Mobile Staple Bank Project

I'm starting a new category of posts based on the theme of 'WorldSaver'.
maybe it's the time i have had on hand to ponder about issues and i do enjoy watching TED.
i'm no economist, scientist, academic or intellectual. Most of what i post may be rather hairbrained or non feasible and i don't think it'd be only green issues that i'd be writing about as the world need not always be defined as the world at large.

so here's something that i'd written about a year back....

WorldSaver Idea No. 1

Background

The recent global rice price hike of 70% over the past couple of years is worrying. There is good reason to because it is a staple for two-thirds of the world's population and two-thirds of these people, who live in developing countries, can ill-afford to weather through such a crisis.

Many blame it on climate change, with changes in weather affecting output of rice but the problem is multi-faceted, involving growing affluence in some developing countries and long-term government and business policies. For example, some countries dropped rice cultivation to develop its bio-fuel industry as the latter is a more profitable option, while others had put up their agricultural lands for expanding industries and residential projects. Hence a phenomenon of ex-rice producers buying from other rice producers took place. This has led to complacency as they believe that stockpiles could be built up with foreign supplies. The shortfall in supply is further aggravated with governments practicing protectionist policies in the face of falling production and rising costs .

Many third world economies are also plagued with mismanagement and corruption by their political charges. While food aid has been donated, they may not reach the needy but rather end up being sold in black markets. The rise in prices of everyday commodities like rice may push these communities to the edge and inflame resentment that will burn the already-stretched social fabric.


Objectives

We recognize that to enable these countries to make an effective leap out of poverty, constructive approaches to empower the people with knowledge is important. While it may take decades to combat low literacy rates and corruption, the international community does not have the luxury of time to deal with this crisis. We need a adopt a proactive approach to meet the following objectives:

• to encourage self-reliance and self sustenance
• to encourage an effective increase in production of staple crops
• to encourage the diversification of staple crops


Proposal for Mobile Staple Bank Project

An NGO-run “Mobile Staple Bank” is proposed. The NGO must first leverage on existing financial infrastructure in rural communities and partner with these local financial institutions. A model of micro-credit banking by Grameen Bank has been proven effective in Bangladesh. This will create a certain sense of self-reliance in people as they see potential in managing their own finances and can tap on funds for their own enterprises.

The other prerequisite is to work with governments and private enterprises such as internet service providers and telcos to provide wireless broadband access and open source technologies for these rural communities . There had been similar initiatives across rural communities in recent years and with the gradual decrease in infrastructural prices such initiatives are more affordable than before. The corresponding improvement in nomadic connectivity through WiMAX will mark significant boosts for applications like VOIP and online education for the people.

The NGO is to maintain a mobile fleet of “financial advisors” who will work with local authorities to identify and access remote rural communities. The advisors will travel to and offer free Mobile Staple accounts to the population and advise on “financial” services. These services are designed to help communities “save up” their rice supplies, take loans and trade their produce with other local or international markets via Mobile Staple accounts. Account holders, whom many are illiterate, will receive unique 2D datamatrix logins that can be printed on inexpensive durable fabric or synthetic stickers. They then use these to access their accounts when the Mobile Staple Bank comes by.

These advisors will have with them sets of wireless-enabled Ultra-mobile PCs that act as terminals. These will access wirelessly to a Mobile Staple Mobile Server in their vehicle. This in turn connects remotely to a Mobile Staple Central Server located at the nearest city centre. These Ultra-mobile PCs will also be linked to a mobile ATM.

Account holders will access the Ultra-mobile PCs by scanning in their 2D datamatrix. The Ultra-mobile PCs should have icon-based multi-touch screen GUI that allows account holders to select services such as trading of rice, loans or savings of credits and surplus stocks. The setup may have a platform where producers have direct access to purchasers. Mobile Rice advisors will then educate account users on how to track market prices and moderate their own prices accordingly. The advisors will also be at hand to help purchases between communities who are on this network. An important feature in Mobile Staple is that account holders can access hard currency there and then once loans or withdrawals are processed and updated via the network.

The Mobile Staple Mobile Server may also house a database for informal learning, as account holders access repository of information such as video on improved cultivation methods through the terminals that they are using . The advisors can also use this platform to encourage these communities to diversify their production of staples to include carbohydrate-rich tubers such as tapioca, sweet potatoes and potatoes and to increase their yields and income. Such machines may also have a built-in camera and VOIP function that enables users to communicate with overseas buyers or agricultural experts. Such interactions will garner valuable information in helping international researchers develop methods in alleviating the rice shortage.


Conclusion

The issues cannot be tackled by developing countries alone. Developed countries and urbanized communities must realize they are not spared of the rising costs. With their rich resources, they can engage in research to develop experimental approaches in scalable production of staples.

As developed countries attempt to educate and promote the consumption of alternative staples within its populations, changing entrenched traditional and cultural mindsets about rice consumption is difficult. Education of such issues to the young, through interactive media, such as Food Force , may be an effective approach. But for now, the immediate concern is to address the issues in developing rice-producing communities while stabilizing costs and increasing production of rice.


Reference

Rice prices 'to keep on rising'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7341978.stm

Price rise
http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_221445.html

Grameen Bank
http://www.grameen-info.org/

Connecting Remote Communities
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict_stories/themes/connecting.html

WiMAX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX

Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved
http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

The Digital Green Project
http://www.digitalgreen.org/

World Food Programme’s Food Force
http://www.food-force.com/

Mince Beef Fried Horfun with Black Bean Sauce

This is a make-do dish. cos i'd some leftover fried horfun from yesterday and mince beef sitting around in the fridge. and i'm hungry, so chop chop cook something that's edible for lunch. The Wife, who aint a big fan of black bean sauce, had the leftover fish slice horfun instead.

ingredients

• cooking oil
  
• chopped garlic
• mince beef
• cabbage (sliced)
• 1 tsp black bean sauce
  
• dark soy sauce (to taste)
  
• sugar (to taste)
• chilli sauce (to taste/optional)
  

recipe

• brown chopped garlic and add cabbage to fry
• once cabbage is half cooked, add mince beef
• once mince beef is half cooked, add rest of ingredients other than chilli, close lid and let simmer. you'll get some gravy from the cabbage n beef
• once you have the gravy, add the horfun, stirfry till it soaks up the gravy and becomes relatively dry.
  
• add chilli sauce, stirfry then serve.

Fish Slice Horfun 魚片滑蛋炒河粉

i think this week's posts can be collectively called 'comfort foods'.

as many will agree the 河粉 is part of the mainstay of every 煮炒 stall. along with the hokkien noodles, fried rice and yee mee. frankly if the stall's 河粉 sucks, you're better off eating from the chicken rice stall. i prefer the seafood 滑蛋 version and in a not too distant past they were served and packed in dried banana leaves (more uses of banana leaves here). i haven't tried cooking this for a long long while and with a few 'refresher' recipes from the web, here's my adapted version. Not perfect cos the gas stove wldn't allow me to create the 鍋味 in the horfun but the texture and taste quite there. if The Wife says not bad then it must be not bad lah.

following recipe serves 3-4.

ingredients A (to prepare horfun/guotiao)

• horfun/guotiao 1 kg (boil it in water for >10 sec, drain before frying. you dun wanna over cook it. try to get frsh ones from market, the one i used is from a prepacked...it had a 'distinct' factory/preservative taste which i can‘t quite get rid of even after frying)
  
• chopped garlic
• dark soy sauce
• fish sauce
• salt (soy sauce)
• chinese cooking wine
  
• cooking oil
  

recipe for frying horfun

• oil wok (you'd need quite a bit of it else horfun/guotiao will stick) and brown garlic. keep at medium-hi heat
  
• add boiled horfun/guotiao and fry
• add fish sauce until u see the 1st shade of brown and smell the fish sauce's fragrance
• add dark soy sauce (sparingly) to brown the horfun/guotiao further. some say that you can add this on the side of wok to let it burn to help create the 鍋味. not much luck here.
• add a dash of cooking wine (not too much you dun wanna have it soggy) and salt to taste
• try not to disintegrate the horfun/guotiao with too much stirring
• once done, set aside

ingredients B (to prepare gravy)

• chopped garlic
• ginger slices (essentail if u doing fish horfun)
  
• thin fish slices (i used bassa. can add prawn, pork slices etc)
• vegs (choy sum, bakchoi, carrots whatever)
• 2 eggs, beaten
  
• oyster sauce
• 1 bowl stock (great if you have prawn stock. i used chicken powder stock)
• salt
• 1 tbspn corn flour (optional)
  

recipe for gravy

• brown ginger and garlic. keep heat at medium
  
• fry in the 'harder' vegs like carrots, stems of choy sum etc
• add stock and when it comes to boil, add fish slices on the vegs so they dun stick to the wok. you can alternatively coat fish with cornflour and fry it before adding to gravy
  
• when the fish is almost cooked, add the leafy parts of vegs as they cook faster. cover wok to allow all to be cooked
  
• once all is cooked, add corn flour to thicken gravy, stir to achieve consistency
• off the stove and pour eggs over the gravy, cover wok to allow heat from gravy to cook the eggs
• scoop desired amount of prefried horfun/guotiao into plates and add on gravy

too bad i didn't have green pickled chillies to go with it. maybe i'll make some.

Mock Fried Carrot Cake

Did i mention that carrot cake is also one of my comfort food?
Incidentally The Wife likes the white version while i prefer the black.

When i was much younger and staying with my paternal grandma, she'd pamper me with fried carrot cake from ghimmoh market pretty much every other day. it's simply breakfast in the dunno-much-abt-calories days and together with youtiao, soya bean milk, they make up some fond memories. it's a really simple hawker dish, steamed daikon flour cake and eggs, not like these days with the extra prawns and what nots.

so what happens when you haven't gotten round to figure out how to make daikon flour cake n u r craving for this dish? then must be creative lah. so here's my non-carbo, hi protein version. i used what's readily available in most asian kitchen for this adaptation that serves 2-3.

ingredients

• slab of tofu (not the silken kind, and not tau kwah type...those with texture somewhere in between). you dun want too much cos later it tastes too tofu-bean-y. cut the tofu to small cubes
  
• 3 eggs
• pepper
  
• fish sauce (not optional. add to taste)
• chai por (preserved turnips, also not optional. add to taste)
• small portion of chopped garlic (optional...)
• spring onion (finely chopped, use as garnish. optional. i dun have in fridge today so i used dried parsley instead)
  
• cooking oil

recipe

• heat non-stick pan/wok at medium heat, brown the chaipor + garlic. you shld be able to smell the fragrance of the chaipor
  
• add tofu and fry with the chaipor+garlic. try to brown the tofu a lil too
  
• drizzle fish sauce and fry till you can smell the fragrance of the sauce
• keep pan at medium heat. beat eggs with dash of pepper, more fish sauce (optional) and add to tofu-chaipor mix
• wait till 1 side is browning and edges are crisping, then flip to fry the other side. you may turn up the heat to create faster browning
  
• serve with garnish when cooked

You'll get a slightly springier texture cos of the tofu, but you should get the fried omelette fragrance that comes with the chaipor n fish sauce. Glad The Wife likes this version. now i got to google on how to make the daikon cake......

Soya Bean Milk

i'd better state this outright......if you have spare time, lurrve the homebrew taste with no preservatives....yah go ahead try this out yourself. this is really cheap back home & you shld really save yourself the hassle. but since it costs >AUD$2.50/cup here, i thot i'd give it a shot (actually this is my 2nd go at it).

another item to add to my ever increasing list of comfort foods...the everyday humble soyabean milk, the pride of 5k yrs of chinese civilisation (hmmm maybe that was tofu). i'm a BIG fan of this drink and The Wife & my ex-colleagues can attest to that...every opportunity we get to lunch at ghimmoh market, i'd rather have this than fizzies. and warm one....not cold one hor. I even have my ICQ & MSN nic as SoYaX- The Mutant Bean for the longest time (that's another story that i'm working on).

the beany aroma seeping out of big hawker vats tucked away in their tiny stalls was a distinct part of my childhood. you see, i was brought up by my paternal grandma in ghimmoh and she lived just next to the market/hawker centre. on days when i get to accompany her and her neighbours down to the market/hawker centre, i'd see hawkers pouring this out of their vats into big plastic containers (those with lucid green frames and ladles) with icebergs in them. the gurgling of the ladle stirring and navigating through those icebergs and the generous portions of syrup sounded just right amongst the cacophony of marketplace.....& better yet you get one big sweating glass mug (not the puny pvc disposable cups they use these days) for less than 50 cents.

so here's the recipe adapted from a couple of sites. you have the option of blending the pandan leaves together with the beans to top the fragrance in the drink (it'd get slightly greenish but edible) or you can go with the 'traditional' approach of bundling up pandan leaves and boiling it with the milk (as described in this post). the latter approach will allow you to save the pulp. as The Wife's googles tell me, you can actually bake the pulp (okara) , blend them further and make more good stuff outta it. but all i really want is my soyabean milk lah.

Tools You'll Need To Make approx 1.5-2 litres of SBM

• blender with the centre sift attachment (i used The Wife's U-like blender. you can buy this inexpensive and really easy to use blender from isetan. the downside is that it's quite small so you'd need to repeat the process a few times. we use it mainly for making bb's food.)
• medium size metal/earthern pot
• sift lined with filter cloth (i used my bb's linen nappy)

Ingredients

• 300g soya beans
• 8-10 pandan leaves
• Water
• Rock sugar / raw sugar to taste
  

Preparation

• Soak the beans in clean tap water overnight. they'll look quite 'bloated' after soaking
• next day, drain and rinse once
• wash pandan leaves thoroughly, slit at the centre of each leaf into 2 (more flavourful instead of just using without slitting). bundle them up into a few knots.
  

Brewing

• fill about 3/4 full in the centre attachment of the blender with the beans
• pour boiling water into the blender until it reaches 3/4 full of the blender's jug
• blend for about 40-50 seconds. (Avoid blending for more than 1 minute non-stop, it will cause the motor to be over-heated and stall, then you'd have to wait at least 20 min for the motor to cool down....according to the phamplet that came with the belnder, it aint a design fault. duh)
• pour out the blended milk into the pot with a filter lined sift
• then pour more clean water into the blender's jug, this time only about 1/3 full
• blend the soya pulp for anther 10-15 seconds
• pour out the milk and place the pulp aside for okara
• repeat steps until all the beans are blended (your should need to do this about 3 times using u-like)
• you can sift the milk as many times as you like....apparently, the more the milk has been sifted, the smoother the milk will be...i simply just folded the nappy n place it in the sift and drained through once. it tasted smooth enuff fer me
  
• add in all the bundled up pandan leaves and bring to boil at medium heat
• once the milk starts to bubble, IMMEDIATELY lower the heat to low. else you will have burnt taste in your SBM
  
• continue to brew for about 20-30 minutes till the pandan leaves turn yellowish
• add sugar to taste & serve
  

Preparation of okara

• press and drain milk out of pulp
• line it on aluminium foil and bake for 20-30 min. oven at low heat
• stir it occasionally so that it doesn't get burnt
• remove from baking tray and blend it further to get a powdery substance
• seal in airtight bag/container
  

now all i need is to find out how to make youtiao.......

Singapore Fried Noodles

Here's my attempt at serving up the ubiquitous 'kwailou鬼佬-fav' found in all 'respectable' overseas Chinese restaurants. my 1st experience of tasting this was when i was studying in london many years back. i'd come to learn that this dish, together with

• Won Ton (anagram: Not Now...hurhur...ok its corny) Noooodle
  
• sweet & sour pORk
• spling loll
• 'peek-ing' duc
  

are 鬼佬's fav orders. i have never eaten Singapore Fried Noodles prior to my london days (i mean why wld i want to to Singapore Fried Noodles in Singapore?!), my experience of it had been rather disappointing. often it's no more than a curry-flavoured oil drenched plate of noodle with miserly portions of ingredients. i assume its an aquired taste. 鬼佬s would eat the above listed dishes as mains and often incur so much leftovers while we hungry poor overseas students wld look over our shoulders and mumble 'tsk tsk, so sayang' as we savoured our 1 plate meal of beef horfun/duck rice/soy chicken rice.

years later in my travels, it'd occurred to me that 鬼佬s the world over really haven't quite changed their chinese restaurant palattes. so be it berlin, chicago or sydney, 鬼佬s eat just about the same thing. but the presence of chinese restaurants in all the places i've been, made me proud of being chinese, for i'd learnt to respect the tenacity of the owners and their forefathers who eek out a living in sometimes not too chink-friendly environment. i suspect Singapore Fried Noodles share the same overseas chinese cuisine origins, with its set of reapproriations and spins, like that of fortune cookies and chop suey. incidentally, one of my fav docu series of all time is Chinese Restaurants.

since i am in Melb now, i figured i'll do up my rendition of this dish. The Wife wasn't quite sure if she'd actually like it when i announced the dinner menu. but it went down pretty well in the end. :)

ok here's the recipe:

ingredients

1. noodles (dried types, not the thick types. i used 蝦仔面, other wise known as HK Shrimp Roe Noodle)
2. garlic, onion/shallots finely chopped
3. eggs (okie i didnt add them into the one i cooked last nite, thot i'd cut down on the calories intake for a day)
4. fish sauce
5. dark soy sauce
6. sugar
   
7. salt, pepper
   
8. whatever raw/ precooked ingredients
9. red chilli, choy sum (chopped) & towgey
   
10. curry powder (yellow type, otherwise known as madras curry powder)
    

recipes

• prepare noodles. some types require you to soak before boiling. the ones i used didn't need to boil and cook noodles in separate pot. once done set aside. make sure they are dry
• fry scramble eggs set aside
• fry garlic, onion/shallots till brown
• add in raw ingredients (e.g. pork slices) and fry with fish sauce, sugar and dark soy sauce. add some water so that there is some gravy. keep fire at medium
  
• once raw ingredients are cooked, add in scrambled eggs, noodles and vegs. stir fry continuously, cover and simmer for a short while to allow noodles to soak up the gravy
  
• add salt and curry powder to taste. stir fry until noodle has an even yellowish tinge
• off the fire, the noodles should look dry by serving time
  

Fried Rice

This is one of my all time fav comfort foods (there're also kwaychap and black fried carrot cake).

my earliest memory of it was a rather mushy, tomato-y version with small shrimps and luncheon meat cubes. as my sis n i are totally off garlic (we'd actually throw up should our rice contain a shard of garlic), my mom wld do up the non garlic version. the only gripe i have is that she cld never quite produce the version that we so very like at the 煮炒 stalls....the ones with the salty 鍋味, miserly bits of 叉燒, eggs, carrots, peas and not-too-fresh prawns. it's very much later that i realised some of these stalls too used chicken rice for the base ingredient.

much has been said about fried rice. and the permutation to the recipe is countless, even Harlem Yu sang about it. essentially a dish concocted to clear leftovers is also one of the most challenging to make cos its all about infusing flavour into the mundane steamed white rice, keeping it nicely dry, shiny and fragrant. the leftovers are only cmplementary at best. to be honest, i haven ever gotten it quite as tasty as this round (The Wife will attest to my previous pretty disastrous attempts at rearranging the flow of ingredients). however i'd still very much like to master the 'imperial' version of fried rice one day (the one where the yolk coats the rice giving the rice a yellowish tinge all round). so here's the recipe.

ingredients:

1. steamed rice (leftovers from dinner. if its still kindda damp, microwave it to dry it up a lil, but not too dry)
2. cooking oil
3. fish sauce
4. pepper
5. salt
6. stock (chicken powder in water also can)
   
7. eggs
8. optional: chinese cooking wine
   
9. garlic &/onion/shallots finely chopped + dried shrimps (optional)
   
10. whatever u have: spam, charsiew, lap cheong, peas, carrots, etc all diced small (i'd imagine you have some raw and precooked stuff)
    
11. if you want greens, thinly sliced lettuce is good

recipe:

1. heat wok, add oil, fry eggs, scrambled. fry till about 80% cooked and set aside. it'll be quite oily but its okie cos you need this to 'polish' the rice later
   
2. add more oil if necessary, fry garlic and onion. no need to set aside.
   
3. add in other 'to cook' (ie raw) ingredients. add in stock so that there is a bit of gravy (not too much else your rice will be mushy later)
4. heap rice on top of this. you need to spread out evenly and break the rice clumps in the wok. medium heat from this point on.
   
5. add fish sauce 1st and stir fry. make sure you can smell the fragrance
   
6. add salt, pepper and stir fry. fry till your rice is dry
7. add scrambled eggs and other 'to warm up' (ie pre cooked) ingredients. just keep frying in a circular direction, evenly mixing in the eggs until they become bits amongst the rice. the oil from the eggs will polish the rice.
8. continue to stir fry. you will hear some rice crackling and its okie.
9. add a dash of chinese cooking wine towards the last bit of stir frying and off the fire
   
10. mix in the sliced lettuce and cover the wok. let the heat cook the lettuce for a bit.
11. serve in 1-2 mins

Proto蒸雞蛋糕

Prototype 2. the 1st one ended in the bin.
i'm still trying to learn how to get this, partially cos i really miss the ones that i cld get back home. and the times i'd eat it as a child after every religious rituals/ceremonies.

i was using the following recipe but as i do not have the tall lid/deep steaming pots, the cake didn't manage to 'bloom'. resulting it to be rather compact. also made the mistake to opening the lid too soon and the cake kindda collapsed. oh yah the recipe.....


Ingredients：

* half cup cake flour

* 6 x eggs (must be at room temperature)

* half cup sugar

* Cream of Tartar 3/4tsp (optional)

* non grease paper


Approach：

1. Boil the water first, you have to make sure its boiling when you put in the cake mix later. also make sure that you have enough water to last 50 min

2. line the baking pan with non grease paper

3. separate egg white and yolks，add cream of tartar to egg white

4. beat the egg white at full speed (use mixer)，until you see it turning foamy (can see bubbles). use mixing bowl cos rounded bottom allows better circulation so i read.

5. gradually add sugar until the mixture thickens. the mixture shld have an equal consistency. it will grow up to 3 times the original volume.

6. beat the yolks in another bowl

7. add the yolks and fold it into the mixture in 3 different portions. you must fold till you dont see any yolks trace every time u add in the yolk. the technique is to fold gently so as to not disturb the inherent air bubbles.

8. add in the flour and fold it into the mixture in 3 portions. you must fold till you dont see any lumps of flour.

9. pour mixture into pan. ur mixture should take up no more than half of the pan.

10. sprinkle a cross of sugar on top of the mixture so that it will bloom into quarters. i have also read that you can use a oily spatula and 'cut' a cross on the mixture. (i didnt do this :( )

11. bake for 50 minutes. the water must be boiling at hi-heat.

12. once time's up, turn off n let cake sit in there for 10 mins (i also didnt do this :( ). then take out and serve.

Job hunt

i'd never quite had to write a proper cover letter or CV in my entire adult working life (i had done artist-versions for exhibitions and stuff but they aint strictly cvs).

since i was bonded to the Service, the career options are somewhat lateral, ie school-HQ-school. your bosses wld probably have told your new bosses what kind of a whackjob you are before they decide on the move (hmmm come to think about it if you are a whackjob your old boss will probably want to sell you asap). seriously, pretty much everything from iras declarations to claims...are all rather efficiently worked out by the admin staff in the System and all you needed to do was to remember to click on some buttons on a webpage and be done with it. end of story.

so here i am trying to prove my worth to potential employers when i had to synthesis what i had done in the past 7-8 years into a 2 page cv. after all the typing, the premise of an artist, teacher, HQ officer does not translate to any 'quantifiable' evidence, ie no '80% retail target met or made turnover of 1.3 gazillion bux', in my 'list of achievements'. i cld probably quote the percentile of kids passing my subject (tho that's really not quite my doing since its the kids themselves delivering the results), the numerous projects, which i was in a sub-sub-sub-comm of. even when i do get tasked to 'lead' anything, i was managing higher-ups' intentions. so i wrote that i can manage projects, run events from sectional to ministerial scale (like they say On The Job Training) but seriously i'd no paper qualifications in PR, Comms, Mgt....so essentially i wonder if any of my work done in the Service has any currency out in the real world. so as u can see, as a fine art and education trained guy in his early 30s, any career change at this point is 1 heck of a hurdle.

nonetheless, out went the cvs and i'd just have to keep my fingers crossed that someone out there will buy my story. like a good friend of mine just told me, it'll be like skipping from 1 puddle to the next...if not how to evolve right?

2 plates of Hokkien Mee

The Wife often complains that I hog the kitchen and to be honest, I do like to cook (whether palatable is another issue). It takes my mind off things and I can concentrate on controlling the processes right in front of me. The Wife is sometimes critical about my rather chop-suey adaptive form of cooking. Admittedly it lacked finesse as very seldom are grocery shopping done based on recipes, but rather based on how much I am spending for the week. Choice cuts are expensive and chicken is more 'generic' to handle. As all wonderful relationships go, compromises are made and The Wife's input in the kitchen is much appreciated by yours truly.

The Wife had found recipes of Hokkien Mee online some time back and she had cooked her favourite 'black gravy' version last week. So this week, I decided to usurp the kitchen hob and cook my favourite 'white' version with her help of cos. The recipe is simple and the end result surprisingly similar to the hawkerfare back home (ok, it didn't have the 'wok味', no thick beehoon cos didnt find any here....and we certainly didn't have any lime in the fridge)

So here's today's recipe adapted from the one she found on the web (for 2 - 3 servings):

1) Deshell the prawns (must use prawn's head. we bought paradise prawns..i believe any medium sized prawns will do) and fry the shell with chopped garlic. After you see red pastey stuff oozing in the pan & smell the 'prawny' fragrance. If the stock is really rich, then the noodles should taste really good.

2) Add 4 cups of stock (can use chicken stock powder, or if you have time pork bones stock shld be better). Let it boil to a reddish brown stock and let it simmer.

3) Cook yellow noodles in boiling water for no more than 2 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water and set aside.

4) In a clean wok, fry some scrambled eggs (well, depends on your cholestrol meter...) and set it aside.

5) Now the noodles: Fry chopped garlic till brown, then stir in the noodles. Add no less than 3 tablespoon of Fish Sauce and cover the wok for half a minute once you see steam coming out.

6) Add raw slices of pork and some prawn stock. When the pork is about 70% cooked, add the raw prawns, squid and more stock into the noodle. The eggs (you can add some chopped spring onion or towgay if u have) should go in last (add in fried pork lard chips if u have). Stir fry the mixture and cover the wok. Make sure that you pour sufficient stock to allow you to reduce it into a sort of gravy. Open the wok and stirfry a minute or 2 later and then cover it again. Wait for it to steam up.

7) Once you open the cover and see it steam up and the stock is reduced to a gravy, turn off the hob and serve (add more crispy lard chips as toppings!!). It should smell more prawny than fishy (if it's the latter than your fish sauce add too much alredi).

Hard Reset

i did a hard reset in my life on monday.

it had literally been an agonising 4-5 days (on The Wife too...for having to put up with my verbalised thoughts) before i pulled the plug on on my grad place in melb uni on monday.
i dont expect anyone, other than The Wife, to understand what transpired, afterall i did get a place in the uni, attended 1st week of class, bought a couple of books and even very kiasully gotten the online readings and planned out my google calender for the next 6 mths with all the assignment deadlines. then a voice in my head (or the heart as some may put it) spoke real loud, culminating into sleepless nites and listless netsurfing.

the voice had asked what if i'd not really made another truly life altering decision since i decided to go to art school (ok, marrying The Wife n having BB also counted)? that my choices made in that past 8 -9 years had rather been like jumping from one fishtank to the adjacent tank, from 1 comfort zone to another...each a rational extension of previous professional experiences. it's rational cos for most, i believe, that's termed as career progression / upgrade. and the situation with the course looked pretty much as such. but hell, what do i even want to do with it after spending the next 2.5 yrs and some 50k AUD on it? is that a career path carved out by a large degree of convenience and familiarity? if i am questioning this on the eleventh hour, i reckoned something is not quite right.

so after the weekend, i returned every single thingy and got back every single cent. and i felt a sense of relief. it was particularly difficult to explain to my folks. perhaps the notion of leaving service, relocating to melbourne and now this withdrawal had made me look like some kamikaze pilot, with wife and bb in toll. i couldn't do a good job explaining it to my mom over skype and to hear what i had to say myself was definitely un-reassuring.

so here i am, a 33 yr old who'd leapt out from the tank and landed on the dry table. admittedly, i am terribly scared, anxious and flippy. all the years of habitual planning and contingencies simply went out of the window and i'm trying hard to breathe on unfamiliar grounds. perhaps it's normal to feel that way...just need to keep flipping and flipping...and then i'd learn to evolve.

Standing by one another

when i dribble around in circles
there you'd be, steadfastly, next to me
there are days that i do not have enough of sorries to fill the heartaches
but there are always time we make for another embrace to reconnect snapped ends
i have only thanks written into the palms of my hands
that clasp yours tightly

Eating own words

A very long while back i heard this quote by a British politician 'May my words be as sweet as honey, for one day I just may have to eat them all.' since then, it's been one of my life's compasses and i'd freely dished this out to friends and colleagues who may be none the wiser (not that i'd much opportunities of correcting/reverting/regretting any of my 'words' for the past years since very much what i'd to put across formally/professionally in my work place had been vetted, revetted, rerevetted).

then again, my words had always a sweet-tinge to them. The Wife calls me, in our earlier days, 'naturally flirtatious', and not too recently, 'gregarious'. she foretold that while my ability for the 'great balancing act' of 'harmonising' all my externalities is one of my +ve traits, one day it may not be that much of a help. i guess when that day comes, all facets of my known world will take more than honey to hold. perhaps then, it'd be a good thing. cos then i'd get a chance to make something new of my world after i'd to swallow it all.