:: She came to me while eating one of the day and said : Mummy, kakak buat M from Pringles :). Me proud so much, even I can't craft M out of pringles seyhh ::

Continue to my food story, do you remember I had bandung soda for Makan makan raya that day and do you remember that I told you most syrup here have strong smell and taste of pelaga? Well I use below syrup and it taste nice and wangi summore.. Just like F&N syrup in Malaysia. For all my friends in Kuwait that have been asking me that day what syrup I used, and to those whom still searching for nice syrup here in Q8, maybe you should try this brand. Available at Lulu Qurain and Carrefour, The Avenue so far.. Hehehhe tak check lagi tempat lain.. Owhh Sultan Centre at both Al Kout and Mangaf memang takde. Saya dah tolong survey kan..

:: Nobody ever recommend me this brand. I just do my normal satu dua tiga lekuk thingy and tengok sape yang kene. Suffice to say that it chose me and I chose it muahahhah. Cam ade jodoh gitewww ::

Touching a lil bit on the girls's story. Erin's nowadays really love to get involved in house chores like any of girls her age. She can't really hide the pride and happiness should I tasked her with simple task, which mostly I'm just too lazy to do. Small things like keeping her father's sock in the drawer or throw something in a dust bin or folding small small pieces of clothes such as kain buruk. It may looks small to us but surely meant big to her. She will do the task with smug looks on her face shouting in silence Hey ! Look who is the big girl doing important chores. In short, I think she just love to feel the responsibility even if it was only handling mummy's kain buruk or taking care of lifeless Dora the Explorer.

She would demanded to do most things, if not all, by herself. She would want to carry her own plate after each meal. To name a few, when she still wearing a diapers, she would insisted to throw the dirty one into dust bin all by herself every shower time. Sounds fine by me till I found out that I am missing something in her disposing lesson which could led to a very costly outcome.

I started noticed her panties getting lesser and lesser by day. So I conducted my own investigation. A'haaaa..... It turned out that every time she throw her pampers away, she also throw her panties altogether with it. She was even caught red-handed doing the crime. Our dustbin was the top covered one hence you need to peek inside it if you need to look at it's content. Can you imagine how many panties's life were at stake? How many panties I could save? Only if I noticed this sooner? ( melodramatic sungguh ). So I approached her like a good mummy and told her that only DIRTY things goes in dustbin. Panties should go into laundry basket and her replied was :

I was like..... Erkkk really?? Seriously? That's all you give Mummy Dik? Terlupe? Hahahah how can you scold her when all she gave was her most innocent honest answer?

ha ha ha ha ..takper takper takper.. Kecik lagi.. Apelah sangat spender yang dah ter- buang tu kalau nak dibandingkan dgn proses pembelajaran anak...

Anyway below are mug shots I managed to get from the criminal. She refused to give co-operation at first though.

:: You Can Count My Nose Hair Pose ::

:: Am Trying To Get My Beauty Sleep Here Pose ::

:: I Had Pink And Blue Eyeshadow I Feel So Biuuutiful Pose. Who need to smile with wide open eyes in a photo anyway? All it need was a good combination of eyeshadow ::

:: Finally, she decided to co-operate ::

Double sigh !

After that moment, I vowed to monitor her more closely specially when she's doing her disposal thingy and am glad I did. You know why?

It is because only by doing so I came to know that she'll throw her plate and spoon and everything in her plate into the dustbin after every meal. Remember my lesson? DIRTY stuff only !

I found this out after I noticed that the sound produced when she's putting the plate in sink was differ from what it was suppose to sound. U know, it's either bunyik pinggan berlaga dgn pinggan or just loud sound from the sink metal. The sound I heard just doesn't sound right. So I ran a check and A'haaaa... This time I knew where to look 1st and I found the plates and spoon she used in dustbin instead of sink. Omaigod omaigod omaigod.. It's no joke when your Luminarc set was at stake, so I do my stock check. Plates and saucers still complete in set, however I can't say the same about the cutleries set. U know, smaller parts tend to get lost in between trash and waste food easily.

Double triple sigh !

After second incident, I've made up my mind. Erin's next lesson to learn will be ..........

Muahahahhhahahaha...

I can't offer much update on Alis though simply because her life now revolved around netbook. Makan-netbook, Tido-netbook, Main-netbook, Baring-netbook. Say no more !

:: Seeeeeee ?? ::

:: Those who follows my blog or close enough to my family would know that Alis will NEVER ignore camera. She would always in standby mode and will strike a pose whenever there's a camera in presence. After knowing Mr Netbook, she doesn't even care about me standing before her with camera. Not even a quick smile for me as she always did ::

Owh there's something rather interesting I can update here. Beside her passion for world wide web, she also grow liking for skin almost drastically. Any edible skins. Kulit ayam, kulit ikan, kulit karipap, kulit popiah and much more. Kulit oren ngan kulit durian tu kalau boley makan, mungkin pun de akan minat. I dun have problem with her latest likeness, however I can't stand looking at her digging, eating and chewing kulit ikan specially Ikan merah as if it's the most delicious thing on earth( Red Snapper). I'm no fan of fish and I found their skin in particular are the most hanyir of all body part. She might be my own flesh and blood but this liking for fish and all hanyir type of food and whatnot ( caviar, raw salmon) definitely not my trait.

So that's all folks. Till we meet again, here I would like to share with you 2 road signs on some highways here to serve as reminder for drivers for not using mobile while driving. Driving while using mobile phone is legal here hence this reminders are partially awareness campaign by Q8 Land & Transport Authority. I found the signs kinda straight forward, rhymed, cute and cheeky. If you doesn't agree with me, it's soooo not my fault ...

Cute or not???????

Nowadays, she was like new owner of my Ideapad. Owner without consent from the old owner definitely. Most of the days, if she doesn't playing with toys or colouring on her activities book, you'll find her navigating Youtube, playing online games on Barbie.com or just sketching images using my photoshop and she's really good at it. She's so into this computer thingy till swimming now came second place. She's now know how to change my computer setting and tell you what, Veriface logon system ( face verification system) on my netbook was set to her face, by her, on her own.. and so does my password. So everytime I wanted to use MY netbook, she'll logon for me using her face. Everytime I need to key-in password to MY netbook, she'll insisted to do it for me although I'm very much know my own password and how to key it in, as if I'm the borrower and she's the owner. Duhhhhhh...

It is indeed tough competition, it's like race against time who get to use netbook more. It's never a fair competition though as she has all the time in the world. She need not to do cooking, laundry-ing, neither she need to folding clothes or cleaning. What's more with value I taught her where "yang tua kena mengalah" everytime she had fight with Erin. Sighhhhh ! Never I had in mind that I had to go through cat fight with my own daughter in order to able to use MY own netbook.

So what do I do ?

I used my oldest trick... Mummy need to do work . Hahahaha.. By saying "work", I meant facebooking, blogging, surfing for recipe. Therefor, it's kinda embedded in her mind that facebook = mummy's work. She's totally buying it, well at least for now... and letting me use my netbook sometimes. All I need was, putting on my most desperate sounded like-your-life-depends-on-it tone : Mummy nak buat work ni !!!! Nanti boss mummy marah...

Therefor, I think my theory on people's brain actually stored the memory of smells rather than the image of the place itself are accurate. Errr can I named this theory - Theory Wawa ? U know after the founder? Hahhhhahah yeah I know.. in my dream !

I always heard stories about well-planned event went haywire due to unexpected obstacles. Among scary stories I heard like nasik tak masak, hidangan tak cukup eventhough memang dah bajet lebih, lain menu yang di plan- lain menu yang jadik.. and many many many more.

Today, I wanted to share with you challenges and series of unfortunate events I've face during organizing Malakoff's Joint Venture Open House 2010. The venue was at my place. Having tested with many difficulties, I can't ignore the fact that, no matter how a great planner on paper you're, Allah remained the Greatest Planner above all. He knows better.. Plus, this experience taught me to remained calm, tawakkal, redha and do not panic no matter what had happened, cause only when you gather your head together then you'll find solution.

Under normal circumstances, I would have my mum, my father, my two sisters to help me, this time I'm on my own so help me god.

Menu as planned earlier :

My husband told me few months before raya that he wanted to have satay during raya this year. It's normal culture among Tranung to serve satay as their Hari Raya meal. So, few days before Raya, we already started with the preparations. I didn't know that Sultan Centre did sells chicken flesh in bulk. I've seen only chicken breast sold by piece so we opted to buy whole chicken and de-boned it ourself. if only I knew about the ready made flesh chicken, no doubt I would have bought it first hand. Save us a lot of pain killers. Sitting for 3-4 hours straight is no joke man ! Serious back pain and cramp butt is guaranteed.

All in all, we had 5 whole chickens and 2 kilo beef awaited for us. The chicken needs to be separate from their bones and cut into cube. Lucky for me, En Muddy used to work part time at Pasar Borong Selayang hence he had experienced handling chicken. Lucky me again, the beef butcher had cut the meat into big chunk of cube. All we need to do was cut the portion into smaller cubes. Easy peasy !

Satay in the making processes went smooth I must say. I marinated the satay and after few hours, we started cucuk the satay on bamboo sticks. We planned to start grill the satay the next morning, on the event day. However, En Muddy taking extra safety precaution by trying to grill few satay sticks that nite using our oven. Lucky he have that instinct cause the end result was total big failure. The satay turned out to be very dry, causing it to berderai derai. There's no way I would serve that kind of satay to my guests. I was having a very un-easy feeling already. We sat down and had brainstorming session. As typical as I can be, I am the one came out with all the rubbish and non logical idea hahaha. We definitely cannot use the normal satay griller with charcoal as it will produce a lot of smokes. Last thing we want was having our neighbours calling firestation. Oven is definitely out of the list.Then En Muddy came out with idea to buy portable indoor griller. Good thing our house was located only 5 minutes travel from 24 hours Sultan Centre so off he go hunting for a griller.

He came home shortly after that with griller that cost KD 4 and immediately get into action. 1st batch of satay tester was placed on the griller. 1st few minute, it looks good. Suddenly it turned off. I quickly blame En Muddy for being all cheapo and bought cheap one hahahah. If it was for me, I would definitely tossed the griller away and called the satay project off. I'll SMS all the guest and inform them there won't be any satay tomorrow due to technical error, so dun hope for it. It is very fortunate that I'm marrying man with technical knowledge, hence he detected that the griller causing the extension plug to burn. All it need was another extension plug. Wallaaaaa... after the new extension plug put in place, the griller started it wonders. Since the griller was a mini one, we decided to grill all the satay half cook that nite, and will continue to bakar till garing upon guests arrival tomorrow to save the time. There's no way we could get all satay done if we started tomorrow.

{ Satay in place }

{ Two bucket of satay waiting to be grill. There another 2 buckets in the fridge }

{ Halfly cooked}

{ Halfly done. Yeayyyyy}

{ End product}

{ Timun+bawang+nasik impit to accompany satay}

All satay job done at 2 am in the morning. I wrapped all of it nicely in aluminium foil and proceed to next plan in the list. According to my list, my next task was to make bubur som som for desserts.

While I stir the batter on my stove I ask my husband to read out for me the instructions my mum gave me on my lappy and I think I heard he said " Kacau adunan sampai LIKAT dan tutup api, masukkan adunan dlm acuan yang di sukai ". Wah mak aku nye cara cara memasak dh macam cook book kan hehehe.. Ayat mmg terbaik.

I dunno which part went malfunction that time. His eyes or my ears because my batter doesn't taste and look like my mum's one. After all was scooped nicely in the mould tray, I went to my laptop cause I know there's something missing somewhere and found out that my mum actual instruction was " Kacau adunan sampai KILAT dan tutup api, masukkan adunan dalam acuan yang di sukai ". Seeeeeee.. simple techical error produce big different when it comes to cooking. I was thinking of making another batter, however clock already strikes 3 and I need to wake up at 5 to prepare other meals, hence tawakkal je la and pray that miracle do exist and somehow, there's bubur som som fairy god mother came to visit that night kah kah kah.

That morning I woke up at 5 and as expected, no fairy god mother came by, and my bubur som som was left un-cooked like the way I remember it last nite. Sighhh...

When I came to Q8, I brought together 2 boxes of infamous Cik Mat ready-made Kuah Kacang paste. I used one during makan makan with Indonesian friends and left one for Hari Raya. I didn't plan to host any Open House so 1 box is more than enough for my small family. However 1 box only produce 1/2 pot of Kuah Kacang so it's not a balance ratio with my satays. It is rather incomplete to eat satay with no kuah kacang in my opinion, hence I had to top it up. I didn't bought any extra peanut as I thought the ready made paste was more than enough. It's also rather too late to ask my husband to go out and get a pack of peanut for me as he also was pretty handful organising the house, table and chairs.

Lucky me, I still had peanut I bought for Nasik Lemak so I seen no other option, I diverted the function to made Kuah Kacang. Sorry Nasik Lemak, you had to settle down with no kacang goreng to accompany you.

This is my 1st time making kuah kacang and I have only internet to guide me. Finally I had to admit, internet did bring more good influence than bad hahahah.. Despite my lack of experience and few adjustment and tasting session by both me and husband, I think my Kuah Kacang turned out alright. Thanks Allah for made it easy.

Without any intention to boast, I never had much problems cooking nasik lemak before. Hence I'm pretty confident to cook Nasik Lemak for my guests. Lesson learned : NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. I put it last in my list as I wanted to serve my Nasik Lemak steaming hot, more appetizing I think. I started cooked it at 10 pm and guests will start arriving around 12 so it should be just nice.

By 10:45, I checked my rice in both cooker, weirdly the rice in both still under jelantah state. So I added more water. 20 minutes later, no changes. To make it worst, my rice cooker pointer kept 'tendang" the button cook to warm and I have had to reset it again and again and again till at one time, it just refused to be set to cook button anymore and remained in warm. How Now Brown Cow ?

I tried all petua I've known in the book.

Put a cup of water in the middle of the rice, not working!

Take out half of it to give more space, still not working!

It's already 1145 am, my guests will be arriving anytime soon, so as a backup, I cooked 6 pot of Plain Rice, just in case. In the mean time, in between sweating and frustrated, I am thinking of what to do with my quarterly cooked rice. I pray for Allah to give me way out of this mess. Then I told my husband, let's steam it. If it's working, it will be Nasik Lemak kukus. If not, I guess, we had to apologize to the guests for making them eat Nasik Lemak without the Nasik... I mean, what's the point rite? Nasik Lemak without nasik lemak was better off not having nasik lemak at all. However, since I already cooked Sambal Ikan Bilis, sliced the cucumber, boiled the eggs, fried the ayam rempah.. I have had to come up with something to replace my nasik lemak if my steam solution doesn't work out. It is indeed worth a try as I dun feel like giving up just yet.

We steamed it batch by batch in small portion. 1st batch was a benchmark so as to say. If it doesn't turned out as I hope for, I'll just replace it with Nasik Putih then. Luckily, it turned out well. Every bits cooked well and the texture also nice.

Alhamdullilahhhhhhhhh....

Major Phewwwwww of the day. Finally I can breathe easily. All in all, it took me 6 rounds and all 10 pots of rice was nicely ready to be served to my guests.

{ Bahan sampingan dh siap, nasik tak masak masak. Sorry no nasik picture cos by the time I'm done with it, my guests already flooding my house but I guarantee you it looks exactly like how nasik lemak should :)}

{ Sambal ikan bilis }

{ Sila teka ape ni :) . No price for correct guess as tuan blog tak berapa nak kaya.}

I've decided to make bandung soda as our main beverages since I never make any. I found one recipe in internet and the way the blogger described the taste of the outcome just make me drooling over my monitor. I just had to try it myself. My biggest problems are I dunno which syrup that taste nice here in Q8 and I just can't find any Ice Cream Soda. Mind you, most syrup here have a strong taste and smell of pelaga so you just have to pray hard you will pick the right brand. Case in point, I picked brand Rabee out of many brand in the rack.

Rabee syrup, please please please dun failed on me.

As for soda water, definitely there's no ice cream soda here hence we need to replace it with plain soda water. However, soda water here came in small small bottles. There's few familiar brands that caught my eyes like Perrier and Schweppes. However we took another brand that I forgot it's name hahahha... Other than that...tawakkal !!!!

Anyway, below are the recipe. Thanks a lot to http://itsajugglingact.blogspot.com/ for a lovely recipe. I owe you big time as my guests all loved it to the max, and I ran out of this bandung soda within 1/2 hour after the party started. say no more !. I can't make another batch though as I never expected this overwhelming response over this bandung soda and did not bought extra syrup, hence we had to serve mango juice to our guest after that. Sufficed to say, statistic recorded less number of visits to water tumbler compared to when the tumbler contained bandung soda :).

Recipe was copy paste from her blog. Saya mintak halal yer tuan blog. Anyway, for those in malaysia, it will be easier to make this drinks as all the ingredients can be found easily you just have to follow the recipe accordingly and adjust based on how many of guests you invite . For us in Q8, there's some adjustment need to be done.

{ Something like this, however our soda water bottle was smaller}

{ End result. I gave 5/5 for this bandung soda. Most yummiest bandung soda I ever taste and all my guests agreed with me. Highly recommended}

After all those above-mentioned challenges, I ended up exhausted and looking worn out before my 1st guest even arrive kah kah kah. Seriously I look like as if someone just ran over on my cat.

Yan, Lina and Ayu (other joint venture partners) arrived shortly after that with their planned menu. I just hope they didn't have hard time preparing theirs like mine.

Guests started flowing after that non stop till 9 pm. Despite flaws here and there, we had a blast hosting this open house and I hope my guests experiencing mutual feeling too.

Other menus from my open house partners :

{ A very moist and yummy banana cake by Yan}

{ Mee kari dan adik beradik by Yan}

{ Sinfully delicious lemon chicken by Lina}

{ Samosa by Lina}

{ Agar agar yang sangat cute by Lina}

{ Bahan bahan sampingan Laksa by Ayu }

{ Kuah laksa by Ayu}

{ Dodol homemade by Ayu. Hebat sungguh tau buat dodol ngn microwave jek. Sedap lak tuh. Because of Ayu, merasa orang kat Q8 makan dodol :) }

{ Rendang Ayam by Ayu. It looks way nicer than this actually. Ni pic lepas re-heat esok pg nyer sebab my husband just forgot to snap photo of rendang out of busy-ness melayan tetamu. Ni gamba rendang dah terhangus skit sbb tuan yg panaskan ni terleka basuh pinggan mangkuk. Sorry Ayu :(. Mintak maaf sangat mencacatkan rendang awk sikit hehe }

{ Arabian candies by Indo group from Fintas }

There are more foods actually like kuih raya by Ayu, kuah lodeh by Kak Siti yang tak sempat di snap.

Enough with foods, let move on with guests of the day. Below are among pictures of tetamu yang sempat di snap. Pity some of the guys have to eat and sit outside since my house adelah sangat "besarrrrr ". Some of the dishes also have to be put outside due to lack of space. Outside chairs and table adelah sumbangan Lina and Lim. It is arrangement made between us as when they had open house, we will lend our chairs and table to them too. More economical this way.

My last guests left around 9.30 pm. Despite balance of my energy left enough only to drag my feet to bed and dozed off, I still have major cleaning and clearing job to do. So with a help from my husband, we cleared the leftover, pack whatever left and put into freezer, clear the garbages, vacuumed the house, make sure kids and us got shower and call the day off around 12 midnite.

Thanks a lot for all the guests kerana kesudian datang ke Malakoff Open House 2010. Harap jangan ade yang serik despite many flaws pada hari kejadian as it is involved a lot of hard works to organize an events, be it big or small. I had learned a lot and hope to do better in future. Insya allah, this one tradition worth to keep.

To Ayu, Yan, Lina and families : U guys rawkssss big time.... It's truly an honor to be part of the team.