The next Julia Childs?

Who knew that getting stuck at home due to my car breaking down on me would see me scouring my recipe books and cooking up a storm... Am I on the way to become the next Julia Childs or Jamie Oliver? I highly doubt it. But I did cook up a mean Garlic Mash Potato and I have to share the recipe with all and sundry. Do try it as its easy to make and tastes like something out of a Michelin star chef's kitchen.

Mashed potatoes with garlic, butter, and Parmesan cheese, along with low fat milk and seasonings.

Ingredients:

• 7 cups peeled and cubed baking potatoes
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 cup low-fat milk
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Preparation:

Place potatoes and garlic in a saucepan. Cover with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer 20 minutes; drain. Place drained potatoes and garlic in a mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients; beat with mixer until smooth. Serves 6 to 8.

I used Holland potatoes, HL Milk and substituted the Parmesan with Kraft Cheddar cheese as that was the only kind of cheese I had in my fridge. I didn't follow the recipe to the dot but my mash turned out fine. A bit on the watery side when hot but once it cools, it has a great consistency. Smooth and creamy.

Had it as a side with dory fish seasoned with garlic, thyme and lime juice and then refrigerated for an hr. Pan fried the fish. The fish took some time to cook and the garlic started to turn a darkish shade of brown so I would recommend that it be scrapped off before hand and then added in again when the fish is nearly cooked. Seasoning was fine but dory is not a great fish to use as its quite fishy.

I hope whoever reads this has as much fun with the above mash recipe as I did. A great thing to add to any meal or party : ) Enjoy!

Trapped in the car park

It's been a roller coaster 2010 so far. Not turning out exactly as I thought it would but will ride the wave.

Jackal, an ex colleague at AirAsia held his wedding dinner at Equatorial Hotel KL on Saturday night. Not only was i running late but I got lost die to a bad map and wrong directions given. Instead of driving straight after Shang, I turned right at the Merc centre. When I finally found my way back and did a u turn, discovered the hotel parking was full and had to park next door and walk in my killer hells which was killing my toes.

Walked up with Flora and to my utter embarrasment, realised I forgot to put the money into the ang pow which I was about to hand to Jackal. Luckily I realised on time and fled to the bathroom. *Phew*

Only6 from AA attended and with 7 pax on table 7, we polished up ALL the food that arrived at our table. The food was really good for a hotel. The sesame fried chicken was moist, the prawn was crunchy. Overall, it was good. Gifts for guests were chop sticks in a satin covering.
Jackal surprised me by going up on stage a singing his wife a love song while playing the key board. I must admit it was not the greatest performance but it was so bold of him to do that in front of so many people. The things love makes one do...

We left at bout 11 pm and to my utter horror, realised I lost my parking ticket!! Tore through the entire car and my miniscule purse but still couldn't find it. The penalty? RM 50!! Luckily Flora volunteered to drive out and get a ticket for me ;Þ I took the ticket, inserted it into the paying machine and out it came. Drove to the exit and guess what? The display showed "Invalid ticket". Back up back up cars lining up behind me. Tried that 3 x on the advice of the security guard. Sweat was pouring down my forehead; 1: Coz I was scared of getting caught and reprimanded 2: Coz it was HOT!
Flora and Jzune kept calling as they tot I got busted for wat we did to get the new ticket. I ended up paying the guard Rm 4 and they opened the boom gate manually. The whole process took 25 minutes i think. 25 minuets in the boiling car park...

We went to Pavillion to catch a mid night movie and settled on Legion. Had drinks at La Bodega while we waited and had the yummy lemon lime and bitters for RM 15 before tax. You should try it.

Legion... What do I say about it? More hype that what it actually delivered? Paul Bettany was like a confused angel. And if you think angels are all white and fluffy, are you in for a big surprise. They have steel wings which can cut you in half and they actually possess people abd turn them into demon like, meat eating, ceiling crawling creatures with black eyes and razor sharp teeth. Gory... Won't recommend watching this at the cinema. Spend your money on something else...

Got home at 4am, tired but happy : )

It was a quiet Christmas

Christmas was a quiet affair with me spending it mostly at home with my TV and sock monkeys. The Christmas project of making it as gifts fell flat as I did not have enough time and enough socks to get it all done on time. Ok, so I left it a little late but at least I managed to finish 3 and a half : )
Had Christmas/family get-together dinner at Uncle Kong Cheng's as the family from Singapore was down for Sue May's wedding on 26th. Never meet them before but that's not new as I barely know most of the relatives from my dad's side.

When Saturday came, it was busy busy busy. Woke up at 6am in order to get to SS2 on time to prepare for the morning session. No pictures as I was busy organising and making sure everything went well. Damn lucky I got loads of help from the other chee mui's. Thank you Irene, Pooi Pooi, Siew Li and Li Lian. Got my mum to be the tai kam chair during the tea ceremony and by 10.30am, the bride and groom was off to the groom's house. Phew...

Had a short session in 1Utama with the family for lunch and to look for shoes. Then it was hme for a 30 min nap then off again to Sheraton Imperial in KL to get all the things ready for dinner.
It was raining so heavily when I left home to the extent the main road in Puchong leading from Sunway was badly flooded in front of Binary College. The busy bodies of course had to slow down and look causing another jam on the opp side of the road. Managed to get to the hotel by 5pm. Had a little problem with the seating arrangements and place card settings and people started showing up early. A first for a chinese wedding I must say...

The bride Sue May and groom Haan YongShe had fantastic flower arrangements. Most of the family took keepsakes home. 2 table deco's now sit on my speakers at home adding a touch of color to my otherwise dready home.

Flowers for the table and apples as keepsakes for the family.

Dinner shoes and her bouquet.

The wedding was no typical chinese wedding which was good as there was less fanfare and less noise : ) Everyone went home happily by 12am. I couldn't find my way back from the hotel to Sg Besi highway so had to take Jln Kuching. It was like a drive down memory lane : ) That's another story to tell...

It's 2 days to Christmas and 8 days to a new year!

I knew I would not be able to update my blog constantly but never knew months would have passed since my last entry.

It's 2 days to Christmas!! Snow would complete the feel but guess we'll just have to make do with Christmas Carols, present exchange and get togethers : ) Now, I just need to finish my Christmas shopping. Think I am in trouble in that area...

So what has been happening the past few months. All I can remember right now is our annual dinner themed 'Back to School' on 16th Dec.

My work table is still a mess. Think it has gotten worse as the days move along. To pen in a spring cleaning session in 2010.

Can't wait for 4pm today as we will be having our present and foody exchange with the other departments. I had a tough time looking for my present. Why? Coz I was lazy to go shopping ;Þ Shopping malls are crowded to max capacity with peole who are doing their last minute shopping as well as just to kill time. Wish I had more time to want to kill time ;oÞ

Wish 2010 is a greater and better year for me and everyone in the world. Got so many plans sitting at the edge of my conciousness, just haven't had the time to grap hold of them and make the realities. 2010. 2010. That's the year I am going to make my dreams come true. Hope I remember this next month. hahahha...

Oh yeah, I made a Monkey for Christmas. Here is the unfinished version. He now sits proudly on my Hi-Fi set with a tail and a bow just waiting for someone to pick him up and love him. What should we call him? Port Belly? Big Willy?

Japanese! Japanese! The Mktg, Branding and Creative team plus Carat and PosterScope had a get together at Jogoya Starhill last night. I had so much sashimi and am swearing off it to the year ;Þ The food was not a good as I tot it would be looking at the price but overall, it was not too bad as the choices were varied and extensive.

Oh yeah. I got the i phone 3GS 32GB!!! Got it from Taiwan as I didn't want to get tied down to a long term plan with Maxis. Their data plans suck. DIGI is now offering unlimited for RM 48 while Celcom is RM 68 unlimited. 5 mths pls pass fast so that I can change my service provider... The battery power sucks, it has hung twice on me, I can't seem to MMS using this phone and it is constantly logged on to the net. So be careful when you play any of the free games downloaded from i tunes. It automatically downloads banner ads and for the 1st week, my bill was already RM 51 for data! SMSing is hard as the touch pad is so small for my fatty fingers and don't even try it when u are driving. It's an accident waiting to happen.

But overall, the games are cool, the camera is good and the sound, fantastic.

See ya in 2010!!

No bird chickened out on our chick's nite!

Suzen's chick's nite didn't turn out as I originally planned. We were supposed to rent a suite and stuff all the holes and poles in there for the night with unlimited booze and fun. But as I had just returned from my trip to London, there was not enough time. What do people always say bout last minute planning? I oso don't know ;Þ

Girls that were invited to the do:
Li Yen
Jzune
Flora
Jessie
Fiona
Valerie
Caroline
And of course, the bride to be herself : )

I was a bit late in picking Li Yen up from the mamak in TTDI and rushed straight to Flora's to put the finishing touches to our props for the night. Who knew it ended up taking more than an hr so we had to send Jzune ahead to get out table at Laundy (by the way, we are boycotting that place). Took us half an hr to stitch the LifeSavers to the little t LY brot. Thank gawd I had some needle skills. Then we had to prepare the cans for Suzen's bridal walk. Downed cans of drinks in order to get 6 cans.

The games we had planned:
Lipstick
Bridal walk
3 drinks
Like a Virgin
Sucker

We finally got everyone together at Curve at 7.30pm. Service at Laundry was so bad it took 20 mins for someone to notice us frantically waving to get our orders. Then it took another 15 mins for us to get our plates and cutlery. Very bad service. I ordered the Calamari, 2 types of spaghetti, a Caeser Salad and 2 types of pizza. We ended the dinner by downing Tequila Shots at 9.30am. Damage? RM 521.We made her wear this the entire night.

Bride-zilla?
First shots for the night

The killer ladies

Did you know Laundry does not serve water, alco in jugs or towers on the eve of a hol? And they charge RM 80+ for Heinekken? Crazy... So we decided to go straight to Sanctuary to wait for the guys.

There we had to renegotiate the no of ppl we can bring inside. Ended up with 5 pax per bottle but they were so stingy with their tables. So what's the use of a reservation when they can't find it? We had to open a 3rd bottle to get access to a 2nd table. Slaughter... By 10.15 pm, BK, Kelvin, KC, Soon Yean, Rudy and Kelvin all arrived.

Crazy Flora and Jessie

The party begins!!
Girls busy mixing...
Kampai!!

Group pic before we get too drunk.

We loaded Suzen with drinks as the games we had in mind was quite provocative and tot she couldn't handle it sober. So at 11pm, laden with drinks in the system, off we went... But first, the cans went on...

Clank! Clank! Clank!

First up, she had to go round with her glass asking for drinks. She had to get 5 men to fill it up. In return, they would get a kiss from any of the girls. Guess who was the first casualty? Mua... But it was all in good fun. The rounds ended with Li Yen's cutie fren buying a Flaming Lamborgini.

Go Suzen! Go Suzen!

Had a quick loo break and discovered the gals went back up and Suzen disappeared! Found her outside suffering from gastric. Luckily the pill queen was around. Whip whip. Pills to the rescue... And things got more interesting from there... Bride-zilla was drunk and we couldn't continue with the games!! But we had other forms of entertainment. Lips will be sealed about wat went on but wat I can say is it involved the french...

Let's start stoning...

My good fren Kelvin
Before whisky kicked in

After the whisky kicked in

The groom who crashed the party

I was nearly gone by the time we met Bryan

Can't remember what time we went home exactly but I had a great night doing all kinds of stuff. It's great being single...

When we got back to work, KC showed us pics of Soon Yean with floor poses. We didn't even know he was drunk! Kelakar : ) Let's have more nights like this...

It's been ages!!!

Wow... It's not easy keeping a blog going I must say... So what have I left out since my last entry. Let's see....

After 13 days, made the 13 hr trip back from London on an AirAsia X Premium Seat at 2am 25th Aug 09. You could say I slept all the way back. Bad mistake. Reached KL in the afternoon and suffered bad jetlag for a week. So my night were spent awake in bed with only my thoughts to keep me company and finally only managing to fall asleep at 6am and having to wake up at 7am to go to work. Kept that up for a week and nearly died. But I had some respites thanks to Chivas and Glen something. Whisky, I love you...

One of the many cafe's in Paris

It's been 20 days since I got back and my minds a mess... Not that anyone can see coz Macho Woman is in the HOUSE!!!

Ok, back to the story... Threw Suzen's a chick's nite on 30th Aug 09 at Laundry and Sanctuary, Curve. I don't think any of the girls will be going back there as the management was not sporting and so calculative.Tequila shots all round

I had to cancel my 6 day Bali trip coz we had to work during the weekend at MATTA but had fun at the fair. Last day there, something caught fire but surprisingly, no one wanted to leave the hall especially those at the AA booth as they had lined up for hrs...

Suzen's wedding was held at Saujana on the way to the Subang airport. It was very different from what you would have expected from a typical chinese wedding. maybe I shud have one like that as well, if I ever do get married : )

Blurry pic of Suzen and me

So, this is the gist of my 20 days since I got back. Will narate more later. Got much to tell....

Paris! Paris!

I sorta think Paris is over rated but then again, that could be coz I have no clue how to get around or where to go. It's not as easy as London as you can go to Soho for night life and all the laces of attaraction are so close together. Here, I can't read the maps and the signages and the people are not very friendly. Most say they don'tunderstand you...

I liked walking the Paris streets at night. Less people and the weather was cooler. Saw the lourve and the Arc in twilight and shud be going inside to marvel at the masterpieces either today or tomolo before I head back to London on the 11pm bus which will take about 8 hrs. The trip here was not too bad. Passed real fast and only cost me GBP 52 return.

I hope the weather holds as it is as I didn't bring enough clothes to sweat in : )

I think spending so many days here is making ma lazy as I seem to be getting up later and later. Usually I am up and about by 9am taking in the sights. Irina! Buck UP!!!