Back in Maryland

Not the best of flights over. It was minor annoyances at first - the power to both Simian's and my seats kept hanging. They rebooted both so that wasn't too bad. Then I felt a little nauseous - wondered if I had picked up Dad's gastric flu! Fortunately (*cross fingers*) it seems to have passed. Simian watched seven movies. I watched three - Kokowaah (and really Til Schweiger has to stop playing the same role again and again. It was great in some of the films but you can't keep repeating yourself), Bridesmaids (which Simian watched first and said was pretty funny) and finally, The Really Big Dream (best of the lot). Daniel Bruhl is also one of those rare actors who speaks perfectly accented German (Simian confirms this) AND English.

When the plane landed, we had to wait a while for the plane to find a bay to dock in. As I was checking the Amtrak website on the plane, it turned out no trains were running. Then when we went through customs, I think the officer got Simian's and my passports mixed up. She didn't fingerprint me (which was strange) and handed my passport to Simian and then asked him to go for a secondary check. I had to wait outside. Finally they fingerprinted me too and then said there had just been a mix up but we wasted quite a bit of time.

We managed to rent a car home, stopped for dinner on the way and then we got home and there was power! Yay! Strangely enough the main road had no power. Suntaneye just got her power back a few hours ago. Suddenly all the annoyances don't seem to bad after a nice warm shower :)

We're off!

Power seems to be back on in our neighbourhood, the airport is reopening. All we need now is for the trains to run! See you soon Maryland!

No flying

We couldn't fly this morning. We changed our flight last night, but then we found out this morning that Newark Airport was closed anyway. Instead we spent the day at home. We voted, but didn't have to rush to do it, and then we bummed around and I made cheese scones. We also had the tiramisu I made yesterday for dessert!

It looks like Irene is getting a little less strong - I'm hoping that it doesn't cause too much damage!

Hurricane Irene

Great - just great. With everything that has been going on, the locusts can't be far behind.

Lunch with friends and earthquake

 

I had lunch with ex-colleagues, J and S. S came up from Malaysia where she now lives and we all met for lunch. We also got a chance to meet J's three children before we walked across the road to Swensen's for lunch. The Milo Indulgence was good and we were all stuffed by the time we were done!

In other crazy news, there was an earthquake that hit Maryland too. This never happens so everyone was very taken aback but as far as we know, no one was hurt. Now a hurricaine is on the way.

Busy!

 

Busy weekend. Mom, Simian and I went for a CPR-AED course at the Singapore Heart Foundation on Saturday. It's supposed to take all morning but we were out of there in just over two hours because we had a small class. We even got our own mini-manikin to take home. We're now all certified for the next two years - we even get shiny little cards to take home. If you haven't been certified for CPR-AED, please do think about it. It's really important, is easy to learn and could literally save a life. Apparently more than 900 Singaporeans are hit by sudden cardiac arrest every year - most of them while not in a hospital obviously. Of these, only about 14 (about 2%) survive because they didn't get CPR in time. The number is much higher in Sweden and other countries (almost 40%) because more people can perform CPR. If you haven't been certified for CPR-AED, please do think about it. It's really important, is easy to learn and could literally save a life.

Relatives came to visit on Saturday night and I baked brownies.

On Sunday, I did some baking - baked a cake for my brother-in-law's birthday and also some bread. I also made cheese. We met my in-laws for dinner at Tambuah Mas.

I had lunch with M and Baby E today. We went to Chilli's. We wanted to have the buffet at Yantra (incidentally why do restaurants feel they have to play music while I am surfing the website?). M and I went there a long time ago for dinner and we quite liked it. They said they were full the last time, but we also had the feeling that they weren't very keen on a baby dining there. Today we went in, and the restaurant looked half empty but we got the stink eye yet again. We were told we needed to wait 10 minutes for a table, so off to Chilli's it was, where we got prompt and friendly service, the food is always decent and they love Baby E!

Home Club

 

Simian and I joined Imp and PlanetofSound and their friends at Home Club last night to watch Shelves and Noughts and Exes. We left after Shelves because Simian literally started swaying on his feet from tiredness :)

Baking

 

Since I made my cinnamon rolls, I've been thinking about brownies (yes my brain works in weird ways, but I made a batch of both when I went to the beach house with Simian and some friends once and now they are linked forever in my mind!). I didn't want any fancy brownies - no mascarpone brownies, though I love those too. I just wanted a batch of plain vanilla, gooey brownies with nuts. Nuts are important.

Mom mentioned that perhaps we should bake some biscuits for River - and so we did this afternoon. We made him these cookies and he loved them.

After that I went on to make the brownies and some scones with orange peel.

Cinnamon rolls, food and stickers

 

Mom and I went to get toys for the bird at Ci Yin Vegetarian Restaurant. Unfortunately I didn't notice there was no air-conditioning and today was HOT. We asked for some water which the waitress promptly brought - unfortunately it was hot water. It didn't seem like they had any other kind. The food was pretty good but honestly it was too warm to enjoy it there. If we go back, I'm going to take away the food.

I felt like cinnamon rolls today so I baked some - and they turned out pretty well. Baking - an excuse for lazy people to get stuff to eat RIGHT now!

M got me these fantastic Kalkitos stickers! They're just like the ones I had as a child!

GOHD

GOHD
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

I found out about GOHD today and couldn't resist. Simian and I went down and I got two books - including a beautiful Delacroix illustrated Goethe. It was smaller than I expected and they were sold out of some of their interesting books apparently but it's still nice to have a rare book store in Singapore. My old favourite, the Book Chamber, closed down years ago.

We tried to get coffee for Simian at Papa Palheta's next door but it was just too crowded.

Indian Food

 

I tried the Indian food today that Imp and I have been checking out on the SICC menu for a while. Mom, a neighbour and I went and it was good! The naan was nice and he vegetable tandoor was tasty!

The waitress was also really nice - she told me that she'd separate the prawns from the kueh pie tee for me because I was vegetarian!

Eggplant and Cheesecake bars

 

I'd like to introduce the world's most expensive eggplant. This is the only eggplant I've harvested from our little plant so far. It's not that the plant isn't producing - no, in fact it keeps popping out little eggplants. The snails however keep eating them. This little eggplant managed to escape that awful fate (so *I* could eat it) because we wrapped a plastic bag around it. Thank you little eggplant - you were awesome.

I also made cheesecake bars for dessert - they turned out tasty!

Grandparents

 

Mom took out some of my grandparents' things to show us yesterday. There were old books, ration cards and landing passes. We didn't know how old some of the books were and I had to send a photo to Imp - she was able to tell us that the book was published in 1952! It was really cool to look through some of the documents and books and to see photos of my grandparents when they were young.

Dinner

 

Simian and I went to Laksania again for dinner. I got to try the hotpot this time - Simian stuck to the Laksa (and helped me with the hotpot after). The hotpot came with a bowl of rice too which I didn't touch - there was a looot of food as it was. Still, we went for Sogurt afterwards - the fruit flavours are great, and I like the chocolate and the cookies and cream. The place isn't cheap though - and it's pretty noisy if you eat there. Yogurt to go is a better option.

Beer

 

We went to D and V's home for dinner. Dinner was not served at 3 after all - we ate at around 6 pm :) Food was care of Khansama and the beer was home brewed :)

Bread again

 

I decided I needed to try the bread again to figure out what had gone wrong. It may not have been the amount of water after all because it seems the yeast I used was probably dead. I used a new batch (and I used active yeast instead of instant yeast as well) and the bread turned out fine. Simian and I also tried to start batches of yeast in different combinations (with sugar instead of honey, with the same consistency as yesterday, and one batch with beer) to eliminate the problem.

I also made more cheese (which also turned out well). Moral of the story - don't rush or ask someone else to finish up whatever you're doing. That way you can control the variables and figure out why something did or didn't work.

I made a summer strawberry cake because we've been invited to Simian's colleague's house for dinner - which starts at 3 pm!!!!

Not a good baking day

 

Simian and I had a busy morning - we stopped in to sign up for a CPR-Automated External Defilbrilator course and then went to return our electricity meter that wasn't working. We got home for lunch, and then I decided to make some ricotta and bread. It was very hot today - broiling in fact. I blame this for my incredible idiocy. First I made the ricotta and forgot to use the cheesecloth. That left me with a much smaller batch of cheese - but it turned out well.

Then I decided to make this bread. The first batch of yeast looked weird and so I tossed it out and made more. I was in a rush because Imp and PlanetofSound were on the way over and as I well know, rushing is always a bad idea when baking. At any rate, I left the bread under N's watchful eye. It looked too wet to me when I put it in, but the recipe was a little different from the usual bread recipes so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Dad took Simian, PlanetofSound, Imp and I to have ice kachang and desserts. When I got home, N had taken the bread out of the oven and also strained my second batch of cheese - but this lot looked really wet for some reason. The bread is still underbaked. I think I'll need to try it again. After running through the process over and over in my head, I think I miscalculated how much water was needed.

M came by with WW and E shortly after Imp and PlanetofSound left. E played with Hari, and seemed fascinated if a little apprehensive!

Food!

 

Simian and I ate out twice in the last two days - we went to Nature Vegetarian last night where Simian and I shared the hotplate tofu, the laksa and the herbal soup. We also went to the book sale today and then headed over to North South East West Vegetarian - Simian loves the Hainese Beef Noodles. I tried the 'Spare Parts Soup' which was pretty good. The mushroom burdock rolls were great too. Everything is also really reasonable and there's no GST or service charge. Funniest part of the meal? The lady at Nature Vegetarian telling us repeatedly there was no need to tip for the serice.

Papa Palheta

 

After J's birthday lunch at Relish (where I ended up taking more photos of the people than the food :)), Simian and I went to Papa Palheta's. Imp had recommended it and since we were pretty close by, we dropped in. The place is small but cozy and fun - unfortunately they don't serve anything other than coffee, so I could only I sniff the air as Simian gulped his espresso down. The cafe also doesn't have a menu - you pay what you think the drink was worth, which is pretty neat.