Sliced up some baby carrots, soaked the 'hiow kor' (mushroom), peeled the tails of beansprouts and mix them all together. When the kuew teow is partially soft, stir-fried it in a little oil and 'tau eu'. Finally, add all the vege and stir-fry until cooked. The last thing to add is the egg while the pan is hot. Finally, 'kui chui chiak' lah!
Friday, October 06, 2006
vege Char Kuew Teow
Ping is low on groceries right now. Haven't found the time or effort to go all the way to Meijer (both Meijer are out of the way) to get groceries. But Ping was in the mood to cook and wanted to something from home. So with the limited groceries, Ping made a vegetarian version of Char Kuew Teow.
Sliced up some baby carrots, soaked the 'hiow kor' (mushroom), peeled the tails of beansprouts and mix them all together. When the kuew teow is partially soft, stir-fried it in a little oil and 'tau eu'. Finally, add all the vege and stir-fry until cooked. The last thing to add is the egg while the pan is hot. Finally, 'kui chui chiak' lah!
Sliced up some baby carrots, soaked the 'hiow kor' (mushroom), peeled the tails of beansprouts and mix them all together. When the kuew teow is partially soft, stir-fried it in a little oil and 'tau eu'. Finally, add all the vege and stir-fry until cooked. The last thing to add is the egg while the pan is hot. Finally, 'kui chui chiak' lah!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
fungus from nowhere
Was walking towards lab one morning and a fungus caught my attention. Somehow, Ping have managed to walk past this tree without realizing there's a fungus hanging on to it so Ping didn't know when exactly did it appear.
Isn't it a unique relationship between a plant and a fungi? No idea what fungus it is but it is definitely huge and seems to grow well from the tree hole. If you look carefully, there's even a cobweb built from the fungi to the bark of the tree. Amazing isn't it? Anyway, the environmental people must have seen it and thought it might be parasitic or pathogenic to the tree because they cut it off. Sad...but as long as the tree still lives, Ping thinks it's okay.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
soup and bread
Ping skipped salsa dancing tonight to finish writing Ping's second hypothesis...so decided to take a break and blog.
While it's great to be in a Big Ten school, it's not very fun to deal with all the game days and traffic. Ping loves cheering for our basketball team, ice-hockey team, watching the soccer games but when it comes to football...it's pretty frustrating. First of all, the football stadium is smack right in the middle of the campus. That means no matter where on campus you are, you have to deal with the traffic and tailgaters. The basketball court is at Breslin, which is on the East side of the campus so Ping never did realize when the basketball game is if Ping doesn't check the schedule because the West side of the campus is not affected.
Second, tailgating starts 5 hours before the game!! That one also tak cukup, parking lots are closed from 7am onwards!!! Last weekend, Spartan played against Notre Dame at 8pm. Ping thought that if she makes it to campus before 10am, she'll be fine with getting a parking spot. But guess what...they won't let Ping park!!! So Ping had to whine about having to work and need to get the experiment done that day and they let Ping in, promising them that Ping had to leave by 1pm, which is when the official tailgating time. Can you imagine just sitting out there lepaking for 10 hours???? In the end, Spartans lost to Notre Dame...there goes the entire day. Not that Ping don't want to support them but Ping just thought it's a little too much that the entire campus just freeze for the game. Even the buses don't run when the game ends!!!!
Ping was kinda pissed off after that whole drama at 8am in the morning, Ping went to Panera Bread to cheer herself up. Ping got their soup in sourdough bread bowl. They have quite a few choices of soup too - Ping got the Tuscan Vegetable and Ditalini soup. Love it although Ping never finishes the bread. The first time Ping tried soup in bread bowl was at a Delifrance in Beijing...hmm..talking about Delifrance, wonder if there's still Delifrance in Penang. There used to be one at One Stop, Pulau Tikus but can't remember seeing it the last time Ping was back. They have really got seafood sandwich! Ah Kong loves their pastries too..we would usually go there for afternoon break whenever dad is around to drive us.
Today we played against Illinois, which we lost!! Ping can't believe it!!! How could we have lost to Illinois which sucks big time???? Anyway, it was an afternoon game so Ping took the bus instead of driving there. Thankfully, when Ping got there at 8.30am, it was already packed with people who 'siow eng bo ming kia cho' want to stand out in the cold.
While it's great to be in a Big Ten school, it's not very fun to deal with all the game days and traffic. Ping loves cheering for our basketball team, ice-hockey team, watching the soccer games but when it comes to football...it's pretty frustrating. First of all, the football stadium is smack right in the middle of the campus. That means no matter where on campus you are, you have to deal with the traffic and tailgaters. The basketball court is at Breslin, which is on the East side of the campus so Ping never did realize when the basketball game is if Ping doesn't check the schedule because the West side of the campus is not affected.
Second, tailgating starts 5 hours before the game!! That one also tak cukup, parking lots are closed from 7am onwards!!! Last weekend, Spartan played against Notre Dame at 8pm. Ping thought that if she makes it to campus before 10am, she'll be fine with getting a parking spot. But guess what...they won't let Ping park!!! So Ping had to whine about having to work and need to get the experiment done that day and they let Ping in, promising them that Ping had to leave by 1pm, which is when the official tailgating time. Can you imagine just sitting out there lepaking for 10 hours???? In the end, Spartans lost to Notre Dame...there goes the entire day. Not that Ping don't want to support them but Ping just thought it's a little too much that the entire campus just freeze for the game. Even the buses don't run when the game ends!!!!
Ping was kinda pissed off after that whole drama at 8am in the morning, Ping went to Panera Bread to cheer herself up. Ping got their soup in sourdough bread bowl. They have quite a few choices of soup too - Ping got the Tuscan Vegetable and Ditalini soup. Love it although Ping never finishes the bread. The first time Ping tried soup in bread bowl was at a Delifrance in Beijing...hmm..talking about Delifrance, wonder if there's still Delifrance in Penang. There used to be one at One Stop, Pulau Tikus but can't remember seeing it the last time Ping was back. They have really got seafood sandwich! Ah Kong loves their pastries too..we would usually go there for afternoon break whenever dad is around to drive us.
Today we played against Illinois, which we lost!! Ping can't believe it!!! How could we have lost to Illinois which sucks big time???? Anyway, it was an afternoon game so Ping took the bus instead of driving there. Thankfully, when Ping got there at 8.30am, it was already packed with people who 'siow eng bo ming kia cho' want to stand out in the cold.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
fruits
While Ping was visiting New York City late summer, tiptup and diddykong brought Ping to the Chinatown. Ping got the impression that NYC Chinatown is the best in US but Ping kinda prefers the Chinatown at San Francisco. There was more stuff to see and more like 'teng nang keh'. NYC Chinatown is more similar to Chicago Chinatown, just larger and busier. It is also blended in with the Little Italy.
The one thing that Ping was really excited about while at NYC Chinatown is the fruit stalls!! Definitely something that you won't get in Michigan or even Illinois. It's like those fruit stalls at Petaling Street or Campbell Street. The best is, they were selling lychee, rambutans and jambu!!! Tropical fruits!!! DK bought us some lychee and cherries. The cherries was requested by Ping since it's the cherry season and it's very expensive here in MI, which for some reason, is not a big producer of cherries - still considered imported fruit.
Back to Michigan, it's all apples. :( Definitely not Ping's favorite fruit. But when Ping first got back here, there was still quite a bit of cherries around. Kinda expensive...but but but..nice leh and we don't get it in M'sia.
And the next best thing...strawberries!! Haven't tried those from Fraser Hills or Cameron Highlands but the ones they sell here are really sweet and juicy. They can be pretty cheap on certain days too, depending on the seasons.
During the winter, Ping's fruit source is oranges! There's not much choice during winter unless wanna buy imported fruits like Korean pears. There is definitely more choices in tropical countries since there are different fruit seasons all year long. Some of the fruits like 'ampela', 'ia' (coconut), 'ong lai' (pineapple) and 'bok kua' (papaya) can grow all year long too.
The one thing that Ping was really excited about while at NYC Chinatown is the fruit stalls!! Definitely something that you won't get in Michigan or even Illinois. It's like those fruit stalls at Petaling Street or Campbell Street. The best is, they were selling lychee, rambutans and jambu!!! Tropical fruits!!! DK bought us some lychee and cherries. The cherries was requested by Ping since it's the cherry season and it's very expensive here in MI, which for some reason, is not a big producer of cherries - still considered imported fruit.
Back to Michigan, it's all apples. :( Definitely not Ping's favorite fruit. But when Ping first got back here, there was still quite a bit of cherries around. Kinda expensive...but but but..nice leh and we don't get it in M'sia.
And the next best thing...strawberries!! Haven't tried those from Fraser Hills or Cameron Highlands but the ones they sell here are really sweet and juicy. They can be pretty cheap on certain days too, depending on the seasons.
During the winter, Ping's fruit source is oranges! There's not much choice during winter unless wanna buy imported fruits like Korean pears. There is definitely more choices in tropical countries since there are different fruit seasons all year long. Some of the fruits like 'ampela', 'ia' (coconut), 'ong lai' (pineapple) and 'bok kua' (papaya) can grow all year long too.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
clock
This is what happens when you leave the lab for 8 weeks. Your crazy labmates decided to leave you a 'lovely' present...
How did that happen? Just before Ping left for Woods Hole this past summer, Ping dropped the clock and broke the hook that allowed us to hang the clock up on the wall. Ping and Steph tried to glue it back but it didn't work. So we got another clock and Ping left this on her desk, not really knowing what to do with it since it is still functional. But sometime during the summer, Steph and Big K decided to decorate it up and found a place for it by Ping's lab bench. Definitely a conversation starter whenever Ping gets a visitor by her lab bench. *grins* And ohhh..the bulbs are all the bulbs Ping had to replace for the spectrophotometer within the past 1 year. Yeah..that's how much growth curve Ping have been doing...and more to come.
On the side, Ping acquired another Snow Patrol cd!!! - Final Straw but Ping prefers the new one - Eyes Open.
How did that happen? Just before Ping left for Woods Hole this past summer, Ping dropped the clock and broke the hook that allowed us to hang the clock up on the wall. Ping and Steph tried to glue it back but it didn't work. So we got another clock and Ping left this on her desk, not really knowing what to do with it since it is still functional. But sometime during the summer, Steph and Big K decided to decorate it up and found a place for it by Ping's lab bench. Definitely a conversation starter whenever Ping gets a visitor by her lab bench. *grins* And ohhh..the bulbs are all the bulbs Ping had to replace for the spectrophotometer within the past 1 year. Yeah..that's how much growth curve Ping have been doing...and more to come.On the side, Ping acquired another Snow Patrol cd!!! - Final Straw but Ping prefers the new one - Eyes Open.
Qian Qu Nar Li?
Ever wonder where did all your money go to by the end of the month? It's not exactly the end of the month yet..well, close..but Ping was looking through how much she spent the past couple weeks and realized that it was more than what she usually spent. So where did all the qian went to? Haven't been shopping for clothes since early summer and nor did Ping got any new props for her scrapbook.
Then the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol started playing on Ping's iTunes. Ah-ha! Ping has recently 'acquired' several cds. Not too long ago, Steph brought Ping to Flat, Black and Circular. It is a music store that sells both new and used cds for a pretty reasonable price. The older ones can be as low as USD 3, which was what Ping paid for the older Jewel and Matchbox 20 cds that Ping never did get a chance to burn from BK before we went our own separate way. Recently Ping got some Green Day cds for USD 9. The newer ones are cheaper from iTunes but sometimes it's nice to have the real cd and the cover even though we can print album artwork from iTunes now.
And the other source of where Ping's money been going to is Malecon! Weekly salsa dancing at Malecon can be pretty expensive by the end of the month. But Ping won't be going anymore, at least for a few weeks until the paper is finalized. It's lots of fun but Ping is starting to feel guilty for spending so many hours dancing instead of staying home reading or writing. It's getting closer...
Then the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol started playing on Ping's iTunes. Ah-ha! Ping has recently 'acquired' several cds. Not too long ago, Steph brought Ping to Flat, Black and Circular. It is a music store that sells both new and used cds for a pretty reasonable price. The older ones can be as low as USD 3, which was what Ping paid for the older Jewel and Matchbox 20 cds that Ping never did get a chance to burn from BK before we went our own separate way. Recently Ping got some Green Day cds for USD 9. The newer ones are cheaper from iTunes but sometimes it's nice to have the real cd and the cover even though we can print album artwork from iTunes now.
And the other source of where Ping's money been going to is Malecon! Weekly salsa dancing at Malecon can be pretty expensive by the end of the month. But Ping won't be going anymore, at least for a few weeks until the paper is finalized. It's lots of fun but Ping is starting to feel guilty for spending so many hours dancing instead of staying home reading or writing. It's getting closer...
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thai dessert
Being brought up in SouthEast Asia, we have a taste buds that are adapted to various different types of food. One of Ping's favorite is Thai dessert. Most of their desserts are made up of sticky rice, coconut milk or mango and these three ingredients do taste pretty good together. In fact, Ping prefers them to our Penang desserts like ice-kacang (although people from all over the world comes to Penang to try them), cendol and leng chee kang.
Few weekends back, Ping learned this from Nok - Khanom Nang Led. But the one we made have a slightly different recipe. Instead of using watermelon juice, we used lime juice, which would suit Ping better anyway since Ping does not favor watermelon. As for the dippy, it is made of coconut milk, minced pork, cilantro and of course, chilli! It became more of an appetizer dish than dessert since it's not very sweet and there's pork. It is probably not very healthy since it's deep fried. But it's delicious! It's a little too time consuming to make lots of it too.
Few weekends back, Ping learned this from Nok - Khanom Nang Led. But the one we made have a slightly different recipe. Instead of using watermelon juice, we used lime juice, which would suit Ping better anyway since Ping does not favor watermelon. As for the dippy, it is made of coconut milk, minced pork, cilantro and of course, chilli! It became more of an appetizer dish than dessert since it's not very sweet and there's pork. It is probably not very healthy since it's deep fried. But it's delicious! It's a little too time consuming to make lots of it too.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
breakfast
McD might be offering breakfast all day!!! Yeehah!! Ever had their Egg McMuffin? It's delicious! It reminds me of McEgg back in M'sia. Unlike in M'sia, Egg McMuffin is only served during breakfast, which is over at 10am. Ping just couldn't eat that much for breakfast unless it's a lazy day or Ping skipped dinner the night before. Plus, it is kinda out of the way to drive all the way to McD just for breakfast when Ping can have Cheerios and Silk chocolate soy milk for breakfast.
BUT, if McD will be offering breakfast all day, that means Ping gets to eat Egg McMuffin for lunch!! Steph and Ping was checking out the nutrition facts for Egg McMuffin and managed to convince ourselves that it is a pretty healthy meal. There's only 12g of fat and most of it are from the egg, which is still considered healthy fat since we don't really eat meat. Of course, while we're looking through it, we were tempted to go to McDs for lunch. And nope, we were good today as we both brought our healthy lunch. *grins*
Talking about McD, Ping kinda miss Fillet-O-Fish but haven't really taken to liking the ones served here. You would think they taste the same right? But for some reason, the fish here has a soapy taste. Wanted to go to McD for their Ceaser wrap, which is one of Ping's fave at McD here in the States but already had dinner prepared...Boca Vege burger sandwich with Swiss cheese on multigrain bread and carrots on the side. It was pretty tasty too! hehe..
BUT, if McD will be offering breakfast all day, that means Ping gets to eat Egg McMuffin for lunch!! Steph and Ping was checking out the nutrition facts for Egg McMuffin and managed to convince ourselves that it is a pretty healthy meal. There's only 12g of fat and most of it are from the egg, which is still considered healthy fat since we don't really eat meat. Of course, while we're looking through it, we were tempted to go to McDs for lunch. And nope, we were good today as we both brought our healthy lunch. *grins*
Talking about McD, Ping kinda miss Fillet-O-Fish but haven't really taken to liking the ones served here. You would think they taste the same right? But for some reason, the fish here has a soapy taste. Wanted to go to McD for their Ceaser wrap, which is one of Ping's fave at McD here in the States but already had dinner prepared...Boca Vege burger sandwich with Swiss cheese on multigrain bread and carrots on the side. It was pretty tasty too! hehe..
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
hmmmm...
Was walking down the stairs a few weeks back and saw this grasshopper attached to the glass window. It's a crappy image 'coz Ping took it with her Sony Ericson T610's lau iah camera. But Ping just though that it's kinda interesting because it looks like the grasshopper had enlarged itself, trying to conquer the world. We're all in some 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' moment. *grins*
Sunday, September 17, 2006
it's still warm and sunny!!
Wheeeee...Ping is still wearing tank topsm shorts and slippers..in mid-September!! Isn't this awesome?!?!?! Makes Ping wanna be outside doing stuff instead of in here reading and writing. *bleh*
No worries, Ping had a chance to go up (down?) to KBS to meet with Dr. L and also to do some sampling with UL. The meeting with Dr. L was at 10am but this is the first time Ping driving down there by herself, Ping left at 8am just to be sure there's enough time to figure out the roads if Ping gets lost. Ping printed out the directions from Yahoo! instead of from the KBS website...mistake! The directions from Yahoo! took Ping almost 2 hours to get there!! The roads are not very easy to find either because there's all these tiny farm roads. Ping was soooooo glad she left at 8am instead of 8.30am. It was totally a different route from the one Steph took when she drove us there last summer. Grrrr...but never mind. By the time Ping got there, the moody weather went away, replaced by a sunny and windy day!
After meeting with Dr. L, Ping wanted to go to Frona's for lunch but Ping lost her way again!! Arghgghg!! Next time Ping should go get a compass and bring along whenever Ping has to go to rural areas like that. All Ping saw was lakes after lakes (and Ping thought there was only Gull Lake there!!..another mistake - didn't look at the map before leaving) and farms after farms. So Ping ended up at some little cafe selling sub, which was pretty good because Ping was soooooooo hungry. Then as Ping drove around according to her instinct, Ping saw interstate M-43!!!
Drove back to the LTER plots and met up with UL. Spent the entire afternoon sampling with UL. This year, the crops are soybeans, which is a lot harder to walk around than when it was corns last year. But since Ping and UL went separate ways, Ping was kinda glad to be around soybeans than corns. Ping would definitely feel claustrophobic with corns that are taller than Ping! It is also harder to see any deers with corns - yeah, definitely don't want to bump into any of them. It was just lovely out there. It's like you just left everything behind, only you and the fields that lies in front of you acres after acres. Just Ping and nature - the greens, the warmth of the sun, the clear skies, the chirping of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the squirrels...simply wonderful.
Ping got home around 6pm and decided to skip the work-out session since Ping kinda did her work-out out in the fields (errr....kinda *grins*) and driving always makes Ping tired. So Ping stayed home and did some cleaning and guess what! Ping's chilli seeds has germinated!! When Ping was at tiptup's home at Boston, Ping saw her chilli plant and was surprised that it grew pretty well (Ping thought they could only grow in hot and humid Malaysian weather). When Ping came back, Ping just burried some of the chilli seeds into some rich soil...that was about a month ago. As the weather has been pretty fluctuative, Ping wasn't sure if the seeds were going to germinate, especially when some nights the temperature drops to 50F and sometimes the sun is covered by the clouds all day. But it did!! Ping got a new baby to take care now!! Will bring it to the lab (which Ping usually keeps around 25C) once it gets colder outside. The orchid seemed to grow fine so maybe the chilli will too. It seems like a suitable place too according to this article.
No worries, Ping had a chance to go up (down?) to KBS to meet with Dr. L and also to do some sampling with UL. The meeting with Dr. L was at 10am but this is the first time Ping driving down there by herself, Ping left at 8am just to be sure there's enough time to figure out the roads if Ping gets lost. Ping printed out the directions from Yahoo! instead of from the KBS website...mistake! The directions from Yahoo! took Ping almost 2 hours to get there!! The roads are not very easy to find either because there's all these tiny farm roads. Ping was soooooo glad she left at 8am instead of 8.30am. It was totally a different route from the one Steph took when she drove us there last summer. Grrrr...but never mind. By the time Ping got there, the moody weather went away, replaced by a sunny and windy day!
After meeting with Dr. L, Ping wanted to go to Frona's for lunch but Ping lost her way again!! Arghgghg!! Next time Ping should go get a compass and bring along whenever Ping has to go to rural areas like that. All Ping saw was lakes after lakes (and Ping thought there was only Gull Lake there!!..another mistake - didn't look at the map before leaving) and farms after farms. So Ping ended up at some little cafe selling sub, which was pretty good because Ping was soooooooo hungry. Then as Ping drove around according to her instinct, Ping saw interstate M-43!!!
Drove back to the LTER plots and met up with UL. Spent the entire afternoon sampling with UL. This year, the crops are soybeans, which is a lot harder to walk around than when it was corns last year. But since Ping and UL went separate ways, Ping was kinda glad to be around soybeans than corns. Ping would definitely feel claustrophobic with corns that are taller than Ping! It is also harder to see any deers with corns - yeah, definitely don't want to bump into any of them. It was just lovely out there. It's like you just left everything behind, only you and the fields that lies in front of you acres after acres. Just Ping and nature - the greens, the warmth of the sun, the clear skies, the chirping of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the squirrels...simply wonderful.
Ping got home around 6pm and decided to skip the work-out session since Ping kinda did her work-out out in the fields (errr....kinda *grins*) and driving always makes Ping tired. So Ping stayed home and did some cleaning and guess what! Ping's chilli seeds has germinated!! When Ping was at tiptup's home at Boston, Ping saw her chilli plant and was surprised that it grew pretty well (Ping thought they could only grow in hot and humid Malaysian weather). When Ping came back, Ping just burried some of the chilli seeds into some rich soil...that was about a month ago. As the weather has been pretty fluctuative, Ping wasn't sure if the seeds were going to germinate, especially when some nights the temperature drops to 50F and sometimes the sun is covered by the clouds all day. But it did!! Ping got a new baby to take care now!! Will bring it to the lab (which Ping usually keeps around 25C) once it gets colder outside. The orchid seemed to grow fine so maybe the chilli will too. It seems like a suitable place too according to this article.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Edy's Ice Cream
Ice-cream..mmmm....who can resist them? Well, unless I'm full to my neck or ODed from milk. Was watching Serendipity on tv (yeah yeah..it's an old movie but Ping is yet to be bored of that movie), and saw an ad on Edy's new ice-cream - Dibs. It's bite-sized ice-cream! No sticky stuff running down your fingers or ice-cream that are too hard to dig in. Haha...it was definitely a good ad since Ping totally succumb into getting it the next day. Unfortunately, it's not something Ping can get very often because it's EXPENSIVE!! One of that small box costs USD3.80! For that, we can get 1.5 box of the regular Edy's ice-cream already. But it's good though..*grins*
Whheeeeeee...life is awesome these days!!! What more can Ping ask for? But gotta slow down though..before Ping gets too much on her hands. Need to prioritize!! blogging definitely hasn't been very high on the list...maybe Ping will start doing it again. hehe..
Whheeeeeee...life is awesome these days!!! What more can Ping ask for? But gotta slow down though..before Ping gets too much on her hands. Need to prioritize!! blogging definitely hasn't been very high on the list...maybe Ping will start doing it again. hehe..
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Akeelah and the Bee
Wheeeee...Ping's car just reached the mileage of 99999. Went out to rent a dvd and get a snack. Realized that the mileage was at 99997 so by the time Ping got back on campus, it just hit 99999. And Ping got her camera with her!!!
Drove to Hollywood Video to rent Akeelah and the Bee. It is a really good movie. Definitely highly recommended as a motivational movie. If only Ping had such a good coach when she was taking her GRE. Ping could hardly remember any of the word Ping studied for GRE right after the exam ended. Just like Akeelah's coach said, it would be easier to understand if learn how the word is used. But Ping only had a little more than a month to elucubrate and that wasn't full time GRE either since Ping was still trying to finish up her senior thesis. Anyway, Ping still got thru to grad school...so maybe the words wasn't all that important. Kekeke...
Drove to Hollywood Video to rent Akeelah and the Bee. It is a really good movie. Definitely highly recommended as a motivational movie. If only Ping had such a good coach when she was taking her GRE. Ping could hardly remember any of the word Ping studied for GRE right after the exam ended. Just like Akeelah's coach said, it would be easier to understand if learn how the word is used. But Ping only had a little more than a month to elucubrate and that wasn't full time GRE either since Ping was still trying to finish up her senior thesis. Anyway, Ping still got thru to grad school...so maybe the words wasn't all that important. Kekeke...
Monday, September 04, 2006
Labor Day
It's Labor Day = public holiday. Ping just woke up at 8.30am. Maybe Ping should just stay home and be lazy. Or maybe Ping should go run. Or maybe just go to the gardens and lepak. Hmmm...but Ping has a culture waiting that has to go through a growth curve at 30 degrees C!!! That's gonna be A LOT slower than at 37 C. Grrrrrr...
But maybe it's not so bad 'coz Ping gets to wear shorts to work since Ping will be in the 30 C room most of the time. But but but...Ping wanna be lazy. Alright alright..the weekend is over, have to gear up for Monday. But Monday is a holiday. Hmmmm..... it is a lovely weather outside. The gardens are so tempting right right?
Haha...who am I kidding? I'll end up at work.
But maybe it's not so bad 'coz Ping gets to wear shorts to work since Ping will be in the 30 C room most of the time. But but but...Ping wanna be lazy. Alright alright..the weekend is over, have to gear up for Monday. But Monday is a holiday. Hmmmm..... it is a lovely weather outside. The gardens are so tempting right right?
Haha...who am I kidding? I'll end up at work.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Potbelly Sandwich
This weekend passes by pretty fast, which is good in a way. Spent most of yesterday afternoon washing and polishing the car. Cleaning the windows and vacuuming the seats and floor. Ping's treasured Honda is then shining and clean.
But the front is now kinda dusty. The windscreen is decorated with dead bugs that got hit when Ping was driving along the freeway. Went to the temple earlier this afternoon with TT. There was more people than usual as the Sri Lankan Student Organization from Wayne State had some blessing sessions there. So TT and Ping tumpang receive blessings too. Ping always feel better after the Puja session and Metta Sutta meditation. If only the temple is closer, Ping would definitely go every week.
After going to the temple, we went to try out the new place on Grand River Ave - Potbelly Sandwich Works. It opened about two weeks ago but everytime Ping pass by, there are no seats available. JG doesn't wanna get take out. So Ping decided to wait till the initial crowd dies off to try it. Today, Ping wanted to try the other new place on MAC but it was closed when TT and Ping dropped by. We walked over to Potbelly and we saw a few empty spots. So we decided to try it. Ping had their Tuna Salad and TT had their Italian sandwich. We both liked the sandwiches. Ping tapau half of her sandwich but it doesn't look as good as when it was still warm. Ping also got their chocolate shake and it's chocolicious!!! It is likely to be one of Ping's favorite place now...as long as there's places to sit. They also put little biscuits with their straw but Ping didn't eat the biscuit for fear that it was left out for sometime over the night or that it was touched with fingers that were also messing with the cash register.
Ping had wanted to have dinner with TT today 'coz TT is leaving for Beijing tomorrow and headed back to M'sia after the conference at Beijing. Ping is soooooo jealous of TT. Ping wanna go home too. But not just yet..wanna enjoy the lovely weather in Michigan now and get through the nightmare-ish comprehensive exam first.
But the front is now kinda dusty. The windscreen is decorated with dead bugs that got hit when Ping was driving along the freeway. Went to the temple earlier this afternoon with TT. There was more people than usual as the Sri Lankan Student Organization from Wayne State had some blessing sessions there. So TT and Ping tumpang receive blessings too. Ping always feel better after the Puja session and Metta Sutta meditation. If only the temple is closer, Ping would definitely go every week.After going to the temple, we went to try out the new place on Grand River Ave - Potbelly Sandwich Works. It opened about two weeks ago but everytime Ping pass by, there are no seats available. JG doesn't wanna get take out. So Ping decided to wait till the initial crowd dies off to try it. Today, Ping wanted to try the other new place on MAC but it was closed when TT and Ping dropped by. We walked over to Potbelly and we saw a few empty spots. So we decided to try it. Ping had their Tuna Salad and TT had their Italian sandwich. We both liked the sandwiches. Ping tapau half of her sandwich but it doesn't look as good as when it was still warm. Ping also got their chocolate shake and it's chocolicious!!! It is likely to be one of Ping's favorite place now...as long as there's places to sit. They also put little biscuits with their straw but Ping didn't eat the biscuit for fear that it was left out for sometime over the night or that it was touched with fingers that were also messing with the cash register.
Ping had wanted to have dinner with TT today 'coz TT is leaving for Beijing tomorrow and headed back to M'sia after the conference at Beijing. Ping is soooooo jealous of TT. Ping wanna go home too. But not just yet..wanna enjoy the lovely weather in Michigan now and get through the nightmare-ish comprehensive exam first.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Mochi ice-cream and pastries
Lately, whenever Ping goes to the Bubble Tea shop on Grand River Ave, Ping craved for the Mochi ice-cream. But Ping refrained herself from getting because they sell 3 of the Mochi balls for USD 3.50. Can you imagine that??? So last weekend, Ping went to Oriental Mart to get one box of the chocolate Mochi. It costs Ping USD 4.25, which is still very expensive for 6 balls of ice-cream but it's way cheaper than buying them from Bubble Tea. Ping can also take her own sweet time savoring the 6 balls instead of having to eat them all at once.
There are various different flavors but Ping's favorite is the chocolate and coffee flavor. The ice-cream is actually nothing special. The fun part is the chewy texture of the glutinous rice flour coating the ice-cream. It is actually the flour that is known as 'mochi' in Japanese.
It is the same ingredient used for most Japanese desserts. When Ping visited NYC with TT and DK, TT brought Ping to Minamoto Kichoan on Fifth Ave. Ping quietly took a picture of the Jonamagashi. Ping couldn't resists because they look so lovely and cute! Don't think it should be eaten lah. TT bought Ping a rice cake type Wagashi - a red-bean paste filled mochi pastry. Yum yum. No wonder Doraemon likes to eat it so much. *bleh* But don't think Ping could take too much of it because it is kinda sweet and sweet things always make Ping jelak.
TT also bought us a box of green tea Kasutera. Ping thought the Kasutera was pretty good but tt had higher expectations as tt thinks it's not very fresh. But Ping don't know a whole lot since that's only the third time Ping had Kasutera. As long as it's not made by Ping (who is disastrous at complicated baking recipes), it will be tasty. Kekeke...
Aiks..all these Japanese desserts blogging is making Ping think about Konnyaku Jelly. It first became popular in M'sia when Ping was in college. There are stalls in Sunway Pyramid, Prangin Mall and 1 Utama selling these jelly that costs 50cents for 2 jelly!! Ping bought it once from Pyramid after whining daddy about how special the jelly is. Later, tua ee started making them and Ping got the ingredients and recipe from tua ee. Ping brought it here to the States that first time too. Ping would make them with lychee or peaches. But ever since then, Ping hasn't brought back more. Definitely have to place that in Ping's list for the next trip home (which is soon!!! and hopefully before ee ee goes to Vietnam? Cambodia?...errr...somewhere).
There are various different flavors but Ping's favorite is the chocolate and coffee flavor. The ice-cream is actually nothing special. The fun part is the chewy texture of the glutinous rice flour coating the ice-cream. It is actually the flour that is known as 'mochi' in Japanese.
It is the same ingredient used for most Japanese desserts. When Ping visited NYC with TT and DK, TT brought Ping to Minamoto Kichoan on Fifth Ave. Ping quietly took a picture of the Jonamagashi. Ping couldn't resists because they look so lovely and cute! Don't think it should be eaten lah. TT bought Ping a rice cake type Wagashi - a red-bean paste filled mochi pastry. Yum yum. No wonder Doraemon likes to eat it so much. *bleh* But don't think Ping could take too much of it because it is kinda sweet and sweet things always make Ping jelak.
TT also bought us a box of green tea Kasutera. Ping thought the Kasutera was pretty good but tt had higher expectations as tt thinks it's not very fresh. But Ping don't know a whole lot since that's only the third time Ping had Kasutera. As long as it's not made by Ping (who is disastrous at complicated baking recipes), it will be tasty. Kekeke...
Aiks..all these Japanese desserts blogging is making Ping think about Konnyaku Jelly. It first became popular in M'sia when Ping was in college. There are stalls in Sunway Pyramid, Prangin Mall and 1 Utama selling these jelly that costs 50cents for 2 jelly!! Ping bought it once from Pyramid after whining daddy about how special the jelly is. Later, tua ee started making them and Ping got the ingredients and recipe from tua ee. Ping brought it here to the States that first time too. Ping would make them with lychee or peaches. But ever since then, Ping hasn't brought back more. Definitely have to place that in Ping's list for the next trip home (which is soon!!! and hopefully before ee ee goes to Vietnam? Cambodia?...errr...somewhere).
Friday, September 01, 2006
an eventful day
Just a little after 8.30am, SE arrived and she realized Ping is kinda glum (apparently Ping gets quiet when Ping is unhappy...hmmm..). So we kinda joke around a little and Ping felt better. But as lunch time approach, Ping's spirit soared higher as KH is coming for lunch with us! This will be her last lunch with us but at that time, the sadness has yet to set in because Ping and SE were just excited to see KH again.
We went to Thai Kitchen since KH's favorite food is Thai food. DoubleD, Brain, UL and JG also came along. It was definitely a fun time with all of us back as a team, talking about all the old jokes that only we could understand. It no longer matter that in few months, it'll just be Ping and UL and everyone will be on their own new journey. It was a moment to be treasured. After lunch, we drove to Starbucks for our regular coffee/chai/cookies. Since the boss won't be back later in the afternoon, we decided to be lazy and hung out outside of Starbucks.
After work, the girls went to JG's place and hang out in front of the TV. We were switching between Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meal (which was pizza today and Ping wasn't totally interest in it as it looks messy to prepare and eat) and Stargate. Just a little past 6.30pm, we drove to Celebration! and watched Little Miss Sunshine. I am totally recommending everyone to watch it when they are upset and need a little...a lot...of laugh. It's been sooooooooooo long since Ping laughed so hard that Ping's throat actually felt dry after the movie. Initially Ping thought that it would be a family comedy but I wouldn't recommend kids watching it though...it's kinda creepy if a little kid decided to replica the dance move. *shudders* Hopefully not. But it's a very funny movie and definitely did cheer us up. Even while we're on our way home in the car, we were still chuckling and laughing over the funny plots.
Ping is gonna miss the three girls but Ping is definitely happy for them. Therefore, Ping will treasure what little time Ping has with them before they take off for their post-doctoral journey. For now, Ping gets to sleep in tomorrow morning!! The first football game is tomorrow so almost the entire campus will be tailgating starting at 8am through 5pm. That's good enough of a reason to not plan experiment for Saturday..kekeke.
We went to Thai Kitchen since KH's favorite food is Thai food. DoubleD, Brain, UL and JG also came along. It was definitely a fun time with all of us back as a team, talking about all the old jokes that only we could understand. It no longer matter that in few months, it'll just be Ping and UL and everyone will be on their own new journey. It was a moment to be treasured. After lunch, we drove to Starbucks for our regular coffee/chai/cookies. Since the boss won't be back later in the afternoon, we decided to be lazy and hung out outside of Starbucks.
After work, the girls went to JG's place and hang out in front of the TV. We were switching between Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meal (which was pizza today and Ping wasn't totally interest in it as it looks messy to prepare and eat) and Stargate. Just a little past 6.30pm, we drove to Celebration! and watched Little Miss Sunshine. I am totally recommending everyone to watch it when they are upset and need a little...a lot...of laugh. It's been sooooooooooo long since Ping laughed so hard that Ping's throat actually felt dry after the movie. Initially Ping thought that it would be a family comedy but I wouldn't recommend kids watching it though...it's kinda creepy if a little kid decided to replica the dance move. *shudders* Hopefully not. But it's a very funny movie and definitely did cheer us up. Even while we're on our way home in the car, we were still chuckling and laughing over the funny plots.
Ping is gonna miss the three girls but Ping is definitely happy for them. Therefore, Ping will treasure what little time Ping has with them before they take off for their post-doctoral journey. For now, Ping gets to sleep in tomorrow morning!! The first football game is tomorrow so almost the entire campus will be tailgating starting at 8am through 5pm. That's good enough of a reason to not plan experiment for Saturday..kekeke.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Penang...but not really
One of the unique characteristics of Malaysia is the food. There's not only a huge variety but they range from a broad diversity of origin. It is still the one thing that we can't get anywhere. Here in the States, you can get the 'American food' almost anywhere in the world since McDs is found basically anywhere.
The most popular M'sian food restaurant in the States is 'Penang'. Can't remember how it started but if Ping is not mistaken, it was opened by a couple from Penang who sells Hokkien mee. Now there are several chains of this restaurant. The closest to Ping is in Chicago. Ping had heard about this place from M'sians when Ping was at Western. Passed the place multiple times but had never gone in there. Everytime Ping goes to Chicago Chinatown, Ping end up going for chinese food rather than M'sian food. The first time Ping went was with friends who already gone there before and didn't like it very much. After that, Ping's desire for dim sum was more than for M'sian food. Furthermore, with Hup Loong's products, it is pretty easy to cook M'sian food.
The one thing that such M'sian restaurants still do not serve are the typical Nyonya or authentic Penang food like 'jeu hoo char', 'tau eu bak', 'lor bak', 'kiam chai ark', 'lam mee', 'chui bak', 'popiah chee', 'khong assam' and many more. These are stuff that in Ping's opinion, need to be really experienced to prepare dishes that taste really good. Until today, Ping still haven't tried any lam mee in KL that taste better than the ones in Penang. As usual, gee kim and tua ee are the best cooks to consult when it comes to authentic Penang food.
However, after the 8 weeks at Woods Hole eating dorm food twice a day, 6 times a week, Ping was craving for any M'sian food. So on Ping's first night at Boston, tiptup and dk brought Ping to the Penang restaurant located at Boston's Chinatown. We ordered achat, kangkung belachan and dried curry chicken. The achat is the best! The last time Ping had achat was a loooong time ago when tua kim bought it for us from some market she went to. Ping could have eaten just the achat with rice. The curry chicken was kinda like the ones that are served with yellow rice when celebrating baby's 'mua guik'...which was really good too. Yum yum...
The most popular M'sian food restaurant in the States is 'Penang'. Can't remember how it started but if Ping is not mistaken, it was opened by a couple from Penang who sells Hokkien mee. Now there are several chains of this restaurant. The closest to Ping is in Chicago. Ping had heard about this place from M'sians when Ping was at Western. Passed the place multiple times but had never gone in there. Everytime Ping goes to Chicago Chinatown, Ping end up going for chinese food rather than M'sian food. The first time Ping went was with friends who already gone there before and didn't like it very much. After that, Ping's desire for dim sum was more than for M'sian food. Furthermore, with Hup Loong's products, it is pretty easy to cook M'sian food.
The one thing that such M'sian restaurants still do not serve are the typical Nyonya or authentic Penang food like 'jeu hoo char', 'tau eu bak', 'lor bak', 'kiam chai ark', 'lam mee', 'chui bak', 'popiah chee', 'khong assam' and many more. These are stuff that in Ping's opinion, need to be really experienced to prepare dishes that taste really good. Until today, Ping still haven't tried any lam mee in KL that taste better than the ones in Penang. As usual, gee kim and tua ee are the best cooks to consult when it comes to authentic Penang food.
However, after the 8 weeks at Woods Hole eating dorm food twice a day, 6 times a week, Ping was craving for any M'sian food. So on Ping's first night at Boston, tiptup and dk brought Ping to the Penang restaurant located at Boston's Chinatown. We ordered achat, kangkung belachan and dried curry chicken. The achat is the best! The last time Ping had achat was a loooong time ago when tua kim bought it for us from some market she went to. Ping could have eaten just the achat with rice. The curry chicken was kinda like the ones that are served with yellow rice when celebrating baby's 'mua guik'...which was really good too. Yum yum...
an escape
Oh no!! The undergrads are coming back. We term them as the 'locust'. When they come back, they just take over the entire campus, the town and the city. Everywhere you go, there's tons of people. The roads are packed with cars and people who don't stop for you to cross the road. The restaurants are packed with people lining up all the way towards the entrance. The check-out lines are so long that it's no longer worth it to buy a box of paper clips. The bars are so pack that it starts to reek with beer and smoke.
This weekend is the welcoming weekend and there's lots of activity going on around the campus. Even as Ping is typing this, Ping can hear the fireworks from the campus...and that's 5 miles away. Ping and Fan decided to take Friday night off and go check out the new eateries at the Union. But little did we know there was going to be so many 'games', it was packed that Ping started to feel claustrophobic. Even the free Fuze, Jones and O didn't seem appealing anymore. However, Ping did manage to snag a free bottle of mandarin orange flavored O. It was just so-so. Prefer Fruit-2-O. They were also giving out free Sobe energy drinks but Ping never did acquire the funny taste of energy drinks so opt out on that. There were also lots of free stuff if you wanna hang around and fill up some forms but Ping wasn't really into all that at that time. Furthermore, Ping was eager to get out of that packed-like-sardin building. After getting past all the people, we went down to the Dairy Store to get 75cents ice-cream.
It was still pretty early after that and Ping didn't feel like going home and facing the lonely apartment. Ping also didn't wanna go anywhere with tons of people. Then Ping felt like playing pool so we went to Pinball Pete. Ping likes that place 'coz no alcohol is allowed, which also makes it popular. The only thing that's not too fun with the place is that sometimes there are shady people loitering in there smoking stuff. But it was fine last night. There was only 4 other people besides us. Played 2 games before Ping reluctantly brought Fan home and came back.
Think Ping made that ball?
This weekend is the welcoming weekend and there's lots of activity going on around the campus. Even as Ping is typing this, Ping can hear the fireworks from the campus...and that's 5 miles away. Ping and Fan decided to take Friday night off and go check out the new eateries at the Union. But little did we know there was going to be so many 'games', it was packed that Ping started to feel claustrophobic. Even the free Fuze, Jones and O didn't seem appealing anymore. However, Ping did manage to snag a free bottle of mandarin orange flavored O. It was just so-so. Prefer Fruit-2-O. They were also giving out free Sobe energy drinks but Ping never did acquire the funny taste of energy drinks so opt out on that. There were also lots of free stuff if you wanna hang around and fill up some forms but Ping wasn't really into all that at that time. Furthermore, Ping was eager to get out of that packed-like-sardin building. After getting past all the people, we went down to the Dairy Store to get 75cents ice-cream.
It was still pretty early after that and Ping didn't feel like going home and facing the lonely apartment. Ping also didn't wanna go anywhere with tons of people. Then Ping felt like playing pool so we went to Pinball Pete. Ping likes that place 'coz no alcohol is allowed, which also makes it popular. The only thing that's not too fun with the place is that sometimes there are shady people loitering in there smoking stuff. But it was fine last night. There was only 4 other people besides us. Played 2 games before Ping reluctantly brought Fan home and came back.
Think Ping made that ball?
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
down moments...
Jealous of the girl who caught your eye
When you looked at her where was I?
Jealous of the one who’s arms are around you
If she’s keeping you satisfied
Jealous of the one who finally found you
Made your sun and your stars collide
Jealous of the one who won your heart
It seems like a perfect match
She’s gonna get to be where you are
And I don’t get better than that
Whisper words I wish were mine
And they might have been
If I had been there
You know I’d fight the good fight
If I thought I’d change your mind
But if she makes you happy
I would leave the dream behind
Man, she better treat you right
And give you everything
Cause at the moment she doesn’t
I’ll be waiting at the wings.
You may be sitting right there in the same room as her but I know your mind is still on me. When you called me back, I knew you were thinking of me. I knew you wish you could be here telling me everything will be alright. She may be treating you good but I know I was there when you were down. I would be there whenever you call. You might be the light of her life but why isn’t she denying the others? I would have given you my all, but you would never know that would you? She’s there wherever you are. But if I had been there…it would have been me. You let her know…she could be there, she could be a sweetie but I know you’re thinking of me. I was your first and I know she could never take my place. The longer time she takes to make up her mind, the longer time I have. She can take all the time she wants and I’ll be on the watch.
But will you tell me when she makes you happy? Will you tell me when I’m annoying? Will you be honest with me?
And who am I to say all that?
Sunday, August 20, 2006
chicken
Grrrr…something went wrong in Ping ’s laptop. The wireless network connection is going through an ‘attitude problem’ moment (as we say in Hokkien, ‘pi siang’ / ‘tau hong’). Ping only bring laptop back home on weekends since the network connection at work is faster and more stable. At home, sometimes the wireless doesn’t work very well (but we’ll be changing to DSL soon!!) and sometimes room-mate uses it (yeah..only one of us can use it at one time). Last weekend was the last time Ping brought it back and the wireless connection worked really well.
Yesterday, after
For the main dish, 
That was yesterday and today, 
All the recipes are from Family Circle. Mum used to buy the old copies from MPH warehouse sale for RM 1 each but these recipes are actually from the Family Circle recipe books that mum bought for
Now
Thursday, August 17, 2006
new battery
This is the second time Ping received an email about Dell replacing some of their laptop batteries due to excessive heat. The first time Ping didn't have to get a replacement. Initially, Ping is too lazy to check this second time but then Ping saw on the website that we don't have to turn off the laptop to remove the battery if it is plugged in..so Ping decided to check. Guess what..Ping has to send it back this time!!!
Ping do realize that the battery gets hot when Ping uses it too long..especially when placing the laptop on my lap. But Ping though it was normal because camera battery warms up too when it is left on for too long. But from stories like that, Ping is definitely gonna get the replacement.
Wheee..time to go home!
Ping do realize that the battery gets hot when Ping uses it too long..especially when placing the laptop on my lap. But Ping though it was normal because camera battery warms up too when it is left on for too long. But from stories like that, Ping is definitely gonna get the replacement.
Wheee..time to go home!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Harvard Square
Right after Woods Hole, instead of coming straight back to Michigan, Ping took a self-declared 1 week holiday to tour Boston and NYC. *Grins* Boss asked me when Ping will be back and Ping told him about going to Boston and he mentioned that Boston is a nice place and Ping would enjoy it...so that should be fine. But now that I'm back, boss hasn't give Ping a hard time yet although have yet to discuss about my project yet. Am currently thinking of changing approach...sigh...scary ler. Qualifications coming up in few months and yet Ping don't feel like she has enough preliminary results.
Anyway, the first thing Ping did after arriving Boston via Bonanza busline...go home tidur. Hehe..tiptup came to picked Ping up from Boston South Station and was feeling very sleepy. Went back to TT's place but only slept for a while. It was a good sleep though...especially after the last few nights at MBL, kept thinking about having to wake up early to finish up the report.
The first place Ping went was to Harvard Square. TT drove Ping there and we walked around Harvard Uni campus and surrounding areas. Don't feel like a university campus at all...more like a little town. TT tried to bring Ping into the library but we could only go so far because need to show ID and students can only bring their parents in.
Check out this cool rainbow effect from the fountain just outside their computer lab building...
Another cool thing...this is a lady who stands outside the Coop store as though she's a statue. But when you place money on her skirt, she'll move around. Ping saw a similar act on a vacation to Disney with parents in 2004. A lady stood close to the bushes as though she's part of the flora community. But when you walk close to her, she'll move a little. If you turn back and look, she'll stay still again. Ping saw another lady preparing herself at Central Park in NYC too...cool eh? :P
Anyway, the first thing Ping did after arriving Boston via Bonanza busline...go home tidur. Hehe..tiptup came to picked Ping up from Boston South Station and was feeling very sleepy. Went back to TT's place but only slept for a while. It was a good sleep though...especially after the last few nights at MBL, kept thinking about having to wake up early to finish up the report.
The first place Ping went was to Harvard Square. TT drove Ping there and we walked around Harvard Uni campus and surrounding areas. Don't feel like a university campus at all...more like a little town. TT tried to bring Ping into the library but we could only go so far because need to show ID and students can only bring their parents in.
Check out this cool rainbow effect from the fountain just outside their computer lab building...
Another cool thing...this is a lady who stands outside the Coop store as though she's a statue. But when you place money on her skirt, she'll move around. Ping saw a similar act on a vacation to Disney with parents in 2004. A lady stood close to the bushes as though she's part of the flora community. But when you walk close to her, she'll move a little. If you turn back and look, she'll stay still again. Ping saw another lady preparing herself at Central Park in NYC too...cool eh? :P
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Fresh seafood
The best thing about living so close to the ocean...seafood!!! That's another thing I miss most coming from an island to a flat land where you're surrounded by corns and soybean.
On weekends, mum would stir-fry 'pek chiau' with soy sauce...definitely the best! I could eat 2 just for lunch and skip the rice. When dad's around, we would have the baby 'pek chiau' deep fried. It would be soooo crispy you can eat the whole thing, even the bones! On days when ahmah is too lazy to cook, she would make steamed 'bola hu' in soy sauce with chilli and that's enough to go with rice. Mum actually managed to smuggle some 'bola hu' for me a couple years ago...gotta do that the next time I go home. Kekeke...
Whenever there's a function, we would go to Teluk Bahang or Batu Maung for finger-lickin good seafood. Crabs and honey prawns!! But now when I go back only for a month, I tend to get sick of them by the end of my break because seafood are not really healthy food and it kinda gets to my stomach after a while. The last two trip wasn't that bad because we have home cook seafood! Instead of going out, we buy them back for gee kim to cook. She's the best cook for homecook food I've known! She can make any hawker food too! That's one thing I'm glad that I get to go back to Penang for hols instead of to PJ. Kekeke..
There was one weekend when se han ee and Uncle Francis brought us to Gertak Sanggul to buy grass for our garden. Uncle Francis saw some fisherman coming up shore and approach them..the next thing you know, we got fresh fish! How often can you actually buy your seafood from the fisherman themselves just when they bring the fish back from the ocean? Definitely not in Michigan!
As for this year, since I couldn't go back home, I got my share of seafood from the coast of Massachusetts. There are fresh lobsters, they were caught and kept in a seawater tank until they are ready to be barbequed or steamed. That's me pulling up the lobster trap. Unfortunately, the trapped that I pulled out had a hard-shelled sea mollusc instead. But the trip out was fun. I just love being out in the sea. Once they are out of the water, the lobsters are basically harmless. They can't move very much except for their claw. So we have to hold them upside down and tie up their claw with a rubber band. If the claw is not tied up, when it is added to other lobsters in the sea water tank, they would clip off each other's claw. Agressive!
Besides lobsters, the Swope serves fish or scallops almost every other day. I definitely did managed to go poultry-less this summer. They have really good shrimp sandwich, crabmeat salad and seaweed mix. Then there's salmon, codfish, sea bass and more. The one thing that we still don't get in US is fishes are not served as whole fish. They usually use only the fillet. But it was still good.
The restaurants closeby all serves seafood too. I've had a mahi-mahi sandwich at Captain Kidd, fried calamari at Landfall, fish and chips at Lee Side and salmon at Phusion Grille.
On weekends, mum would stir-fry 'pek chiau' with soy sauce...definitely the best! I could eat 2 just for lunch and skip the rice. When dad's around, we would have the baby 'pek chiau' deep fried. It would be soooo crispy you can eat the whole thing, even the bones! On days when ahmah is too lazy to cook, she would make steamed 'bola hu' in soy sauce with chilli and that's enough to go with rice. Mum actually managed to smuggle some 'bola hu' for me a couple years ago...gotta do that the next time I go home. Kekeke...
Whenever there's a function, we would go to Teluk Bahang or Batu Maung for finger-lickin good seafood. Crabs and honey prawns!! But now when I go back only for a month, I tend to get sick of them by the end of my break because seafood are not really healthy food and it kinda gets to my stomach after a while. The last two trip wasn't that bad because we have home cook seafood! Instead of going out, we buy them back for gee kim to cook. She's the best cook for homecook food I've known! She can make any hawker food too! That's one thing I'm glad that I get to go back to Penang for hols instead of to PJ. Kekeke..
There was one weekend when se han ee and Uncle Francis brought us to Gertak Sanggul to buy grass for our garden. Uncle Francis saw some fisherman coming up shore and approach them..the next thing you know, we got fresh fish! How often can you actually buy your seafood from the fisherman themselves just when they bring the fish back from the ocean? Definitely not in Michigan!
As for this year, since I couldn't go back home, I got my share of seafood from the coast of Massachusetts. There are fresh lobsters, they were caught and kept in a seawater tank until they are ready to be barbequed or steamed. That's me pulling up the lobster trap. Unfortunately, the trapped that I pulled out had a hard-shelled sea mollusc instead. But the trip out was fun. I just love being out in the sea. Once they are out of the water, the lobsters are basically harmless. They can't move very much except for their claw. So we have to hold them upside down and tie up their claw with a rubber band. If the claw is not tied up, when it is added to other lobsters in the sea water tank, they would clip off each other's claw. Agressive!
Besides lobsters, the Swope serves fish or scallops almost every other day. I definitely did managed to go poultry-less this summer. They have really good shrimp sandwich, crabmeat salad and seaweed mix. Then there's salmon, codfish, sea bass and more. The one thing that we still don't get in US is fishes are not served as whole fish. They usually use only the fillet. But it was still good.The restaurants closeby all serves seafood too. I've had a mahi-mahi sandwich at Captain Kidd, fried calamari at Landfall, fish and chips at Lee Side and salmon at Phusion Grille.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Everything must come to an end...
So what exactly was my research about at Woods Hole? I tried to look for methanol oxidizing denitrifiers at 
I’ve not done much culturing work since undergrad days and it feels good to be able to do that again. Molecular biology is definitely a great tool but sometimes it creates a gap between you and your bug. I no longer need to look at them under the scope or grow them under different conditions. All I need is their DNA or RNA to work with. In the end, I don’t even see the bug at all because I make use of our good ‘ol trusted E. coli. It is lots of fun working with molecular approaches because it can answer a lot of questions. But there’s a lot more out there that can be answered by culturing.
Now, Ping-Ping is back at
Sunday, July 16, 2006
a walk to Falmouth
The weekend before 4th of July was another lovely day. Took a long walk to Falmouth, which was about 6 miles from Woods Hole. I followed the bike path towards Trunk River. Initially it was within the woods which I really enjoyed. There's so much diversity of flora to see and the scenes on the bike path just amuse me. There's little kids trying to faster than their parents and parents teaching their little kids to roller-blade. I wish there's more bike paths like this in M'sia but as everyone M'sian I told this to would say...'ban ban siow'. The cyclist are so polite that when they wants to pass me, they'll say 'on your left/right'. It's simply wonderful.Just before Trunk River, there's a gravel beach, which I have fallen in love with. Unlike sandy beach, I can just lie down on the gravel and dry off without having all the sand sticking to me.But I didn't have my swimsuit on that day so I just lie down and enjoy the weather. Ended up napping for about 20 minutes. Although it was nice, I would admit that it's a little hard to walk on it. But hei, people purposely add gravels to some of the gardens at the Penang Botanical Garden for health purpose. There's a mile of this here!
While walking along the beach, I came across this funny looking seaweed growing on rocks. I found a small one and wish that I could bring it back with me but I was heading towards town and didn't bring any sampling bottle with me. I look at it carefully and couldn't find any roots. Isn't that weird?
The Falmouth town is definitely a tourist town as everything is soooooooooo expensive. Every cafe that I stop by sells sandwich that are more than USD 5. Ended up getting a small scoop of ice-cream for lunch, which last me the entire day. It's huge!!!! Besides the price, it's a very 'old-fashion' town. I like the local shops there, unlike the common branded chains and fast-food chains we see in almost every town in Michigan.
4th of July at Woods Hole
I can’t believe how fast time past. It’s been almost a month since I came here. The environment here is so much more intense that I feel like I just gotta keep going but at the same time, there’s always opportunity to take a break here and there. Like today for example, I had to finish up some nitrate assay, check on growth, prepare media and inoculate for enrichment of a bagasse degrading/fermenting organism. All that can only be done after the morning presentation session, which ends at about 11.30am . Sometime in between, I also had to go collect sample from the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Plant. I managed to stick to my plan as I finished all of the above. I had to miss a chemostat demonstration to collect sample from the Wastewater Treatment plant but the trip was worth it because I never really understand what is the benefit of having an activated sludge (involves a mixing and aerating cycle) or anaerobic sludge (include biogas generation and denitrification) system.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Beer making
Besides individual projects, there's also the group projects such as beer making!! It's the highlight of the week..anything to do with alcohol is always a highlight. But for Ping, it was more the fun of making it since Ping never did build up the affinity for beer although some of them do has a lovely whiff to it. We just bought a commercial kit for the process from Beer and Wine Hobby. While making it, we were all worried about the sterility of the instruments and pots that we used. I thought that was kinda funny because when we're cooking or making yogurt or bread, we never did think about sterility. But here we are, working in a microbiology lab, growing our cultures with one hand and a beer bottle in another hand...yet we're worried about sterility.
The first picture is the ingredients that we used. The beer we made was Honey Amber Ale. Looking at the recipe, it surprises me how much sugar is used to make beer and yet the drink is sooooooooo bitter. I guess the yeast used must be highly efficient enough to convert a huge chunk of the sugar to alcohol. The pot we were stirring is just the mixture of the wheat, malt and tons of sugar. It actually taste pretty good..kinda like 'bah leh ko' that we used to buy from 'cha tiam mah' when we were kids. Once the mixture boils and we added all the materials, we had to cool the beer, which we did in a huge bucket filled with ice. The third picture is R and B siphoning the mixture into the bottle. We then added the yeast, shake it up real good and let it sit for about a week.
We also hooked up some balloons to the brewing bottle to collect the CO2 gas emitted from the fermentative reaction of the yeast. Ours is the 2nd one from the left - Love Potion No. 9. About 35-40 hours later, our balloon started to fill up really well. We had the yeast that started out a lot slower as by the time our balloon started to fill up, the others we already about to burst.
Just this past weekend, we transferred the beer to a new bottle, leaving the yeast behind. Commercially, this would be the 'bottling step'. We also streaked them out on nutrient agar and there's definitely no growth besides yeast. Wheeee hah! There'll be our 'homemade beer' for the next symposium. I might actually try some....
The first picture is the ingredients that we used. The beer we made was Honey Amber Ale. Looking at the recipe, it surprises me how much sugar is used to make beer and yet the drink is sooooooooo bitter. I guess the yeast used must be highly efficient enough to convert a huge chunk of the sugar to alcohol. The pot we were stirring is just the mixture of the wheat, malt and tons of sugar. It actually taste pretty good..kinda like 'bah leh ko' that we used to buy from 'cha tiam mah' when we were kids. Once the mixture boils and we added all the materials, we had to cool the beer, which we did in a huge bucket filled with ice. The third picture is R and B siphoning the mixture into the bottle. We then added the yeast, shake it up real good and let it sit for about a week.
We also hooked up some balloons to the brewing bottle to collect the CO2 gas emitted from the fermentative reaction of the yeast. Ours is the 2nd one from the left - Love Potion No. 9. About 35-40 hours later, our balloon started to fill up really well. We had the yeast that started out a lot slower as by the time our balloon started to fill up, the others we already about to burst.
Just this past weekend, we transferred the beer to a new bottle, leaving the yeast behind. Commercially, this would be the 'bottling step'. We also streaked them out on nutrient agar and there's definitely no growth besides yeast. Wheeee hah! There'll be our 'homemade beer' for the next symposium. I might actually try some....
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