Malacca Makan

Back from the dead

Wah-haha! It's been 3 years of blogging drought. Probably nobody out there is interested in cyberspace but here is why I am coming back online:

1. Monday blues
2. Procrastination
3. Recent happy cooking spree
4. Misery without grandpa, grandma and hubby...just me and the kids...HEEELP!

Anyway, am in a bit of an in-you-face mood, so here is the picture of what I made a year ago for our family T-shirt (yes...obssessed enough to have a family T-shirt).

A Giant Allegory

Once upon a time, there were two giants, who lived in a village. Now it may perplex the reader why the villagers would tolerate the presence of such monsters, but being not very imaginative, they could not imagine life without these creatures. For one thing, the village was rather well-known for the monsters and whatever little outside trade the village had was dependent on the patronage of several travellers who came to ogle the giants.

The name of the first giant was Tip (giant language for "enormous, voracious, stupendously hideous son of a giant") and the name of the second was Top (giant language for "immense, ravenous, horrifically repellent son of a giant"). Both were one eyed giants, probably of the same genus as the Odyssean Cyclops. Both Tip and Top lived at the two ends of a village, Tip in the east (so he could see the rising sun) and Top in the west (so he could see the setting sun). Tip would terrorize the butcher, the baker and the blacksmith who lived on the east side of the village, and Top would terrorize the teacher, the trader and the turnpike manager who lived in the west side of the village. The mayor of the village wisely lived in the middle of the village where he was far from the predations of these monsters.

One day, the mayor was on a little walk around the village. He was taken aback to see Tip sleeping in a field east of the village. "Tip!" he roared. "Is this the way you represent our little village? Our travellers are not here to see a sleeping giant. What they want is some action - some blood, gore, disembowelling, that kind of thing, you know." Tip opened his one eye and sat up. He did think that blood, gore and disembowelling sounded quite exciting and he didn't mind if he had a bit of that. The mayor smacked his hand on his knee, "I Have It!" he exclaimed. "The best way to get a little more action in our village is to have the two of you giants together creating a ruckus. Madam M owes me a favour and it's time to collect." He trotted off briskly, rubbing his hands. Madam M was the resident witch of the village and in addition to love potions, herbal remedies and ominous portents of the future, she was able to whip up a mean number of customized spells. With great flourish (and a clap of thunder), Madam M customized a spell for the mayor. A wild wind swept over the village and in the stillness following the villages emerged out of their huts to see that their two giants, Tip and Top had become merged to a single gigantic entity. This enormous entity was twice the height and girth than either giant had been before, and was twice as ghastly and magnificent.

In great distress, Tip and Top (or should I say TipTop) discovered that it had now two eyes but had lost its previous monocular vision. Madam M had forgotten in her spell to ensure that the two tiny brains of BipBop were re-wired for binocular vision. TipTop could not see well enough and started to stomp around (as it was having a ghastly headache from the diplopia). It stomped on the village school, squashing all the little children, the teacher and the resident paediatrician. When it finally settled down, with its head in its hands (for it was a grade 10 headache on the visual analog pain score), the entire west side of the village had been pretty much trashed. "Panadol!" roared TipTop. The villagers rushed to their medicine cupboards and poured together what they had, which decreased TipTop's headache to a grade 8, but did not work well enough. In the end, the mayor had to mortgage the village to pay for Synflex(1 tonne dose bd with antacid). Because of the acute shortage of manpower and the need to pay off the mortgage, the butcher had to multitask and take on the role of poultry and pig farming, animal husbandry, butchering, canning, processing and post-marketing surveillance, the baker had to take on wheat farming, flour milling, cow farming, milking, pasteurization, baking and cupcake making classes and the blacksmith had to take on mining, smelting, smithing, tooling, and risk management courses. The population of the village dwindled rapidly through emigration or death from overwork and it became a gloomily silent place, poignantly missing the laughter of children (as they had been squished early on). Travellers also avoided the village as TipTop did not appear to be a very active or productive giant as it spent most of its time under a tree with its head in its hands (it had become photophobic and could not tolerate sunlight).

The mayor, rather annoyed with this turn of events, left the village and migrated to the city, where he became the CEO of a large corporation for organizing mergers and acquisitions. Madam M went into the pharmaceutical industry where the sales of analgesics had risen acutely. The villagers that remained continued to work hard at their multiple jobs and to mull in their few rare moments of leisure about the moral of having to defeat their giants expeditiously.

THE END.

Conquering the world

The surest sign of stress is when I start to cook, especially when I start up stupid projects. Ok, so here I announce that I will do a new dessert a week, to overcome my aversion to baking (disasters and all, like when my oven caught fire when I was trying to make foccacia in Fort Lee). Except for cheesecake, most of the baking recipes I do are no-brainers. Have to give a kernel of credit to Julie Powell, who with single and bloody-mindedness cooked through the whole of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", I decided to master my own fear of the oven. A patissier I am certainly not, so I'll fumble through international desserts this year, by golly!




So here is my first attempt - a lemon meringue pie. Not so difficult, but considering that I hate making pie crust and have never made meringue before, I thought it would be a tiny challenge for a start. Anyway, it was so-so, I think that the recipe had the oven too hot for the final bake (which is why the meringue looks more brown than golden, but I think I have it down pat now - I put the dripping tray above the pie so that it doesn't burn on the outside. So here is the recipe for all it's worth.





Lemon Meringue Pie
Ingredients:

Pie crust
1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
75 g butter (president's, no less!)
2 tbsp cold water

Pie filling
Juice from 1 lemon
grated zest from same lemon
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 cup water
25 g butter
3 tbsp cornflour and 1 tbsp cold water

Meringue
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
A pinch of salt

Method:
Pie crust:
1. Sift flour and salt together
2. Cut butter into small cubes, then use pastry blender to mix with flour until it becomes fine grains
3. Add water to bind together and roll dough into ball
4. Roll out dough in between 2 sheets of baking paper
5. Mould into 9 inch pie pan, leaving a ½ inch overhang to crimp
6. Put pan in fridge for ½ hour
7. Prick pie crust base with a fork. Put in oven with baking paper and weights (beans) and bake at 200 deg C for 12 minutes
8. Remove from oven and remove weights and paper. Bake again uncovered for 5 minutes. May want to put dripping tray at top rack of oven to prevent the crust from burning.


Lemon Custard:
1. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, butter, sugar and water together and bring to a boil
2. Turn down flame and stir in eggs, whisking throughout
3. Mix cornstarch and water and add to lemon and egg mixture, whisking for about 5 minutes until the mixture thickens
4. Turn off flame and cover custard with baking paper (to prevent a film from forming) and cool.

Meringue:
1. Beat egg whites, a pinch of salt and cream of tartar together until peaks are stiff
2. Add sugar and continue beating until mixture is glossy

Assemble the pie:
1. Spoon custard into pie crust and smooth the top
2. Spoon meringue on top of custard, making sure that the custard is completely covered
3. Bake in oven at 175 deg C for about 15 – 18 minutes (shield top of pie with dripping tray in top rack).

moody...

My general mood for these few days. Along with "what am I doing here" questions. Need a holiday...

Over The Border

Still reeling from the CNY feasting. Mother had some left over ranch beans from the reunion dinner, which I promptly took over to try out a texan chili recipe. Turned out super yummy, 2 thumbs up (!) although the kids ran away screaming when I offered it to them.

Small confession, I forgot to take pictures of the chili (too busy tucking in after a truly grinding day at work), but I stole this picture from Epicurious.com (sorry Eds!). I assure you that it looked as good as this!

Anyway for those interested in comfort food from across the border, here is the recipe:

Very Good Texan Chili recipe

Ingredients:
500 – 600 g ground topside beef
1 large can whole tomatoes in juice (about 28 oz)
1 can kidney beans
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup flour
¼ cup ground chili powder
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried cumin (ground)
1 tsp sea salt

Method:
Fry onions and garlic until soft
Add meat and brown
Add flour, and other seasoning and fry briefly
Add tomatoes in juice and bring to boil, then lower flame and simmer for about 2 hours on low flame
Add beans just at end of cooking, stir and bring to boil, then take off flame.

Why I am what I am...

So this is the reason why I took up paediatrics. Hardworking, nice, and hates adults...

For my doc friends out there, check out this website:
http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/specialties/QuestionList.cfm

Very cool site and fairly accurate:


Rank Specialty Score
1 hematology 42
2 pediatrics 41
3 radiation oncology 41
4 pathology 40
5 physical med & rehabilitation 40
6 radiology 40
7 preventive med 40
8 neurology 40
9 rheumatology 40
10 pulmonology 40
11 endocrinology 40
12 cardiology 39
13 general internal med 39
14 dermatology 39
15 occupational med 39
16 psychiatry 39
17 ophthalmology 39
18 anesthesiology 39