out, we would pretend discussing where to eat but in the end, we would end up in a sushi bar. In Malaysia, it is either Genki Sushi or Sushi King for us. These are sushi cheap-eats for us but then again, who are we to complain. It still soothes our cravings for some raw salmon and some sweet rice.

‘Bun’ (Vietnamese Rice Vermicelli)

It is not the usual buns but rather it is actually rice vermicelli. Bun is served cold with fresh vegetables, juicy meat and ‘cha gio’ (springrolls). I would always hop over to Vietnam Kitchen (One U) for my fix of bun when I’m looking for a wholesome and fulfilling meal. To know more about what bun is all about, hop over at Fine Cooking.

Mexican

Even the test results revealed that I am a Mexican girl. Yes I am! I love Mexican food for its complex blends of spices and tastes. I loved chillis (which I did for my birthday, will share it one day), tortillas, egg rolls (simply adore these), fajitas, quesadillas and tacos with salsa! Now I am craving for some!

Seafood

Oh how can I leave out this wonderful food? When there are spreads of seafood around, I go week at my knees. This is no exaggeration! I absolutely adore crabs and shrimps. Then there are the fishes, plain ol’ fishes plus much much more ranging from mussels to squids to clams to oysters. What an indulgence.

Tagging (hopefully still available):

Babe_KL from Babe in the City-KL

Tazz from Tazz in the Kitchen

Mumu from A Curious Mix

Mae from Rice and Noodles

Well, the baton is passed. Hope you have a good (or tough) time listing your favourites. *Laugh evilly.

Merry Christmas!

Shoving some lovely red tomatoes your way! Well, just a picture of reds and greens to build some festive mood. Hope your Christmas this year is a bundle of joy, full with laughters and cheers.

Here’s a little ode to you:

Christmas is
A time for gathering
and a time for sharing
A time for giving
and a time for receiving
A time for rejoicing
and appreciating
A time for embracing
and a time for reminding
How much we are loved

Merry Christmas to all!

Mexican Girl

Saw this over at Funky Cookies and it had been circling around, over at Babe's and Foodcrazee's, so I decided to join in the fun. Here's my result:

You Are Mexican Food

Spicy yet dependable. You pull punches, but people still love you.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Pretty true as I simply love Mexican food! I love it so much I had Mexican theme when I cooked for my 21st Birthday Bash. Might blog bout it someday.