5

Wordless Wednesday: I was rendered wordless

May 22nd, 2013 / tags:, , / categories: family, grateful, wordless wednesday /

MOX pins

The talented and creative Jasmine from Scissors Paper Stone gave me these absolutely fabulous pins and pendants she made herself a while ago and I simply must how lian (That’s ‘showoff’ in Hokkien in case you don’t know this term by now) to everybardee today! Swee boh? Swee right? I also say when I saw it! These also came with another set with black background you know? When I saw them, I was rendered wordless and speechless and stared with my mouth open for a good 1 min! So sia suay (embarrassing) right? Haha! Now every time I see these, I get goose pimples (the good kind lah) and a goofy smile! I LOVE THEM ALL!

Jasmine! You had me beaming from ear to ear for quite a few weeks until my face cramp. LOL! Definitely the best present I have ever received this year! Thank you so very much Jasmine!

 

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2

Let’s make… Hokkaido Chiffon Cakes!

May 15th, 2013 / tags:, , , , , / categories: baking, family, food, Foodie Friday, Let's make... /

Some weeks back I had the opportunity to learn how to make Hokkaido Chiffon Cakes with the bloggers from Singapore Mom Bloggers (SMB) from the nice ladies from Munch Ministry. The baking class (hosted and conducted by Munch Ministry) was one of the several activities lined up for SMB’s 1st birthday celebration this year. The first was a self makeover workshop where a bunch of us vainpots well deserving mummies got to learn how to take care of our skin and wear the right styles for our body shapes. Being the typical greedy girl, I wanted to find out what was a Hokkaido Chiffon cake and did it taste good as it looked.

The class was held at Civil Service Club at Tessensohn Road and I really like the location because it was big, bright and they use KITCHENAID MIXERS! Have I told you I really love KitchenAid mixers? I really love the KitchenAid Mixers. Imagine my joy and drool when I realized I was surrounded by these beauties (didn’t matter to me that it was not 100% clean on some areas). It felt like meeting that boy you’ve had a crush on for years finally face to face:  I didn’t know if I should hug it or kiss it or take photo with it. I kind of did it all.

Kisss

Photo credit must go to my partner PC for capturing my tender moments with the mixer.

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You know you are in the company of bloggers when cameras of all shapes and sizes appear at the same time.

I think classes of any kind is always more fun when you are in the company of friends. A bigger bonus if these friends are as big a clown as you.

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Yeah, we were paying real close attention in class.

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I blame them for distracting me in class.

Ok ok. Enough with the pictures already. I got listen to the teachers lah. Maybe not 100% of the time but enough to bake a decent batch of cakes. Hehe!

The recipe of Hokkaido Chiffon Cake is readily available on the net and I’m sure you will be able to find one that suit you best.

Some of the valuable tips I got from Pauline and Louisa (the 2 lovely ladies from Munch Ministry) were:

  1. Hokkaido Chiffon Cakes are NOT from Hokkaido, Japan. The original recipe called for Hokkaido milk which is smoother and richer than the normal milk we buy from the supermarket. For the class, we used regular milk at room temperature.
  2. All ingredients must be at room temperature or else the cakes will not rise properly or have cracks on the surface. No wonder my cupcakes in the past always look so ugly and oozed all over the oven. Next time I show you pictures ok?
  3. To use only vegetable oil or any oil that has no smell. Oils like olive oil have distinct smells that may interfere with the taste of the cakes.
  4. Use cold water for this recipe. I forgot why. I was busy taking photos with the other girls. :P
  5. To make sure there is no oil or water in the container you are using when handling egg whites. I also forgot why. Just follow the instructions lah.
  6. Once you have finished filling the cupcake containers with the cake mixture, you must knock the trays on the table to remove any air bubbles that may have been trapped inside. By doing so, you won’t have enormous air bubbles and the cake can rise properly. I think.
Hokkaido milk

Here’s how they look like in case you were wondering. There are so many kinds of Hokkaido milk and I found these at Meidi-ya. Not terribly expensive at all.

Here we are in action. This is a relatively easy cake to make except the part where we needed to separate the yolks from the whites. It was quite a disastrous experience I tell you. You can buy the fanciest egg separating gadget available but nothing beats using your hands to wiggle the yolk in your palm while the whites ooze away through your finger tips. A bit messy yes but it is almost 100% fail proof and your hands get a bit moisturized by the eggs! Wah, this cake good for belly and skin wor, dun play play hor?

Hokkaido Chiffon Cake_Collage

Lucky my partner helped to take pictures for me. I looked so hardworking hor?

While waiting for the cakes to cool on the rack, you can get the frosting done in the meantime. Then ah, you fill it into a piping bag and then you STAB and SQUEEZE the wahbiangsoniceicaneatonitsown frosting into the cakes. Remember to squeeze a bit on the top to make it look nicer. You might want to use fresh fruits instead of sprinkles to jazz it up a bit, buelly nice either way.

PC, my partner

PC hard at work.

If you are on a diet, you can forget about it when you come face to face with these cakes. They are so light and delicate, you will have no problems inhaling them all in 1 sitting. For optimum taste, chill them first before serving them to your guests. The frosting machiam soft serve ice-cream I no bluff you.

Hokkaido Chiffon Cake_Collage 4

So pretty until I cannot stand myself.

I need to thank Pauline and Louisa for hosting this class again. You made me look like a baking goddess to The Husband with these delicate cakes. Now I have one more recipe I can use to bribe him into doing more household chores for me. Haha!

Hokkaido Chiffon Cake_Munch Ministry

Image taken off Munch Ministry’s Facebook page.

Who is who?
Top row, left to right: Mabel, Ai, Delphine, Cherie, PC, Jennifer, me, Connie, Adeline, Klessis, Jiahui, Regina.
Bottom row, left to right: Estella, Louisa, Pauline, Jiahui’s fabulous little assistant/kiddo, Rachel.

You can find Munch Ministry on Facebook and on the Web. Do Like their Facebook page for regular updates on classes, recipes and products.

Read their post on the 2 special classes just for us SMB members here!

Don’t forget to read my partner’s post about the class here! You must to read ok?

 

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12

Will you still love me tomorrow?

May 7th, 2013 / tags: / categories: family /

Some weeks back, my mum, my auntie and I visited my grandparents at both the Choa Chu Kang Columbarium as well as the Mandai Columbarium. Gone were the days where we had to trek through hundreds of graves to find my Ah Ma and Ah Gong in the blazing hot sun while carrying bags of food offerings and other essential prayer offerings. Their remains were relocated to the columbariums a few years ago and since then, the rituals have now become a lot simpler and faster. This left us plenty of time to rest and chit chat a bit before we pack up for the next destination.

At the Mandai Columbarium, I decided to talk a closer look at my grandparent’s “neighbours” while my mum and auntie rest and catch up on news about their other siblings. Over the years as folks grew more affluent, the style of the memorial plaques have become fancier. There are still the typical looking black and white photographs but I also saw the rising trend of using really nice wedding photos of the couple instead of 2 individual photos. *note to self, find nice wedding photo to use on my memorial plaque*

At that moment, something caught my attention and I walked towards a relatively new niche. There was a piece of paper pasted on one side of it and on the paper was a face drawn by a child. Why I say that was because the picture was similar to the many Xan would draw for us at home and when he was at school. I can only assumed it was a picture drawn by a child for his/her daddy. Then I turned around and saw another doodle on another niche presumably from a grandchild to his/her beloved grandfather. I couldn’t look any further because I could feel myself about to burst into tears thinking about the children who had lost their loved ones so soon and them sending their love through their little works of art. I recomposed myself and joined my mum and auntie for a bit before I drove them home.

Since we had a little bit of time to spare before we pick Xan up from school, The Husband and I decided to have a cup of coffee and chat a bit about my morning at the columbariums. The conversation started fine until I went on to describe and compare the doodles to the ones Xan draws from time to time. I started to cry uncontrollably and The Husband at first shocked also teared up. He had to get up and give me a firm hug just to calm me down.

I started to think if I were to kick the bucket now, would Xan leave me lovely doodles like this? Will he miss me? Will he still remember me when he grows up and have his own family? Will I even know he missed me or not? He’s not even 5 yet so will these 5 years of memory be enough for him to remember his mummy forever? Have we created enough memories with him for him? Don’t get me started on thinking about losing any one of my family members. I really don’t want to think about it for now.

 

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23

Wordless Wednesday: From Zero to Ten, the Lao Hiao Version

April 17th, 2013 / tags:, , / categories: family /

This hilarious video from Malaysia has been making its rounds in Facebook and even sneaked its way into our private SMB wall. So hilarious until someone suggested we do our own version of Zero to Ten.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who is mad enough to want to do it. This is my version. I am lousy at ‘self take’ photos, always have a body part missing in the pictures so I made The Husband take the photos for me and my son, too. Lao Hiao in action again!

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The Zero to Ten Linky!

Join the Zero to Ten linky, now on till the end of this month! Highlight the following code, right-click to copy and paste it at the bottom of your Zero to Ten post! Then add your link here to share the love some more!

<a href="http://motherof.xander.sg/wordless-wednesday-from-zero-to-ten-the-lao-hiao-version/" target="_blank" ><img src="http://motherof.xander.sg/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/zero-to-ten-200x200.jpg" alt="" /></a>

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10

A night of girlish fun plus 3 Style Essence Workshop Giveaway

April 14th, 2013 / tags:, , , , , / categories: beauty, giveaway, makeup /

When it comes to skincare and makeup, it’s all Cantonese to me. Meaning I know enough to get by but not motivated enough to want to learn more. My makeup style hasn’t changed very much over the years except now I draw my eyebrows. Ya, up until I was about 21, I walked around with almost non existent, au naturel eyebrows and thought I looked okay. Don’t ask me why I never thought of drawing my eyebrows because I also dunno. Dunno never mind leh. Whenever I saw pictures of myself I always wondered why my face always looked so sparse, like something was missing. Stupid right? I also wonder why none of my ex boyfriends ever pointed it out to me. Sigh. So anyway. Here are what I use on a typical day.

My makeup tools are:
1. “Foundation” $2 Daiso concealer
2. Eyebrows and eyeshadow – In2it eyebrow/eyeshadow. Most likely expired for years.
3. Eyeliner – Maybelline Masterliner
4. Tweezers for the eyebrows

When I want to feel fancy, I have a Maybelline Volum Express mascara which I had bought maybeeeeee 2 years ago, last used 2 years ago. A good friend of mine shared a tip with me. she said on days when she felt too lazy to put on makeup, she would at least crimp her lashes because it helps to ‘open’ her eyes and it makes her look a little more alert. It’s true you know, I used to do it but I don’t even remember where I threw my eyelash curlers anymore.

My bare essentials

Inside my makeup pouch, I have other very random things. I don’t remember why the blue Zebra permanent marker is in there but it’s certainly not for makeup.

I don’t know why I have 2 tweezers. They are just THERE.

And then this is my “daily skin care routine”.

Skincare tools:
1. Facial wash – Shokubutsu facial wash
2. Makeup remover/moisturizer – Johnson and Johnson’s baby oil

So you see, I am pretty low maintenance. That’s a really nice way of saying I’m a lazy girl. I just want my face clean fast and cheap. I’m hopeless and I need help. That is until I attended Style Essence’s self makeover workshop recently.

Singapore Mom Bloggers (SMB) which I am a member of, is celebrating our 1st birthday this year and part of the celebration included the exclusive, “just for SMB members only”, self makeup and styling workshop conducted by Style Essence. The vivacious Florinda (also a member of SMB) shared very useful tips on colour analysis, styling, makeup and skincare . Yeah!

Florinda sharing beauty tips to the class

She used the color wheel to illustrated how colors can compliment each other and with that in mind, we can use this theory when we shop for clothes and accessories that best suit our skin tones.

Colour Wheel

Florinda then did a very simple demonstration to find out which skin tone each of us belongs to with the help of a black and brown scarves. What do you think? Am I a Cool (black scarf) tone or Warm (brown scarf) tone?

Image source: The Accidental Mom Blogger
The Lao Hiao in action again.

As it turns out, I’m a Pear Shape not a Building Shape that I always thought I was. Phew! To draw attention away from my magnificent child bearing hips, Florinda suggested putting more emphasis around the neck and shoulder area. A nice shawl or necklace should do the trick but I think adding a few cup sizes won’t hurt either, yah? *wink wink*

We were all given a guide, based on our body shape, of what styles will suit us best.  This is especially handy for me who don’t really like to go shopping because I never know what looks good on me.

Body shape

After the body and colour analysis, we started the skincare routine using Mary Kay’s Botanical Effects Skin Care range. We were told we shouldn’t smoosh our faces around like how we would when we wash our car. You should always dab the cleanser on your face first then use your 3rd and 4th fingers to rub (gently) in circular motions. Less friction creates less wrinkles lah.

Once we were done washing our faces, we applied the Botanical Mask on half of our faces. It deep cleans with very little effort and almost immediately after washing it off, I could see the difference between the 2 sides of my face. The pampered side really did feel and look fresher. Whee!

So hard to just stop applying the mask halfway.

See my non existent eyebrows? No? There, I told you it’s non existent already mah.

Image source: Rachel Teo

Now that our faces were clean, it’s time for makeup! Florinda and Bernadette had prepared a wide range of colours, lipsticks and brushes of all shapes and sizes for us to experiment. For someone who only use brown, seeing so many colours on 1 plate was a little unnerving for me. Since we were all there to learn something new and do something different for a change, I went straight for the purple eye shadow. *shudder*

Loads of makeup at our disposal. Yay!

Florinda helping Pamela with the eye makeup.

Regina and Adeline putting on the finishing touches.

Here’s how I looked before and after. Never mind that I look bloated, I have colour on my face! Not so Auntie anymore hor? *giggle*

Image taken from Style Essence’s Facebook page.
Swee boh?

What’s a celebration without a group photo? Here are the crazy participants from left to right.

Top row: Bernadette, Susan, Sandra, Regina, Adeline, Madeline.

Bottom row: Jiahui, Estella, me, Pamela, Adora, PC and Florinda

Image source: Catch Forty Winks

Thank you Flo and Bern for the entertaining workshop! I haven’t had this much fun in a workshop like, forever!

Here’s the fun part!

Style Essence is giving 3 of my readers a free makeover workshop worth $150 each!

How to win? Just use the simple Rafflecopter form below and you are on your way!

Giveaway ends at midnight on 19 April 2013 and winners will be announced here on the same day. I’m not going to keep y’all in suspense for too long this time :)

Winners will be selected randomly and Style Essence will contact the winners directly

Faster faster enter! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer: We were invited to attend this workshop and received no compensation for this post. All opinions are entirely my own.

UPDATED (19 April 2013)

Congratulations ladies!! You have each won a free makeover workshop worth $150 by Style Essence! Don’t worry, Florinda and her team will take very good care of ya! They will be in touch with you via email soon.

Thank you everybody for supporting this giveaway!

4

The Twenty Questions that were supposed to be answered on Tuesday

April 4th, 2013 / tags:, , / categories: family, pregnancy /

Fine, I know it’s not Tuesday anymore but I really wanted to participate in MummyMoo’s Twenty Questions lah.

Here are my answers.

1. Was your pregnancy planned, and how old were you?
Not really planned but neither were we preventing it. I was 30.

2. What were your reaction?
Shocked because… please read Point 3.

3. How did you find out you were pregnant?
I was driving us home one evening in April and we had stopped at a red light, gossiping about what had happened at the office that day. I was talking halfway when I saw in the rear view mirror a car speeding towards the back of our car showing no signs of slowing down. I started to scream and BAM! He ‘kissed’ the back of our car. I stepped out of the car, moved towards the back angrily and started screaming at the driver who turned out to be a 70ish year old man who was also visibly shaken by the accident. I eventually stopped ranting like a mad woman 2 mins later when I realized he couldn’t really see very well either. *guilty face* I was the victim but behaved like a raging mad bully :P Luckily The Husband was calm enough to make sure the other driver was ok and not hurt either. After the cops came to take our statements, we took pictures and exchanged information, we drove to the mechanic with our bumper about to fall off. Everyone suggested we go to the A&E to make sure we didn’t suffer from any internal injuries so we went to Tan Tock Seng A&E department to do the usual tests. After giving the nurses my urine sample, we were told to head over to get some x-rays done. I started to panic when we got there because I had a navel ring and I could only get it out with a pair of pliers. It was past midnight, where to find pliers you tell me? So I tried my luck and went to ask the technicians for it and all of them gave me blank stare and went HAR? Pliers?? Then in a typical Taiwan drama fashion, just as I was walking into the radiology room for my scan and hoping to find pliers lying around, the doctor who had attended to me at the beginning ran into the room shouting “STOP STOP STOP! No x-ray! You do already? No need to do ok?”. Maybe ‘shouting’ is too dramatic a description. “Raised voice’ would be better. SO! He came in, ushered The Husband and I back to the consulting room for more Q&A. He showed me 3 square plastic thingy. He did 3 pregnancy tests just to make sure and all turned up positive. We were very shocked because I was still having what I thought were very light menses. Long story short. WE WERE PREGNANT!

4. Who did you tell first?
My sister-in-laws because I was working for them at the time and was scheduled to leave for New York that month for work. I had to tell them to cancel my tickets immediately.

5. Did you find out the sex?
Yes! I was thrilled to find out it was a boy. I’ve always wanted a little boy.

6. Did you have morning sickness?
Minimal. Only when I brush my teeth in the mornings. Weird.

7.What did you crave?
Nothing in particular but I was completely turned off by the smells of my favourite foods like mushrooms. I lost weight during pregnancy because I didn’t feel like eating.

8. Who / What irritated you the most?
My husband. I packed and unpacked my ‘run away from home’ bag many times and even slept on the sofa equally many times during pregnancy.

9. Did you wish you had a different gender from what you obtained?
No but we did ask the OBGYN to double check during initial ultrasounds for 2nd baby. We are very optimistic folks.

10. How many kilos did you gain during the entire pregnancy?
Too many.

11. Where did you think the baby was conceived?
Somewhere somehow after the kissing and before the showering.

12. Did you have any complications during the pregnancy?
I  had 2 endometriosis cysts (both were more than 6 cm each) removed during my 2nd trimester which was also the night after my traditional wedding dinner. Party first, if not I would be stuck on bed rest for weeks.

13. Where did you give birth?
Aisle 4 in the supermarket! No lah, I’m kidding of course. Thomson Medical Centre.

14. How many hours were you in labour?
I don’t remember active labour took how long but I remember lying around for 32 hours. Lie so long until I started to see weird images forming from the labour room’s floral curtains. I saw papillions, old men fishing by the lake, gold fish, etc.  We were warded on Christmas Eve hoping he will pop on Christmas Day but the determined boy held his ground and stuck to the original ETD 26 December 2008.

15. Who watched you give birth?
The Husband.

16. Was it natural, or C-Sect?
Was induced to try for natural delivery, failed. Then assisted with forceps, also failed. My doc had to push the baby back in and then do an emergency C-sect at the end.

17. Did you take medication to ease the pain?
Epidural and laughing gas. It was not funny at all.

18. When was your child born?
26 Dec 2008

19. What is his / her name?
Xander

20. How old is he today?
4 going on 16. He is slowly morphing into an emo teenager. Scary.

 

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6

Wordless Wednesday: Meow

March 30th, 2013 / tags:, , / categories: son, wordless wednesday /

Meow

I think you can tell by now we are quite big on costumes. Such vainpots we are!

 

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4

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Easter!

March 27th, 2013 / tags: / categories: family /

Easter Bunny

*ahem*… That’s me goofing off at the office in case you don’t recognize me :P

Maybe should name this week’s WW as Render You Wordless Wednesday eh?

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19

Pin-hole camera workshop that was supposed to be fun

March 24th, 2013 / / categories: bad behaviour, school holiday activities /

A little while ago, Sengkang Babies held a giveaway in their blog for a chance to win a free pin-hole camera workshop with Npower Education. By then, I had already read a few cool reviews about it from a few fellow bloggers who were invited by them earlier this year to bring their kids to give this workshop a go. Everyone enjoyed it and I was also quite intrigued. The workshop looked simple enough so I wondered if Xan will be interested. Lo and behold, I was one of the 3 winners of the giveaway! Yippee! I wasted no time to make reservations for Xan and booked an extra space for his cousin so that they could attend this together.

Npower Education (opened in November 2012) is mainly a tuition centre that caters to students from about 6 years old to 16 years old and occasionally offers special classes such as the pinhole camera workshop during the school holidays. Kids will learn how to construct the camera from a cardboard box and other commonly found materials as well as learn how to develop their photographs the good old fashion way in a darkroom. So exciting right?

Ok I need to hao lian a bit here. I studied photography back in my university days so I am already familiar with the process of developing black and white prints in a dark room. The developer, stop bath, fixer, dodge and burn, Ilford paper, etc. That being said, I went mainly to observe how the instructor was able to engage a classroom of kids in this potentially dry subject. Not every kid is interested to know why in the early days a landscape photo had to take 8 hours to get the right exposure. When the instructor Miss Khoo held up some 35mm film negatives, all the kids and I mean ALL 8 boys ( ages from from 10 years old to 12 years old with the exception of our 2 boys) drew a blank stare and said they have never see it before. Some were even shocked to learn that film was limited to only 36 exposures (sometimes 38 if you were lucky) and they would not be able to delete anything at any point of time. The gasps were deafening. I also suddenly felt extremely old for knowing what film negatives were. :(

The other reviews about this workshop were extremely clear so I won’t elaborate further. You can search for them by typing “Npower Education + pinhole camera”. I do however, want to share my feelings about the 3 hour session: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good

When I contacted Npower Education to claim the free workshop, I mentioned to them that the boys were about 5 and 6 years old. They replied to say they will arrange for an additional assistant and other preparations for them. So they did and the boys thought the JieJie was very friendly even though her long hair bothered them a bit. Hahahaha! Aiyoh! At one point in the darkroom Miss Khoo casually asked if anybody was afraid of the dark. A little hand went up and Xan said quite softly “I’m a bit scared of the dark…” From then on, he held the assistant’s hand whenever the lights went off. How do I know? I was present throughout the whole workshop lah. That was another nice thing they did. They allowed me to hang around the entire time. I think mainly because the boys were so young compared to the other participants. Miss Khoo also made a conscience effort to include our boys in some Q and A so that they wouldn’t feel left out.

pinhole 01

The bad

The classroom was a tad too small to squeeze 8 active boys so there was a bit of jostling and whining when anyone wants to move around. The 3 ladies (Miss Khoo, assistant and Raine, the person I had been liaising with via email) tried their best to keep the excitable boys under control. Xan and my nephew being the sociable kids they are, attempted to engage so of the boys with some small talk but sadly most of them ignore the little ones presumably they couldn’t “get” what was so funny. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended. In fact I expected it to happen. Our boys need to learn how to deal with such situations on their own right? So ke lian.

pinhole 02

All excited to take pictures of each other.

pinhole 03

Miss Khoo showing the boys the various chemicals needed for developing the prints.

The ugly

Perhaps it is a hormonal thing with young boys, some of them obviously didn’t like the fact that they got “thrown” to the table of “babies” and they really made their displeasure known. Comments about the workshop is supposed to be for 12 year olds and why these 2 kids are allowed in the class was thrown sarcastically to the instructor. She held her ground and replied him that she knows and it was ok. She also added that the boys didn’t lie about their ages just to join them so his concerns are unfounded. I watched as Boy A kept pushing his water bottle onto Xan’s worksheet (not that Xan was really writing anything constructive on it) and insisted the bottle was Xan’s just to irritate him. Luckily it stopped before either one decides to swing the bottle at the other’s head. Then Boy B decided the worksheet was a total waste of time, started to comment how stupid it was. Somewhere along line, my nephew said something about not know something, Boy B, the oldest kid in the group, suddenly pointed at my nephew’s forehead and shouted “…he doesn’t know because he’s STUPID!” Wah! At this point my blood began to boil! He had the audacity to say that while I was sitting right next to him!! The entire class fell silent and stared at the boy. Prior to this he had already irritated all 3 ladies at various times during the workshop but they all tried to tahan him and not scream at him. Won’t look good in front of me I guess. Miss Khoo’s face turned into several shades of black and sternly made him apologize to my nephew who by then was too shocked and embarrassed to speak. Boy B was defiant even after being made to apologize 3 times. I wished I was informed during registration that the other kids were THIS much older so that I can have the option to wait until they have a class of kids who are of a closer age group to our boys or to tell me frankly our boys are too young. When I had to relate this story to my nephew’s mum (my sister), I could tell she was extremely angry that her son was got bullied for no reason. I was embarrassed it happened and regret subjecting the boys to the wrath of the 2 bullies. Can you imagine if I was not there to witness all these first hand? I’m sorry but thinking back, I wished I had given both bullies a piece of my mind.

My conclusion

Our boys appeared to have enjoyed the workshop and even thought being in a class of older boys was cool. However when I asked them about the 2 boys they became visibly uncomfortable. The workshop is not recommended for kids under 6. If you must, it will be better to sign up with a group of your own kids. The course is simple and interesting. Venue and location very accessible and clean. Maybe I am out of touch with the ways of kids nowadays or you can even call me over protective to make such a big deal out of such a small situation. Well, I don’t think this is a small deal and I certainly have the right to share feel how I feel. Don’t fault the centre for the bad experience, I blame bad parenting for the big boys’ behavior. They clearly didn’t want to be there so why did their parents signed them up for it in the first place? You know what I think. I think their parents probably treated the centre as a dumping ground while they go run some errands. Sigh. I hope I don’t grow up to be like them.

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Xan not looking too pleased with his prints whereas his cousin was absolutely thrilled with his finished product.

8

Baking memories

March 8th, 2013 / tags:, , , , , , , / categories: family, family activities, food, Foodie Friday, Let's make..., parent child activity /

I remember one particular morning when I was probably in K1 or K2, I woke up to the smell of pineapples simmering in a pot on the stove. I watched my mum and my Darjie (eldest sister) chatting, sweating, peeling and slicing countless pineapples in the kitchen. They spent the next few hours hovering over the huge pot, making sure the pineapple mixture doesn’t get burnt. looking back, it’s amazing how many pineapples you need for a few tubs of pineapple tarts. So what role did I play? I would popped in between television programmes to “help” make sure the pineapple paste was up to standard, maybe helped to roll a few small balls to decorate the tarts and sometimes egg wash the tarts before they pop the trays into the oven. Since I was too young to do very much, I mostly parked myself in the living room with my pal TeeVee.

Gradually over the years, all of us grew up, moved out, became busy with our lives and we stopped making the treats together. Getting everyone to have dinner together at the same time is already tough, baking treats is the last thing in everybody’s mind. Oh we still bake, just not together.

Last year, I asked my favourite niece if she wanted to come to my house to make some pineapple tarts with me since she said she had some experience with my Darjie some time ago. We had a really good time nudging each other out of the way in my tiny kitchen and managed to whip up a few tins of goodies of acceptable quality.

This year I wanted to attempt to make some on my own because I thought my niece would be busy with her projects and I didn’t want to bother her. Not difficult to make mah. I even bought a small gridiron to use with my Happycall pan. Yah! You can make pineapple tarts with a HCP you know? Cool right? But then the HCP is so small, I figured I bake until the next day or break my back also cannot bake finish so I ditched the idea for another day. So anyway, Darjie suggested since she was also interested to do some baking, why not head over to her place and use her spanking new appliances instead? While we were there, if the younger kids get bored, her kids can help to entertain them. Brilliant idea!

Xan was excited to be able to help make the treats this year and insisted we make the chocolate rice crispies again and so we did with a few improvements. We used some fancy sprinkles this time. Not bad huh?

It’s not that I don’t want to share our recipe with you. I found that all the recipes on the internet were essentially the same with a few variations here and there. We adapted one but made several changes like omitting sugar in the dough, increasing the measurement for the flour, etc. Darjie didn’t measure anything, everything was done by “feel”. Darjie said “Ah Ma (grandmother) made the best nonya style pineapple tarts and she made them from memory never a recipe book. She always measure everything by hand and all her tarts always come out perfectly buttery and never dry. If she feels the dough texture doesn’t feel right, she will scold us and make us throw the entire batch out because she doesn’t like to waste time on substandard quality.” Phuwah! Scary mary… We tried to mimic her pastry recipe but with store bought pineapple filling because it was just so much easier that way. Thankfully it turned out great. SLURP!

Here are some simple recipes you can try:

Munchministry.com – Open Face Pineapple Tart

Bake King – Nonya Pineapple Tarts

Beanie N Us - Pineapple Tarts

The little ones got bored waiting for the tarts to be ready so they took a quick dip in the pool with the other cousins. As soon as he was dry enough, Xan climbed back up to the counter to continue to help us.

Since everything was either too hot or too messy for the boy, he was given the great responsibility of pasting the stickers onto all the containers. Very important step you know?

We couldn’t finish baking everything in one day so we went back to my sister’s place the next day to continue. This time we went prepared with an apron for Xan but he was more interested in swimming than baking that day. Can’t blame him, it was really hot and humid that day.

The whole point of the 2 days to me (and my sister) wasn’t about baking the treats or how good they tasted. My sis spent the most time doing the baking since my bad back didn’t allow me to stand or bend over for too long. It was the precious family bonding time we had while rolling and moulding the pastries. I was never close to Ah Ma (she passed away when I was 9) so the stories my mum and sister share with me about the time they spent with her before I was born are very special. My memory of Ah Ma has always been that angry face whenever I *ahem* smack her favourite grandson around.

Nothing beats homemade goodies and gossips with family. I hope we do this every year.

 

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