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Thursday, 28 December 2006

Public Appeal: Please Help the Flood victims

I've two appeals here one for Malaysian Red Crescent Relief Fund and the other one is for the Orang Asli community in Endau Rompin affected by the recent floods. Please read on.


Malaysian Red Crescent Relief Fund

The Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS) is appealing to the general public including the private sector and corporate organisations for generous contributions towards the Malaysian Red Crescent Relief Fund set up to provide financial and relief assistance to people affected by the floods.

All cash contributions are tax-exempted and are to be made payable to:"Malaysian Red Crescent Society" or Maybank A/C No - 5144 2210 3788 or call Tel: +603 - 4257 8726, Fax: +603 - 4257 3537 (Operations Room) for details. Those who would like to have a tax-exemption receipt must fax in your bank-in slip and details (name, address and contact no) to the fax stated.

MRCS is also appealing for items that will be distributed to the various relief centres as follows:

Perishable Food
Rice, Instant Noodle and Milk - Infant Formula and Adult

Can Food
Chicken/Mutton/Beef, Vegetables, Sardines, Sugar, Coffee/Tea (Dust), Biscuits, Salt, Cooking Oil, Mineral Water

Non-Perishable Items
Sanitary Pads, Pampers, Toothpaste, Toothbrush, Towels, Soap, Detergent, Dettol, Slippers, Rubbish Bag

Medicines
Metronidazole, C.Penicillin, Ciprofloxacin, Anti-emetic - Metaclopramide, Antidiarrhoeal - Lomotil, Paracetomol tablets/suppository, Voltaran suppository and Antibiotic eye drops.

School Items
School Bags, Uniform, Books, Stationaries and Bicycles.

More details can be found at http://www.redcrescent.org.my/


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Orang Asli community in Endau Rompin

I've gotten a long mail from my friend in Kechara House, so I'm going to summarised it as best as I could...

Kechara House (KH) is a Buddhist Center set up in the year 2002 at Sunway Mas. Website : http://www.kecharahouse.com/

Paulyne is involved with the rescue and relief team for the Johor Orang Asli Flood Victims at Endau Rompin. She is extending an SOS plea to Kechara members and the public for urgent donation to buy basic necessities like water, food, blanket, medication & manpower to help with distribution, etc. In response, Kechara House is setting up a task force for collection and organization of this appeal.

Please contact Kechara House Administrator, May Woo ( 0128338930 ), Paulyne ( 0123277898 ) or Wai Meng ( 012 212 0718) , regarding your pledge of donation or help. Whoever wishes to volunteer for this task force, please contact Maple or Paulyne directly.

Paulyne has been involved in a private initiative to help the Orang Asli at Endau Rompin for the past one year. The Mission to bring supplies and medicine to the settlement will commence on the 5th of January 2007. ( see below for more details)

More background from Paulyne on 22 Dec:

There're about 450 Jakun tribe people squatting in the Endau Rompin National Park HQ, totally cut off by floods, with inadequate medical and food supplies. Many already started having diarrhea and we suspect cholera will follow soon.

A major relief mission has been organised, involving volunteers from KL, Penang and S'pore. There's always room for a team from Kechara House. Please bear in mind that only heavy-duty vehicles will be permitted for this mission. I will personally go into the jungles as part of the mission. Be reminded that only very experienced off-track drivers will be accepted as this can be dangerous. Those who are keen to go, you have to take anti-malaria medication immediately, pls. get them from me.

Next, the mission has been scheduled for 5-8 Jan, Michael (team leader) will be briefing all participants before the trip. Those who are prone to skin allergies, scared of leeches, snakes, are not encouraged to participate. Once in the jungle, we'll be cut off from all communication, so please keep yourself fit for the trip. Please ask them to contact me for more info, if required.

More from Paulyne on 21 Dec:

Here are more info about the plea for help. .... this morning, my friend Michael received a call from Endau Rompin Park that the entire orang asli is under water. Their livestock is gone, and so are most of their belongings.

Being a neglected community, they're appealing to people like Michael and myself for aid. We have just sent them shoes and goodies for school kids a few weeks ago.

Fortunately, there no loss of human lives yet, but some of them are beginning to show signs of illness, diarrhea and very soon we suspect cholera will set in. There are no medical facilities nearby, the nearest town Kahang is about 2 hours away by road and currently all roads are not passable to any kind of vehicles.

What is worrying most is a tree called the 'Ipoh' tree (I think) which will emit poison once its bark is wet. We really worried that the flood waters will probably carry this poison into the rivers and kill all the fishes and prawns as well.

We are inviting caring members of Kechara House to collect donations in cash and kind towards the purchase of water, milk, food, blankets, towels, clothes (which we've already collected plenty by now but still need a lot of children's stuff) and medication.

As soon as the roads are open to heavy vehicles, I'll be heading to Endau Rompin to assist in distributing the things to the stranded orang asli. Members are most welcome to be part of the team but only heavy-duty vehicles and 4WD can be used for this mission. Kembaras and Vitaras are out! And drivers must be very experienced, team members are expected to get dirty!

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We've gotten one sms last nite asking the public not to donate instant noodles to the Orang Asli cos they don't take them but bee hoon is most welcomed.

Friends who're reading this,

If you do not fancy calling the members at Kechara House, you can call me too, I can get your donations to route there!

Thank you so much for your help.

Sticky Toffee Date Pudding

DH Sticky Toffee Date Pudding (without toffee sauce) 02

I hope everyone have enjoyed their Christmas and I'm so happy I could access blogger and some blogspot sites today. We're praying that they gonna reroute or fix the underwater cable soon. Goshhh so many disasters happening round the world. Just a reminder... have you guys made your donation to the Malaysian Flood Relief fund? Not yet?? Okay will post up a plug next.

I've successfully made a very lovely Sticky Toffee Date Pudding with Donna Hay's recipe from Modern Classics Book 2. The pudding has cake like texture and it's lovely even on its own without the toffee sauce. I find the sauce is a tad too sweet, so might need to cut down the amount of sugar. I've used organic brown sugar for the toffee sauce which lend a darker and richer colour.

DH Sticky Toffee Date Pudding (with toffee sauce)

Best served the pudding swimming in toffee sauce with some sinful vanilla ice-cream.

DH Sticky Toffee Date Pudding (with toffee sauce and vanilla icecream)


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Sunday, 24 December 2006

Have a Blessed Christmas...

**MTV style post ahead**

Menu for Hope III

The Menu for Hope III had come to a close... with a BANG!!!! Yea... the amount food bloggers have raised this year have surpasses many folds as it stands at USD58,281.70!!! I would like to thank you to all donors be it raffle ticket buyers or to those who have donated gifts and services, the organisers especially Pim. Your generousity will help us feed the children of the world thru the UN World Food Programme.

May Lord Buddha bless all kind soul who have made this a success.

Don't forget to tune in on 15 January 2007 for the results of the draw.


Christmas Fruitcake

Remember my Christmas Fruitcakes project??? I've gave away all the fruitcakes to our close family members and friends save for one small one for ourself. I hope they gonna like them cos I certainly did. I just had a slice and I have to say it's dense, flavourful and heavily sedated with brandy haha cos I was greedy. I didn't air it for a while before eating!

Here are some photos for you to enjoy... hmmm who knows next year you might be able to order these from me kekeke... so keep your fingers crossed.

fruitcake2006-04

fruitcake2006-01 fruitcake2006-03 fruitcake2006-06



I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Christians and those of you who are celebrating Christmas... a blessed Christmas.


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Not-so-Starry-after-all

DH Star Cookies (with pink sugar) DH Star Cookies (with green sugar) DH Star Cookies (with colourful beads)

Don't these cookies looked festive and nice??? Well, it was supposed to be Donna Hay's Star Cookies recipe that I gotten from the latest edition of Donna Hay Magazine. Somehow, the dough is simply too soft to be rolled out and cut out with cookies cutter. My poor boiboi... I had promised to let him cut the cookies with the star-shaped cookie cutter, anyway he had fun too sprinkling colour sugars and bead on the cookies.

I had added extra flour into the dough mix but yet it turned out sooo soft. I ended up rolling the dough into balls then flatten with the back of a fork. However, the cookies tasted superb... buttery with melt-in-the-mouth texture. I got rounds of compliments from my guinea pigs!

Star Cookies

250g butter
3/4 cup castor sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 cups flour, sifted (I've added another 1/2 cup flour, at least!)
1/2 cup clear sanding sugar for decor

Preheat oven to 180C. Place butter and sugar in electric mixer and beat till pale and creamy. Add vanilla and egg yolk, beat till combined. Add flour and beat till smooth doughs forms. Divide dough into 4 portions and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 15 mins or until dough is firm. (I've left it in there for more than 2 hours which is rather firm but sort of like melted right out of the fridge.)

Roll dough between two sheets of non-stick paper until 3mm thick. Remove paper and cut with star-shaped cookies cutter. Place cookies on tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with clear sanding sugar. Bake for 8 minutes or till golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Ref: Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 30, Page 148

I've coloured my sugar to make them looked more festive... spoon some sugar in a bowl and drop liquid colouring onto sugar. Mix well till colour is blended. Add in more drops till you get the colour you desired. Remember to work with very small amount of colouring. Otherwise the whole batch of sugar will become too dark.

Oh yeah, leave the cookies to cool in the tray for a while before lifting out as they will still be a bit soft.

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Friday, 22 December 2006

Happy Dong Zhi

**Non-Halal Post**

Today the Chinese are celebrating Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice Festival) which is the most important festival of the year. I've been busy as ever with work and I had cancelled my leave today but thank goodness I do not need to stay back late today. This means I can go back to my parents' home for a homecooked festive meal... YAY!!!!

Last year, I had mentioned some of the dishes that will regularly appeared from my mom's kitchen but this time, AHEM, I've got pictures to show!

Would there be lotus root soup or old cucumber soup?

ty - lotus root soup dz - old cucumber soup


Steamed chicken which I think a must.

dz steam chic

Siu yoke (roasted pork)

dz - siew yoke

Deep fried fish.

ty - fried fish

Hakka Zhar Nyuk (braised pork with sea cucumber and black fungus).

ty - char yoke

Or would there be braised pork ribs with sea cucumber and clams?? Psssttt... usually there is a sea cucumber dish cos my mom super sayang (love in Malay) her one and only son-in-law!!! He loves sea cucumber.

dz - ribs wid sea cucumber

Mandatory of a vege dish, stir fried brocolli and cauliflower.

dz mixed vege

And ends with tong yuen (kuih ee) which I have no picture to show.

Tell me, if these dishes are featured on your dining table as well???

Read about my previous posts on Dong Zhi here and here.

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Menu For Hope III: Calling Once, Calling Twice...

In one day, it'll be gone yeah your chance on buying raffle tickets to win all the fantastic prizes. This is the final call!

I've been humbled by the whole experience and was impressed with the generousity. The amount we have raised so far had breached USD40K mark!!!! Yippee... the actual amount at the time of writing is USD44,101.70. Thank you to all donors.

So hurry and put in your donation! To donate and bid, please go to http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII.

This will be my final post on this until the announcement of the results. Wishing all of you a Blessed Christmas and have a wonderful year ahead!!!

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Thursday, 21 December 2006

Corned Beef With Diced Capsicum and Onion

corned beef with dice capsicum n onions

Follow up with my earlier corned beef recipe, I did this with the other half of the can. Fry onions in some oil till translucent before adding in cubed capsicums. Add in corned beef next and sprinkle with loads of black pepper. Dish up and serve while it's hot.

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Menu For Hope III: December 21

You know what??? The total raised so far have reached USD38,036.70!!!

We have two more days to go, so hurry and put in your donation! Check out last minute additions of prizes over here and here. Do check our entire list of great prizes.

Kat of Kungfoodie had painstakingly listed down items that could be shipped internationally so you can clearly see what can be sent to you across the continents free of charge by the donors. Thanks Kat for your hard work.

I've noticed quite a number of bids for AP29 which is the RM500 worth of dining voucher at El Cerdo, Kuala Lumpur. I'm not sure if some if these bidders are from Malaysia so bidders please take note that El Cerdo is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and it is a non-halal restaurant. Please check your bids again and amend your bid prize should there be a mistake. Thank you.

To donate and bid, please go to http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII.


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Wednesday, 20 December 2006

Review: Sticky Fingers Cafe & Restaurant

UPDATED 10 July 2007: This restaurant has been closed down. Thank goodness!

**Non-Halal Post**

Sticky Fingers Cafe & Restaurant is Located along Jalan Mesui, where the famous No Black Tie is. Jalan Mesui is over on the quieter side of Changkat Bukit Bintang happening area. There were a couple of cafe and watering holes opened in this street before but sad to say none of them could sustain except for No Black Tie whom had returned after their previous premises were taken over and converted into a bed and breakfast joint. Next to Sticky Fingers, there is one restaurant opening soon and beside this restaurant, a yoga centre is in the midst of taking shape. I hope these swanky places won't take away those hawkers in that area else no more good and cheap grubs in that area for lunch.

Anyway, I saw this discussion in Friedchillies about ribs and someone recommended this Sticky Fingers so off we went one day to wait for the bad traffic jam in the area to subside. The following are the interiors of Sticky Fingers which is very dim... bad for photography haha... so please excuse my photos.


sf interior01 sf interior02 bar sf interior03 sofas

Here are the sample menu available, click to enlarge.


sf menu01 sf menu02 sf menu03 sf menu04 sf menu05

Hubby ordered the Full Slab Pork Ribs at RM28.00. He asked for Original Sticky BBQ Sauce which the waitress claimed is their signature sauce. This pic is really bad huh cos I didn't have the time to fiddle with my phone settings so I just hentam with the lights on. The ribs came with corn on the cob (which I wished they could have stick a skewer in to ease eating but then again we were supposed to eat with our fingers right???), some salad which resembles coleslaw and a baked potato with a wee bit of sour cream on top. Looked huge and its full of meat... kinda bad news cos the meat is not tender at all especially on the thicker part of the ribs. We were expecting meat that can be teared off easily from the bones. The sauce is so-so only.

sf full rack pork ribs rm28

I asked for Half SlabLamb (RM21.00) with the same sauce just to try out this choice of meat. Looked good eh??? Meat pretty tender but could be better. Taste wise, the sauce did not manage to mask the musky smell of the lamb or most prolly they've used cheaper meat? I've no idea since I'm no expert in the meat department.

sf half rack lamb rm21

All I need to ask my not-fussy-at-all-with-food hubby was "Would you come again?". His reply was NO... so now you go figure. Worst of all I've nudged hubby to come here when we have the choice of Neroteca nearby sighhhh... very disappointed.

sf addy


sf map

Sticky Fingers Cafe & Restaurant charges 10% service tax.

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Tuesday, 19 December 2006

Pressie for Me??

**Rojak language post, will not translate hehe**

Long time no posting about my boiboi hor??? He's 4 years old already and very tall, super chi char, talk non-stop, ask non-stop, jump non-stop, run non-stop... *pulling hair*

See, my boiboi gave me this present. Wahhhh all wrapped up...

gift1

So I opened lor... hmmm... what's inside leh??

gift2

Hohoho...

gift3

The story was this... my boiboi apparently brought the cheese box (my dad usually kept stuff like these, ice-cream sticks etc for boiboi to play with) together with the coins to my dad. He asked him to help wrap up the present for mummy... wah very sweet hor my boiboi, no? hahaha

Whilst wrapping, my dad got curious and asked him why give mummy coins?? My boiboi pandai-pandai go reply "So that mummy will take the money to go buy toys for me"

*blink-blink*

Kek sei or not??? *roll eyes*

My Christmas Fruitcakes

My Christmas Fruitcakes all wrapped up...

wrapped fruitcake01

wrapped fruitcake02

wrapped fruitcake03

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Monday, 18 December 2006

Kiddy Menu: Stir Fried Loh Shue Fun

fried lohshuefun

Loh Shue Fun (loosely translated as rat tail noodle in Cantonese is actually a type of rice noodles) is a very versatile noodles. You can use it in soup noodles, stir fry or simply just ladle meat sauce over it. Kids loved them!!!

This is a very simple dish, all you need is blanched loh shue fun; finely shredded cabbage, oyster mushroom, onion and carrot; and minced meat (be it chicken, pork or beef but I've never used beef before) and shrimps marinaded in some soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and a bit of corn flour.

First, heat oil in wok and put in the onion, fry till translucent before adding in cabbage and carrots. Stir and add in mushroom last. Dish up and set aside.

Pour in oil in the same wok, and add in some chopped garlic. Once fragrant, put in the mince meat and shrimps. Fry till cooked and pour in some oyster sauce and fish sauce to taste. Add in the blanched loh shue fun and the dished up vegetables. Add a bit of water, stir fry till well mixed and until it's fairly dry. Dish up and eat while they're hot.

My boiboi who's not very fond of cabbage, whacked up everything in one go! A great dish to hide light coloured vegetables like cabbage. Try it!


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