Sunday, November 23, 2008

terhalang

awak...
asal awk suke buat sy mcm nie eh?
sy pun tataw awk main2 ke awk betul2..?
sy kdng2 sdeyh sgt3 bile awk buat mcm ni...
sy perlukan awk skrng
sy nak nangis sgt skrng ni
sy nak jwpn yg betul...

awak...
awk tataw camne awk tu bererti dlm life sy
awk tataw camne sy happy dgn awk
awk tataw hati sy
perasaan sy

entahlah.
x terkata.
kdng2 happy...
kdng2 tahla...
awak yg blh buat sy happy
n awk jgak yg blh buat sy down...

just hoping that...
someday somehow...
sy akan nmpk hikmah
di sebalik semua kejadian..

insya allah~

Home with Jamie Oliver

The best thing I bought from my Australia trip last year was the book Jamie at Home. I read it every once in a while and I never get tired looking at Jamie's face. Aside from that, his interesting recipes and the garden are really awesome. I'm glad to have this book because up to now it's not yet available in our local bookstore. The next best thing I want to have is his old book called "Jamie's Italy".




Vegetarian Menu Planning

My parents requested I cook them a vegetarian meal this Thanksgiving. This is not so unusual. My mother has always fasted on Thursdays, only eating a vegetarian meal in the evening. So for years, we've celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with traditional turkey and sides, Indian goat curry, wild pheasant, and other unique dishes. But on Thursday night, we have a delicious vegetarian meal, and for the last few years I've cooked it.
Complicating matters is the fact that my parents try not to eat too many carbs (like pasta and rice), sugar (including most fruits), and sodium. After some discussion with my dad, we decided that whole wheat pasta would be okay and I sketched out the menu. I would make a penne pasta with spinach in a cream cheese sauce made with nutmeg, lemon rind, white wine, and vegetable broth. The recipe was originally meant to include shrimp but the protein is easily omitted. One side dish would be roasted broccoli, a recipe from Cook's Illustrated that never fails to please. The other side dish would be a squash ribbons salad, for which zucchini squash ribbons are stripped off with a peeler and tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and Parmesan cheese.
The key with vegetarian meals is to incorporate unique and distinctive flavors, so you never miss the meat because your mouth is well stimulated. In this meal, the nutmeg in the pasta dish, the caramelization of the broccoli, and the lemony herbs in the salad are all satisfying flavors on their own. I think it'll be delicious. Happy Thanksgiving!

working weekend

November 23

I'm sorry for my week of silence. We had some staff cutbacks at the magazine, as you do during times of recession, and so the work loads of those of us still standing have been adjusted.
And so here I am, on a Sunday morning, working. I've been working all weekend here at the Inn at Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina, right near Hilton Head, covering the resort's second annual Lowcountry Celebration, hosted by celebrity chef Tyler Florence.
I've just come back from the spa, making sure the massage therapists are up to snuff. They are.
Okay, so this weekend hasn't been such a hardship. I'd agreed to come down here many weeks ago, and there was no reason to cancel my plans despite the layoffs in the company.
Layoffs are horrible, and if you currently have a job in the United States at a company where more than one person works, chances are good that you've already seen layoffs this year, or will see them sometime soon.
There's not a single nice thing to say about layoffs. If you're one of the people whose job was eliminated, well, you're out of a job. If you've kept your job, you'll be expected to get the same amount of work done with fewer people while dealing with survivor's guilt and the sadness that a bunch of your friend just lost their jobs. Add to that the awarenes that your job might be next and, well, it makes a temporary escape to a resort to eat and drink that much more worthwhile.
Palmetto Bluff is a four-year old community near the town of Bluffton on the banks of the May River. Nearly half of its 20,000 acres has been set aside for conservation projects, and the rest has been turned into a golf course, a spa, an equestrian center, a canoe house, plots of land on which people can build homes (plots go for $250,000-$3 million, with most in the $350,000-$1 million range). And then there's the resort, which consists of a lodge where reception, a lounge, the restaurant and a big porch are located, and a bunch of cottages stretched along a little pathway suitable for golf carts to drive down.
My particular cottage, #15 (picturd above), has a back porch and a very pleasant back yard that stops at the river.
I would be on that porch now (the view from it is on the right), but it has been un-seasonably cold during my visit — colder than I had expected. So last night during the traditional oyster roast I was wearing a t-shirt, a turtleneck, a button-down shirt, a cashmere sweater, a light pullover jacket and my new Inn at Palmetto Bluff fleece.
But the food was extraordinary. Bluffton is known for its oysters, and I'm told that the May River has both blue crabs and stone crabs.
But really the side dishes were the amazing part, and a reminder of how good southern food is -- nothing fancy, just food intended to taste good without any bullshit. It tasted like my paternal grandmother's food. She raised my dad in North Carolina and everything she made tasted like she meant for you, personally, to have a happier life for having eaten it.
That's what the food at Palmetto Bluff tasted like. So we had biscuits and gravy and squash spoonbread and the most delicious sunchoke & rainbow chard gratin, among other things. My favorite feature, because it was so obvious and yet I've never seen it before, was a chop bar, featuring venison chops, pork chops and wild boar chops. It should be a feature at every wedding.
The night before was possibly even better. It was a block party featuring straight-up southern food ranging from gumbo to she-crab soup to this sweet potato cornbread that you'd have to taste to believe. The editorial staff of Coastal Living, one of the sponsors of the festival, whipped up a batch of Southern-style cassoulet that did, indeed, taste like cassoulet, but with Southern-style pork.
Tyler Florence cooked the only really refined dish: a light yet creamy oyster stew.
I was actually wondering what the celebrity chef was doing there. The festival looked like it would have gone on just fine without him. But I later learned that he's actually a big fan of the resort, having been married there and, he speculates, made two children there.
The festival also featured a tasting tent and cooking demonstrations and late night campfires with marshmallows for making s'mores.
The weekend gave me a chance to ruminate more on the state of chefs these days and on how their celebrity is affecting the industry.
The day before I left for South Carolina I happened to meet another celebrity chef, Cat Cora, and I asked her about the phenomenon. I'll tell you what she said in my next blog entry.
But now I have to pack.

International Festival

23 november 2008, minggu

Pagi jam 9an ke t4 mertua, nitipin Xiang, trus gw n Mei dianter husband pergi ke epic, tempat intenational festival berlangsung...uda lumayan rame, banyak stand makanan, dari berbagai negara, seperti dari Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Nepal, Filipine. Stand Indonya jualan sate, nasi kuning, risoles, pisang molen, nastar, nasi goreng, dll.Selain stand, ada juga pertunjukannya semacam tarian tradisional, nyanyian, dance, musik dan lain lainnya.











Disana Mei ada ketemu temennya, jadi ikutan main main deh, kadang ikutan gw keliling stand, ato nonton pertunjukannya, ato ikutan kuiz nihongo..
ternyata Mei suka banget ma kuiz ini, disini kita milih kertas yg ada tulisannya, nah disitu, suruh tebak, tulisan hiragananya sesuai dengan gambar yang ada...
wa wa...ternyata Mei nebak nya betul, ga tw die nebak ato emang bisa baca...hihihi.
Karena nebaknya betul, Mei boleh milih makanan kecil yg disediakan panitianya..wah, makin seneng deh die. Mei juga suka bikin sesuatu, die bikin tempelan2 hiasan kertas n bkin mainan dari kotak susu. Anak jaman sekarang kreatif banget deh.



Belajar bikin sesuatu nih...






Disamping bangunan epic, itu kenmin bunka kaikan, ternyata disitu ada stand makanan juga...wak wak, rame banget...kita ikutan juga liat liat ke situ, banyak jualan makanan, tapi yang ini si makanan japanese, kayak takoyaki, tokyo keki, yakisoba, jagoten, jus jeruk, nori,dan lainnya.Trus ada stand gyuniu, stand susu, dimana kita bisa minum susu gratis..asal mo ngantri...hihi, susu nya banyak macem, kyk susu apel, susu melon, susu teh, susu kopi...tinggal pilih deh mo yang mana.
Ada temen yg kasih tau, ada stand telur...wah..murah, jadi kepingin beli..ternyata nyampe disitu, uda kehabisan..........wiwiwi...mo beli telur murah ga kebagian deh..

Ternyata ga cuma ada stand jualan, ada pertunjukannya juga...pertunjukannya semacam taichi chinese n tarian anak2...Tariannya menarik juga...Mei suka banget liatnya..
die suka banget ma dance...jadi kepingin ikutan sekolahnya...


Anyway, happy banget hari ini Mei bisa main2 sama temennya, bisa liat pertunjukan dance n gw agak refresing juga, coz shari2 cuman ngurus rumah tangga aja...hari ini bisa ketemu temen2....n yg penting bisa makan makanan indo, kayak nasi kuning, pisang molen, risoles, n sate....wah kenyanggg...hehehehe