Shortcut cooking

I am creative when come to cooking my favorite food. I make nasik lemak from leftover rice by sprinkling salted coconut milk and adding slices of ginger and onion. Microwave it for 2 minutes and I have nasik lemak.

I make curry mee by adding coconut milk to maggi instant noodles (curry flavour). Of course I add dried tofu, shrimps and vegetables. If I don't have maggi mee with curry flavor, I just use any instant noodles minus the flavor. I just boil fish curry powder with coconut milk adding to it crushed ginger root and onions. Then i add the noodles plus all the the garnishing that I want.

I grill/bbq my food often. To make sure my chicken or meat does not burn on the grill, I usually cook the beef or chicken first in the bbq sauce. If I am realy really lazy I just microwave the meats in the sauce. Then only I put them on the grill just to get the meat get dried and get the mark on them.

To have nicely cooked baked potatoes on the table at the same time as your bbq meat/chicken. Clean and dry the baking potatoes, then microwave them for 8-10 minutes or until soft. Then take them out and wrap them in tin foil singly/separately. They are ready to eat.

To make your meal look classy, just boil/microwave asparagus and serve it with butter.

How many ways do you eat your cottage cheese

I was introduced to cheese eating when i was still young. My grandfather used to buy them whenever he went shopping at the one and only cold storage in Penang. That was way back in the 50's and 60's. The cheese and butter came in those gold colored cans that I can't remember the brand. It is called iceberg or something. I also remember my father liked melted cheese on his roti bangali but my mother did not like even the smell of it especially when she was pregnant.

Later in that period of time, the cheese and butter were hard to come by and my grandfather did not make many more trips to the cold storage as the estate he was managing had changed ownership. So, I think after the early 60's we did not eat 'western' anymore. Then there was planta margarine.

When I was studying in London circa 70's I hated having to pass the cheese department of Sainsbury on Holloway road to get to the bus stand on Seven Sisters road. The smell could give me a bad headache. I did like the soft cheese and gouda or edam. Back in Malaysia, I could not find any decent cheese to eat. There was cheddar from Australia that sucks and tasted like fermented rubber, so I quit eating cheese.

When I was in Hawaii in the 80's I found that American cheese are yummy. Found that their cottage cheese is not like those imported from Australia. (probably very old imported stock that are sold in Malaysia).

I like to eat cottage cheese in a variety of ways. When I was in Uzbekistan, I bought cottage cheese by the bucket (that was how it was sold then) from the 'secret farmer' who kept his cows and operation hidden from the authority. I ate it in salad, I ate it with salt and pepper, I ate it with home made preserved fruits etc. because that was the only luxury food i could find then. I bought home churned butter too to eat with pon their kind of bread.

My husband eats his cottage cheese with pineapple chunks sprinkled with salt and black pepper for breakfast. I eat mine with cocktail fruits and nuts. I also eat it with sliced fruits sprinkled with salt and pepper. I have yet to try eat it with shrimps.

Baju Kurung

On my last visit to Malaya, I met with my best friend from school days. My friend and I sat next to each other in the classroom from Remove Class until Upper Six. Eight long years. The last time I met her when a friend and I did our round the peninsular drive in 1981 before I went to the East-West Center in Honolulu. She was teaching at this small town by the south china sea. She already started a family. She had three cute babies. We did keep up with each other but not met since then. It was during my last visit me met again after 27 years.

Right, we got to sit and talked about the good old days in a boarding school. We recalled that on certain night of the week we had to wear baju kurung for dinner. Baju kurung hijau. During that time there wasn't any ready-made baju kurung to buy and those tailors never heard of readily arranged pleats for the sarong. So most of us who were not originally from the southern part of the peninsular found it very challenging to make the pleats from the sarong and have the sarong tied securely.

During one of the night outings to see a talent time, a singing contest at the Dewan Jubli Intan, my friend and I wore the baju kurung. One of the contestants for the night was Sheikh Abdullah ( better known as Datuk Sheikh now). I think one of the contestants was my classmates. We went to cheer my classmate. We got all excited and clapped and stood and jumped i guess, and I discovered I was standing with my sarong on the floor. What a shock. Luckily all of us were standing and I managed to scoop up my offending sarong and tried my best to fix it the way the northern people wear, like real sarong. At that time I swore I would never wear baju kurung again for outing. I would stick to my green gingham pinafore school uniform.

My new wheels

We just got this pickup last week. I like it. I feel tall driving it. Have to literally climb into it.