The countdown : 10 days

Countdown to the festivity : 10 days to the eve
My demon bake ! The most difficult bake will have to be this Kuih Bangkit, it's part of Nyonya delicacy, Kuih Bangkit as in Coconut Cream Cookies or literally translated to Rise Cookies takes days ahead to prepare and I need to be prepared mentally to embark on this " melt-in-the-mouth" cookies. So for the third year, I am with my obsession again and some how my dough didn't felt good to begin with. The recipe said knead into a pliable dough and how pliable is pliable when I have not seen one ? Unlike many people who had this hands me down recipe, I had none, for the women from my mom and her generations are the liberal women who actually had careers and don't actually sweat it out in the kitchen.  I failed to obtain that "melt-in-the-mouth" texture, thou it's very aromatic from the coconut cream this round, so something is rightly done here, it's just that I failed miserably to achieve that  "melt-in-the-mouth" texture. However the cookies improved with a decent softness the next day. Threw away what remains of the dough after two trays. Sigh!

Nian Gao - Always, there is some thing new that caught my interest.

The Sticky Glutinous Cake is a welcome sight every Chinese New Year and it only appears once a year. Traditionally it is a must have in every household as it symbolize progress, advancement and growth. I made my first Nian Gao this year instead of buying from the market. The process is said to be tedious, well, not after one tried at baking the Kuih Bangkit. The hardest is getting the sugar to caramelize to a certain degree (great amount of patient here)  to obtain that distinctive color so to pass it onto the Nian Gao when it's done, and the next is most probably time, it takes about 3 to 4 hours of steaming and constantly checking the water on the steamer meaning no sneaking out of the house for a Starbucks grande.  I think I am addicted to this !

Project Pyjamas, a charity drive by NWUKMSIA (Nordic Walk UK-Malaysia) to raise awareness for a little bedtime comfort for the children in the foster homes or orphanages held  at our Perdana Botani Lake Garden on the last weekend of January. It's been ages since I went for a walk or a jog at this garden in the city. This was a  fun  Charity project, with people coming in all sorts of their ideal pyjamas wear.  SpongeBob , Mickey and Minion print Pjs including some traditional PJs  appeared on the scene that morning; spotted also a lady in robe and rollers in her hair, a lady in kaftan, some sporting guys in their sarongs and even teddy bears came along too. The shy ones are in tee and trousers or short. Mommies and kids came too and the seniors came in a groups. The charity drive is aimed at providing pyjamas for the kids in orphanages and the walk is open to the public by registration.

The Lake in the park

 The stream

Cascading waters

The weather was beautiful, the sun came out late which made the walk even more pleasant

 Jaimis who went with me found the clown who made each of us  a baloon crown, LOL 

Spotted too are these few ladies who came in their make-believe see thru lingerie 

My last bake will be the crunchy seaweed crackers which is house favorite and a cake to bake and getting the house ready for the festivity in 10 days. I still have the curtains to sew and my "cai" to put up.

Thank you Carol, Vickie, Brigitte and Meari for visiting and  leaving me your sweet comments in my last post. Seriously, I will need to improve the shape of my Doggie Cookies.

My Cherry Blossom wreath is done Brigitte only that  I will need some help in getting a good photoshoot of the wreath , hopefully I have another last blog post before I take a break for the festivity 

Till then, take care everyone and have a wonderful weekend

Here comes rain

We are experiencing some heavy downpour lately from early afternoon to late evening resulting in flash floods in several areas in the city. The thunderstorm rain had caused unexpected flash floods. On days such as these, I am glad I no longer work in the city but closer to home.

Mid year brings fruit season. The first to flood the market and night market towards the end of April or early May are the various variety of Mangoes. It's seasonal and by now it's almost end of it's season soon to be taken over by the foul smelling spiky skin durians and the purple mangosteen. In between these fruits season, we see a little more of blueberries and strawberries as well as cherries with it's rate going a little cheaper than usual.

Catching the last lot of mangoes, I made a batch of Mango Chutney to go with my roast chicken.

Chinese Dumpling Festival aka the Dragon boat festival falls on Thursday, 9. No work holiday for such festivity.  Dragon boat race are part of the festivity held at state level only at certain states where there's sea or large enough lake.  I am contented with another year of polishing my dumpling wrapping skill.  I made only 700gm of Glutionous rice dumpling this round . Like last year,  I made the  Nyonya version plus testing out  a small batch of Ginger Chicken flavor this year. I didn't soaked the rice blue but left it white instead. Made this last Friday so I can have some delivered to Diane during the weekend.

Prepping the ingredients. It takes 2 days to prep. First the ingredients and the leaves need to be boiled followed by washing and soaking the glutinous rice with the bunga telang (blue pea) to give the rice it's blue color . Day 2 sees to the finishing and boiling the wrapped dumplings for some three hours. I have posted about this festivity before. You can read more of this festivity here . This is only my third year at wrapping the chang.  

A little peek for a swap. I have also crochet a little something to go with my swap.

Last Sunday I went to our old Railway Station to fetch mom home from her a week long visiting her sister. This is the administration building located opposite the train station which is contrast with the station. Designed by Arthur Benison Hubback, a British who incorporated the unique Anglo - Asian architecture in the region with the Neo-Moorish/Mughal/Indo-Saracenic style that was completed in 1910.

Today, this is no longer the main station as a new one, known as the KL Sentral was built to take over it's function. A bus operator running the North-South Express route has taken office here.

 View from one of the arch. I had always wanted to take a shot of a bird's eye.

This week I manage to finish two Christmas design.

Actually one, the reindeer is still short of 2 snowflakes

Bent Creek and Lizzie Kate design.

My poor princess making her statement, LOL !

Wishing all a wonderful good week ahead.

Thanks for coming by

September,

I thought I would have a bit more of me time in September with Diane in hostel.
I thought I would have more time to concentrate on crafting since I no longer have to chauffer her around and wait on her. I thought I  could also keep up with blogging and my blog rounds. But no, I just don't know how the time went by so quickly leaving me feeling a little lost for not being able to finish what I had planned. There was so much to do without actually accomplished anything worth mentioning except those that came with a deadline like the Halloween Mail Art and my Red Hexa SAL. By the way, Diane is home on sem break for a week but she will have her stuff to keep her busy.

Speaking of which, I am a little worried that I still have no news of the Mail Art reaching it's new home. It flew slightly over two weeks now and the postie track and trace records at my end here recorded it boarded the plane on 15 September, until todate the destination postal department has not provided a feedback on their delivery status.

September has been depressing, imagine waking up in the morning with a blurry skyline . I thought it was my eyesight that's failing. But the sky is shrouded with a thick pall of smoke and smelling burnt of organic material . Our air quality in recent weeks  deteriorated  and worsen tremendously with the prevailing winds continued to blow haze from the Sumatra fire. The light thunder shower in the late morning and early afternoon only provide temporary respite. The sad part is that this is becoming  like an annual haze season for us which should never even have existed, if only 'the government concerned' had exercise some form of enforcement and worked their MOA. At one point the Air Pollutant index breached over 200 in unhealthy mark that forced schools to closed.

Our skies turned grey, smokey and gloomy.

The effect of haze exposure may caused a variety of adverse condition where health is concerned
and thus forcing people to abandon outdoor activities. Sadly the thunder showers in the late morning and early afternoon is not enough to overcome the situation.

This was mid morning at the Lake Gardens when the sun should be shining brightly and full of joggers and children in the playground but now looking almost deserted.

The eight moon has come again, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. It's celebrating the moon , known as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival that falls on last Sunday

I bake my mooncake again

no Jelly mooncake this year

The before and after bake

Traditional Mooncake with White Lotus paste and Single Egg Yolk

I haven't been into any serious baking lately

I received a box of mooncakes by RT Pastry House which look like the Penang Tau Sar Peh that's worth giving a mentioned because it's not shaped like the traditional ones.

Thanks to Edwin

Four more done for the month of September

My hexies now totaling 37/52

Found this Mooncake box from Baker's Cottage Bakery to display

Vincent bought me this when I asked him to check it out at Kino two weeks ago

Me and some crafting ladies; June, Margaret W, BJ and Jackie finally had our long awaited meet-up when we decided to go stashing at Spotlight at IPC Centre

Here's my haul

All kinds of stitching and paper craft notions including a ball of  Patons Cotton in Off Cream

for doily crochet for SuSee. I'm not a doily person actually, I think I had enough of it along time ago.

 MW also became the 'unofficially Spotlight spokeperson' for these grinder cum shaker

She's so convincingly good and I am sold without second thoughts, LOL

A lil'surprised from MW.

Open lid Mason Jar

Endless possibilities

Some books I picked up this month

I'm very sure  I don't have these titles

A black tunic lacy blouse I started 2 years ago finally saw me finishing it a week ago

This is before wash

An afternoon English Tea at TWG Tea at Sunway Pyramid earlier of the month with Alice and Kimmi

A new toy, my smoothie blender

A visit to an Aunt, DH's who now occupy the ancestral home had me wondered into her garden. Besides growing vegetables, I found this rose bush

and this sweet pink daisy

I am currently working on my Annual Exchange, hopefully I get it completed by December this year, so that's WIP for now.

That's all I can squeeze in for this month. Hopefully in the coming weeks I get to be a little more regular with my blog rounds and with my blog post.

Here's my furbaby snuggled up on a seemingly cold, gloomy day. Even she stays indoors a lot lately.

Wishing you beautiful bright skies where ever you may be.

Smoke gets in my eyes

Can you imagine our clear blue skies turned to this for days for about week or so? The worst of the smog shifted from the southernmost district and the coastal line, where noxious fumes have drifted across the sea this past week from Indonesia's Sumatra island.

Buildings enveloped in smog that slashed visibility to barely hundreds of meters (feet).
Cities was shrouded with haze from forest fires set by people who used the traditional slash and burnt method for clearing land for farming on the Indonesian island of Sumatra causing  “unhealthy” levels of pollution on our atmosphere brought in by wind.  The city skies were hazy and air pollution readings was at hazardous level of over 500 in some districts. Some light rain in the last two days finally saw the air quality dramatically improved with moderate air quality reading.

Today, I see blue sky again. Hopefully it stays good for the days to come.

A little mail is all I need to cheer me up from the weather woes. I received this gorgeous  needleroll from Roberta, my Summer Exchange at HOE yesterday. I didn't expect this to arrive so soon, so this was a pleasant surprise. It's very  sweet of Roberta to include a lovely  cut of Summer Theme fabric with cute flipflops design.

Just look at the detailing on the needleroll, Roberta is amazingly talented, so much beautiful creativity in one place.  Thank you so much Roberta, love this to bits.

This weekend ends the  2nd quarter of the year, unfortunately I have not progress much on Mary as I had planned, my attention got diverted to something which I am not allowed to reveal for now. I am giving myself another month to complete Mary and oh yes! I do have secret projects ongoing, LOL!

Have a good weekend everyone



Image google searched captured between 6 to 2 days ago.

Another crafty adventure

This is a a belated post, I couldn't possibly shared this any earlier, not before my private pincushion exchange with Margaret W was first delivered just so she don't get any hints that hers will carry a similar theme, LOL!

Removable top for storage of pins or just about anything

He seems to be asking "what are you looking at ?",  doesn't he?

A lacy neck warmer scarf with weaved fringe

Crocheting with Sidar Snuggly and multicolor yarns was an interesting change . Its fascinating to watch the multicolor yarns emerging like a color pattern as I go along . Finishing it off by weaving the fringe with  the multicolor yarns in chain stitch. Both are remnants yarns from my stash. There's no pattern for this, all I did was with ch, tr and db with a bit of fan like motif . Start with a long chain of  any length you desire. I supposed its the multicolor yarn that make this all interesting.

Stitching some seasonal smallies

A walk into yesteryear's

One Saturday morning in October, I had a chance to walk into the Old  KTM Railway Station located in the hub of the city with its Neo-Moorish/Mughal architecture that was built in 1910, designed by Arthur Benison Hubback, a British.  It been years since I last travel on a train, not the Komuter but in a real coach train.

Can you imagine its splendour during the times when it was the main station connecting the North, South and East Coast? There's so much history here.

Sadly the station is pretty quiet today, its glory all gone when the station's original importance diminished and redundant facilities were withdrawn. In the name of modernisation and technology, this station has been replaced, relocated to a newer facility known as KL Sentral. Today the station  caters only the intercity train services,  the Komuter Electric and cargo train. The entire building is almost deserted  except for a bus company that took tenant on one of its building facing the main road. The Heritage Station Hotel, fast food chain such as KFC and A& W was forced to close. As I ventured into its lobby, I found  some exhibits showcasing train equipments of yesteryear's at the far end. I supposed its an effort to convert the station into some sort of a railway museum?

A model of the coach which I actually did ride many-many years ago, travelling with my grandma from the North to visit my aunt Julie during the school year end holidays. All of a sudden I felt so old . LOL !

A model  locomotive

Lastly, a site model of the iconic KTM training school and administration office in Sentul cum train station which was operational since 1905. It was reported that it once contained the finest integrated engineering workshop in the world. The new central workshop and training facilities is now located to a quiet town of Batu Gajah, the Silver State Perak, a state in the north. The old train station building was retained however and given a new image and retrofitted to support the modernize electric train to service Sentul Komuter lines.

Reminiscing the yesteryear's.

Hope you enjoyed the walk with me and  wishing you a Happy Weekend !