Evergreen leaves

This week's theme is leaves.

I have this door hanger which I bought when moving in to this house. It is pretty, albeit a little on the expensive side. What I like about it (besides that it's pretty!) is that the door hook is longer.. which means that the clothes hooks are lower down and I can reach them easily!

Barang berharga

The other day, I received a phone call from a Poslaju delivery man. He said he was waiting outside my house with a parcel. I was expecting to receive a plastic container that I had redeemed from CIMB, so I told him to leave it at the guardhouse.

He refused, however, saying that it was a valuable item ("barang berharga", in his words). He said he would have to take the blame if the item went missing. Then he suggested leaving it with a neighbour, but somehow the neighbours weren't home either.

He asked me when I would be back, and I told him not for another half hour, at least. He told me to call him back when I got home. Half an hour later, as I was on my way home, he called me again, asking me where I was. When he heard that I wasn't reaching yet, he said he couldn't wait any more, and had to leave first.

After he left, he texted me the parcel tracking number.

When I got home, there was no delivery slip in the mailbox. Was that why he sent me a text message instead? Had he run out of delivery slips?

Anyway, I went to the Lebuh Victoria Poslaju office to collect my parcel. It was the plastic container as I had expected.

It's a nice one, actually... with three removable compartments inside that you can take out if you want to use it as a single storage. When I chose to redeem it, I knew that it was this kind of container, but didn't know about the compartments inside. Maybe this can help me pack my lunch better. Plus it's microwaveable! (except the lid)

It's snowing!

There are snowflakes... indoors.

As you might have guessed, these are Christmas decorations. It's in the office; I arrived on Tuesday morning to see that someone had brought out the Christmas decorations and placed the snowflakes this way. Perfect for this week's theme, which is weather.

Mir's Kitchen

Last week we went to Mir's Kitchen. I had gone there twice previously, and was basically pleased with the food.

The star dish is mee kuah tulang.

"Where's the tulang?" you might ask. If we move the tulang up, it looks a lot better!

Then there is their signature nasi pattaya, which comes with some paprik vegetables, cooked with either chicken or beef (they will ask you which one you want). We chose chicken because on that day, the other dishes that we ordered were all beef dishes.

On Fridays they also have nasi tomato, where we also get a choice of chicken or beef. This one is with beef.

We also tried their sup tulang, which is served with white rice.

Again, we can't see the tulang unless if we scoop it up:

The mee kuah tulang and the sup tulang had at least three pieces of beef each.

Then there is laici kang, which came with a load of ice, so my mother scooped some of the ice out (you can see some on the plate beneath the bowl).

Everything was good! I haven't tasted a bad dish here yet.

Soft hedgehog

This week's theme is soft.

Guess what it is?

It's Pickles!

You can see other photos of Pickles here and here.

Deserving understanding

Recently, a friend shared an article about Harvey Weinstein (the now infamous Hollywood producer - or was it director? - I'm not sure and I don't really care about getting it right), which detailed the lengths to which he went to investigate the actresses that he had harassed when they showed signs of wanting to speak up about it. I commented that I couldn't believe someone would go that far, to which my friend responded that these people are happy oppressing others, that they "get off on power". I replied, "These people don't deserve my understanding."

I recall, too, another time when someone shared a video about someone who got bullied so much by his schoolmates, was asked to kill himself, and eventually did. At that time, I said that I didn't understand these people who enjoy bullying others.

These are basically the same thing in the end, feeling happy when you see someone's misery caused by yourself. And it is something that I don't think deserves my understanding.

When some of my friends mention that they were bullied in school, I am always shocked. That is because I do not remember seeing any kind of bullying in my entire school life. Or maybe it did not happen to me, or in front of me. Or maybe it did happen to me, but I was not aware that it was bullying? One thing that my mother taught me from a very young age was to ignore those people who make me upset. Maybe some people did try to bully me. But at the lack of reaction, they probably stopped. Or they continued and I just didn't care. I don't know.

Anyway, whatever happened in the past, I see disturbing things in the present. At the workplace, among colleagues, I sometimes see exchanges that I feel are basically "someone trying to make another person upset for their viewing pleasure". In short, wouldn't that be called bullying? I guess it doesn't go so far though, because this is usually seen among people who are "friends" (supposedly). One example is when one person was trying his best to feed spoilers about a show to someone who had just started watching it. While the other person (the "victim") was covering his ears and trying to walk away. I really don't understand why someone would want to spoil a friend's viewing experience of a show. But back to what I was saying earlier, I guess I shouldn't even try to understand. Because people like these don't deserve my understanding.

What would be the difference between someone who tries their best to upset a friend to get a reaction out of them, and someone who bullies their schoolmate to get them to commit suicide? Isn't the difference just in the scale of their actions? Wouldn't that difference be comparable to, for example, the owner of a sundry shop and the owner of a chain-store empire?

(I don't think this post is written very well as an essay; let's just say it's a jumble of slightly connected thoughts and events, finally put down into writing.)

Bonda : a tasty find

Not long ago, a new nasi lemak kukus stall popped up on the roadside on my way to work. From the first time I saw it, I immediately felt that it looked really interesting.

I already planned to try it, but I decided to first ask a friend whether he knew about the stall, since he also took that road to work. But he said he hadn't been using that road lately... and knew nothing of the new stall. However he was interested to try it as well. So we found a day (and yet another person who wanted to try it), and I bought three packets of nasi lemak on my way to work, to have it for lunch.

Well, one person buying three packets of nasi lemak on their first visit... the guy there (it seemed to be a husband and wife venture; the wife scooped the rice, and the husband was calculating the price) was quite friendly and asked where I worked, etc.

Anyway, on that first visit I was actually surprised to see that they only scooped the rice for us, and then we chose our own dishes. There was quite a variety to choose from: fried chicken, rendang chicken, paru (lung), sotong (squid), sotong kering (cuttlefish), sambal kerang (cockles in sambal), prawns, fish (okay, all those with the exception of the chicken dishes are basically in some red sauce, either sambal or curry). There were also the usual nasi lemak sides: fried egg, cucumber slices, anchovies, peanuts, sambal. So it's like you can mix and match your own nasi lemak dish.

The first time, I took the safest option of chicken rendang, a fried egg, and some cucumber (plus some sambal) for my friends. I myself had paru (because it looked so tempting), the cuttlefish sambal, and some veggies with meat (they had a single veggie dish which consisted of stir-fried French beans and beef pieces. I actually thought the beef were pieces of chicken gizzard...). Each packet cost RM7.50.

The second time, I replaced the fried egg with anchovies and peanuts (to make it more like a nasi lemak set) for myself, because I wasn't that interested in having the egg. This one (below) cost RM7.

Actually those utensils are not mine... this photo was taken on my third visit there, when I bought this for a friend who saw me eat it the previous time. This time around I took the paru and the sotong, and cucumber. The price was RM9. The paru was good (which I knew from my first visit), but the sotong was normal.

Basically all the dishes that I've tried taste good, but the best dish is probably the rendang, and then the paru (for those who dare to eat it!) The price is not really murah (cheap) as advertised, but I feel that with the quality, it can't be considered expensive. Worth it! Not something to eat every single day, however, for the price and the lemak's effect on your health!

I marked the stall's location on a map to show my friends. So why not post it here too?

When time went still

When a clock is swept off a table to the floor, all that remains is stillness.

I really broke this alarm clock a few months back. I wasn't using it as an alarm clock, but as a table clock in my bedroom. One day after picking it up (to look at the time or something, I think I was sick at the time), I neglected to replace it properly in the corner of my dressing table. Why the corner? Because my dressing table has a mirror that opens out to reveal a shelf (what lousy design!), and only in that corner, I could open the shelf without pushing the clock off the table.

As mentioned, I didn't put it right back into the corner... and therefore the clock got smashed to the floor the next time I opened the shelf. :'(

I am really sad about it because I liked that clock a lot. I found another similar one, but it was the colourful type (there's a lot of those being sold all over the place). The only good thing to come out of this is that my table clock has a light again. (That button on the top right is supposed to turn on the light, but it has been broken for ages.)

By the way, you can see in the photo that the fluorescent bit even came off one of the clock hands. That was how hard it fell...and at least one of the hands is bent, which is probably one of the reasons it can't work any more!

Note: The scene in the photo is staged. But I do believe that the battery fell off at that time too!

The cafeteria avoidance plan

Recently I have been trying to avoid eating in the office cafeteria. The food there has never been very good, but eating there allows me to avoid the hassle of going outside. But nowadays the price has been going up, so I am now trying to plan leftovers when I cook during the weekends, to be able to bring them to office for lunch. Besides that, I also try to buy something on my way to work in the morning that I can have for lunch later.

All this while I have not brought sandwiches, even though I have brought some of my homemade bread to go with roast chicken, for example. This is because sandwiches can get soggy if I prepare them beforehand.

To get around the problem of sogginess, I have toyed around with the idea of bringing the sandwich ingredients in separate containers, but I have not done it till today.

The colours look so good! :D

Previously, the largest number of boxes I have brought for my lunch was three. One for my roast chicken, in a microwaveable container to reheat. Another one for my bread, and yet another for my salad (usually iceberg lettuce or cucumber and maybe tomato).

For sandwiches, I guessed I would need three boxes too...but then I felt that the ham (it's actually chicken slices, "gourmet" ones, the package says...lol) wouldn't be enough for a carnivorous eater like me, so I scrambled some eggs yesterday too. The ham was grilled in a pan without adding any oil. The eggs, with a little bit of olive oil, because I wasn't quite sure they would work without any oil. Both of these "meats" are in microwaveable containers to be reheated (just slightly, so that they're not cold) right before assembling the sandwiches. The veggies, on the other hand, were sliced in the morning to be fresh!

And not forgetting the bread... I made wholemeal bread, with some Yogood muesli (gourmet muesli! I'm such a gourmet, haha) added in. Actually I had bought the muesli to be eaten with milk for breakfast, like cornflakes, but I didn't like the texture. However it seems better in bread. The muesli contains some raisins and macadamia nuts (tiny tiny pieces) too. Since I have learned the hard way that adding dry fruits to my bread can dry the bread out, nowadays I soak the fruits in water before I add them to the bread. This time round, I also added some water to the initial bread recipe, and the bread turned out super soft. This might also be why the bread shrunk into itself immediately after it was done (seriously, I could see the sides shrinking from the sides of the bread pan!), but with that texture, I'm not complaining.

The jelly-like thing, again!

To add on to the previous post about the strange plant jelly, here are some photos to show what it looks like in my white fungus soup.

My white fungus soup already did not have that much water to begin with, and after adding the jelly, I don't think it can be called a soup any more! But it still tastes good... though it is now a practically solid dessert instead of a drink.

A strange jelly

Several months ago, the Chinese herb seller (I don't know what else to call him) at the market sold me this jelly-like thing. I still haven't figured out exactly what it is, but he told me that it is plant-based, and recently I saw a packet of the same thing with "precious plant tonic" written on it. (The first time he introduced me to it, the packaging only had Chinese words on it.) But I couldn't find anything about it online.

One small packet cost RM12:

A big packet (with actual packaging) was sold at RM50 for five times this amount, if not mistaken.

The seller told me to soak the jelly in water so that it would expand. He said I could just eat it like that, or use it in desserts.

It turned out that I had to soak the jelly a long long time before it would expand properly (and not even fully... there was always still a slightly harder centre, even after soaking it overnight).

After straining the jelly, I got something like this:

It was totally tasteless (the seller did tell me that), so I tried cooking it with some honeycomb sugar that I had on hand. The result is a sweet tasty dessert (though nothing to shout about).

I also put it in a red date and longan dessert soup (I made a little just for the purpose of trying out this jelly). I scooped just a little bit of the soup into a bowl so that we can see the jelly bits better.

I guess it's nice to have some jelly in the dessert soup. But it's not something that I cannot live without! I still have a lot of the jelly cubes left, and I don't know when I will finish using them, but I guess I won't be buying any again.

Travel is difficult

This week's Photo Friday theme is travel. That took me to thinking of travelling bags, and I thought it would be nice to have one of my plush toys carry a mini backpack.

Only one could carry it properly without its arms being squeezed into an unnatural-looking angle.

That was the first photo I took, and the view that I initially wanted. But there was a shadow because of the camera flash. On the other hand, without the camera flash, it would be too dark to see the bear's feet. (yes, it's actually standing!)

But it was actually very hard to make the bear stand without falling... I had to prop its forehead against the bed headboard, and it still refused to stay standing for more than a few seconds. After a few attempts it fell down in a sitting position, and I thought, this could work too!

"Travel is difficult. I give up!" says the tired little bear.

 Poor little bear... backpacking ain't easy!

Safe koay chiap

Today I tried a new Thai koay chiap stall that had opened at Pisa Corner. To sum it up, I was dissatisfied.

I took the small portion which cost RM5 (big one costs RM7). It's rather small... just look at it poured into a bowl.

Looks slightly better after adding soup.

However I wouldn't complain about the size if it had tasted good enough. But as you can see from the first photo, there were no internal organs at all. It had half an egg, some pork meat (which is carved from pork leg, I think, because I saw pork leg at the stall), some pig skin (which was probably from the pork leg too), some roasted pork (she sliced it on the spot), and some tau kua (beancurd).

This is why I call it a "safe" koay chiap... the only thing that people might not want is the pig skin. But I don't want a safe one... when I eat koay chiap, I want it to be loaded with internal organs that we seldom find in other dishes!

As for the "koay", they look nice, but they were a little too soft for my liking. So basically I am dissatisfied.