Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Peking Duck and Spiders
We went for Peking Duck yesterday to celebrate Gaz's mom's birthday. The restaurant was rated in one of the Melbourne daily as one of the best Peking duck restaurants in our area. The duck skin was crispy and fragrant, but very fatty and oily. Don't get me wrong, I love animal fat, I love lard and fried chicken skin, but after eating three pieces of the skin, I couldn't have anymore of it. Although the duck was crispy and the sweet sauce went well with the popiah skin, cucumber and scallion, the duck pieces were roughly cut and some are big and in irregular sizes. Some of them couldn't even be rolled into the popiah skin.
The flesh of the duck was used to fry hokkien noodles with beansprouts. We also ordered stir fried veges and drunken chicken. The chicken had good flavour to it, very silky and had a good dash of chinese wine. The stir fried veges were OK, some parts of it overpowered by bamboo shoots which I dislike.
After dinner, we went home where we found this giant spider which had descended about 5 metres from an electric pole onto Gaz's mom's rose bushes and built a gigantic spider web. It's awesome!
The flesh of the duck was used to fry hokkien noodles with beansprouts. We also ordered stir fried veges and drunken chicken. The chicken had good flavour to it, very silky and had a good dash of chinese wine. The stir fried veges were OK, some parts of it overpowered by bamboo shoots which I dislike.
After dinner, we went home where we found this giant spider which had descended about 5 metres from an electric pole onto Gaz's mom's rose bushes and built a gigantic spider web. It's awesome!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
My Vege Garden
It's a bright sunny day today, and this is what I found around my backyard.
The tomato plant is doing well - we're so excited about that one tomato that is growing. We've been told that home grown tomatoes have a distinctly better taste than store tomatoes.
My basil is growing taller and bigger by the day. I've used them in a pasta dish I cooked a couple of weeks ago. The coriander seedlings which for a while flourished, had died out. We're still not too sure why that happened.
My strawberry plant is bearing fruit! See the little flower - that's the start of a strawberry fruit.
It's amazing to see these plants growing, despite my lack of green fingers. Hopefully soon we'll be able to eat the tomato and strawberry!
The tomato plant is doing well - we're so excited about that one tomato that is growing. We've been told that home grown tomatoes have a distinctly better taste than store tomatoes.
My basil is growing taller and bigger by the day. I've used them in a pasta dish I cooked a couple of weeks ago. The coriander seedlings which for a while flourished, had died out. We're still not too sure why that happened.
My strawberry plant is bearing fruit! See the little flower - that's the start of a strawberry fruit.
It's amazing to see these plants growing, despite my lack of green fingers. Hopefully soon we'll be able to eat the tomato and strawberry!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Boxing Day Sale
December 26th, day after Christmas in Aust is almost always reserved for recuperating from the large lunch and dinner from the day before, watching the Boxing Day test cricket and... stampeding for the best bargains in the Boxing Day sales!
The Boxing Day sales is reputed to be the largest sale in the departmental stores' calendar, other than the bi-annual stock take sales. People queue up for the department stores to open their doors from the night before and then go into a shopping frenzy once the doors are opened. It attracts the same kind of crowd that killed a Wal-Mart employee in the US not too long ago. It is expected that this year's Boxing Day sale will rake in $26 million in Victoria itself, and $6.3 billion whole country over the next two weeks.
How about the bargains? I've heard, not seen (because there are limited stock and I'm never one of the first 100 to be in the store) about television sets going half price, $15 tops etc. This year, attracted by the craze of it all, Gaz and I went to our nearest departmental store to partake in this annual tradition. We saw a long line of people in front of Swarowski, the crystal shop. We had specific items we wanted to purchase, and crystals weren't one of them. We walked from shop to shop, department to department, and get this... two hours of walking around and all we got was a single pillow (half price).
The Boxing Day sales is reputed to be the largest sale in the departmental stores' calendar, other than the bi-annual stock take sales. People queue up for the department stores to open their doors from the night before and then go into a shopping frenzy once the doors are opened. It attracts the same kind of crowd that killed a Wal-Mart employee in the US not too long ago. It is expected that this year's Boxing Day sale will rake in $26 million in Victoria itself, and $6.3 billion whole country over the next two weeks.
How about the bargains? I've heard, not seen (because there are limited stock and I'm never one of the first 100 to be in the store) about television sets going half price, $15 tops etc. This year, attracted by the craze of it all, Gaz and I went to our nearest departmental store to partake in this annual tradition. We saw a long line of people in front of Swarowski, the crystal shop. We had specific items we wanted to purchase, and crystals weren't one of them. We walked from shop to shop, department to department, and get this... two hours of walking around and all we got was a single pillow (half price).
What is This?
I always look back at my Uni days in Aust with amazement. It is difficult to believe that I had lived such a sheltered live that when I arrived here for my undergrad studies, I had never cooked a meal for myself or washed my own clothes. During my first year, I spent much of my time eating foods that came out of a can or a packet. In my second year, my meals consisted mainly of rice (thanks to Dad's foresight to send me a rice cooker) and steamed egg/vege/whatever that will fit in a little plate atop my cooking rice). I can now cook a semi decent meal on my own and recognise most food stuff, although I still have my own adventures in that area.
The other day I bought a root vegetable which I thought was 'fen kot' which my mom usually buys to boil soup. It is sweet, and has heat reducing properties. When I got to the cashier and the produce was scanned, it appeared as sweet potato (white skin). Now, I have never seen a white skin sweet potato and have no idea what to do with it. There were 5 other people waiting in queue so I didn't want to return it. I got home and the sweet potato remained in my fridge for a week before my Malaysian friends paid me a visit. They told me that I can't hope to cook anything savoury with it, only sweets. It seems that the particular variety was cross bred with yam so it has white skin and purple insides. It was advisable to steam it and eat it on it's own or cook dessert with it, like bubur cha cha. That was a challenge. The last time I ever cooked a dessert was the gingko nut/sweet bean curd sheet dessert when I was trying to impress Gaz during our courting period. He didn't like it but finished his bowl anyway. It wasn't sweet or tasty enough. But I had to do something with the sweet potato so, this is what I did with it - cooked it with rock sugar and added sago to it. Not much of a sweets person, I gave half of it to Gaz's mom and had two bowls myself (was quite tasty). Gaz came home after work that night and polished off the rest. Not bad huh?
Purple rings in the sweet potato. I expected more purple
Sago swimming in the pot. Sago sinks to the bottom after it's cooked
The other day I bought a root vegetable which I thought was 'fen kot' which my mom usually buys to boil soup. It is sweet, and has heat reducing properties. When I got to the cashier and the produce was scanned, it appeared as sweet potato (white skin). Now, I have never seen a white skin sweet potato and have no idea what to do with it. There were 5 other people waiting in queue so I didn't want to return it. I got home and the sweet potato remained in my fridge for a week before my Malaysian friends paid me a visit. They told me that I can't hope to cook anything savoury with it, only sweets. It seems that the particular variety was cross bred with yam so it has white skin and purple insides. It was advisable to steam it and eat it on it's own or cook dessert with it, like bubur cha cha. That was a challenge. The last time I ever cooked a dessert was the gingko nut/sweet bean curd sheet dessert when I was trying to impress Gaz during our courting period. He didn't like it but finished his bowl anyway. It wasn't sweet or tasty enough. But I had to do something with the sweet potato so, this is what I did with it - cooked it with rock sugar and added sago to it. Not much of a sweets person, I gave half of it to Gaz's mom and had two bowls myself (was quite tasty). Gaz came home after work that night and polished off the rest. Not bad huh?
Purple rings in the sweet potato. I expected more purple
Sago swimming in the pot. Sago sinks to the bottom after it's cooked
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