When in China...

We have to eat the chinese food. They are not spicy yet not too bland.

Warm Yam or sweet potatoes are sold everywhere.

The pineapples look yummy!

The popular drink...hot tea...

Simple yet tasty stir vegetables. They are mixture of cucumbers, mushrooms and carrots

Aha! Gotta try this congee or rice porridge. I love the sweet and salty pickled radish.

This noodle soup was so simple. It was just spinach and cabbage in a soy sauce broth.

Seafood noodle soup with herbal egg.

Bak Choy...

Never say never...

Every morning we were being entertained by this tai chi group at breakfast.

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Herbs

I was at Pasar Tani (Gardener's Market) one morning and found some herbs with some young eyes or shoots. In the above picture are pandanus(screwpine), ginger, turmeric, temulawak and red ginger. These herbs are good for health. The temulawak especially good for blood circulation, kidney and heart. When growing up, I always see my grandmother eat the young temulawak fresh with her rice. The taste of this temulawak is definitely very bitter. I don't know how she can chew this tender root just like that. Sometimes my grandmother will make temulawak juice. I could never finish the drink. One sip will make all the food I eat after that taste bitter.

The same roots as in the first picture but they are now kept in an old pan before I get the soil and the pots to grow them.

This is how I carefully wrap them. In the blue plastic bags are my favorite soy sauce. Since they came in a glass bottle, I placed them in a tall plastic container after I wrap them with newspapers.
The herbs are wrap in a paper towel and placed in a zip lock bag.

My favorite soy sauce.
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New Year's Dessert

This fruits cake was especially ordered by my BIL. One tiny slice is enough for the day. This Christmas cake is very rich in flavors. The sweetness came from the fruits.

These sweet treats are baked by my BIL.
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Lunch at Breast Cancer Event

I enjoyed every topic presented by the professionals on cancer topic earlier this morning at a breast cancer event. My mil and I have a blast when the presenter crack some jokes. I didn't take a picture of the breakfast menu. We had assorted danish, mini bagel and muffins with variety of tea, coffee and plain water with or without ice. We pick.

Laduree London

Sweet treats from Laduree in London.

Just a tiny bite and the sweetness sipping through my body.

These custards are to die for.

New Diet

I have been cooking the same food featuring in this blog these past few weeks. Honey is a non red meat eater now. He eats seafood and string beans, tomato soup, clam chowder but still no garden salad as he is referring salad and carrots are for the rabbits. As for myself, my diet is paid off as I have lost another 9 lbs within 3 months. Tina stopped by at the house one night and when we hug she said “Oh! You are so tiny”. I just smiled with joy.

My routine is simple, early in the morning I will drink Milo with 2 tablespoon benefiber. The whole day I will munch on grapes or any fruits I have in the kitchen. For afternoon snack I will have a bowl of hard pretzel with some creamy spinach dip or mango salsa.

I was at the Ross yesterday to payback my unable to shop in London dilemma. I was surprise I can fit in size 6 (have to be the stretchable mode) and comfortably in size 10.

Ok, after all of those floating in the air feeling, I was brought back to reality when my cholesterol reading was off the chart! What is happening? The doctor said if I lose weight my reading will improve. But now, everything is reverse. My reading was better when I was heavier.

My niece is so sweet to peel the tangerine for me.

This is a bad food that I have been eating. It is sweet and reminded me of my hometown.

This is butterfish that I fried with panko bread crumbs. It is crunchy and delicious!

Eighteenth Day Ramadan - Special Message to my Followers

Today is the eighteenth Day of Ramadan, honey and I are taking a break from cooking at home for our breakfasting dinner tonight. We had a chinese take out of shrimp egg foo young , white rice and shrimp loo mein. These are our favorites and most ordered meals from the restaurant.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my followers and readers who is Muslim, Eid Mubarak aka Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri dan maaf zahir batin.
Have a nice day or night depending where you are located in this small world and I will see you again tomorrow night.

Food Network Star

Oh No!I cannot believe Jeffrey lost in the food network star. Why do they crowned boring person as a star. I don't need tips in the kitchen. There are so many food network cook who already did that. I definitely cannot relate to her being a mom cook for her kids or what not. But I can definitely relate to the food smuggler. He is more creative and will bring more flavors to the cooking. Melissa is too clumsy and I think having Rachel Ray talking too fast in the show is enough.

I guess I will just watch the re run of Paula Dean and Barefoot Contessa. They both are the best and stays the best.

SIL Birthday Party

Since I came back from the trip for my SIL birthday party, I have been busy getting my time back on schedule at home. I do not have the time to cook anything special for everyone to share. Everyday, I serve the same meal I already posted in this site for our dinner. Each day, I make sure I did not cook the same meat in a row.
Monday, shrimp + green string beans;
Tuesday, chicken;
Wednesday, beef;
Thursday, fish + potato salad;
Friday, scallop;
Saturday, Philly cheese steak;
Sunday, lamb;
And the menu rotate for the following week.
One thing that I am grateful is that honey will not mind having just one meal for his dinner. It really save my time preparing for his dinner. I on the other hand, still preferred Asian cooking. I still keep my ritual of cooking my own food on weekend. But I limit it to a simple Nasi Lemak or porridge with lots of spinach and vegetables.

Now, back to my SIL birthday party, here are some of the pictures on the night of her birthday party. The venue for the party was at a hall of the local hotel in her hometown.
Before we enter the hall, there was a nice display on a table to greet us. There was also a guest book that we could sign in.
The table setting was very nice. My husband and I were given the honor to sit at the birthday girl's table. To some people, celebrating their 60th birthday is a big event. It was a formal birthday party for my SIL. My SIL invites reputable people to her party. Everyone came in their suit and black tie. The ladies all look fabulous in their glittering evening gown.
This is me ready to leave the house for the party.
The birthday cake. Simple yet elegant with white icing.

The buffet table. The food was delicious. I apologize for the poor quality of this picture.
Everyone say their grace before eating. These young men are my SIL's grandsons.
The birthday cake has a chocolate cake on one side...
and the white cake on the other side. The chocolate cake was for me and the white cake was for my husband.
For dessert, we were served with cheesecake with fresh strawberry topping.
The wild rice was delicious. The steamed carrot was not soft, it was little bit raw but very tasty. I love the dinner roll. It was not a plain dinner roll. I can taste some herb in the dinner roll but not quite sure which herb it was. There were program throughout the party time. My husband was invited to give a speech. My SIL introduced me to the audience because we had successfully completed our 2600 miles road trip together.

A Celebration Feast

My husband and I went on a cruise to celebrate my sister in law’s 60Th birthday. It was our gift to her. The cruise was her second time on the ship and the first time for me. We leave from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Bahamas. We checked in on board as early as at 1 pm. The security checkpoint went smoothly. Our luggage are scanned and we were issued a ship card. The ship card will be used to open the cabin door, to order extra drinks from the menu, to buy items from the gift shop and as our identification to board the ship.
On our way to Fort Lauderdale, we drove right into a severe thunderstorm and heavy rain. This is the picture I managed to capture of the heavy cloud ahead of us. We drove right underneath the cloud which was pouring hard.
I have never seen cloud as thick as this one.

The ship sailed out at 5:30 pm as scheduled. This is a picture of Fort Lauderdale taken from the ship.
I do feel a little bit of motion sickness but I try not to think about it.
Our cabin is at the top deck with view facing the front of the ship. As you can see from the picture above, my husband was excited to look at the ocean as we sail out.
View of the Atlantic ocean from our cabin. Although the weather was not good on our way to the port, it changed into gorgeous and fine day by the time we sailed.
Our room was on the right of the two - three windows on the picture above. The ship has slides, pool and everything you want to do. My sister in law and I did our own thing while honey was busy with his homework. For those who has been on a cruise or never been on the cruise will hear about the food. Yes, the cruise provide us with lots of food. There are 4 different dining restaurant that we can choose from. We tried the buffet and also the serve restaurant.

On the first day on the ship, lunch were served. There are so much food to choose from. There are fruits, bread, rice, meat, fried fish, baked fish, steamed vegetables and salad of all kind.
And not to forget the dessert, all kind of delicious cakes.
At dinner, which we chose to have by 6:30 pm, we had more delicious food.
I have rice with squid, fried banana, vegetable salad and lots of dinner rolls. I have to eat bread to stop my queasiness on the motion.
Meal for breakfast was awesome too. There are scramble eggs, toast, yogurt, fruits, danish, hash brown, bacon, sausage, cereal, rolls, etc.
Lunch and dinner on the second day was excellent. The food are cooked to perfection. The taste was really great. By the second day I could not take it anymore. Too many food to endure.
We have been eating all day long. The buffet served too many food one could dine.
But I will never pass up these delicious miniature sweet tooth delights. I tried each and every cheesecakes they serve. Some with fruit topping and some is mix with chocolate. They are too delicious to describe here.
I finish all of these sweet treats in no time. The cheesecakes were soft and really melt in my mouth. It is all worth the money we paid for.
At one of the hotel we slept in, there are waffle machine that we could cook our own fresh waffle.
The instruction was easy to follow and in 2 minutes I have a perfect and delicious waffle.
Our road trip to and back from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Alabama took us about 2600 miles. At every hotel that we checked in for overnight stay, we were served with cold continental breakfast. Having the fresh and delicious waffle really make our trip a perfect one.

My sister in law will be having a formal dinner to celebrate her birthday with her children, grand children, great grand children, her mother, husband, friends and us tonight at one of the hotel here in her hometown. I will update on the food. Stay tuned.