Hidup mesti baking

Sejak beberapa Ramadhan yang lepas, minggu seperti ini ialah minggu Auntie akan mula menggatal nak baking pelbagai jenis cookies. Semua cookies yg Auntie bake mempunyai rupa yg tak semenggah. Mesti senget-benget dan herot-petot. Walau bagaimanapun, ada beberapa cookies yg diakui oleh adik beradik Auntie (kecuali jika mereka berselindung di sebalik pujian) sebagai mempunyai rasa yg sedap.  Kalau Auntie pergi rumah Qin, Qin sure akan sibuk ajak Auntie bake cookies or cupcakes. This year, Mommy pun has started baking projects with Qin coz Mommy tak larat nak dengar Qin punya pertanyaan bila Auntie nak pi KL lagi to start baking.

Auntie's favorite cookies are chocolate chips' cookies and cookies with nuts or grains. Choc chips are constant baking projects but nutty cookies may come in many, many forms, which Auntie would experiment.  Last year Auntie baked almond cookies. Sedap tapi, as usual, nothing to look at. This year Auntie discovered the Anzac cookies while attending conferences in Melbourne (will do an entry on this soon, hopefully). Tried to bake them and was successful, so for sure this will be a constant in the near future. Auntie brought back some macadamia and pecan nuts from Tasmania (while on the trip to Melbourne), so Auntie's been trying a recipes to use them. This morning Auntie tried once recipe but the taste didn't turn out to be that great. Just so, so. Then this evening tried another recipe with walnuts. Can be improved. The problem is with recipes (in Malaysia, usually) that used ingredients with a view to making the cookies last for keeping, thus, the results are usually crispy and dry cookies.  The recipes would normally call for icing sugar, milk powder and corn flour.  In Auntie's opinion, cookies are best when they are made with just (real) butter, plain flour, castor sugar (white or brown) and eggs. And vanilla essence (or real vanilla pods, if you have the luxury).  Variations should only be in the form of taste-themes eg add almond essence for almond cookies, nuts for nutty cookies, or add oatmeal or dessicated coconut for grainy taste. With these basic ingredients and with the Malaysian heat, cookie doughs don't normally turn out to be too great as per envisioned by the recipes (esp if recipes are taken from international websites), so we have to improvise somehow. In Auntie's experience, it is always best to refrigerate cookie dough after making them and before forming them into cookie shapes/ baking, for at least 20 minutes. Take a little out to form the cookies and to bake them. While they are baking, keep them remaining dough back into the fridge until needed to be used.

Auntie will also bake some cakes, hopefully by using the vanilla pod that Auntie bought in Tassie (if they are still usable).

Here are some pics of bakings that Auntie had not yet blogged about:

Nutty cookies: walnuts, pecans and macademias. But adding the chocolate was not the best choice. Would have been better if plain butter with nuts.

From oven

Cooling. Auntie baked this after sahur so didn't get to taste them until after berbuka. So-so.

Another 'nutty' attempt: Walnut tart. Pastry a bit bland and sweet (follow recipe, which uses icing sugar. Should have used a cheese pastry recipe. Would have been much more sedap)

Rupa yg herot-petot

Filling is not too bad. Chopped walnuts and butter-sugar mixture.

The most successful cookie-baking attempts so far. The Anzac cookies. 

Ogabang has been having these for sahur in the past week. So, auntie bake new batches yesterday.

Auntie's best-tasting butter cake so far. With real vanilla pod for flavour.

Carrot cake

Carrot cake 'dressed' for Boss' Birthday lunch.

HAPPY BAKING, MY DEARS!

Work and play

This weekend Auntie is in the mood for updating blog.  There are a few events in Auntie's life that are worth blogging about since January this year. One of them is work since especially this year, work has taken a big chunk of Auntie's life. Tapi before Auntie talks about Auntie's work, Auntie nak mention a sad news. One of Auntie's friends passed away Monday two weeks ago (26 July 2010).  On that Monday morning Auntie received a msg fr Kak Nor, that Dr. Suhaimi Shahnon passed away at the Selayang Hospital. When Auntie got the news Auntie was preparing to travel to KL for work and, in between, to join Mommy and Pak Long Ami take Aki and Wan to IJN for check up.  So, Auntie tak sempat nak call K Nor to ask for further cerita.  To this day pun Auntie has not find the right time to talk to Kak Nor but hopefully soon. As some people may have guessed, Suhaimi is the son of National Literary Laureate Shahnon Ahmad. He was an Associate Professor at the School of Management and the Deputy Director at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies at Auntie's uni.  Auntie mula kenal Suhaimi, his wife, Kak Fadzillah and their 3 girls around the year 1998/99 through Kak Nor. They are kind, humble people and were very easy to be friends with.  In the last few years, kami jarang jumpa except during common meetings at the uni or kadang2 terserempak kat makan places. Their first born, Izni, used to be quite close dengan Auntie and was peramah. Bila dah besar, dia malu-malu sikit, like teenagers normally are.  Auntie also know Cikgu Shahnon personally coz Auntie helped him with some translation work for his book a few years ago.

Suhaimi had been diabetic for a few years but Auntie rasa dia ada a few other complications in the last year or so. He was admitted to Selayang Hospital some time ago due to these problems. Suhaimi is probably only about 4 or 5 yrs older than Auntie. It is very sad to lose a friend at such a relatively young age. Al Fatihah atas pemergian Suhaimi and Auntie doa semoga Kak Fadzillah dan anak2 diberikan kekuatan oleh Allah untuk menghadapi dugaan ini.  In 2006, we lost arwah Bob, another of Auntie's and Ogabang's friend and colleague and a good friend of Suhaimi's and Kak Nor's, too.  Bob also had some complications which were quite similar to Suhaimi and Bob was 46 when he passed away. Bob, even when he was already ill, had gamely agreed to represent Ogabang as ketua rombongan meminang Auntie in 2004.  He knew Auntie's parents because his parent-in-law's home is near Aki and Wan's. He lead the rombongan meminang armed with a few rangkap pantun and took Tokki De who represented Auntie's side with an amount of surprise. Auntie had only good memories about Suhaimi and Bob, two kind, gentle souls and is grateful to have known them. May Allah tempatkan mereka di tempat tertinggi di sisi Nya. Amin.

Auntie was actually going to blog about work when Auntie was reminded about Suhaimi. So, anyway, this year had been way too busy on the work front for Auntie. Much of Auntie's fieldwork for various research started late last year and continue well into this year. One of Auntie's most enjoyable fieldwork is the interview with young people who were participants of the National Service. We had to go to a few places for the interview in the span of 6 months or so but one of the most memorable one is in Rompin because Auntie got to 'balik kampung' (Rompin is Auntie's birthplace) and had some quality time with family members (Aki, Wan, Pak Long Ami and family) and 'extended family members' who were Samantha and "RA" and mamachupan and family. The latter two are Auntie's co-researchers. And in this trip, Ogabang came along so we got some couple time although we also had a really big fight about some really stupid things (but we kissed and made up after a few hours, of course!).  Pada masa yg sama, Ogabang managed to get some work done with his project of the time by recruiting our first 'child labour' in the form of Jijin, who were hired to be a voice over for Ogabang's video project. The video turned out to be very well received. When we get the permission from the 'client' Auntie will put it on the blog, Insya Allah.

Some pictures of the Rompin trip:

Ogabang, the designated driver. Masih happy.

Masih calm. But the lidah is a sign for a storm to come!

Precious cargo no.1

Precious cargo no.2. Aki said to Ogabang: "Ogabang ni drive macam Aingah la (our eccentric uncle)".

Sudah mula tensi. (Gambar tensi not worth taking).

Some nice kampung view- somewhere after Pekan

Nenasi beach

Jalan yg meningkatkan tensi Ogabang especially bila ada lori (selekoh maut di hujung tu).

First night dinner. Only the udang galah were memorable (according to pemakan2 udang).

Did Auntie mention Pak Long and family decided to come along? The rest of the clan couldn't.

Ogabang's nasi goreng and udang galah.  RM60 or 65 sekilo.

Relaxed Wan & Aki

Auntie & Ogabang during peaceful times

Umi penggemar udang. Go for it, Umi!

Pak Long yg kena pau Wan's celebrex selepas makan udang galah. But sure rugi kalau miss kan? Sbb dia tukang bayar. Tenkiu, Pak Long kerana menyokong projek penyelidikan kerajaan Mesia.

Siapa punya leftover, ni? Definitely not Auntie's! (Auntie non-pemakan udang)

The adults after dinner. Ogabang dok baca doa lepas makan ke?

The kids after dinner. "Bila nak balik ni?"

The researchers with the camp facilitators. Thank you, ladies!

Ajmal, kept from boredom with Auntie's phone-TV while Jijin practiced the voice-over.

Pantai Rompin (lupa nama glamour dia): tempat Wan & Aki bercanda dolu-dolu.

Pak Long and Umi membuat cubaan bercanda tapi ada 'handbag' aka Ajmal.

Para penyelidik dan pembantu penyelidik sesudah subuh.

Adakah penyelidikan paranormal part of the deal?

The beautiful sunrise

Sunrise 2

Sunrise 3. After that batteries in Auntie's camera went kong-ed.

Food in Rompin (other than udang galah and lokan) is nothing to 'blog home' about but all in all, the trip had been very successful research mission and bonding times. 

Good night, all!

6 yrs today

Kepada 2-3 kerat adik-beradik & kengkawan auntie yg kadang2 terpanggil nak visit blog ni lagi dgn harapan auntie akan update, tenkiu. Penantian u all berbaloi akhirnya. Hehehe.

No, it's not 6 yrs since auntie last update blog. It is actually Auntie's and Ogabang's 6th anniversary today. According to kalendar omputih. Kalendar Islam, tatau. Mungkin more. Auntie ingat nak ajak Ogabang go out for meals kat Eastin ke, kat TGIF ke (Ogabang's fav utk meal options yg lebih dari RM10.00 per serving) or ok la, kalau dia teringin and nak jugak...Hameediyah! But it turned out his Mak is not too well so we took her to clinic first and by the time habis kat clinic, not much options available for food that will serve both our hunger and Mak's yg perlukan soft food.  So, after hantar Mak balik, we went to Tesco to get one of her favourite moi (bubur nasi) kat Tesco.  Since we had not been to the Jelutong Tesco for some time, we didn't realise that the food court was under renovation so the other option is to get bubur ayam Pakcik Donald for orang sakit. But we didn't feel like getting anything for ourselves fr Pakcik Donald and Ogabang felt like ayam goreng Pakcik Uban so we had to content with a late brekkie/ early lunch at Pakcik Uban.

We had been staying in Brown Garden since Auntie's last trip. In the afternoon we packed and went home to Golf View.  Kat Golf View ada org not in good mood so auntie dah ready utk work up a temper kalau Ogabang continue with the dark mood. Nasib baik takde letupan2 yg terlalu kuat. By dinner time, everyone's calmed and Auntie made our fav pasta with some sausages fr Tassie (another entry sat lagi). After dinner and maghrib, sorang dok hujung sana, and sorang hujung sini. Apa lagi, mengadap FB (and in Auntie's case, blog today).  The total sum of our 6th annniversary (tak termasuk adegan yg mungkin berlaku 2.5 jam lagi... wei, don't be dirty minded, adegan yg dimaksudkan ialah basuh pinggan yg belum basuh lepas dinner sbb malas, tukar bedsheets, basuh baju and maybe annoy Ogabang supaya dia tak boleh tidur sebelum Auntie habis kerja2 tu).

Here are some defining moments six years ago:

Aki 'giving Auntie away' (with much relief!)

Auntie dok tunggu, in case Tok Imam buat chauvinistic remarks. Sure auntie akan keluar dan bagi lecture kat dia :).  BTW, make-up by Abg/ Kak Rusli. 

Sarung cincin. Nasib baik cincin muat lagi after a month from date of purchase coz we had so many meals out before wedding.

Happy Ogabang coz perut agak kenyang and bilik ada aircond

Padan muka kena cium

Wedding cake- no grand cake-cutting. With kids and family only.

Pelamin bidang terjun coz we didn't want to bersanding at first. Auntie was half persuaded a few days before wedding but didn't fancy any of the 'shop' ones. So Mak Lili came up with this. Thank you, Mak Lili, my bidang terjun wedding planner.

Ogabang didn't know he had to sit and take pictures on this pelamin. Kena paksa ngan new mum-in-law. Padan muka! And he refused to put his shoes on in the house coz he had used the shoes outside. We didn't have spare shoes for him. Suka hati kau la, Labu...