To Ruvie when you've grown up and become a father yourself

Firstly,
Thank your wife and love her ever so much more for choosing to breastfeed your baby. You will never have to go through, nor understand how it feels to have your nipples cracked, bleeding, and sore from the early days of nursing. Support your wife and give her all the help she needs in baby care, because she will be worn out from just nursing alone. And let her eat whatever she wants. And for goodness' sake, don't ever suggest giving a bottle of formula.

Secondly,
Thank your wife again and love her with all your heart for choosing to continue to breastfeed your toddler. You will never have to go through, nor understand how it feels to have your nipples CHOMPED on by a 3 year old with an almost full set of baby teeth as he is falling asleep and (probably) dreaming of eating his favourite salmon or beef or chicken or pork. It is so much more painful than being gummed by a 5-6 mo baby who is only teething, and it WILL bring tears to your wife's eyes. If she cries out, go immediately to her and hug her and rub her back and tell her you really appreciate what she does. And NEVER suggest that she stops.

And for your information, your Dad has done all these, and I know you will too.

Love you lots,
Mom

Food safety

I've recently been bombarded with a lot of info on keeping toxins out of the food and drinks that we consume. Among the great and easy-to-read articles are:

Plastics
More on Plastics
Aluminium

Avoid:
Using plastics labelled with recycling code #3, #6, #7 (unless labelled as bio-based plastic), ESPECIALLY if it's polycarbonate, which is under #7
Using plastic containers to contain hot food or to heat food
Plastic bottled water except in areas where other water sources are questionable (eg. in BKK)
PVC-based cling wrap (mine is LDPE)
Aluminium cookware unless they are made from anodised aluminium
Aluminium can drinks (gosh, this is sooo hard!)
Canned foods

Cut down on:
Table salt, use a natural salt instead
Baking powder unless it's labelled as aluminium-free
Aluminium foil for food
Anti-dandruff stuff if it contains Al
Disposable containers in general

I am glad that both the kids' sports bottles turned out to be #4, since they both love their bottles so much - Ray's is Disney Princesses and Ruvie's is Dora, yep, DORA. Tomorrow I shall go and check the plastic feeding bowls and cutlery they're using.

I am VERY sad to discover that Avent milk bottles, the only ones I feel have suitable teats for breastfed babies, are made of polycarbonate. I hope they upgrade soon to a safer type of plastic, more customer feedback would help. It is interesting though, that Avent's Magic Cup is made from PE or PP, safer...

Many thanks to Lynnette for your posts on Asiaparents. I've been procrastinating about doing the right thing, but you've woken me up.

Cute potty picture

Somebody on the big EC list posted this link to a kawaii photo. Hontouni kawaii nee!!!

http://www.lolhome.com/funny-picture-9120539090.html

No Knead Bread

I've made this 2 times (just plain flour) and I must say the results are great! This does not produce the sandwich-type bread that Singaporeans are so used to, but is the crusty, chewy insides loaf that Westerners are more used to. Like HL said, texture is like French loaf!

I will be trying out variations soon, whole wheat flour and perhaps some parmesan cheese somewhere. More variations at www.breadtopia.com.

Asthma

It is just too bad that Ruvie, who has received loads more breastmilk than his sister ever did, is so much more susceptible to asthma. He has probably been to KKH more times in his three years than Ray ever did in her six. And in the KKH records, his diagnoses have been classified as Asthma, whereas Ray's are shortness of breath, bronchitis, and never Asthma so far.

I always hoped that they could both escape the fate I have, the horrid feeling of not being able to get enough oxygen, and when I was older, the fear that I could die. Asthma is not something that you can "leave for a while, see if it gets better". But it looks very much like Ruvie is definitely going to follow in my footsteps. And I had hoped that breastfeeding him a lot could have helped him escape it.

It is interesting though, that Ray is more like my sister, who has slight asthma and bad eczema. I on the other hand, have bad asthma and slight eczema (Ruvie's like me). Thankfully, I don't have to take regular medications to control my asthma, well, my asthma specialist is unhappy about it, but I have found that my current regime works well. I am also very glad that from my own medical history and experience, I am able to deal better with my children's illness.

We've finally sold our HDB flat!

Yay! Took quite some time from the date we put it on the market, but it's finally over. Even when we were about to apply for the HDB appointment, our buyer had some problems with selling her condo, so we thought we'd have to look for another buyer. But it all turned out well, and we're pretty well-acquainted with our buyer. Nice lady.

And now... to wait for the market to drop so we can go scout for flats. I NEED to get outta here.

Chicken cheese bread

Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup water
2 tbsp oilve oil
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp mixed Italian herbs (basil, oregano, thyme)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
In large mixing bowl, mix flour, sugar, and yeast. Create a well in the centre and add water. With a pair of chopsticks, stir and pull the mixture into a dough. Knead a few times and add olive oil. Knead for 5-8 min, till dough is smooth, elastic and pliable. Cover and let rise for about 40 min.
Meanwhile, heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet and fry onion till almost translucent. Set aside. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Fry, skin side down, till cooked through and juices run clear. Remove from heat and let cool till you are able to shred with your hands. Mix shredded chicken back with its cooked juices, onion, and 1/2 tbsp of the herbs.
On a lightly floured surface, punch down dough to remove the stale air from the first rise. Divide dough evenly into 5 pieces. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Lightly grease a large baking tray or cookie sheet with olive oil.
For each piece, roll out into an oval shape about 10 inches by 5-6 inches wide, 0.5cm thick. Sprinkle with cheese, leaving edges clear. Top with 1/5 of chicken mix, then fold in the long ends and roll up to tuck, somewhat like a spring roll. Pinch to seal. You should have a log about 8-10 inches long. Lay on cookie sheet.
After all logs have been made, brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle the rest of the herbs evenly over all logs. Bake for about 15-20 min, till golden brown on top. Slice and serve.

Dough, yeast, etc

I always used to prefer using the breadmaker on the Dough cycle to get whatever dough I needed for making rolls and pizza. This is because kneading by hand was always such a chore and mess, PLUS I felt the end result wasn't as good as using the breadmaker.

But thanks to a cookery show I've been watching a lot of recently, I've learnt to hand knead again, with great results. I now do my kneading in a big glass Luminarc bowl, and I've learnt how to add ingredients and handle the dough so that it really is smooth, elastic and springy after kneading for only about 5 min. From there I can make whatever rolls I want to make, with very little fuss. And along with the finished product comes a wonderful sense of satisfaction. No wonder Angela said kneading is therapeutic for her!

This increased frequency of making bread also means my package of yeast gets used up more quickly and is less in danger of expiring first. I've wasted quite a few packages of yeast in the past. Great stuff!

Howl's Moving Castle

The cover of the book, not the movie.

I watched the Japanese animated film by Miyazaki Hayao some years back. Honestly, because it was in Japanese and the subs were rather too fast for me, I didn't get much of the plot. Till now, I can only remember scattered images.

A few months back I found out that the film was actually based on the book of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones (whose book Archer's Goon I read some years ago), and set out to get my hands on it from the local library. Muahaha! Just started reading a couple of days ago.

It's quite annoying really, because my mind keeps conjuring up images from the film, so much that I cannot enjoy the book from a fresh new perspective. Thankfully, the movie missed out quite a lot of details (or maybe it's just that I didn't catch them in the film since most of it went past in a blur), so I am able to reimagine the scene. A lot more things make sense now, but I am only about halfway through.

I have devoured Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series, Dalemark quartet and am now setting out to read her individual novels. I love that every story has some element of the supernatural in it. Don't understand why they're mostly classified under the Young Readers' (10-12 yrs) section though. I doubt I would have understood most of it if I were that age.

Anything Goes Muffins

Before I lose this recipe again. Makes 12-18 muffins.

Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup white sugar
3 tsps baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup oil
Filling - as much as you want of choc chips, chopped walnut, shaved carrot, oatmeal/rolled oats

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degC. Line muffin pans with baking cups.
Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl (sift for lighter muffins) and mix thoroughly. In another, large bowl, combine all wet ingredients and add dry ingredients, stirring till all dry ingredients are just moistened. Remember that undermixed batter makes the yummiest muffins.
Fill baking cups with batter till 1/3 or 1/2 full and bake for 15-20 min.

Pinky and The Brain

People in my age group will remember this short cartoon. Unfortunately Kids Central doesn't show this anymore, so my kids don't get to, ahem, enjoy it. Somebody once sent me the lyrics and the .wav to the theme song, and I have never gotten it out of my system. I hope it will bring you some laughs (and don't ask me why I can remember all the words by heart!).

Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
The other's insane
They're laboratory mice
Their genes have been spliced
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the
Brain Brain Brain Brain
Brain Brain Brain Brain BRAIN

Before each night is done
Their plan will be unfurled
By the dawning of the sun
They'll take over the world
They're Pinky and the Brain
Yes Pinky and the Brain
Their twilight campaign
Is easy to explain
To prove their mousey worth
They'll overthrow the earth
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the
Brain Brain Brain Brain
Brain Brain Brain Brain
NARF!

Steamed Milk Custard

Ingredients:
1 egg white
3/4 cup fresh milk
1 tsp ginger juice (optional)
sugar to taste (about 1-2 tsps)

Method:
Heat milk in a small saucepan just till it starts to bubble, do not let milk boil over.
Beat eggwhite well in a small heatproof bowl (eg. rice bowl, chawanmushi bowl, dessert bowl) and pour in milk, whisking continuously. Add sugar and ginger juice.
Immediately steam over high heat for 2 min and then low heat for 1 min. Serve hot or chilled.

Tip:
I usually do this with leftover eggwhites when I use yolks in other recipes, so I get 3-5 bowls of custard to eat over a few days. Yum! If you are going to chill your custard, remember to cover each bowl with cling wrap before putting it in the fridge, to protect the custard from absorbing smells in the fridge.

Chocolate Pound Cake

Makes 2 8X4 loaves or 24-30 cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
1 (8oz.) block cream cheese, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tsps baking powder (optional)
5 eggs
2 tsps vanilla flavour

Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degC, grease and flour loaf pans or line muffin pan with baking cups.
In a large bowl, cream butter, cream cheese and sugar at medium speed till light and fluffy, about 5 min. In a separate bowl, sift together plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Beat in flour mixture and eggs alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
Pour into pans or muffin cups and bake for 1hr, till toothpick inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

Food science:
The authentic pound cake has no leavening agent, eg. baking soda or baking powder in it. Natural leavening comes from whipping of the fats in the recipe, hence the creaming part must go on for some time, at least till the colour of the butter lightens quite a bit. This is why the baking powder is optional, as sometimes I find adding it doesn't help at all, at other times it does make the cake a little lighter. Nothing is expired so I haven't figured it out. There are recipes using milk and whipping cream instead of the cream cheese, but I haven't had such good results with milk, and I haven't tried whipping cream yet (all my whipping cream goes on New England Clam Chowder, yummy! but oh so fattening).

It is worth mentioning that HL who doesn't eat desserts and cakes in general said this was GOOD. Essentially because it's not too sweet and yet very rich and chocolatey. Also received rave reviews at a kids' party I went to today. But I've done this a couple of times in succession so the next cake will probably be something else eg. carrot cupcakes?

Not AGAIN!!

Last night.10.45pm.

We were all in our room with the door closed, Ray was already asleep. Suddenly we heard the house alarm go off, but thinking that my Mom was downstairs, she should be able to fix it. However, the alarm persisted and I began to realise that this sounded different from the usual "forced entry" alarm.

So I opened my bedroom door and was hit straight in the face with a cloud of smoke and a terrible charred smell. Previous experiences (yep, this wasn't the first and it probably wouldn't be the last) told me immediately what had happened. Mom must have left something cooking on the stove, gone into her room and totally forgotten about it.

So we rushed downstairs, I to my Mom's room to knock, only to find that SHE WAS OUT. I could feel the lava boiling up inside me. HL had turned off the fire by this time, so we went to open all the doors and windows. It was rice porridge, and only a little in the big pot, so what did she have to go and heat it up for? And even left the house without turning it off!

Thankfully, the house is equipped with a smoke alarm, as we cannot smell or hear anything once we are in our room.

Good Old-Fashioned Pancakes Recipe

Taken from Allrecipes.com, with some minor adjustments. I make these in the form of mini-pancakes because Ray likes them that way. Also great for bringing to school potlucks with some knobs of butter on top.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp butter melted
1/2 tsp vanilla

Method
Sift flour, baking powder and salt and sugar into a large bowl. For fluffier pancakes, sift twice.
Make a well in the centre and pour in the rest of the ingredients. Mix till smooth.
Heat a nonstick frying pan ovver medium high heat. Pour approximately 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan per pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Memories of my Mama

I can hear her calling my name in her own special way...
I remember the way she doted on my kids (just as she used to dote on me when I was a kid) and was always asking after them...
How she asked me everytime she saw me whether I had enough money to spend...
Her expression as she sat on her chair, blankly staring into space...
The lighting up of her face when she turned to look at the kids playing around her...
The way she grinned at my jokes or when I teased her...

The grief still remains, if I allow myself to sink into it. Perhaps in time, it will fade away into a more bearable sadness, and then perhaps a tender memory. But the memory will always be with me.

Missing Someone

I wake up in the middle of the night and as the mists of sleep begin to clear, I begin to think of my Mama. My brain registers that she's not there anymore, sitting in her chair in the little flat at Bedok, and my eyes start to flood.

I did not cry when they brought her body back to the void deck, not when I gazed upon her face, nor when I helped put on a shoe for her (according to the rites). When I speak with my relatives, I am usually smiling and eager to do whatever I can to help.

But in the middle of the night, when nobody is around to watch, I miss my Mama. I miss her SOOO much! And when I am in her flat, sitting in a chair or using the loo, everything seems just so normal, and it's so easy to imagine that she's still there, sitting in her usual chair, or walking slowly around leaning on her walking aid.

I love looking at the photos taken in her youth. She looks so lovely, posing at the tender age of 20 or thereabouts for the camera, and we have a few really pretty ones taken in the studio. My grandma always liked to look pretty (which girl doesn't?), and would always insist on dyeing her hair whenever we brought her to the hairdresser's. Everybody else would try, in vain, to dissuade her, because we all feel that she looks really good with silver hair. Our hairdresser will be asking us, the next time we visit her salon, when Mama will be coming to use her services again. It will be tough.

I never knew it would be this tough.

Too soon to say Goodbye

I woke up this morning to the news that my Grandma (who cared for me from babyhood till I was in P1), died in her sleep last night. She was 89 years old according to the Lunar Calendar.

My Uncle who lives with her in a rented studio apartment in Bedok, told us that she didn't wake at her usual time this morning, didn't respond to his calling, and when he touched her, she was cold all over. He'd tried to rub oil on her temples etc, but to no avail. So he called my Dad to go over and ascertain.

So we are now in the middle of making preparations for the wake/funeral.

It was totally unexpected, because she was in relatively good health, after a serious ear infection more than a year ago which caused her to lose consciousness and finally required her to undergo an operation. But she had been well since her recovery.

I am only thankful that she left peacefully - according to my Uncle she had not been eating much the last couple of days but had gotten up and moved around as per normal. I wonder whether she had known that she was leaving us soon. She woke up in the middle of the night to relieve herself and after returning to bed, did not wake again.

Mama, wherever you are, I will be praying for your soul. I will miss you much, and wish that I had brought your lunch yesterday and seen your face, heard your voice, one last time.

I know we don't say this in our Cantonese culture, but I love you.

More babies in Singapore!

My heartiest congratulations to Rita and Serene's families on their newest arrivals.

It still tickles me to remember that Rita's husband, on his way to the labour ward to meet Rita, bumped into Serene who didn't reach the delivery suites in time and was birthing at the lobby of Mount Alvernia! Drama-mama, man...

Wishing you both a blessed 5th and 6th babymoon respectively.

Review of the BKK trip

What I remember most - the heat. Traffic. Food. The heat. Shopping. People. Did I mention the heat? Oh I did. And Tuk-tuks.

Ray and I enjoyed our rides on the Tuk-tuks very much, and it's my regret that I didn't manage to get a good shot of one or other of us in one.

Unfortunately, because Ruvie was just not well enough, we spent a lot of time in our hotel room, either trying to get him to sleep or waiting for him to wake up from his nap. He wouldn't eat at all, not even his favourite sausages and bacon, and nursed occasionally, so I got pretty worried. In fact, he's noticeably lighter and thinner now. But his appetite seems better.

We did consider taking turns to go shopping, and I did manage to cover quite a bit on our 3rd day, with Ray in tow. We went all over Baiyoke Sky (to find they had nothing we wanted), then we headed over to Indra Square, and got a headstart on real shopping, all within 2 hrs.

I need to go look for this OTHER wholesale centre Lynn was talking about, seems they have lots of hair accessories, real cheap. Wonder when I'll get a chance to go again? Especially since I'd much rather get to Taiwan.