Happy birthday, Michael!

Baking and I do not go well together, and therefore, it is a rare scene to see me wielding a whisk in the kitchen.

Seriously, I could not believe myself when I patiently spooned out the batter into each "cup" in the baking tray. And since there were extra ingredients in the cupboard, we decided to be a little creative with what was supposed to be just plain vanilla cupcakes.

As I was not sure of how much butter I had put in (I only estimated), I sighed a breath of relief to see that the end product did look like cupcakes.

We decided not to use pre-made frosting. D looked up for a recipe for cheese cream frosting and made it from scratch. She whisked some caster sugar, butter and cheese cream together with some vanilla essence and lemon zest and looked every bit like an old-timer but insisted that she does not bake. "I don't bake one, really one."

I made good use of the raspberry flavoured M&M's chocolate that we had. Knowing Michael, he must have some sweet after salty/savoury and so the combination of the chocolate, 100s and 1000s on the cupcakes would do the trick. I made the letter M out of the M&M's in his favourite Manchester United colour of red (and pink because I wanted to leave some red ones for us to munch on). Hm, still turned out a little "girly" due to the colours but oh well, I don't do this every day and definitely not for every friend.

XW did more than I. She prepared a full meal: steamed egg with prawns and mushroom (something like chawamushi), stir-fried snowpeas with leek and carrots, as well as Vegemite chicken (which was awesome!). Oh, and radish soup.

After dinner, XW helped to distract Michael by showing him D's room while I quickly lit a candle and hid in the kitchen. He did not know that we were doing this, so when he saw me holding the cupcakes with a candle, he said, "No wonder la, I was thinking since when Tai Jie bake cupcakes one. Stress until have to bake? Cannot be..." 

To my sai lou here in Sydney,

Here is to wishing you a very happy birthday! Make the best of your final year in your 20s and you know that you have my support in everything that you decide to do!

Glad that you were happily surprised and thank you for that heartwarming "speech" during dinner. I was genuinely touched. If you made that speech any longer, I would have teared up.

Much love,
Tai Jie :))

Masterchef Billy's Pre-launch

After work, I went to the city for a special event - the pre-launch of a cookbook by fellow Malaysian Billy Law of MasterChef fame.

I quite like the title of the book: Have you eaten? For us gastronomically inclined Malaysians, we would be very familiar with this phrase, as we normally greet people asking, "Have you eaten?", "Sudah makan belum?", "吃了吗?"

We had a little giggle when we read how it said that it contains his favourite recipes ranging from lamb roast to laksa. "Yes, that gives away the 'Asianness' of the recipes, does it not?" "Hm... why not char kuey teow? Maybe laksa is more associated to Malaysia?"

Each purchase of the book comes with a free tea towel.

Thank you, Billy, and wishing you every success with the book!

Sunday at home

I will miss Sundays like this one, when we randomly felt like making our own 'chapati'. Being the ignorant missy I am, I did not know that it was just as simple as mixing water with flour and kneading it to your preferred texture. And then, of course, flattening it with a rolling pin.

It was an oil-free pan and thank goodness for housemate's non-stick Tefal!

We had it there until it turned slightly brown for that little crispiness.

She cooked up a bowl of lentils (sudden crave for lentils for some unknown reason) and a plate of potato stir-fried with tuna and sweet chilli sauce (which was super yum!).

Oh, and I will forever remember how I woke up to this lovely note stuck to my door from the other housemate:

Trust me, he will miss my perky voice and other housemate's loud house slipper's 'pik-piak' sounds.

Impromptu Chef

The video of Auds cooking, as promised:



Oh, and not forgetting, the end product:

Audrey in Sydney (Episode 2)

Day 3:

Lunch was this


and was shared between all of us


at where else? The Sydney Fish Market, of course! Oh, Auds and I shared a serving of lobster, too. Exquisito mucho!

We saw Nic's new place for the very first time today and it's a good place (when the doors and lifts are working, that is). Jona, Auds, Shaun and I then headed over to Bondi to try the infamous Fried Mars Bar Sern Li was telling us about during lunch. And also because Bondi is another must-see place when you're in Sydney. If you look at the signboard in the pic below, you'd notice that there are quite a few things that you are not allowed to do or bring to the beach. Sheesh... and don't Auds and Jona look sweet together? Aw....



We went climbing over the rocks to watch how some people were fishing. We also enjoyed the big splashes of waves that went up at least 6 feet high. Something very embarrassing happened to Auds but I'm keeping mum. You wanna know? Go ask her yourself. And so the day ended with...



Day 4:

Shaun wanted Auds to see his main campus and assured her that she will like the place. I mean, who won't? It's the oldest uni in Aus so off we went and Auds couldn't stop taking pics. The Main Quadrangle exudes charm and it's Harry Potter-ish features make everyone go 'ooh' and 'aah'.


Darling Harbour was our next stop but Darling Harbour is not much fun, really. I mean, we're not kids so we can't actually see the fun there but it was something we had to tick off our itinerary. Auds took pics of the city skyline, which I will not be posting here as we know what a city looks like and almost all cities look the same.

Days 5 & 6:

We spent the day bumming around. I had to finish off as much of my essay so days 5 and 6 we 'bumming-the-house' days. On Day 6, we had visitors from Adelaide and Perth over for dinner at Borelli's. So we had people from everywhere! Nic, Miow, Shaun, Erin and myself are Sydneysiders, Auds is a Melbournian, Josh came up from Adelaide, Kevin is from Perth and his sis came over from Subang for a holiday. A mini reunion sort of thing, just that it's also with newly introduced people. After dinner, we came home and they played a few rounds of poker.


I later served dessert, which was a chocolate mud cake Auds and I baked earlier in the day. I served it with strawberry and Bulla vanilla ice-cream! Yum! Too bad I didn't take a picture of what I made. And when Nic lost all his chips, he resorted to doing silly stuff like taking pictures of this:



Day 7:

We frantically packed our bags and made sure everything was unplugged, all windows and doors tightly closed. I had to check and re-check that I brought everything necessary should I manage to arrange for an interview. And at 5:00pm, we started walking towards the station to catch the train to the Domestic Terminal to board our flight to Melbourne. And so it was tonight that our Melbourne Winter Adventure started.

Easter insanity

It's the Easter break now and all hell has broken lose. When I was supposed to be catching up on research, but I went window-shopping and screaming my lungs out at the Royal Easter Show. Not to mention busy catching up with friends and my ex at the Malaysian Sports Carnival.

Too bad I don't have pictures of Shaun and I on the sling shot. Actually, I take that back. Thank goodness I don't have pictures of that coz I look absolutely petrified. Urgh! $30 for the most heart-stopping 30 seconds of my life! That went my Friday.

Saturday was wasted waiting for Shaun to get his new 'hi-tech' toy - his new Nokia which uses the 3 network. He just can't wait until his plan with Optus ends! So now he has a handset which has a 2.0 megapixel camera! Then, the most unexpected of the unexpected happened. Melvin actually accepted our dinner invitation and brought Josh along for steamboat! Had a great time with them - no awkwardness, just good laughs. I miss that part of Josh, the part who doesn't just disses me in front of a whole crowd just coz of our bad history. Then Melvin had to start a bout of ghost stories, which had Erin, and I sleeping in Shaun's room with a lamp on all night!

Then, the day we have all been waiting for - the day Nic plays netball!!! Haha, I must say that was the most happening netball match I've ever attended. We had nicknames such as 'Woman Dominic', 'Wanker Dominic' and 'Miss Dominic' because he played the WD position. Nic was made famous and he has us to thank. Jun Hui had the whole SUAMS gang cheering 'cheerleader' style:

"Gimme a D! [D!], gimme an O! [O!], gimme an M! [M!] etc... What does that say? DOMINIC! Go, Dominic!"

Now, let's leave it to the pics to do the talking.

Unusual dinner

Today I decided to cook. Usually I would prefer to let Shaun do all the cooking and I would just pretend that he's fine without any help. Well, I usually do the cleaning up, as in while he's cooking. Erin and I take turns to wash up afterwards.

Today I decided to prepare the ingredients, since Shaun wasn't home yet and I didn't want to take a nap. I figured that it was too early for a cycle so away I went with the chopping, cutting, peeling, pulling and whacking of shallots, ginger, garlic, beef, tomato, carrot and apple.

Intended dishes were beef with shallots and ginger, and an omellette. Was thinking of putting in mushrooms, chilli and tomato into the egg but we didn't have mushrooms, Erin doesn't take spicy and so I was left with only the tomato. ARGH! So, I decided to be a little creative. I put in a carrot, which I sliced thinly, and an apple!!! I cut the apple into cubes. Boiled the carrot in some hot water so that it would be softer when I cook them with the egg. And when I dumped everything into the pan, they smelled terrific! I then added some salt and pepper. After a few tosses, I though I'd add some sesame oil. Wasn't sure how it would taste but what the heck.

Verdict: It tasted weird. Haha, but it was a good type of weird. It wasn't salty enough, though. And the one cup of rice wasn't enough today! Shaun and Erin were very hungry! Erin then made some 'bananarama' flavoured oats, which she and Shaun absolutely did NOT enjoy. Oh... Uncle Toby's, oh so tasty... NOT!

Another day. I'm going to start cycling now. Have to give Nic back his comp. Haha...

Hm, what should I cook tomorrow? Maybe the brocolli. It's starting to turn into ice.