Dainty Bites

It was a mad dash around Little India yesterday look for a suitable costume for her school party today. She chose this set herself even though it was for adults (or very petite ones). A quick alteration by her doting Grandma, she was all ready to go. Happy Deepavali!

Picture from the SodaHead forum Apart from the skin care routine that I have picked up from my last trip, I had also picked up something else - eating of cheese with fruits and a glass of wine. While in Penang, we put up at the G Hotel which I must say that we are certainly very happy with our accommodation. Because of our choice of room (a suite with two bedrooms), we were on the Executive Level which gave us the privilege to use their Executive Lounge.  The Lounge basically serves drinks free flow all-day and provides buffet breakfast and pre-dinner cocktails. Being the mountain tortoise that I am, I begged everyone to go check out what pre-dinner cocktails is all about on the first evening we were there. It turned out that it was almost like a mini high-tea session. There were hot pastries, cold sandwiches, pasta, rice, small cakes, lots of chocolate pieces, variety of chips with salsa and also a big platter of fruits with many types of cheese on the cheese board. An

Our little princess and I were sitting down for the daily homework session last night and when I turned to my eyes back to her from my computer, I saw her doing this. Very gingerly piling up her colour pencils she recevied from her school as Children's Day gift. I wondered what was she trying to build. Then she told me it is her Stacked-Up-Tic-Tac-Toe. Don't get it? Me neither. Ever so often I find that in my single-mindedness to get things done, I lose sight of the bigger picture. My purpose of doing homework with her is to help her learn, but I forgot that the bigger picture is that learning comes in many forms and most importantly the ambers of interest in learning must be stoked slowly. Ever try building fire for a BBQ with charcoal? The principles are the same. That little building exercise of colour pencils is learning as well. I remember when I was about her age, I would spend countless hours trying to build pyramids with decks of cards. I suppos

The weather has been so wonderful these past days, except for the occasional strong gale of winds. During those hot summer days, I complained that it was too hot to be standing in front of the stove. But now, I have to find another excuse to be lazy. Now that I have skipping the kitchen duties, I have found more time to read books, tend to my plants and listen to music. I haven't managed to squeeze time to watch TV yet, but that is low on the priority right now. I have so many interesting books to catch up on before the library start sending me fines. I picked up The Fortune Cookie Chronicle , A Slice Of Life , Choice Cuts , Kansha  and Cook . I have dipped into some of them whenever I have pockets of free time and found very interesting articles in them. Talking about listening to music, I am crazy about this song right now ever since I heard it on Perfect 10 , together with another song of hers - Set Fire To The Rain. I love the way she sings and her lyrics are just so b

I recently learnt a very interesting thing about my brother. No doubt if he ever learn that I share this with you here, he would disown me immediately. So let's keep it a secret here, alright? I found out, to my great surprise, that my brother is some sort of a beauty pro. He carries a stash of facial serum, toner, cleanser and moisturiser when he goes traveling. I had initially thought that the little neat pouch either belong to my sister or mom. But when I saw him sorting through the little vials and bottles, I shouted: "That's yours??!!" Perhaps it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise if I had used my brains a little more. My brother has since puberty been struggling with acne outbreaks and probably still does to a lesser extend. Which probably had lead him to take more care with his skin than me. I have so far been blessed with clear skin and only have to deal with an occasional one-pimple-on-the-face situation during PMS. So what's my beauty

It has become a routine for me to tend to my plants when I get back home in the afternoon. A few snips here, a trim there and lots of watering. Occasionally, I will go hunting for little bugs with a toothpick. So one afternoon, I found that my precious basil was badly in need of a trim. The top section has grown too heavy and the stems were starting to tilt slightly. *Snip, snip* And I ended up with a few young stems for transplant and ended up with a handful of basil trimmings. What a happy problem to have! Yummy basil But of course, I had anticipated this little problem which led me to stock up a small bag of pine nuts earlier. Now I have half a bag remaining, hopefully for another batch of pesto if my basil plant is coorperative. Mise en place for my first homemade pesto And also, I found a bag of frozen grated Parmesan cheese lying around. Creamy and aromatic homemade pesto The recipe came from my new Joy of Cooking (75th anniversary ed.) . Although I wa