New Road Names

I found it really irritating the other day driving around old town in Ipoh trying to locate Treacher street as it has been sometime since we went to that part of town. Hubby told me to look out for street names but to my dismay, I found them all with their new long winded names and I found myself a stranger in a city that I lived all my life as I didn't even recognise even one road name. God knows why street names which have been there for decades need to be changed. If the City council finds that they need to change the road names at least have the decency to have the original road names in brackets below the new names. How I wish the authorities can give us a decent explanation as to why road names have to be changed. If you get an address with an old road name, you will be totally lost coz you will not know where the heck the road is. No wonder so many of our mails go missing coz people are still writing addresses with old original road names and the postman will think it's somewhere in a foreign land and maybe the letter will land in the dead letter office coz all our roads have been renamed with local names. So sad to see that history has no place in a historical town like Ipoh. Let's pray they won't rename Ipoh coz if they do then we will have to rename the Ipoh tree something else too.

Games we used to Play

Remember the good old days when we used to spend so many daylight hours outside playing with friends. Most games we played were inexpensive and all we needed were a few friends and we will have hours of fun. This is remembering the good times we had as kids and children today are missing out so much on the fun they get outdoors, climbing trees and plucking fruits to eat off the trees. We found fun in everything, collecting stones, catching spiders and keeping them in matchboxes and stringing flowers to make garland. We had such a wild imagination then and everything was free. This poem is about some of the games we used to play besides the board games like Ludo, Snake and Ladder, Monopoly etc. If you recollect any other games, please do add a comment. How I hope these games will make a comeback as it's such a good way of bonding among families and friends and neighbours.

Games Children Played

As I look back to a time long ago

Long before computers and tv shows

There were simple games children used to play

Hours were spent outdoor throughout the day

There were seven stones, hop scotch and skipping ropes

Coconut fronds were used to slide down slopes

What fun we had when we played hide and seek

When others hide, one person counted and he musn’t peek

Skipping to ropes, there were so many rhymes

We’d skip and sing while counting to time

These skipping ropes were strung from rubber bands

The richer children used double strands

Hopscotch would be played before school began

Squares and circles would be drawn on the sand

Some kind of token had to be thrown

A string of beads, a bunch of shells or any old stone

With seven stones, we’d sit on the floor

A game you can play with one person or more

You toss one stone and pick up another

You would have lost if you dropped either

So many more I can’t recall

But any of these were more fun than the Mall

I think children had more fun in the good old days

The games were all free, there was nothing to pay.

~ Liz Sammy-Chin ~

Down Memory Lane ......... Po Garden Lane

This was a notorious lane between the side of the convent and Po Garden florist in Brewster Road. As a little girl, our house was at 7 Douglas road which was just behind the St. Michael's Institution and as my sister and I walked to the convent, we cut through the St. Michael's school field as it was a short cut to Brewster road. Going to school was fine as we entered by the main gate at Brewster Road but after school we all had to leave the school via the back gate, hence using Po Garden Lane was a short cut back to Brewster road.

Convent girls were told never to use the lane alone as it was really quiet and stories abound of the many psychos who pounced on convent girls who walked or cycled through the lane alone so to me the memories of Po Garden Lane has always given me chills. But nonetheless this is a tribute to the notorious Po Garden Lane as etched in my little girl's memory of walking to school with my elder sister.

Down Memory Lane

Way back in the fifties, my sister and I
Walked all the way to school till there were aches in our thighs
We walked past the St.Michael’s School and onto the river bank
And the nearer to school , the more my heart sank
Then we’ll cross the bridge at Brewster Road
Peeking into the river hoping to see boats
A mile more to go before the convent we’ll reach
And by the time we arrive we’ll be red as a peach
We’d walk on the five foot ways to hide from the sun
And sometimes if we were late, we needed to run
Shifting our school bags from our right hand to left
Giving each arm a chance for a rest
Then, we’d walk past the Po Garden Lane
To go through this lane alone would be insane
For this is a notorious dangerous pass
Girls have been molested late after class
And now the school gates are within view
The school bell hasn’t gone yet, we’re early; Phew!
Right after school from the back gate we’d leave
To the ice-cream seller we would proceed
We’d love to have “rojak” but didn’t have cash
So we’d just spin for the ice-cream and had to be rash
And through the Po Garden Lane my sister and I
Would rush our steps for bad people hide
On treetops and branches eyeing to pounce
On girls who are alone, their presence announce
So if you were wise, don’t ever pass
This lane alone if you’ve been late after class
And as we walked on, our throats started to dry
So to the tap at Borneo Motors as we had to walk by
It’s sweet cool waters tasted so pure
A long way from home, but now we can endure
And so the story goes for many more years
Until the day we had bicycles like the rest of our peers
That made the journey to school much easier then
This is our story from beginning to end
But now so much have changed
No girls would need to use the Po Garden Lane
‘Cause the area is now big, open and wide
No more places for bad people to hide
So ends the story of Po Garden Lane
But it’s memories and stories will always remain.

~ Liz Sammy-Chin ~

Cleaning up my Garden

My hubby just stopped work in May so I have an extra pair of hands to help me with the heavy flower pots that I have been meaning to give away. Was no problem actually coz my neighbours are all keen gardeners and was ever willing to relieve me of whatever potted plants that I got tired of. This is the advantage of living in a housing estate with friendly and helpful neighbours. In no time, the little patch of garden that I have, was cleared out and now I have so much more space to put a table and two chairs.

Few years ago I was very ambitious and had water gardens and decorated it with all kinds of garden ornaments but now that I am not that "kuat" anymore, I think water gardens are out of the zone coz it needs constant cleaning, moreover I also want the little bit more space for my hubby and I to have coffee out in the garden in the morning..........doesn't that sound fun? Wonder how many coffee mornings we will have before we give up on that.

We have pruned the cherry tree that gives us the shade but it got to be a little unruly and a little infested with fungus so we cut off most the infested branches and pruned back the leaves and now it looks neat and shapely. Two rather big pots of Anthuriums and a few money plants are all I kept and now the garden looks fresh and lively once more.

It always goes this way.......I enjoy the space after all the potted plants have been given away and agree the garden looks much better with less plants but before long I will be heading to garden centres and the buying starts again and very soon the garden gets overcrowded once more and all my neighbours will get to enjoy my generosity once again. lol ! What to do, this is a weakness I have !!! But in the meantime, I get to enjoy the space and will have coffee mornings in the garden. You are all welcomed so do come when my garden is still not overcrowded with newly aquired potted plants !!!!

Poem of my Lovely Old Home ............ 7 Douglas Road, Ipoh

Did I tell you that I write poems, or rather used to write poems. Have had no inspiration lately as I have been caught up with too many things like jewelry making and other children's craft projects. Anyway, thought that I will share a poem of my old home where I grew up with my 16 siblings.

7 Douglas Road
(The home where I grew up)

7 Douglas Road, what memories it brings
Of Papa and Mama and seventeen siblings
It was once a boisterous home filled with glee
Where all who visited would always feel free

It was a rambling place that we called home
With rambutans to pluck and bananas in combs
Ducks, chickens, cats and dogs were considered family
Everyone was welcomed to this wonderful fraternity

There were cannas, honolulus and magnolias too
Radiating a kaleidoscope of colours and hue
In a garden so lovingly tended, rich flora thrives
Thanks to my mom, who’s up before each sunrise

The Mango tree and the Durian tree
And the Bauhinia tree, so loved by my sister and me
Grows side by side, though in each own’s domain
The majesty of these old trees, unshaken by rain

The much-loved Neem tree with it’s bitter leaves
Has medicinal value so the elders believe
The gigantic “assam” tree near the toilet grows
Notorious for its supernatural powers and resident ghosts

The banana trees provided us with food
From the fruit to the trunk, to their tuber roots
The Guava tree, a favourite of mine
With its sturdy branches for us to climb

The coconuts were a source of income
When the pickers work in the burning sun
A time we siblings dread the most
Plenty to do, tempers flare, which makes it worse

The house itself was a horse stable once
But nobody will guess if we don’t announce
As a cosy little nest my mom had made
To bring up her brood and she’s done great

My dad passed on in our little homestead
Memories of him we’ll always spread
To our own young ones we’ll lovingly pass
So the stories of our childhood will forever last

The great big house we love is now torn down
And mom and dad are not around
Always shall we think back with nostalgia
Our humble abode will remain so dear.

An easy recipe for Kim to try.........corned beef curry

I was chatting with my niece, who is also my god-daughter, on MSN last nite. She left for studies and is now somewhere near London. Now she has to look after herself including taking turns to cook for herself and her housemates. Well I know that my sis- in -law took care of everything when Kim was staying at home so I was worried about her meals now that she is away from mom and home.

So Kim, these are some easy recipes that I hope you will be able to try out so you can both save on eating out, and also have nutritious home-cooked fare.

Corned Beef Curry

Ingredients :-

A can of Corned beef
One or two potatoes, cut into little cubes
One onion........ diced
Curry leaf..........if available
About 1/2 cup Coconut milk........... alternatively yoghurt or milk
2 or 3 pips Garlic ........... sliced
about 1 cm ginger .........julienne (cut into little strips)
1 to 2 tablespoons curry powder

Method :

Add oil to wok and fry potatoes till cooked. Remove from oil and into the same oil add onions, ginger, garlic and curry leaf. fry till aromatic, then add in the curry powder and coconut milk and a little more water and let it simmer for a few minutes before adding in the corned beef. Cook till the liquid has reduced slightly, add salt to taste.

Goes well with rice and any fried green veggy or very good with any kind of bread, capatis or tortillas or even baguettes too.


Note : If using santan (coconut milk) powder, mix with water first before adding to the wok. If using yoghurt, add water to the aromatics then lastly add yoghurt just before dishing out.

A Bird on the Grapevine

The bird, a yellow vented bulbul, just had a bath in the birdbath I erected in my little backyard and thereafter flew to the grapevine to dry himself. My son shot the photo of my cute feathered friend with the Sony cybershot digital camera he gave me. This little fella visits me daily, sometimes several times a day. I am glad I made the little birdbath for him to enjoy and also he feeds on the grapes from the vine. Yes there are grapes on the vine but they are actually quite tasteless but I am proud to have a grapevine in my little backyard where birds can come to enjoy.

Rising prices of Foodstuff

Shopping for groceries used to be simple and we really didn't have to worry too much about the price as we knew how much each item cost each time we bought it as prices remained quite the same each time. These days, we have to scrutinize prices for every item that we intend to buy to see if we can afford it as prices are skyrocketing so fast we can hardly keep up with the pace.

At the supermarket yesterday, I saw a sign that said that each customer was entitled to just a 5 kg bag of rice. So now we not only have to contend with rising costs but also shortages of certain essential commodities. What is going on? In a country like Malaysia where we have ample land, can't we make sure that we have enough land to plant padi just to feed our own people at least. Why are we building all kinds of monstrous structures on land meant for farms and agriculture.

In Ipoh, where we are famous for our juicy, succulent pomeloes, they have earmarked the orchard land for something else and relocating the orchards elsewhere. Don't the authorities realise that certain vegetation and fruit trees need certain soil type to produce quality fruits and vegetables. Instead of relocating the farms and orchards, why not think of some other land for development and not make it so difficult for the poor farmers.

There are so many things that we can do to try to bring food prices down. First we have to revert back to being more agricultural than industrial and start growing food and rearing livestock and to make sure that land is allocated for such industries instead of taking up these land for developing other industries.

Choosing Milk Powder

I was at the supermarket just this evening trying to get some milk powder so that I can make my own yoghurt but was frustrating shopping experience.

We used to be able to buy our milk powder in several forms...........the baby formulas, the children's milk and the adult milk powder which came in instant and full cream versions. Today I was going up and down two isles and couldn't differenciate the adult milk formulas from the children's ones because a single brand came in several different pakaging and some had family pictures, some had a picture of a jug of milk and some had mothers with a child and even after reading each packet I couldn't tell which was the "normal" ones for us adults.

It was real confusing as the same brand came in many different pakaging and had different additives with some unpronounceable names. Wonder if we really need these additives. Wonder how the cows will feel if they knew that we humans not only "stole" their milk and dehydrated them but thought their milk wasn't good enough after all, so they added vitamins and tons of other additives which I really wonder what the hell they are for.

No wonder we have hyperactive kids running all over the supermarkets, pulling down stuff and knocking us older folks down with their tiny trolleys. The overactive children must be the product of these additives..........no point blaming the cows as during our days we weren't so hyperactive and we were on the same cow's milk or another theory could be they fed these unpronounceable additives to the cow and they started producing milk that make children so hyperactive these days.

Tell me how your shopping for milk went because for me it was a nightmare just shopping for simple milk powder.

Communication Tools

I am baffled at how the cellphone has changed our lives forever in a very very short time. Here I would like to start a debate of whether it has been all good or all bad. Well for me I have to confess that I am hooked too although I resisted for as long as I could. But then I am careful not to be rude like talking loudly around others or ignoring a conversation unless it is to get out of a a boring one.

We are all practically a slave to the cellphone to the extent of feeling naked without it. About a decade ago, Visa's tagline was never leave home without it but now I think it's a more appropriate tagline for the cellphone. Seems like the minute the little children know how to utter a few words they will be presented with a cellphone as their xmas gift from well-heeled uncles and aunts. What happened to the dolls and meccano sets for children as christmas gifts. Are these appropriate for kids ?

Back in the sixties, when "flower power" was in full swing, those of us with telephones (those black ones with the "old phone" ring tones) were considered priviledged to have telephones in our homes. I remember my mom used to padlock the zero (any of you remember the telephones had this dial where you literally have to dial the digits) so that we can't make any calls out to save cost. Back then, people were more cost conscious and though calls cost just 10 cents for a whole duration of the call, we were still not permitted to use the phone except for very important calls. I remember my brothers and I used to tap the phones coz we discovered that although we can hardly make any calls out without the zero, we could still tap it 10 times to free the zero and it works everytime. Of course mom never found out coz there were no such thing as itemised billing then (yes, the calls were charged even though we tapped through)

The good thing about the old days was that we communicated so much more through snail mail and looked forward to the postman everyday and we even sang songs to Mister Postman. Nowadays, the postman is nothing more than a bearer of bills ...........nothing nice like christmas, new year or birthday cards anymore as more of us are just forwarding messages that have been sent to us by another party. What a sad state of affairs.

Family hardly sit after dinner for a nice conversation to see how each other day's went and no more board games like Ludo, snake and ladder, scrabble or monopoly. Each member of the family is busy after dinner with homework, television or DVD, smsing or surfing the net. With all the new cellphones, blackberry and other gadgets of communication, we are hardly communicating. What has happened? How did it come to this? Anyone out there has the answer???

Under-bed Storage

Nowadays with living spaces getting smaller, we have to be creative to come up with extra storage areas without cluttering our homes. One good way is making under the bed a neat storage area instead of what our mothers used to do with shoe boxes. In the old days, what we did was to keep all our stuff in shoe boxes or old fruit or milk cardboard cartons and pushed it underneath our beds. Although this worked fine while storage is concerned, but when it came to cleaning time, it was a real hassle to have to remove box by box and vacuum and mop before having to pile the boxes up one at a time again.

In keeping with the old tradition of shoe boxes and cardboard cartons, these are still good containers to keep our momentos but to make it easier for the cleaning process, a plank on wheels comes in handy as all you have to do is to pull our the plank and the whole lot of boxes comes with it. No muscle required. The good thing is you can make this simple but useful contraption yourself just as I did at minimal cost.

If you happen to know someone who has a plank lying around somewhere, that's fine, if not just purchase a cheap piece of chipboard or plywood board to your specifications. Get four casters (roller wheels) from hardware shop or supermarket. They come with four holes to each of the rollers and the screws are also provided most of the time. Just screw in the roller wheels in each of the four corners of the planks and there you have it. A rolling plank that will hold all your boxes when it goes under the bed. If you want to be more creative, you can screw in two hooks on each end and attach a rope to it. This will act as a handle that will make it easier for you to pull out the plank when you need to vacuum under the bed. Useful for keeping your shoes too if you are like Imelda Marcos. I think it cost me about RM25 total for one but then if you can find any old planks for free like a table that's broken or someone has thrown out a cabinet and the doors are still good, then all these can be converted to this useful plank on wheels.


Underside of roller

Go make yourself one and make one for friends too. I am sure they'll appreciate it.



Side view of rollers

Ice-trays for freezing

In my first post I recommended cooking and freezing food as the option for busy people who have no time to cook a decent meal on weekdays. So here are some more useful tips using the freezer.

The Ice-tray has more uses than just freezing water into ice-cubes (or whatever shapes they come in these days). If you have surplus limes, lemons or oranges or whatever citrus fruits, juice them and pour the juices into the ice-trays and when frozen, pop the iced juice cubes into zip-log bags or if you are like me, keep them in transparent plasticware and you can use them when you need them whether for a juicy drink or just some for your sambal belacan, or to make your lemon chicken. If you like ice lemon tea, you can pop one or two cubes of the frozen lemon ice into your tea and I am sure you will be able to come up with more innovative ideas to use them. You can do the same with coffee and tea too and when you want to drink ice coffee or tea instead of just popping ice into your beverage thus diluting it, you can use the coffee or tea ice cubes and while they chill your beverage it will add the same flavour to your drink without diluting it.

The same can be done with your coconut milk (santan) instead of using packed santan powder or santan in cartons coz these will somehow contain some preservatives. It's so easy to buy ready squeezed santan in the wet markets or even in the supermakets. They are sold for approximately RM1/= per packet. Frozen santan cubes can be just dropped into boiling curry without even having to thaw it first. Invaluable because it saves time and santan is not something that keeps well so the only was is to freeze it.

I have heard that even brandy and whisky can be made into ice cubes but I can't attest to it as I have yet to try it. That would be great in your drinks if it freezes well don't you think. I will test it out and let you know how it turned out later. In the meantime, go crazy with the citrus juices, coffee and tea and coconut milk. These have been tried and tested.

These pictures were also taken outside my house but this time it's the sunset at about 7 p.m. just after a slight drizzle. What magnificent colours.

These are pictures of the sunrise taken outside my house at 7 a.m. What a spectacular sight. We have to look after the earth and Nature if not we will never be able to experience these magical moments and scenery in the near future

Making Jams

A good way to use up fruits of the season is by making jams and preserves. In Malaysia where I live, although our seasonal fruits like durian, mangosteen, mangoes, rambutans, langsat are not suitable for any of these, some can be made into delicious ice-creams. So for me I usually buy the fruits like plums and apples from the supermarket to make jam but strawberries are available nearly all year round in Cameron Highlands, a highland town just 45 minutes up a scenic route from where I live. So whenever we visit Cameron Highlands I will make sure I buy more than I need for my jam coz then I would have some leftover to be frozen for later use. Pineapple is available year round in Malaysia and makes a really delicious jam that is not only good with bread but also to make jam tarts. Of course the three fruit marmalade using grapefruit, oranges and lemons is the best bet coz these three fruits are available easily any time of the year.

The advantage of making your own jam is that not only do you get more fruits in the jam but you can adjust the sugar level to taste coz some of us are more health conscious that others so some of us like it less sweet. Moreover I like to make my jam a little runny coz it goes really well with plain home-made yoghurt. So to start with I will teach you how to make strawberry jam :

Frozen strawberries and a potted strawberry plant in my garden

Strawberry Jam

Ingredients :

About a kilo of strawberry jam
About 1/2 kilo sugar (to taste)
Approx 3 cups of water
Jars for storing jam


Method :

Remove leaves from strawberry and wash them. Put in a heavy based pot with the water and let it boil. When it starts to boil, turn down the heat and let it simmer and stew while stirring periodically so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot. At this juncture, it is also advisable to use a skimming spoon to lift off the scum and foam that will form at the top of the pot. Let it simmer till the fruits are soft and mushy, then add in the sugar and turn up the heat to let the strawberries come to a rolling boil. At this stage, it is crucial that you keep stirring until you notice the jam leaving the side of the pot. Now, just take a plate and a drop a little jam onto it and let it cool. After a few minutes just take the plate and slant it over to see if the jam rolls off. If it does, then it could be too runny so cook a little longer but if it runs very slowly down the plate then it should be just nice. But if you prefer a firmer jam, then cook it a little longer.

Make sure jars are sterilised by boiling in hot water, dry it with a cloth and leave in a heated oven to dry completely or can just dry in the sun.

When jam is ready, fill jam jars to the brim and cap immediately when hot.

After it has cooled, it can be kept in the fridge. Will keep well for at least a month

Custom made Crystal Jewellery

I have a little business selling my handmade crystal jewelry online and also at jewelry parties which I organize. My fascination was initially with crystals and their energies and it's healing qualities. The more I read, the more I wanted to know about crystals. I bought beautiful crystal beads and chips and I saw the potential in turning them into beautiful necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings. I researched on how to make jewelry from the net and in our local library and started with the little things that I had : my pliers, a few strands of crystal beads and some strings. The first necklace I ever made was with the amethyst chips and when friends saw it they liked it and I gave it away for free. After giving away several necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings I decided that I needed to get back the cost that I put in at the least and my little jewelry business was conceived. This was in September 2006 and since then I have lost count of the number of pieces I have sold. Besides just selling my pieces, I also conduct jewelry making classes for a minimal fee. Since I am into many kinds of craft, sometimes when the mothers are taking their jewelry classes, I will conduct other craft classes for children. I really enjoy these classes and my students get such a thrill when they see the finished product done by their own hands.

Do visit my website :http://www.trinketstation.com

Keeping Green Vegetables Fresh

French Beans and Air-drying chives

Here are some useful tips to keep greens fresh in the fridge for a few days and sometimes even up to a week. We sometimes feel that we should buy just a little more than necessary so we don't have to do our shopping everyday but then find that they are wilted and yellow by the time we really need them. You can actually do several things when you get back from the market/supermarket :

Firstly make sure that all the veggies are dry and not too much moisture is trapped in the plastic bags.

• For spring onions cut the roots off and clean them, then cut the length into two and leave them in a mug so that the water drains dry. Leave for a about an hour on the kitchen table and then put them into plastic container. When you need them, you can then cut them up the way the recipe calls for. Will keep for nearly a week in the fridge

• The same can be done for the celery and keeps for about the same time.

• Chilly padi or bird's eye chillies keeps really well in a bottle in the fridge

• For cabbage always tear off outer leaves to use first coz once you cut up the whole cabbage, it starts to get yellow and brown and there will be wastage as you will have to cut off the edges.

• For Brocolli and cauliflower, it is best to keep them dry and not wash them. Cut them up
  into florets and keep them in plastic container with cover and keep in the fridge.

• Butterhead which is a hydroponically grown vegetable, keeps really well in the fridge. Just use the outer leaves and keep the rest back in the bag that it's packed in and keeps fresh for up to a week at least. Really good eaten raw in salads or blanched and drizzled with a little garlic oil and soya sauce.
  

• String Beans or French Beans is easy to keep fresh too. Just cut the tip and string it, wash and keep whole in plastic container with lid till ready to use then can cut to length required

Planting Herbs in my little garden

Rosemary Plant


Young Basil plants

I am an avid gardener but so far I have been concentrating mostly on plants that beautify my garden space. However, a few weeks ago I decided to devote a little of my gardening time, skills and space to plant some useful herbs which will be handy when I cook instead of having to head to the wet market or the supermarket just to get the herbs.

The little rosemary plants on the top pic are struggling to grow but I am giving them a lot of TLC to help them thrive. Then I have the daun kesom which is used in assam curry dishes like assam laksa. . How encouraging !!! The daun kesom that you see in my post on the assam fish curry was picked fresh from my garden. Isn't that sweet. Nurtured by my own hand. I collected some sweet basil seeds from a neighbour's garden and sowed them and they have begun to show promise. I am trying to plant the basil into little pots so that I can give my two sons a pot each. Since they love pasta, this will be a welcome addition to the other plants growing in their balcony. Imagine just plucking a few leaves off the balcony garden and throwing it into the pasta. Yum yum !!

A scenic drive to Camerons Highlands

Last Sunday morning was hot and humid in the Kinta valley so my hubby and I decided to take a drive up Cameron Highlands via Simpang Pulai. From Ipoh, where we live it takes us just about 15 minutes to reach the foothills at Simpang Pulai. The climb is really gradual and you won't even notice that it's climbing until you look down and see how high up it has climbed.

The scenery though still very beautiful has been spoilt by the many "scars" on the mountainside due to rock blasting. Was really sad and annoyed to see the destruction on nature, done so blatantly and with no guilt and all for the sake of money . We arrived Kg Raja about 40 minutes from Simpang Pulai and headed straight to the garden centres. The air was crisp and much fresher than down in Ipoh city and the many green veggies was a feast to the eyes. Although it's still cool and nice in Cameron Highlands , hopefully something will be done asap to stop too much so called "development". It's becoming a concrete jungle. I can still remember the Cameron Highlands of my youth and I mourn the demise of that beautiful Highlands that I knew not so very long ago.

There are some really distasteful looking apartments that seemed out of place in such a nice and scenic setting. My only hope is that the authorities will do something to protect the scenic beauty of Cameron Highlands and preserve it as a tourist attraction.

Oprah's New Online Class ........ It's Free

Today is the first day of Oprah Winfrey's and Ekhart Tolle's online class on the latter's book A New Earth. Go to Oprah.com and sign up. It's more a spiritual and self improvement sort of class and I think will be helpful to many of us. It's free so I guess no harm joining up as we have nothing to lose but everything to gain. Happy learning and this is the website : www.oprah.com

Save Toll Charges on the Old Trunk Roads

On Saturday, my husband and I took a slow leisurely drive to Kuala Lumpur. We travel to Kuala Lumpur often enough to visit our sons, always taking the highway which will cost us something between RM 24.00 to RM27.00 on toll charges, depending from where we enter and exit the highway. So a trip to KL inclusive of petrol will cost us at least RM100.00.

This past weekend we decided to try the old trunk roads as friends and family have told us that the roads are much improved and most importantly, free of toll charges. We left Ipoh at 7.45 am and took the highway till Tapah and exited to the old road and paid a toll of RM5.60. We were pleasantly surprised by the ease of driving on the old roads and the bonus was the beautiful scenery and the nostalgia as we passed the towns like Sungkai, Bidor and so on. It has been years since I have been on these trunk roads and certain stretches was dual carriageway too. We drove all the way through Rawang until Jalan Kuching to my son's apartment which is just off Jalan Kuching. Can't imagine that we paid a toll of only RM5.60 as compared to RM24 - RM27 on the highways. Although the speed limit was only 90 kmh and it was raining most of the way, it took us just short of 3 hours to arrive Kuala Lumpur as compared to 2 hours on the highway but was worth the little extra time taken because the toll saved was significant enough. My hubby says on our next trip we should be able to go all the way and not pay a single sen toll.
I am game............why not if we can save money and we arrive anyway.


Rainy morning

Assam fish Curry

This is a recipe that you will be able to cook in a jiffy if you have the bottled sambal paste ready in the fridge. (Refer to recipe below). It should take no more than 30 minutes to get this done. There's not much cutting as everything just need some washing and a few plucking of the leaves and we are ready to go.

Ingredients:

4 - 6 Ikan kembong (Mackeral)
3 - 4 tablespoons sambal paste
4 - 5 Daun Limau perut (kaffir lime leaves)
1 tomato ( cut in half)
A few sprigs of Daun Kesom ( a kind of basil)
1 Bunga Kantan ( torch ginger flower)
6 Ladies finger (okra)
About a soup-bowl of water diluted from tamarind paste (assam jawa)



Method :

Fry the sambal paste in about four or five tablespoons of oil and stir till fragrant then add in the tamarind water. When it is heated up, add in all ingredients except the fish and let it simmer till the okra is cooked then add in the fish and should take just under five minutes to cook the fish. Add sugar and salt to taste. An interesting twist to this recipe at this point will be the addition of cut pineapples but this is optional.

Serve with rice and any salad of choice




Freezing tips : If you are going to freeze this dish, do not overcook okra and fish. Dish out into tupperware and let it cool before putting into the freezer. Freezes really well for at least a week or two.

Sambal Paste

I always blend sambal paste, cook and bottle them up so that when I want to cook the ikan bilis sambal or the assam fish curry I won't have to peel onions and cut serai so it cuts the cooking time at least by 70% and this is important since we are taking into account that people are always complaining that they need more than 24 hours in a day to have things done properly and most of them will sacrifice a good home cooked meal to finish up office work etc. So here I am going to give you the recipe for two types of sambal to blend, cook and bottle.

Red Chilly Sambal Paste

Ingredients :

4 tablespoons of chilly boh ( about two handfuls of dried chillies)
4 stalks of serai (lemon grass) cut into little pieces
1 inch of kunyit
Approximately 2 thumb size belacan (shrimp paste)
4 or 5 buah keras (candlenuts).......... optional
1/2 thumb -size lengkuas (another form of ginger root)...........optional

Method :

Blend all ingredients. Heat about a soup-bowl of cooking oil and fry until fragrant. Spoon into a clean dry bottle and leave to cool before capping. Needs to be refrigerated.

Note: If using dried chillies, they need to be soaked in hot water till soft.

This is just a base sambal that can be used for several recipes.

Freezing food

In today's busy world where everyone is rushing around with all kinds of commitment; work, ferrying children to and fro from school and extra-mural activities, many of us are not having nutritious, home cooked meals due to time constraints. Freezing food is the answer to having wholesome meals at home. A little time management and an interest in cooking simple meals are all that is required. First we will have make sure that we have one day in the weekend dedicated to cooking for the whole week or even for a fortnight. Imagine coming home on weeknights and just microwaving wholesome meals in seconds instead of cracking our heads on where to eat each night. Well, so we go with simple recipes and tips on freezing. We will first start with asian recipes. Let's get organised !