Apologies first of all for the lack of colour or more appealing shots of the pizzas – I had to work with a mobile phone as a camera and two hungry people (myself not included) not to mention clearing up junk like leaflets on steel buildings (WTH).

Most people I know are familiar with pizzas that have a tomato-based sauce with the typical toppings like olives, chicken, ham, salami, green pepper and god forbid, pineapples, together with tonnes of mozzarella cheese. There are a few out there who are familiar with a three- or four-cheeses pizza, often made up of raclette, mozzarella, and other strong cheeses.

When I first made pizzas without tomato sauce, people were quite surprised but in fact, tomato-less pizzas do exist – they are known as white pizzas and feature either a cream sauce or pesto. The toppings can be anything and everything really, sans the sweet stuff. I have came across artichokes, egg, zucchini, salmon slices, rocket leaves and other salad greens on top of pizzas. You could say that the sky is the limit.

For this pizza, because I am no longer a SAHM, I had to figure out a way to proof the dough and since my bread machine didn’t really have a timer, I ended up proofing the pizza dough for at least 12 hours! I was a little worried about the outcome but was pleasantly surprised to return home to a very nicely proofed dough that was packed with awesome yeasty flavour. It was also much easier to work with compared to previous attempts at making pizza dough due to the development of gluten. So yes, in future, proof dough longer!

Anyway, this was Eva’s first introduction to pizza and even though the thin crust base was a little too hard for her to nibble on (her third and fourth teeth may have cut but they are not finishing coming out), she enjoyed the cheesy soft zucchini slices with bits of bacon. It turned out to be a really tasty surprise and there weren’t any leftovers, not even from our little foodie!

Sooooo…it looks like pizza will definitely be on the toddler’s food menu in the future. And I’m sure more than one person is going to be happy about it. Hah!

Every time a Malaysian politician or minister opens his/her mouth, I cringe, and that’s the mildest reaction I usually give. Most of the time, I get annoyed or worse, angry. So when Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being Minister, Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin was quoted in a national daily telling people that RM3K a month is manageable for folks living in the city, my reaction was, well, less than pleased.

While he had a point in that people should cut back on overhead costs, he ignored one clear fact – that the cost of living is high for the average working class folk. He has no idea what these people go through because, well, he earns a comfortable salary, has a driver drive him to work (and other places), dines out regularly, lives in a big bungalow in a fancy neighbour, has a maid do his cleaning-laundry-etc and probably travels regularly as well as spends on branded items.

It’s easy for people like him to sweep away complaints by others who are less fortunate. It’s easy for him to tell people to take the public transport and drive when he has probably never taken the bus or MRT in the last few years. It is easy for him to tell people that the cost of living is not so high compared to foreign cities but has he lived in some of the most “expensive” cities in the world? I don’t think so.

So really dear Datuk…before you go around telling people that RM3K is manageable – one can only hope that you don’t mean the family unit, especially those with children – I dare you (yes, you read it right) to live the life of a working class man who has to support his family on one salary for just a month. Then come back and tell the good folks of Malaysia that we shouldn’t complain about how hard it is to stretch our ringgits and cents.

Needless to say, my complaint made it to the national daily’s opinion desk. They published a cut version of it here but here’s the full, unedited piece:

Dear Editor,

After reading your recent report on the rising cost of living in Malaysia and subsequent remark made by Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin, I must clarify several matters for the Datuk.

I have lived in Australia, Switzerland, spent a lot of my time in France and am now staying in Singapore. Of these four countries, Switzerland has one of the highest cost of living. A kilo of meat can go up to CHF80 (RM200 – I’m using RM3 = CHF1 as an exchange rate), unleaded fuel is about CHF2.60 (RM7.80) per liter, and cars, well, I didn’t even bother to take note of them since they are pricey. Rental for a two bedroom apartment about 800 sqm is CHF1200 (RM3600) and our bills (electricity, gas, water, sewage, trash, municipal taxes, telephone, Internet) can easily hit CHF500 (RM1500) per month. A lot of people back at home are shocked, yet my husband and I can survive and even save on a single person’s salary despite the taxes and insurance premiums (which are compulsory even for foreigners). This is because his salary matches the cost of living and is reviewed for any adjustments each year.

Dollar for dollar, living standards in Malaysia have increased. In the two years since I left Malaysia, a work blouse from the same store has gone from RM50 to RM110, shoes have gone from RM30-40 to RM80 and my breakfast serving of noodles have went up from RM3.50 to RM4.50. Almost everything has gone up by double except salaries. People are still earning the same amount and honestly, the spending power has gone down. You need more to buy something these days.

Have Ministers and politicians stop to think about the regular working class and their expenses and wages? Can RM3000 sustain a family with a housing loan, bills and maybe a car loan to pay off? The regular Malaysian has to drive because public transportation in Malaysia is just not reliable and doesn’t service many areas. A cheap car loan can easily reduce one’s income by RM200-500. Lets not talk about housing matters like rental or a mortgage. People need to eat and I do agree with many – the price of groceries have gone up.

Before anyone can tell people to live on RM3000 especially families on a single income, please take a step back. If possible, trade your Mercedes, your big bungalow, your cushy five figure salary, your maid(s), your posh meals for a month of living in a rented home – sometimes room – with an old secondhand Kancil or maybe even an old Honda Suzuki and no maid(s) with plenty of home cooked meals and leftovers for the next day.

Don’t just be quick to say that people should cut back on “overhead” costs because I dare say that for a good many of us, we are already living on the bare necessities. Only people with deep pockets and wide waistlines can afford luxuries these days in Malaysia. The rest of us are just scrapping by.

My grandfather loved to eat this snack and there was a lady at the morning markets near my house who makes these with turnip or yam. Delish to boot! Unfortunately – as with everything that the older generation makes – when the lady decided to retire to focus on her failing health, I lost access to one of the best chai kueh I’ve ever tasted. Everything else that I tried lacked something – the filling was either too peppery, too salty, there wasn’t enough garlic, the skin wasn’t chewy enough, the list is endless but one thing was for sure, it wasn’t the same.

So I gave up my search for this snack and decided to try and make my own. It was hard in Switzerland as I couldn’t find the right flour – you need wheat starch flour which isn’t the same as regular white flour. It was only upon arriving that I decided that I would try my hand at making this dish. It wasn’t immediate as I was quite busy – as you may already know – with heaps of stuff. It didn’t help that I spent some of my free time on trivial stuff like looking for costumes (work-related) and so forth. Heh.

While the filling is satisfactory, the skin still needs more work to give it that extra chewy texture. And of course, the size and pleating wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. So I might just give this another go again. This just goes to show that cooking requires regular practice!

Vegetable dumplings (Chai Kueh)

Ingredients

(A) Filling
1 smallish turnip/jicama/sengkuang – shred finely
1 medium carrot – shred finely
50-80 gms dried prawns
5-6 cloves garlic – finely diced
1 tbsp oyster sauce
Soy sauce and pepper to taste
Oil for frying

(B) Skin
165 gms wheat starch (tang mein hoon)
85 gms tapioca starch
420 ml BOILING water
5 tbsp oil

Method

1. Prepare the vegetables by finely slicing them into thin stripes. You could use a food processer or grated BUT the effect is not the same. It doesn’t give the dumpling filling the right texture.
2. Fry the garlic in some oil until golden brown and fragrant. Remove half for use later. Using the remaining half, fry the dried prawns until fragrant before adding in the turnip and carrots. Add in the oyster sauce, soy sauce and some pepper to taste together with about 50ml of water (or more if necessary).
3. Fry until the vegetables are soft and then turn the fire down to a simmer to dry up the sauce. It’s crucial that the filling is not too wet. Once ready, turn off the heat and place aside to cool.
4. In a separate bowl, add boiling water to the wheat starch and tapioca flour. The temperature of the water is important as hot boiling water is needed to make the dough translucent. Stir immediately until the mixture comes together. Allow to cool and rest for 10 minutes.
5. Once the dough is ready, knead on a lightly oiled surface while gradually adding five tablespoons of oil. The dough should be smooth yet stretchable when it is ready. The longer you knead, the better the texture will be upon steaming.
6. Divide the dough into small portions and roll them out into flat circles. Fill each piece with about 1 to 2 tablespoons of the filling. Fold the edges and pleat them. Lightly oil them with the garlic oil that was set aside earlier and place the dumpling onto a lightly oiled steaming dish.
7. Steam on high heat for 10-12 minutes or until the skin is translucent. Remove and serve cool on its own or with some chilli sauce.

Today during lunch as I was queuing to pay for some cheeses (I bought feta and Boursin garlic cream cheese for Nil as well as Edam block for Eva – my grocery shopping is now done during lunch hour in between eating and catching up on reviews and Asbestos cancer research materials), suddenly a woman shouted from the other cashier line/queue. Naturally, I looked to see what was going on and found myself groaning and shaking my head as this woman berated and shouted at a stocky and tall Caucasian man.

Apparently, he had bumped into her (or something which involved him either stepping on her foot or something) and “they” were squabbling over it. I use double quote marks around the word because she was the one doing most of the squabbling. He tried to walk away a few times but she yelled on the top of her voice at him, causing him to backtrack. For the most part, I could barely hear him but her? Ohboy, EVERYONE heard her. It was then she threw THE line – “Is it because I’m Asian and you’re white?”

I could only imagine the incredulous look at the man’s face. I had groaned outloud when she said that because it had nothing to do with her race at all. It was then that the man’s friend, who was queueing, behind me called for him and offered to pay for his ham. Poor guy looked as black as night. Talk about a crappy day. You go to the store to buy ham and get yelled at by a stranger. On top of that, she accuses you of being a bigot/racist.

The whole drama aside plus the fact that this is perhaps the fifth fight I’ve witnessed since arriving in Singapore, there is one thing I don’t really understand about most people here (Singapore and more so Malaysia). Every little thing has to be race-related even when it isn’t. The matter was a simple thing that could and should have been resolved with an apology by the guy and a forgiving smile/nod by the woman. How did it escalate to screams and a pander of the race card?

When something happens to us, especially a bad thing, why do minorities use race as the first thing to justify the situation even when race was never an issue in the first place? Convenience? Habit? Insecurity issues? “I’m being victimized here because I’m Asian.” “You think you’re so great coz you’re White.” “You bloody angmohs/Chinese/Indians/Malays/etc are all the same.” HUH? This reminded me of the encounter I had a few years ago at Charles de Gaule Airport where Nil was called a racist just because he asked an African woman to stop pushing her luggage trolley into my legs. Everyone around us went “HUH????”. Truly bizarre and something that I’d like to understand further.

In the meantime, I hope that the poor guy’s day got better after that episode with the lady. Talk about bad luck. My colleague suspects she’s probably stressed out or got out of the wrong side of bed. Who knows? With such people these days, who knows?

I usually don’t comment much about the religion as it’s a very personal matter for a lot of people. Besides, I don’t have time to entertain the possible defensive rebuttals I may get from it – busy with spirometers and all. At least that’s how it is in my family. For us, our faith requires no outward appearance, no fireworks or public displays of affection and definitely it doesn’t require a nice big building complete with surround sound and lights to go with it. I’d have been happy with a home to worship in so when I first arrived in Singapore and saw the mega churches here, I felt a little out of place with my peers of the same faith.

Perhaps I’m a simple person but I do wonder if the shopping mall like structure that towers over everything is really necessary. The fact that it’s MEGA makes it so unapproachable; I felt quite turned off at the sight of something so imposing even though it was just a structure. I was reminded of the fact that the house of God need not be a place of wealth or prestige simply because the life now that we have is only temporarily. I never thought much about these mega churches until recently when one such church came under fire (read: investigation) for possible misappropriation of funds.

As I read more and more reports about this church, I felt quite disturbed. A church that invests over $300 million in a shopping complex. A church that dabbles in commercial development. A church that sets up shop literally – opening kindergartens and other forms of businesses. Yet this church did not register a separate business entity. It is supposed fall into the category of charities under laws governing the regulation of religious and charitable institutions.

My beef is more with how the church gets its capital for such commercial endeavours, the purpose of investing millions of money and what is done with the profit. I have read of comments circulating around the Internet that people hired under the umbrella of businesses are providing services to certain members of the church and people have asked – who pays the salaries for these people? If the money comes from church members, why are they not allowed to attend general meetings? In the first place, why is a church segregating its members into “ordinary” and “executive”?

While people are calling for more transparency, I for one thing would like to ask where in the Bible did it say that it was okay for churches to dabble in commercial enterprises under the guise of “expansion” – please, do you really need a $300 million dollar stake in Suntec City to give your members space to worship and such? Would your worship sessions be any less worship to God if you didn’t have the concert lights and surround sound?

Call me a traditionalist but I feel that money, just like politics, cannot fare well in a marriage with religion. History has shown us that. So why are we repeating the same mistakes again?

More info here:
- City Harvest Church under investigation
- When business and religion mix
- Ordinary members ‘have no right to attend general meetings’
- Lights, lasers and a top sound system … not for a concert but church services
- Tighter reins or separate rules for religious charities?
- Details could not be disclosed, says church
- City Harvest Church responds to questions over non-disclosure of Suntec deal

Who do we blame for the tragic death of a young girl?

You see, one of the hot topics circulating around on Facebook a while back (yes, I’m on Facebook despite the full plate of work, noxycut reviews and Eva) was the death of a student in a car accident. What made it “hot” was the fact that her accident was the cause of the lack of civic consciousness displayed by BHP, an oil & gas company that also runs service stations.

The girl was trapped in her car after being caught in a three-car accident along one of the highways in Kuala Lumpur in the wee hours of the morning and a passerby had stop to see if he could lend a helping hand. When he saw sparks coming from under the car, he rushed to the nearest service station about 500m away in search of a fire extinguisher. He found four that were under lock and key, offered his IC as a deposit for one of them and got rejected. He pleaded, begged and perhaps even threatened but the two attendants were firm – they would not loan him one. The passerby returned to the scene, helpless and unable to do anything. The girl burn to death.

According to police, she would have been saved had someone been able to find a fire extinguisher. Many people were outraged over the fact that there were four fire extinguishers yet the attendants were “heartless” and by the book. BHP GM came out all apologetic but maintained that his company policy and his attendants actions were right given the situation.

*sigh*

In France, the two attendants would have been dragged to the police station and charged with failing to help, resulting in death. In Malaysia, they don’t even have to apologise. What was even tragic about the entire situation is the GM’s cavalier attitude towards his company’s policy. The loss of a fire extinguisher was more important than a girl’s life. How much would it have cost his company to replace that fire extinguisher (they should be replaced regularly)?

While I can understand that the attendants are merely following company policy, I feel that there are instances where you just have to say “To hell” with company policy and exercise a little humanity. They could have followed him, they could have taken his IC as a deposit – apparently he even offered his entire wallet but that’s just an allegation. But no, they choose to stick by the books and someone had to die for that. Was it worth it?

Now, going back to the fire extinguisher, do we carry fire extinguishers in our cars? We should. Had the passerby placed one in his car, he wouldn’t have to put up with the service station attendants. He could have saved the girl himself or at least buy her some time until the firemen and police came. A lot of people mistake the presence of a fire extinguisher in their cars to be useless should they be in an accident – in the case of the girl, it would have been pointless since she was trapped and her car mangled. But what about the passerby and others? They would have been able to help.

That college student’s death was an unnecessary one. I really hope people will wake up from their paranoia or stupor and see that life isn’t all about “I’m going to be robbed if I help someone” or “It won’t happen to me”, learn from this and apply it. If life just goes on and no one learns anything from this, well, that would just be really sad and the girl would have really died for nothing.

More info here:
Student dies after kiosk workers refuse to help
Outrage over fiery death
Dead woman believed to be college student

She has Nil’s face, skin and hair colour but my eyes. Her ears are like my dad’s and her toes are from Nil. Her hair thickness is somewhat like mine when I was a baby and her size is well, similar to a baby me.

Ten months on and she no longer looks like the little baby that came out fresh from the bun. She’s leaner thanks to her mobility (natural baby growth and crawling trumps fat-burners any time!) and I’m even shocked to notice that she’s nearly up to my mid-thighs!!! Yes, Mum is definitely going to be the shortest in the family. Hai.

She has a little bit of each of our personality and a whole lot of her own – stubborn as a mule (like Nil) and an ultra big complainer (like me)…talk about a lethal combination! My, how time has flown and our little one is fast growing up into a toddler.

Two more months and she’ll be ONE years old! Acks. Now if only I could freeze time.

…keeps me busy and I still don’t know whether I like that or not.

LOL!

So what is it that I do from 830am to 530pm on Mondays all the way up till Fridays? I go through tons of emails – mostly about new manuscripts coming in, issues regarding graphics for articles, journal issues that need to go out/addressed/worked on, authors asking for updates on their manuscripts and the likes. It takes about three hours to sort through, reply and organize into their respective folders.

Then I get started on the actual manuscript work – getting scripts booked into the system, sending them over to typesetters or copyeditors, checking them, liasing with authors, putting an issue together, troubleshooting and more emailing! The downside with all this is that I’m not very mobile – you’d think that work would be one of those great fat burners but no, not in my case. Thankgoodness I have my thirst for water to thank for together with my toilet and pumping sessions. The constant walking to refill my water bottle and handling the whole “what goes in must come out” keeps me on the move at least once every hour!

So far, I’m working on just a bi-weekly journal with another production editor but will take on another two journals by end of next week. Chances are I’ll be even busier then so on hindsight, perhaps the whole “boobs deciding to wean” issue (discussed on the baby blog) comes at an opportune moment. We’ll see.

In the meantime, yes, work keeps me busy…to the point where I think I’m beginning to not have the time to blog. Gah!