Wantons or Fries?

Making fried wantons.

Just before moving to the US, I thot about the local foods that I would crave… there are many that I would miss, but 1 that I shouldn’t is the fried wantons… becos I can get the skins and make it almost just as well in the US. I have done it before, so I know that it is almost ok, but never as good becos the skins are different, even tho all the condiments for marinate is the same.

Little pockets of flavors.

Maybe I should just eat fries instead. .. so available everywhere. Both are finger foods, fried and greasy. … but making wantons and sharing the real thing with my new neighbors are just so much more satisfying. 1st of all, fake wantons are common and somewhat popular in the US. … and someone must educate the American taste buds that those are not real Asian flavors.

Frying wantons on my induction stove using a soup pan.

Oh, did I mention that I come from a long line of Asian cooks (not chefs, just cooks)… I started making my 1st wanton under the tutelage of Ah Ma when I was 7.. so I must know a thing or 2 about wantons right.

Nice golden color. Looks crispy.

So I did a batch in the weekend before leaving. sigh… is that the last of my really good homemade wantons…?

Mamacat is coming with me!

My 3 Whiskerteers hanging out in my old flat

I haven’t posted for awhile, needed the time to get over the passing of Mamacat. Really did feel guilty about leaving my cats, Snooze, Smudge and Mamacat in SG while I went on extended travels.

Now that my last Whiskerteer has taken on a new form of life, it is now possible to bring her with me. Flying, sailing, road trips! She is coming with me!

Mamacat, my guess she born sometime in late 1999, had 2 kittens in Feb 2001 who unfortunately passed away. I saw her and her kittens in Mar 2001 when I and Snoozy move temporarily to aunt Jenny’s flat in Chai Chee. They were living in the network of gutters under the block. I did give water and some of Snoozy’s food to her.

From left, Mamacat, Smudge and Snooze always on the higher ground.

After her 1st kittens died, she was roaming around on her own. Somehow, she figured out my routine. When I would come back from work, she would be at the lift waiting for me. Then she come with me up to the flat, but Snoozy did not approve… naturally… there was a fight, and I went to the A&E… was Snoozy’s bite. Well, so I left food and water outside the flat for her.

I missed seeing her for about a week. I kept looking, and when I did find her, she was really sick. I took her in and brought her to the vet. She recovered…. then her tummy seems to be growing…. uh oh… Aug 2001, Smudgey and brother was born… but unfortunately he only lived 2 weeks. Good thing there was a door separating the kitchen and the living area where Snoozy was, so no fights.

Dec 2001, we moved to my 1st apt. Initially, I had to put them together in a room… hoping that they would get along, while we work on renovating the outside areas. .. well, I had a 2nd trip to the A&E… sigh… but they did eventually learn to give each other space. Although they were never pals, they did not get into fights again after that.

My last picture of Mamacat. Same couch, new flat.

Mama loved going outdoors for a walk. We had a routine, at about 10pm, I would let Mama out and she would decide to run up or down. I would follow her as she explore her surroundings. Our neighbors would see us walking and stop to chat. They all like her too, so well behaved and so attached to me. These are all fond memories.

Life changed for her when Doug moved in. We go out less… and I think she resent that…, but she did like Doug too, despite he being more of a disciplinarian than I am. Then we moved to our new flat in 2011. The 1st months was always difficult, as we live in parts of the flat and renovate the other parts.

Maybe it was the stress of the reno, the dust or noise or everything got to Smudge, he was suddenly sick and died overnight before I could bring him to the vet. Smudge (Aug 2001 to Mar 2012)… He was such a chubby cute thing that was playful and good natured. .. Unlike Snooze who was always insecure about something and erratic moods. For all of 2013, Snoozy showed signs of aging, she actually looked elderly, had arthritis… but she lived till 30 Apr 2014… I was away in the US, had to ask sister and friend Natasha to put her to sleep… she stopped eating and drinking for 1 week. Was getting weaker and everything, but shes a clinger and refuse to let go… she had to be euthanized while I was in Port Townsend, it was sad, she couldn’t wait for me to come back.

Of all my cats, I obviously loved Mamacat the most. It is my honor that she adopted me. I hate to see her go, but I think she didn’t have a reason to go on anymore after the other 2 died. Its like she’s tired and was ready for a new life… or maybe she knows that I am in the process of moving away to the US… yes, I was away a lot and had to get Ray and Natasha to come take care of her… maybe she knew that the way to follow me is to be small and packable into my luggage.

Okay, that’s that. Shes coming with me to the US and we are going to have many adventures!

My hats and I

My most durable hat. Nike 1999 – now.

I am seldom seen without one, that’s for sure.. but why?

Cos its something that holds my hair in place, so that I don’t have to keep sweeping through with my hands after each gust of wind. .. Seriously, that’s the main reason for me wearing one. But since I am wearing one, sure I wanna look good in it.

My last few years hat. 2010 – now falling apart.

I like hats with short brim… Long brim hats are great for shade on a sunny day out on the golf course, but not so good for sailors where out on the sea there is always a gust that will lift it off. .. or when it obscure so much of my above head vision that I walk right into head knockers in the cabin, or couldn’t look up soon enuf to see the boom coming for my head.

My new colorful hat.

Before sailing, I was cycling and had a bunch of cycling hats. They were so comfy too! But they are not around anymore for me to remember how I looked in them. Wish I had some pictures from back then.

And now, my newest hat! Saw it at the OG store yesterday. Looks like it will be a good sailing/hiking hat.

Not quite sure how I feel in this one yet… Maybe I will do something adventurous, dangerous and fun with it… then I will have great memories with it too.

we moved!

The last time I moved was 2000. Hey, that was 11 years ago. Back then it was easy. Only big thing was the TV, everything else were taken down into smaller pieces. All other appliances were brand new and delivered.

Old living room... bright and cheery

Here, a one last look at the place I vacated. Looks so much better empty than when we had stuff all over the place. I will miss it, but I am happy to know that the next owner does not intend to redo the floors and will keep the mosaic stove top… 🙂 I did that!

Old kitchen. Empty.

I did take my own sweet time in renovating the apt back then. No rush and with very tight budget. Manage to get it under $10K and plus new appliances at $3k. That was a bargain! Me thought.

How different it feels again, empty old little apt. Nice, bright and airy… cosy… I am gonna miss this place. .. but the new place is huge and have lots of potential… It might just turn out to be another nice, bright, airy and SPACIOUS abode… I made the difference when I reno’ed the old place… (it didnt look half as nice when I bought it, take my word for it)..  this new apt is gonna be better than that!

Just moving in...

The early stages.. just moving our enormous amount of junk that were accumulated over 11yrs. Where is everything!? How do ya get to anything!? … wait… I cant find the picture on this one… my point exactly!

And now, we have just passed the rubble stage… Yes! Gone are the horrible looking kitchen and cabinets!

Next, into reconstruction stage. A new kitchen in the yard, a new airconned workroom, lounge and guestroom…

The truth… its not all that clear to me yet… but I sure it will all work out just right.. 🙂 Always positive…

My old dig

Letting the dust settle over the selling and buying of the so called “subsidized” housing here in Singapore. Now, we are in the transaction period, which is typical 3 months. After that comes the reno and moving… for us, it will be moving and reno. sigh…

DIY stovetop and mosaic overlay.

But now is a good time to start thinking and researching about reno and styles. … I have been hard at work in this department for the last 2weeks! Still struggling over whether to hack away the current kitchen floor and wall tiles that seem to be in good condition… relay new tiles of my choice or paint over with epoxy resin paint… My problem is simply the color dun work for me, and that I will be modifying the layout quite a fair bit…  but to hack is noisy and costly and very dusty… so I dun wanna do that if I can avoid it.

This is definately not how my dig look like when I move in 10 years ago.

peach walls, cream ceiling and cream door..

Looking back at what works for me. I really like how my kitchen look right now. Very dark grey kitchen homegenous floor tile, creamy textured ceramic wall tile, glass mosaic stove top. Except the stove top is too small, which means not much space for food preparation. This would be the only thing I would change in my design for the new kitchen.

My very messy all purpose table

I am probably a very grey person… but maybe light yellow painted walls would brighten up the space… instead of the existing apple green white. Next I gotta think of how to tie the foyer color scheme to the kitchen and the bedrooms… Once, I like a different color in each room… but I am sure past that high contrast bright color stage… I think this time it may be a more light and airy earthy tone flavor. … but really… hows the peach.. 🙂

Mood swings!

Am going thru a phase… I have been so in and out of moods while spending hrs deciding what to eat, when to eat and where am I going to eat! … This is just so crappy! … and the reality is, its all part of living in a city!

Typical scenario. I am at a mall, I am starting to get hungry, I start to think about what to eat, I flip flop between what I really want and what is conveniently available and priced reasonably… for like 5mins..

.. ok start walking in the direction of where I think something might be available.. and I see super crowded foodcourts, messy table of uncleared remnants, people trying to talk louder than the din! No way! I am not going in there. Start thinking again, next probable location and maybe change new set taste buds.. kinda more hungry now.. maybe a take out and eat back at home infront of TV or FB.. OhNO! I HATE that styrofoam takeout packaging! Food taste very strange after being in that box for 30mins! Noooo! What else is available for takeout? …

OK! I give up! I would rather eat my very own home cooked, super spruced up noodle! Even if I had to spend 30mins on the prep and cook, its way better than spending $5 for food that I am not sure about and eating in an environment that is crap.

Well… GET REAL! Life in a city is tough. .. I have adapted well enuf.. my new peace motto, eat when no one is eating, eat where nobody is crowding.

I dun want to remember Sendai as a diaster area

1 week ago, I was sneaking a little snooze after lunch in my chair at my desk in my little cubicle… I dun remember exactly what time it was, but I woke up with a start and I thought we were experiencing tremors… like we usually do in Indonesian earthquakes… I asked my “cube” mate if shes feeling it too, but no. I checked my little tremor marker, and it seem to be moving very slightly, maybe its nothing. ..

I was going back to my dreams… when another colleague across the aisle exclaimed, “Japan earthquake!”. That was about 10 mins after I thought I felt the quake… My cube mate and I were like “<Shock> Really!? could it be!?” Is it possible for one to feel an earthquake in Japan from Singapore.

I guess its not really important that if I really felt the quake or not. All the same, I feel terrible for the people who are so badly affected. From a natural disaster of earthquake, followed by tsunami and finally to radioactive disaster, things are getting from bad to worse in hours.

Overnight, the unknown city of Sendai became instantly known to the world. Its not a good thing. Sendai is a city of no consequences to anybody, except for those who were fortunate to be aquainted with it… before this happend. Now, people will remember it for this incident.

I remember Sendai for the good 9 months when I was working and living there in 1998. It was my 1st experience of living through 4 seasons at 1 go, at the beautiful subburb of Izumi ward of Sendai city. I enjoyed the excellent sushi made with the most fresh sea produce from within Miyagi district, I enjoyed my walks through the flower fields, rice fields, trails… etc. I drove several times to coast at Matsushima and I love that fishing and seafood farming village. I guess thats gone now.

The survivors of that village, I am not sure they are really survivors. . For the rest of their lives, they will be mourning their lost family and friends, they will have a regret so deep in their hearts that nobody will truly be able to understand. The lost of ones’ roots! No more family house or happy family moments. Pictures and heirlooms washed out to sea, nothing to hold on to except for the memories.

Insurance may buy that car that was lost, or that house thats gone, but not the album of family gathering pictures, not the file of newspaper clippings made by proud parents of they exceptionally talented child. Aid money may buy food and help in rebuilding of lives, time will help heal the extreme pain in their hearts. … or will it? really? Dah says, its not a moment in time, its a missing moment in life that can never be recovered.

I have great respect for the Japanese. The spirit of unity in the Japanese will help the country recover from this shock. I feel bad that I cant do anymore than just writting my thoughts in my little blog, but I hope that there be others who, like me, remembers Sendai for better things.

Unbelieveable pastimes!

500pcs only... 3hrs crouching over it.. on the floor

I am still packing my place.. an hour or two every day.. slowly but surely, there are signs of progress. I notice my neighbours waits eagerly as I bring my junk to the dump corner (not the designated dumping ground.. but the usual one for people to look for salvageable items). I just barely turn my back and they are at it already. .. hmm… didnt think my junk were so precious.

Laminated jigsaw - done with clear vinyl

As more things are discarded, some things that were buried before, surfaces. .. and so a pile of un-opened jig saw puzzle boxes were uncovered… now what do I do with these.. I dun wanna throw them away.. .. but I wonder if I still have it to fix them up..

King of all jig saw puzzles!

I mean, 500 pieces is so easy… right? So I started.. on the floor.. and when its done, how do u pick it up? Well, so I laminate it and there it is, done forever! Now that box can go, and the puzzle can stay. I mean, its flat and easy to keep right?

This 500pcs took me, myself 3 hrs! … 3 good hours of my life gone! Jig saw is like the biggest con job on earth. Who wanna do jig saw!? Its a crazy concept that people like perfectly good pictures to be cut up into pieces, only to piece them up again! … and I am one of them suckers! Maybe the biggest one of them all!  BTW, the 12000 pieces is actually 3/4 completed and taken apart and put back into the box. I dunno why I did that.. but its part of my memories that I did spend years of few hours here and there doing it. I think its gonna stay unfinished, but I dun wanna throw it away either… sigh…

Spring cleaning?

5 boxes of old junk and much more still laying around the house.

Yes, me is doing me spring cleaning. … This time, I am really going thru my old stuff and hoping to dump 90% of the junk! … Hoping to have less things to shift when changing house this year, and moving off to the US next year.. Thats the plan anyway.

Memories! I like browsing thru this mall... and I did buy quite abit of stuff from them

Look, I have procastinated for like 3 weeks… thats not too bad.. isnt it.. 🙂  So its time to start packing up and really try to throwaway some stuff. In these 5 boxes, are some old stuff that I havent seen in quite awhile. Lets see if theres stuff that I should dump, so that other stuff that I recently collected can fit in there… See, I am not trying to exceed this amount of collectibles. 5 boxes should be quite easy to move around.

Doug had a great idea to take pictures of them things and catalogue it in a special folder… and even on my picture diary blog. Just some of the things anyway.

What a treasure!

Look at what I found! Some things that are just priceless! Old plastic bags from the Emporium group! 20 years ago, they were quite popular at the suburbs. 10 years later, they were still around. Now…? Gone!

Remember how we use to buy music? They come in tapes.

The little see thru baggie is holding onto some real valueables! Literally! The bird series Singapore dollar bills. $20, $10, $5 and $1… Only 1 boat series $1 tho… wonder why I didnt keep some other denominations..? 

Hey look! Old tapes! Do they still make players for these tapes? I was really gonna throw them away, since I am not gonna buy something to play them with… but .. just kept afew… maybe a museum will want them.. if I wait long enug 😛

Also found plenty of other stuff… like old greeting cards from my old school chums… I totally forgotten that there was an era when people actually send cards! They are something really! They feel like the real thing, real contact and real people who made those special 1 of a kind cards just for me. It even has their handwriting on it! Especially those that were made by a group,  filled with handwritten messages from each person in the group. … E-cards are just not the same. I wonder if they still do that in school these days. .. Anyway, I forgot to make a picture documentary of the cards before putting it away deep into storage… Maybe I will do that the next time I open these boxes.. like 10 years from now…

Part of my travel collectibles. ..

Coming up next, my travel collectibles! eh hem… gifts to myself… 🙂

I travel quite abit for work. From 1995 to 2008.. Munich, TaiPei, Sendai, Penang, Manila, Bangalore, San Franscisco, Oregon, Vermont, New York… thats just the work travel list… I travel less for personal vacations .. and I dun usually spend enuf time to really see the place, so I dun have much to show for those personal travels… strange… only realize that now.

Wooden dolls from Japan.

Dolls from Japan, keyfobs from US, rocks from around the world. Almost everything I kept is special to me… hmm.. yes, sometimes I buy junk when I dunno what else to buy…

Box of travel memories

Look! My collection of driving maps. Japan, California, Oregon…. etc. And the world map! This box is gonna be my travel momentoes box. The marks of me travels. Its 1 way to know exactly where I have been and what I have done or saw. Blogging, is like a pictorial document of the new trips that I make. These maps are the legacy, marking the time before digital pictures and blogging.

Where have I been?

And the book, comics and old games box. My treasures… but I really cant bring them with me. These things go into storage… I might look at them again 30 years later… dunno, but I really wanna keep them somewhere, somehow. 

How many months did I spend on this?

And look! My collection of 1/2 done projects… yes, I have a good track record of those. .. as if that is something to be proud off… :p. .. Well, at least I got that far! … Its going into storage for now… I have no time for this project now… The crochet poncho? I am still working on that one… 🙂 

Rocks from around the world.

Did I tell you about rocks? … I am a rock collector! Much to Doug’s disbelief. .. until I pulled them out from the various places where I stored them “temporarily”. Some from over here, some from over there…

And here they congregate. Round pebbly rocks are from the Columbia river in Oregon. The 1 red stone I found in Langkawi, I think. The pink ones are clay and sorta  chalky. The whites are low quality marbles from Rebak, Langkawi. The big grey was a surprise from near Sebana. I dont remember where I got those black sharp edgy ones… hmm… ok, moving on.

Definately the time to dump all them old socks! Yellow and no more elasticity! Who keeps such things! Yucks! Cant believe I havent got rid of them sooner! And the spotty yellowy old t-shirts… they are going too! Will be keeping just afew more special ones… sigh… me the junk collector… There’s still plenty more stuff to go thru… wish me luck.

Reconstructing Ah Ma’s Sweet Pepper pork recipe

This is one of my favorite Ah Ma’s cooking, and is one that I never learned from her… sometimes I wonder.. do I miss Ah Ma or her cooking…?

1/4" slices of fresh pork. Look at that pink!

Its my 4th attempt at trying to make this Ah Ma’s special Sweet Pepper Pork… and yet again I failed. Pretty frustrated! Why I never learn how to cook this when Ah Ma was around…?

Making the marinate.

… but now, it has become a personal goal, for me to discover thru trial and errors, how Ah Ma did it. I think the process will make me learn the ways of Ah Ma.. those that I didnt learn the 1st time around.

The most important part of this cooking process, is making the marinate. How do you make it to taste just right and get the right smooth gravy like texture spread evenly over the meat?

Early in the cooking stage.

Let me see, my mistakes, starting from the beginning… 1st try, not enough sugar, not enough flour. 2nd attempt, sugar was about right, too much soy, and not enough flour. 3rd try, too much flour, killed everything. 4th try, okay I got the taste right…

Done cooking, gravy texture not quite right.

Here is what I got so far for 300g block of lean pork.

1) Slice lean pork into 1/4″ slices.

2) Make marinate with 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp flour, dissolve in 1/2 cup slightly warm water. Add 1/2 tbsp seseme oil, lots of pepper to the mixing bowl. Stir well, add pork. Spread evenly and leave for a few minutes.

3) Mince 2 cloves garlic.

A complete Chinese meal with rice, stir fry veggies and sweet pepper pork

4) Medium heat, 2 tbsp spoon oil in pan, add garlic to brown. Lay out pork slices onto pan, scoop remaining liquid marinate onto the pork. After 1 min, flip over to cook the other side. 1 min on the other side and it should be done cooking.

See! That should be so simple… isnt it? … but why my gravy texture is not right? Kinda lumpy… hmm… too much flour? No, I think flour is just right.. … I dunno… but I will probably get it right on the 5th try… I hope…