If I had one piece of advise to give, it would be to never drink the water your noodles are boiled in

Being a re-app/hall senior (who more accurately doesn't do very much for her hall), I get inundated with questions all the time, which I'd like to think I answer with a sense of wordly wisdom, offering incredibly important pieces of information which are vital for your daily life.

What you probably don't know is that most of my answers are rubbish and handed down to me from one-off experiences, quirky habits or my mum. All of which are usually not realiable unless you are me and think they are really important and above all... think that they work.

Take for instance my propensity for not keeping the water from my boiled instant noodles to use as a soup base, and boiling a new batch of water instead. The eco/humanitarian warriors are screaming at me because I'm wasting water that a Somalian child would trade his donkey for, but here's my theory. When you boil instant noodles - what's left in the water is wax and other cancer causing agents (everything's a cancer causing agent these days). Well, I'm gonna die from the ajinomoto in the instant noodles anyway... but here's the other (neurotic) part of my health plan. When eating Indomee in particular, I throw away the bumbu powder and only keep the garlic, sesame oil and soya sauce. It still tastes good. Honest! This is important information, I think you should know.

My latest gem of information came about while searching online for cooking conundrums. I've been trying to figure out the importance of selecting the right type of wok and seasoning it properly. Why it's so inportant to me, I have no clue. Perhaps it's just a fundamental part of my Chinese DNA. Anyway, kuali.com gives a wonderful explanation of how to season your wok properly (which only involves oil, old pieces of ginger and spring onions... and you thought they didn't really mean SEASON, didn't you?). This reminds me of another important piece of advise - if all recipes fail (including mum's), kuali.com is your next port of call, always!

Kicap manis and maggi chilli sauce (preferably the bawang putih one) are vital ingredients in your kitchen. If used in moderation, it can cover up any cooking mishaps.

Never wear white when cooking. Never wash your hair before cooking either, or live to regret it.

Always offer to cook. That way you never have to wash up. Believe me, it's easier.

Other incredibly important things I've learnt are to soak satay skewers for at least an hour, add sweet potato to the flour when making onde-onde and all ovens are different and moody - get to know yours better.

I don't think this post has a point. Nor do I know why it's become skewed towards cooking. But it's only typical of me to use food to rid my mind of Speech Processing and this morning's exam.

p/s: Dr. Naylor is no longer the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse all in one. He is kind and benovolent, his mercy knows no bounds, he rules supreme in the kingdom of cepstrums and formants where mel frequencies are normalised (I hope).

Spice up your coffee!

Here's a tip... the next time you brew that next cup of coffee...
try adding:

whole cloves (just a pinch)
a cinnamon stick (just a stick)
and a star of anise (just a star)

for extra kick - add chilli powder!

Just the extra sizzle for a cold rainy night!
and for more hot drink recipes, click where it's pink!

It's times like this I think I'm going to miss London's cold winters.

And then I think how much I'm going to miss the theatre
The old cobbled roads
The quaint little shops
The Thames
And the lovely old buildings
And the cars whizzing by on those old old roads
Yeah I think I'm gonna miss London.

As well as making my own lunch like this:

That's a lot of fresh air

I've shut the door, one too many times. Left the world outside and forgot to put up a post-it saying "remember you used to live".

Instead I hibernate in my room, asleep by 8pm, waking at dawn and contemplating an early morning swim.

Then, Kristina (you remember her, my gorgeous blond German roommate in the first year) invited me out for drinks to celebrate her birthday. And that led to a series of most fortunate events.

Firstly, it pulled me away from my Matlab codes and also led to the discovery of a rather charming bar/restaurant right behind South Kensington station.

The Collection boasts comfy turkish-looking wooden furniture and a reliable selection of exotic food. Popular with Chelsea yuppies and the fashion folk, its a nice place for catching up with long lost roommates and even a spot of clubbing on the weekend. If you're alright with the demographics averaging at 28 years. I'm torn between having to grow up and clinging to my university childhood.

The most amazing thing about this place has to be the restrooms where a very nice attendant told me how gorgeous I am (always a winning point) and the assortment of expensive perfumes at the washstand for touch-ups. How thoughtful! Oh and also the entrance, reminiscent of a fashion show runway which helps add to the model-glam of the place.

Meeting Kristina and her brother at Collection, led on to an invitation to join them for a gig at the Blagclub at Notting Hill Gate. Every Wednesday is Warm Wednesday, and features a live acoustic session in a cosy eastern-influenced room (with not enough chairs in my opinion - my poor poor feet in 3 inch heels).



The artist we had come to see was Stephanie Grace, a lovely delicate nymph with a voice that just melts you. Check out her myspace because nothing I say can do her any justice. My favourite song is ticket. I kinda wish I had bought her cd, but regretfully I didn't have more than 5 pounds in my wallet.

I don't remember much about the second artist of the night. Some girl called Danielle who was warbling like Christina Aguilera on coke. Sorry, I prefer poetic lyrics over warblers.


So I'm back to a music listening mood, and I hope no one caught me cooking in the kitchen with my Creative Nano plugged in and singing along to Chantal Kreviazuk while stirring my pot of hong bak. In the meantime, Lionel has me all jealous because he's bought himself an early birthday present - a Creative Xmod. The demo on cmss 3D x-fi is fantastic. Try the 3D headphone demo (with headphones on, of course!). Lionel has now turned his room into a surround-sound music room, just with a laptop, mp3s and two speakers.

And so it's almost the end of another week - with a hectic social schedule ahead. Lunch with B-landing girls, dinner with GS girls, dim sum lunch with Cheng Chun and Aeronautics folk, clubbing on Monday because I have to chaperone my little brother (no not really, but I like making it sound like it is - haha!). Busy, busy, busy.

Alright I'm out of here.

In times of duress Charl reverts to Manglish (the one where she speaks English and her coursemates don't understand)

Yalah! I know lah! It's been very quiet around here and it's probably because I'm lazy to do a proper post with proper photos and etc, sans the whining about deadlines and workload stress.


But on a whim, after a hell-raising week, I decided I had had enough and spent 2 hours making onde-onde. I know the picture looks lovely, but they didn't turn out like that! You want to know why? Because Lionel refused to go back to the shops and get green food dye! So I ended up with a box of white puffy snowballs, which didn't look too bad actually and tasted quite good, until we put them into the fridge overnight and they became rock hard. Next time I'll dye 'em pink.

Monday was a real treat. I woke up at 6.30 just to get to Sandip's place in time to be driven all the way to Farnborough by 9.30 for the IBM Business Challenge Semifinals. We didn't win, but I discovered my talents lie in inspiring holographic handphones, building paper warships, drawing logos and creating and directing a sketch in 20 minutes. My talents for business? Zero!

Right, I'd love to chat more but there's this seriously jialat Control lab report to write up which out of 25 pages I have only finished about 5 half empty ones. Here's to the late nights and mugs of coffee! Jia You!

p/s: I was at West End last night watching Chicago. All that jazz!!! Dayaamm... I miss peforming, or organising performances. Here lies a sorely retired Malaysian Night scriptwriter/creativeconsultant/publicitymanageress wishing we could relive the fun moments one more time (you know without all the yelling over rehearsals and prima donna attitudes and post midnight emergency phonecalls)

Into Two Thousand and Six

It's hard to keep up with this blog. But I'll try my very best after spending a very busy day cooking a teriyaki beef don lunch and lounging around in the living room watching episodes of Frasier on TV. I love to savour my bouts of inactivity. I don't get enough of them.

Yesterday Lionel and I spent almost the entire day on the couch in our PJs watching back to back episodes of Little Britain. Yeah but no but yea but...Shaddup! Amar can vouch for it. He was the only person who had taken a bath by noon - a real surprise that was!

The last few days of 2005 weren't anything spectacular if it wasn't for Kim spending 2 days with the folks at Longridge Road. I bet she believes my house to be down right mad and that we do alot of laundry! (I'm just done with the last load of post New York laundry and this weeks clothes are just glaring at me, begging to be washed!)

We finally gave our first house party on New Year's Eve. Yes, everyone's been waiting to see our flat for quite awhile. And no one is to tell Rich Arckless that I once again committed the crime of not inviting him to one of my 'Malaysian' parties. I would have, if I wasn't deathly afraid of the neighbours complaining of the commotion coming from the fifty noisy kids in flat 2. It doesn't help that my neighbours give us that 'Oh, you're Asian!' look and you can almost see them cringing at the idea of illegal Chinese immigrants harbouring rats and ajinomoto. Oh, and that's why I didn't tell any of my coursemates about the party either. Oops! I'll bake cookies when term starts. I promise! And make spring rolls?

Anyway back to the party. The popiah (unfried spring rolls) was a success! I almost whooped for joy when I could see the bottom of the bowl of joo hoo char (turnip and carrot mixed veg thing) by 9.30pm, and then my good hostess persona kicked in and I freaked out about not having enough food. Thank goodness for the overflowing bowls of rojak (Malaysian fruit salad with prawn paste dressing) and the Tiramisu I made the night before just because I could. The Tiramisu recipe is of course accredited to Darwin the ISE Tai Kor (big brother - colloqially: Chinese Mafia boss) without whom I could not gloat at the many many compliments I received (and that's not just for my Tiramisu!)

Amar of course lived up to the position of drink marshall with a free flow of Pimms and lychee screwdrivers (with real lychee bits from Fulham market) throughout the night. I'll give him points for trying to get me drunk, but it didn't work and would have been too expensive and no one else would have gotten any drinks. I must say drinking sure saves my having to put on any make-up though.

It was really great to be able to see CL and Tock and Nicole and Wei Kiat and Soha and well, everyone again! You sure miss out on so much gossip when you're travelling around the US! And it was great that Kim and her friend Emily could join us. And of course Fidel had to grace the occasion with a brand new haircut! You go, Fidzy!! I can't believe how long Kim and I went on telling Fidel about our Odac days. We even brought out old photos, photos I hadn't seen for half a year, photos I'd forgotten about! Reliving the memories was exhilarating! I didn't realise how much I'd washed out of my memory after just 3 years!

Anyway, it was much too cold to make our way down to the London Eye to watch fireworks, and besides the panaromic view displayed on our tv was just perfect. Tock's confetti popper things added just the right touch as well and we ushered in the new year on that note and snuggled into a warm night under our duvets.

Except for Amar. We forgot to give him a blanket as he froze on the sofabed.

Fiesta Pina!

It was pineapple day yesterday. Don't ask me what that is, I made it up! We had 2 pineapples in our kitchen yesterday because it's 1 for 1 at Sainsbury's.

So I made pineapple fried rice (Amar you would have loved it, and cooked it better probably!) and pineapple curry with fish! Mmm mm mmmm! It was a dinner worthy of inviting Justin over for.

Justin for some strange reason thinks I'm an amazing cook when all he's ever tasted is my Tiramisu. Apparently Lionel's been telling him that he'd rather eat my culinary concoctions (or disasters) than eat out at any Chinese restaurant. My explanation of that is 1. If he doesn't say so he won't have ANYTHING to eat at home and 2. Have you ever tasted Chinese food in London? It's rubbish with a touch of ajinomoto (MSG) 3. He seems to have mentally blocked out the time I served him very hard, burnt fried rice way back in the first year.

But since Justin is taking Lionel's word for it (and the rest of the emperor's gate folks who only say I cook well because they don't want to cook themselves!) I'm still trying to find a day when I can proudly invite him over to taste my 'wonderful' cooking.


Here's all that is left of yesterday's pineapple rice. It has thus become my lunch. Yes I'm gonna eat out of the frying pan. I'm lazy to wash up more plates.

Chicken soup for the trash

Never. Ever. Try Knorr's sachet of chicken noodle soup. Ever!

Even if you were caught between a can of beans and Knorr's chicken noodle soup, eat the beans I beg you!

It's pure ajinomoto with yellow colouring (which sticks to my ceramic spoon) and that's only on the surface. You can argue with me that I would happily eat unhealthy Indomee on any other occasion, but at least I don't use the ajinomoto laden bumbu sauce!

It's the vilest thing I have ever tasted. Even more vile than some of the putrid concoctions the very same owner of the chicken noodle soup can come up with. Lu, I swear if your tua chee brings back anymore of those corn soup and chicken noodle packets, I will throw the bitchiest hissy fit you would never wish to see!

On a different note. This is house viewing week. Which means I send out emails to lots of agents, hoping they will call me back, and when they do, I have to try and persuade them that I don't really want a luxury 500 pound flat, and just the backwater ones will do. A good lot of them don't sound too happy entertaining students. May their kids live at home and off their money forever.

We saw 3 flats yesterday, and we reeeeally like one of them which has a very cosy loft. It will be Lu's room, and Amar's crib when he comes to stay if we decide to get it. And its not too far from Tescos.

Will be viewing more flats today and tomorrow. Keeping fingers, toes, legs and eyes crossed!

Your attention is required!

Newsflash #1
Emperor's Gate has Bubur Cha Cha. More Bubur Cha Cha than we can possibly wish for in a lifetime. All who want their free cold, coconutty bowl, just cha cha your way down here. You know where to find us.

Newsflash #2
All apologies have been accepted. I don't send out much hate mail nor feel good about it, but I appreciate the personal call to apologise, and the offer to chip in with the reimbursement.
[edit: My bag has been found! We haven't seen it yet, but the Union is quite sure they have the bag we are talking about and will hand it over to us on Monday. All's well, back to peace and quiet]

Newsflash #3
Have you taken a look at the Star's new look, in conjunction with their 10th anniversary? I like...
A slightly more professional touch, although it still has a little bit of that 'blank' look.

Newsflash #4
As usual I will not be blogging from Spain much. Will only be able to upload photos when I get back. Miss me! Leave me lots of tagboard messages! (I know you girls will!)

Yi Shan has nicely set me the task of making tong sui. Ling zhi kang in particular. That's not going all too well since I have only a very vague idea of what is actually in ling zhi kang, until I call my mother tomorrow that is.

This is only task number one of many other cooling deserts I have been set to make for our household. Its not that we're really dying of heat (living underground and all) but this is the hottest weekend London has faced this year. We are seeing highs of 32 degrees, people! (You south east asians and southern asians - yes, I am pointing at India - let us have our moment of sweltering glory for a minute here). I just cannot begin to imagine the temperatures in Spain. I'm starting to think the only solution is to lose the extra clothing.

So here we have yams, sweet potatoes and sago ready to be made into bubur cha cha. I am chilling cincau in the fridge so we can have it together with the lychees which are also chilling out with them. (Oh, bad bad pun... will not happen again, I promise!) We have two tubs of Haagen Daaz sitting nicely in the freezer too. Unfortunately Ben & Jerry's are still not on sale, but their official website has a really cute explanation of how the ice cream is made.

I need a new pair of shoes. Not having anything with heels is killing me, because I am too short for my new skirts! Michelle was in London this week and finally persuaded me to get those skirts I've been eyeing, after I finally decided what length and colour I wanted which took all of 4 days. Thank heaven for friends like Michelle who've stuck by me since Standard 1 and 15 years later tells me to stop being a dingbat and just buy it if I like it! But now I have no one to talk me into buying shoes. Not even Amar who has finally returned to Warwick (you have gone back haven't you, and you aren't just lurking around?)

Busy, busy week next week. My Godmother has invited Lionel and me over for dinner on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday the good ol' MSoc bunch will be watching Woman in White with some of the Emperor's Gate household. Then on Friday, it's off to Barcelona (where I suspect we will bump into hoards of people we know) and then to Andalucia (where we will see nobody but gypsies and bullfighters... what a relief!). In the meantime I'll just work on segmenting speech signals. Don't bother about me.

5 days left to my first paper.
Shouldn't I feel a little more terrified?
Not even a cold chill down my spine?

Second year makes you so relaxed.
Or maybe it's just the aftermath of M-nite.

Instead of practising on past year papers, what do I do?
Watch 50 first dates (oh-so-tissue-box-emptying-sobbable!), and make glutinous rice balls for desert.
If I manage a 2-1 this year, it'll be a miracle.
If I manage a 1st, my classmates are going to throw me into the Thames.
Now is that motivation to study, or what?

Houston, we have KAYA!

The latest prize trophy in Emperor's Gate is a 200ml bottle of home-made kaya, now sitting sweetly in our fridge after more than an hour of flapping like worried hens around it, watching it cook and frantically worrying that it will never thicken or turn into a horrible egg mush like the first attempt. Second time round, we cheated. We asked Tao for advice, and everyone knows when it comes to the subject of food, Tao never fails!

The things exam pressure does to us. We make kaya and bake chocolate chip cookies (which everyone finished by the next morning! I should know by now to double my recipes instinctively in Emperor's Gate!).

Just passing by.
It's a Beautiful Saturday morning! But it will rain this afternoon. Getting to Chinatown and back in the rain will be most fun. Our supply of asian food products has hit an all time low. That usually means we're running out of the essentials like IndoMee or Lingams or Kicap Manis. This time we've run out of easy-to-cook Lee Kum Kee sauces. No one has time to prepare proper meals with exams coming up, yet we can't bear to compromise our usual proper, 'wholesome' dinners. (A dinner of rice, 1 meat and 1 veg is as wholesome as it gets in Emperor's Gate). And after Lu's sister decided to use my Asam curry to cook BEEF last night (like, huh???) I think a trip to Chinatown is not just justified, it's out of desperation!
Oh yeah, I finally finished off the Da Vinci Code in a day. Not so brilliant. Not so captivating. I cannot stand Americans writing about Europe. As for the church and the sacred feminine, not even a hint of a whisper about Mother Mary - THE sacred feminine of the church. Wonderful fiction though. Why didn't I do more code puzzles when I was a kid? Then I wouldn't be an engineer!
Otherwise... I was just passing by here.