Mr Kipling’s

French Fancies.

It not only looks darn good, it tastes even better than darn good! Mr Kipling (if that’s the creator’s name) is a genius!

Malaysia

What has Malaysia become?

Protests breakouts are at an all time high (since I started to remember, that is).

Yes, we want a better Malaysia but not like that.

Who is it to blame? The people or the executive body?

Baking

Haha! My housemates’ and my first baking event of the year together! Chocolate brownies! Mmmmmm…..

We had a wonderful time indeed. With no weighing device to weigh the sugar and flour, we had to turn to the ultimate resource for information… the internet.

With the laptop, calculators, ingredients and baking utensils all out, it is time…

We found a website that actually converts the weight of flour and sugar into how many teaspoons or tablespoons. Accurate to 2 decimal places. So what we needed was 200 grams of wheat flour which is 13.33 UK tablespoons and 100 grams of sugar is 8.33 UK tablespoons. That’s why you can see a tablespoon and teaspoon in the bowl of flour and sugar mixture in the picture.

After mixing all the ingredients together, it’s time to transfer the mixture into the baking tray and it looked something like this.

Looks more like peanut butter. Haha! It’s supposed to be darker but we replaced dark chocolate with milk chocolate so it turned out less “tanned” that it’s cousins made in the bakery.

And the final result is…

Oh oh, I did the chocolate sprinkles detailing!

Very satisfying indeed. Plus it tastes good too! Good job well done for our first ever baking expedition together as housemates.

Wonder what’s next…

A “What Would the World Do?” Question

What would the world (especially the United Kingdom) do without booze?

1. Probably there would be less impromptu marriages
2. Less “accidental” kids
3. People of the world would finally come to its senses that global warming is a threat to all living things in this world
4. Less addiction cases to the liquid “drug” called ethanol
5. Our streets would be properly furnished and stay furnished for longer periods as the culture of taking home street furniture would have plummet
6. No more annoying noises in the middle of the wee hours of the morning
7. No more straight guys feeling extremely bad the next morning after realizing that they’ve just made out with a guy the night before (probably not so true)
8. No more need go through the trouble of guiding all the drunk people home safely when you’re the only sober one

Food

Being a Malaysian, life is all about food. When we eat, we talk about food. When we sit, we talk about food. When we shower, we think about food. When we sleep, we dream about food. Food, food, food! We Malaysians literally live to eat!

Today, had a Japanese dinner meal at East Ocean, The Moor.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t disappointing at all.

I had Japanese Chicken Bento and other friends had a Salmon Bento and a Gyuuko (beef) Tokyo set. I would say that their Miso soup was exceptionally good.

Sadly, they didn’t provide us with Japanese bamboo chopsticks. I was really looking forward to pulling apart the chopsticks. Well at least there were chopsticks. Some Chinese restaurants in this country gives only fork and spoons which is just sad. Very sad!

Here’s a picture of all the food we had. I have to apologize, the plate isn’t the whole “original” dish with everything in it. Couldn’t wait to eat so I started digging in before it hit me that I’ve not taken a picture. There’re supposed to be 3 sushis instead of 1, a few more chicken pieces and vegetable tempuras. The only thing that was missing from the dish is the Japanese bean curd in Japanese soya sauce.

Should start looking for more Japanese food outlets in Sheffield. Hopefully there are more and not only East Ocean. I really need more Japanese food! Actually I need more food!!

Fun With Shadows

Vision 2020

Just a quickie.

Since our Prime Minister announced Mission 2057 earlier this year, I noticed that Vision 2020 has totally been wiped out of the picture. What happened to Vision 2020 that we’ve all been looking forward to since we were taught about it in primary school?

Is this implying that Malaysia cannot achieve Vision 2020? If yes, why so? In the late 1990s, our country’s development rate was extremely high and Vision 2020 doesn’t look that far anymore. The nine challenges set out by our former Prime Minister doesn’t look like it’ll take 50 years to achieve. Is it that Malaysians are too “stubborn” to change their attitudes or that the government has been slacking in its strategy to bring developed status to Malaysia. We will never know what is the true story behind this.

All that we know now is that we now have nothing to look forward to except Mission 2057 which will come in 50 years! I don’t know whether I’m still alive by then!

All my life, I waited for year 2020 to arrive but time flew, 2020 near came but now Vision 2020 is dumped into the bin. Sad…