Sunday, May 28, 2006

Nonya Kueh Chang

The dumplings festival is just round the corner. Every year I look forward to my mum's homemade Nonya Kueh Chang. The difference between the chinese normal dumplings and the Nonya Kueh Chang is the authentic blue coloring(abstracted from Bunga Telang aka Butterfly Pea flower) on the glutinuous rice and wrapped with pandan leaves that give the Nonya Kueh Chang it's fragrant when steamed. I could still recalled those days when my mum made me separate the greyish rice grains from the pure white glutinuous rice grains so as to achieve the smooth texture of the Nonya kueh chang. For the fillings, slabs of boiled fatty layered belly pork, tangkueh (dried and sugared winter melon) and black chinese mushrooms are finely cut, diced and cooked, seasonsed with fragrant spices like coriander seeds for that alluring flavour. Cleaning and cutting the pandan leaves is a great chore because of the many little thorns at the sides of the leaves that has to trimmed off . Even the strings used for tying the dumplings are from dried banana stems. With so much painstaking preparations to make the Nonya Kueh Chang, no wonder it's so expensive to buy from the shops during the dumpling festival season as it costs about S$2-3 per dumpling! As for me I can take 2 -3 dumplings at one go! Amboi! sedap sekali!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Stand Firm!

It has been the talk of the town of late about Da Vinci Code movie. Horrors of horrors, two floor stickers on the advertisements of the Da Vinci Code that carried an image of Jesus Christ were placed on the floor at the busy Orchard MRT station and imagine how many people could have trampled on them! After receiving feedbacks from passengers, barricades were errected around the image to prevent commuters from walking on it. Indeed, all I can say is that this is the EVIL at work and used Dan Brown the author of the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code made into a movie to raise questions and also led readers into confusion instead of enlightenment. The burning questions about Jesus and Mary Magadelene and Mary's presence at the Last Supper? The Bible which is the WORD OF GOD, has been our constant guidance long before Dan Brown was born. To all my Christian and God loving friends out there, though this can be a trying period for us, we should stand FIRM in our FAITH for what we BELIEVE because the TRUTH will set us free!

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Respecting Mum

Here's a tribute to all wonderful mothers and especially to my wonderful Mummy dearest. A Mother is a great pillar of strength that gels the family together. She is willing to sacrifice her time for enjoyment to provide for the family like cooking delicious meals, baking mouth watering cakes and kuehs, cleaning the homes and doing never- ending house chores to provide the warmth and comfortable ambience for her family. A mother truly understands the needs of her family by listening to the woes and squabbles amongst the children and will always do her best to be the peacemaker. Especially during exams periods, she will always be around to brew nourishing herbs and drinks to help boost the energy for the tired minds to study and will also stays up late to keep ccompany while her aching body pines for the comfortable bed. A Mother is also the great mediator between the father and the children because she surely knows the way to melt the heart of the father to relent to the children's request though at times the request really seems impossible to be granted! Yes! That's the magic of a being a Mother!

Friday, May 05, 2006

The Fighting Temptations

Over the long weekends holidays, I happened to chance upon a very good and touching movie on cable tv, The Fighting Temptations, a romantic gospel comedy with great soundtracks that actually touched me and made me teared. The story line: Darrin(Cuba Gooding Jr.), a morally hollow and debt- ridden advertising executive in New York travelled back to his hometown of Monte Carlo, Georgia to cash in on an inheritance of his dead aunt Sally, only to discover that in order to collect he must first lead the local church gospel choir to success at a national competition, the Gospel Explosion. Desperate for money, he embarked on the nearly impossible challenge of turning a choir of lackluster parishioners into Gospel gold. Frantically, he searched for the best voices in town and found them in some unconventional places: the county jail, the barbershop, an R&B dance club, and all points in between. Darrin was about ready to give up and head back to the city where he belongs-until he ran into Lilly(Beyoncé Knowles), a beautiful nightclub singer with a satin voice that could rock the competition at the annual Gospel Explosion, Lilly was just the miracle Darrin was looking for only!If only he he could persuade her to sing! Along the way he worked to win the heart of Lilly and comes dangerously close to being redeemed himself !