The Christmas Dinner, and Snowballs

The long-awaited Christmas Dinner has been cooked, served and dined. Surely it was nothing like the lavish spreads we see on television, in fact it was a rather modest affair, but I was glad to see everyone together once again and have yet another opportunity to help out in the ktichen.

Before we left for my grandma's house, I simply had to document the latest Christmas-themed nibbles to enter my fridge.

These chocolate balls were simply insane. I have never tasted anything so sweet that it sores up the throat upon the first swallow. Anyway those milk-coated balls were appropriately speckled with red and green spots and packaged 'milk-carton' style - perhaps to give the illusion of eating snowballs straight out of Santa's house.

So this was how Jie (who did not think they were too terribly sweet to consume) ate them:

The gathering was opened with a session of Guitar Hero and Rock Band (oh no, I fear a GH addiction) but we soon deviated to the food. We started with some appetisers, courtesy of Mum who detoured to Joo Chiat to pick up Durian Puffs and these delectable donuts.


And before we stained our palates with the rich taste of roast meats, we indulged in salmon sushi, courtesy of my aunt. I have to admit that I am not a fan of the popular Sakae Sushi, but it had been a long time since I indulged in Japanese fare so I helped myself to the fish and topped it with lots of wasabi.


And finally, we proceeded to the main table for the highlights.


And everyone could not wait to feast.


I had to give special mention to these two dishes, since they were proudly homemade by Eden jiejie and me.

Potato Salad

Quartered hard boiled eggs, sweet apple and potato chunks and chopped celery folded in with English Salad Cream and topped by freshly sauteed bacon ( no cheating with bacon bits). I had the opportunity to saute the bacon bits, and after dodging spurts of oil which intermittently flew out of the pan, sprinkled them over the aforementioned contents. I would have preferred to forego the English Salad Cream - which got too cloying after a few mouthfuls - but since everyone else loved it, I emptied 3 whole bottles into the huge yellow bowl.

The next homemade dish received a warmer welcome than the turkey.

Deep fried Prawn and Bacon Skewers

Most assuredly, this munchie tastes a lot greater than it looks. We were fortunate to get large succulent prawns from a long time fishmonger friend of my grandma's. The prawn bodies were then wrapped with bacon strips, speared by a tooth pick, then throw into a hot cauldron of oil to simmer to a reddish brown. Amazingly, while I faced arrows of oil shooting at me from the shallow pan in which I fried the bacon, the cauldron of oil cackled and bubbled endlessly but did not squirt anything at me. Anyway, I am now more confident of dealing with hot pots of oil, and might just conquer fried fish some day.

Family Gatherings are the only times where you can stuff yourself silly in the most unglamourous way even if your lip gloss smudges, sing off-pitch at the top of your lungs without damaging anybody's eardrums, and play badly on a guitar. Truly, there's no place like home. Now, Chinese New Year is in a month's time.

Boxing Day

I clearly remember rejoicing when news emerged that a Sephora outlet was going to open in Takashimaya. I was certainly looking forward to a one-stop cosmetics haven where I could grab all the products I need and adjourn for omu rice thereafter. A cosmetic haven is also on my list for the 'Corporations that every woman needs: to pamper herself!', the others being:

1. A well-equipped Gym which conducts kickboxing classes
2. Facial Clinic
3. Wax Parlour
4. Nail Parlour (though this service might be provided at 3 as well)
5. A host club.

Ok i was kidding with number 5. Back to topic!

As much as I enjoy shopping, my current cosmetic consumption routine of taking the bus to VivoCity for Make Up Store followed by taking another bus and the train to Robinsons for Shiseido simply wastes too much time. Furthermore, I was hoping to land my hands on some DDF products - a brand raved about in make up forums everywhere.

So imagine my disappointment when Sephora turned out to be a 2 unit shop which stocked little more than the average Robinsons. Sure they deserve credit for including Talika, but certainly we need more than just Clinique and Estee Lauder! In fact, the only well stocked range of 'new' products were their house brand shower gel and perfumes. As for DDF, I searched the entire store and much to my utter horror could not find it anywhere, so I proceeded to ask a random sales girl if they actually stocked it.

Me: Excuse me, do you have DDF?
Sales girl: (pauses a very long while. Enough for me to actually imagine a speech bubble appearing above her head which says : Crap. I dunno what that is.) No. Dun have.
Me: Leaves DDF and makes the long walk back to the car which has been holed up in some chicken coop slot in some grey building along Orchard road. (To the management: Seriously, majority of people are not anorexic midgets and they need to open their car doors at a larger angle than 10degrees.)

What a bad start to Boxing Day. But I always endeavour to find the silver lining in every dark cloud. And today's silver lining was served up this way:

Finally! I fulfilled wish no. 2 on my list of 'Things to do before the Holiday Ends' with a piping hot serving of claypot laksa. Dad and I were lucky that we happened to drive by Alexandra Village on the way home from Takashimaya and we managed a proper parking lot this time, albeit parallel (then again, Dad is such a superb driver that no lot is too difficult for him). This place certainly has many gems to fill the stomach and this laksa was so good that I definitely regret not ordering the LARGE bowl. Somehow the claypot seals both the heat and the flavour in, so much that it actually seeps into every strand of beehoon as well. I was so anxious to slurp it up that I almost scalded my tongue with the first spoonful of gravy. Dad finds claypot laksa too heavy on the stomach so he settled for some beef soup instead. We also had the chance to have some succulent fruit juice from the same stall:

I chose the ABC juice for a pseudo post laksa detox, while Dad indulged in Avocado juice. And yes, I could taste the beetroot distinctly within that thick red concoction.

The ABC juice doubled up as an instant refresher for my jog later than afternoon. As expected, my generous indulging in all things fattening this christmas meted out dire consequences for my pace and I felt as if I was dragging some weights behind each foot. I was sweating like never before when I got back.

And I probably undid all the work I put in for jogging with a dish I helped to cook!

This is a quick fix solution when you have leftovers from the Christmas feast. Rice + whatever there is and fry it! For this one, Mum and I threw in the turkey, ham, sausages, siew yoke, bell peppers, carrots, long beans, and we added fresh eggs.

On closer inspection, it actually comes out all Christmassy and all:

Green, white and red. A familiar combination that occurs in all sorts of products every December, even in the humble fried rice. Amazingly, my brother and father thought it was good! And I was relieved that it did not turn out too salty despite the sodium laden ingredients we threw in.

My posts nowadays have been centered on nothing but food, food and food. I shall be back with more, after the Christmas Lunch tomorrow.

The Christmas Season

So yes, 23 hours and 7 mins of Christmas Day has passed and I finally have the chance to sit down and blog about the things that happened during the holiday season this year. The family did have a Christmas lunch (and dinner) today over at my paternal cousin's place, but I have no photographs to show simply because I was too preoccupied with playing Rock Band and Rummie. In fact, Jie and I got so caught up with Rock Band that we didn't even manage a full lunch. Hunger only started to set in after we reached home and hence we begin feasting - almost immediately - on the leftover turkey, siew yoke and popiah that we brought back from lunch (hence the earlier parenthesis).

However, I am blessed to have another Christmas lunch to attend this Saturday and I am rather certain that I will return back with a full stomach as well as a camera bursting of pictures. Simply because this lunch would be over at my maternal cousins' place, the group of relatives to which I am comparatively closer to.

Hence, apart from the above-mentioned lunch and Rock Band, the only other thing the family did today was to attend church. I had expressed my feelings for the music event in an earlier blogpost with a picture of Gazette's Uruha. Now that the music event is over, part of me is still sunken in such an emotion, namely because of 'key' troubles with a classic christmas carol. But, I shall have to chuck aside my humanly sentiments in favour of what He has to say.

On this note, Mum and me took a trip down to PS 2 days ago and were happy to see this as part of the decoration:

Almost like a 3 dimensional version of my Sunday School books. Lovely. I bet it struck a chord with my mum, the ever so hardworking Sunday School Coordinator.

Then we headed over to Spotlight, since Mum decided to (gasp!) sew the curtains for the new house by herself. Entering Spotlight was awesome. Encountering rows and rows of fabric like this

and this

put together in a technicolour tapestry! A feast for the eyes.

But of course we were looking for raw materials for curtains, and so sifted through stacks of this

and more of it!

And I simply had to laugh when I saw this

The use of a literary device - the fricative! Was this divine intervention, or what? Maybe God was hinting that school is starting soon and I'd better snap out of holiday mood. On hindsight, it appears that God was indeed making his presence known as well. Here is another testament to that:

How often is it that 3rd Commandment appears in print medium apart from the most famous book in the world? And here it is on a piece of fabric designed for clothes!

Well, we emerged from the divine Spotlight with good stacks of lace. Now the hardest part would be to get down to sewing the curtains. We barely completed the first step - unpicking the extra strip of fabric along the top - and boy it was so much harder than expected. But heck, there's so much more work that needs to be done for the new place I'd just grit my teeth and work with the needle and thread, and 2m long piece of lace.

Yesterday we encountered a rather disappointing incident regarding the new house. However, it did produce 2 rims of silver lining as well. Firstly, it served a bigger incentive to get the new house ready for habitation ASAP. Simply because that disappointing incident could have been avoided if the place was ready. Secondly, it let us to discover the way to cook corn in a toaster. Mum did it a la barbecue style, with silver foil and all. And it emerged excellent.

As sweet and juicy as it would have emerged from a steamer. I had 3 chunks to myself.

A delicious Christmas Eve dinner. Speaking of which, I still have not given up my dream to host a lavish Christmas banquet for family and friends, and I believe I would be able to host it over at the new house. Next year maybe.

And, before I hit the sack, Camello (the crayfish) started to freak me out again by attempting to crawl out of the red tub. The creepy sound produced when his feelers and claws scraped against the smooth plastic surface convinced me that he had to go for real. So, this is what happened of him:

Good riddance. May you enjoy your new home @ Pierce Reservoir. Bet your fellow shelled counterparts will declare you King of the Puddle, since you definitely outshine them in the size department.

Chestnuts - The New Perspective, and Literally.

Maybe its just stress, having grown past the age where I believed Santa Claus was real, or what my friend terms my 'macabre sense of humour', but I've started to look at a certain christmas carol with a different perspective.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

A few months ago, this opening line would have conjured the image of a cozy warm house where the inhabitants are safe from the harsh winter outside, the fire glowing a beautiful amber, and of course the lovely smell of chestnuts wafting through. But recently, this family-friendly image has since warped into something rather morbid. Imagine, cartoon chestnuts screaming in pain as they incarcerate amongst the bits of charcoal, their smooth brown exoskeletons charred to a smoky black, burned to a crisp before it is broken open for their innards to be chomped upon.

.........................................................................................................................................................................

Either way, Christmas came a little early - 14 days early to be precise - in the form of an Oriental twist to the aforementioned Western Christmas tradition - homemade steamed chestnuts.

Fresh Chestnuts steamed Chinese-style

Their wrinkly apperance was not a result of spending too long a time in the steamer, but rather because we steamed them straight after getting them back from the market, with their skins on. Sure the skins worked as a protective layer for the cotelydon (in non-scientific terms: the 'meat'), but some of them stuck so tightly that we had to yank them off this way:

Jie skinning the Chestnuts

It was tough, and dangerous!, work no doubt, and I almost let my knife slip a couple of times. But hey, it was certainly a small price to pay for



Its a pity that I don't have a better camera to capture the smooth, unblemished brown surface of this lovely chestnut. Better still, this batch of chestnuts that we bought really had a fragrant scent and crumbly but sufficiently moist texture. Jie and I peeled the whole batch - enough to fill an entire container - and of course, ate some along the way.

Dad just tried the chestnuts and he's gonna get another bag tomorrow. Ah, more Christmas goodies in the making.