You OK, I OK.

It has been 5 years since I've left my job as a Market Analyst in Mobile Telecoms. If I thought a working day hard then, wait till you stay at home with 3 kids and the laundry...

In the office, if you need a break, you could go talk to your colleagues, flirt with your boss, terrorise the Assistants, eat a snack in the pantry, go read a book in the toilet.

At home, wherever you turn, you have at least one kid at your feet. You're cooking and they are playing with all your tupperwares, cutlery, pots and pans; you're doing the laundry, you've just put dirty clothes in the machine, you turn around and the same clothes are now in the dryer; you write a letter, they would be drawing on the table or tablecloth with a pen; you talk on the phone, they would choose to scream and fight just next to you; you go to the toilet, the youngest would be trying to clean the toilet bowl with a brush while you're still on it, his sister would be unrolling loads of toilet paper to help you clean your backside; you want to take a shower? Well, you take it with everyone.

Outside, it's not any better. In the supermarket, you have 2 babies wanting to push a child trolley each. But when you need to dump your selections somewhere, none of the trolleys are normally to be found. When you have found one child, you lose the other one. When you reach the cashier, you have to let them put the contents of their trolleys (no matter how fragile) on the belt themselves AND at the same time keep a close eye on the stuff as you'd be amazed as to what they have helped themselves to. 2 days ago I nearly checked out a jar of weird-looking smoked fish and half the shop's supply of Kinder chocolate bars.

You go to the library? There's one screaming his head off and the other pulling books off the shelves.

I have no time to myself and yet I am not doing anything particularly important. I'm not negotiating deals, writing policy papers, doing market research. But I just can't seem to do anything for myself. My idea of a holiday nowadays is just being left alone to read a book or windowshop to my heart's content.

Friends and family often ask : ''So what do you do everyday?'' In Singapore, some would even say, ''Wah, you Tai-Tai* life, ah?'' Yeah, how I wish.

So what do I do everyday?

I wake up at 06h45. I prepare the 2 older kids for school and the youngest one so that he would be ready to leave with us.

At 07h40, I send the kids to school on the Underground, one school is 2 stops away, the other, 8. When hubby is around he takes the eldest to school but well, he travels alot.

After that, on Mondays and Thursdays, I have German lessons from 9 to 12. On Tuesdays, I have Capoeira (Brazilian Martial Arts and Dance). On Wednesdays, I bring the youngest to painting class for babies. Friday is my only activity-free morning and I try to go out a bit, read or surf the Net. I shop for groceries almost every day. I usually manage to find 30 minutes here and there to do so if I run a little.

At 12h30 my second finishes school. I pick her up and then we go to my eldest's school to pick him up. At 13h30 I would be trying to set up lunch. At 15h I dump the youngest in bed for a nap, I nag the eldest to do his homework and I try to threaten my second child to sleep. Moments like this, my mom's cane is absolutely necessary.

Between 16h and 17h maybe I'll have a moment's peace and I usually spend it on the Net. After which I'll have to look through the eldest's homework, send him to Football practice or Judo class, cook dinner etc. In the evening, I may have to entertain my hubby.

OK, some smart ass will now ask : ''What about housework ah?''

I usually do it over the weekend when the hubby takes a swim or watches TV with the kids. And even then it's just a quick vacuum, sometimes I mop the floor, a little dusting and 2-3 laundries. No way I'm going to do the mop, sweep, dust, wash, clean windows routine of my mom. Besides mom lives in a small flat, while I live in a house with 2 terraces, a garden and a pool (and armies of spiders and other creatures)... and with the kids nothing remains clean for long anyway.

When I have people over, I just start off by apologising for the mess and out of politeness they'll usually say stuff like ''Oh no, that's normal when you have kids...'' or ''You should see my place, it's worse...'' And I'm always happy to take them at their word. How did the Charles Jourdan advert with George Lam go?

''You OK, I OK.''

Voilà. You Ok, I also OK. Why bother to clean up too much?

*Tai Tai is a rich housewife who has no housework to do but spends her time shopping and having high teas with her friends.

Dad should Blog

The thing about being KS* and jumping on the wagon when you do not know where it's going, why you are on it and whether you really want to be on it in the first place is that once you're on, you either jump off and break a few bones or you hang tight and try to make the best of it.

The former is out for me since I am the daughter of a Chinese Sinseh** and since I was petite (as in young, not small in size - how I wish) Dada has instilled in me a fear of breaking any bone and having to have him piece me up with his lack of anaesthetic, his very effective but smelly ointment, and most potent of all, his nagging cum swearing.

So I guess you can say that I am trying to hang tight. That I just blog and try to make the best of it.

To educate myself, I have spent the past week reading a few popular blogs both in Singapore and in France. I must say that this is all very interesting. There are really all sorts of bloggers out there and whether they just talk about food (really not good for my tomorrow-will-start diet), about sex (sometimes better than Penthouse letters somemore free of charge) or about politics (makes all the essays I wrote in my Political Science Graduate student years look like beef jerky), whether they write proper English or prefer to exercise their Singlish, there is really something for everybody.

I have however omited mention of specific-interest blogs on cars, God, computer programmes etc as I am not a complicated person and food, sex and politics are quite enough for me ;-).

My Christian School (the school not me) upbringing dictates that I write my blog as things happen. It didn't occur to me that I could have done it differently, like hide my identity, write in such a way nobody could be sure is fiction or non-fiction, buy myself notoriety by creating sensation and scandal, spreading rumours, talking cock. Never thought of myself as ''square'' and simple before, and I wonder if the alternative explanation ''getting old'' is any better.

Then there is the thing about the language. I told myself that I will write my blog in English, occasionally in French and maybe once in a blue moon in Spanish or German. It completely escaped me that I could use Singlish. Yet I am not too bad in the verbal art version of the language, mind you.

But last night a resourceful friend of mine living in Italy introduced me to Talk Rock (www.rockson.blogspot.com) and my my, the guy is explicit, pornographic and so on, but damn hilarious.

It is a wonder that someone using a lot of dirty words like KNNBCCB, CheeBye, LamPah etc should make any sense when talking politics. And yet he did. And he even made me laugh.

The weird thing is that whenever I hear Dada using the same words I didn't find it funny, but hearing them come out of Rockson's horsey mouth, I actually thought they ''become'' the blogger. Some kind of artistic license?

Maybe I should encourage Dada to blog. It'll be better than him dragging his ever-growing belly around the flat all day long. I am sure he can give Rockson a run for his money. Besides he likes to complain about the Gahmen***, what better place to do so, right?

And I have even chosen his title for him : ''Frankly speaking...'' (private joke in my family)

*Kiasu (scared to lose out)
**Chinese Sinseh in my Dada's case is a Bonesetter.
***Gahmen = Government. Quite cool as in Mandarin ''Yamen'' is a bureaucrat's office!

My Indian Lamb Curry with Okra

Indian Lamb Curry with Okra

I eat a curry of some sort at least once a week and though I do not look even remotely Indian (except on a badly-sunburnt day and the fact that I now have a bouncy tummy that saris love to expose), I consider curries one of my staple foods.

My children were force-fed curries since they were in the womb and even my baby is a curry-lover. I am married to another curry-lover who swears by his curry guru Madhur Jaffrey though I'm more the cook-by-feeling kind of cook. (It just occurred to me that he probably adores MJ because she looks like the Indian version of his English ex-girlfriend who incidentally was the person who introduced him to MJ.)

Thought I should write down one of my recipes so that friends who ask could access it.

Once again my measures are all approximative, I really just go by feeling.

Curries are delicious and quite simple, you just need to have all the spices at hand and if you wish, you could even make large quantites and freeze them in small portions. They are actually better re-heated.

For this curry I have about half a kilo of boneless leg of lamb cut into cubes and marinated for at least 30 minutes in generous amounts of salt, pepper, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cinnamon powder, cumin powder, mustard seeds, black onion seeds, aniseed, paprika powder, cayenne pepper, fenugreek seeds and a pinch of ground cloves and nutmeg.

I would then cut 2 large onions in quarters, a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger in slices, peel 5 cloves of garlic and peel and slice 2-3 tomatoes. Then mix everything with a blender with a bit of water to make a paste.

Heat up some oil in a non-stick casserole or cooking pot and start to brown some sliced onions followed by the marinated cubes of lamb. Then add in a few crushed cardamon pods and a tablespoonful of Garam Masala. Lower the heat and add in the paste. Stir everything (paste, meat etc) for a few minutes and then stir in a cup of plain yoghurt. Add in a bay leaf and some chicken or beef stock. Cover the pot and leave it for 30 minutes or till the meat is tender.***

10 minutes before serving, add in 100-200g of sliced fresh okra (lady's fingers), some fresh coriander leaves and a spoonful of cream. Squeeze some lime juice and sprinkle some roasted sliced almonds over it. Serve hot with basmati rice, spiced rice, naan or roti prata.

Hope you'll enjoy it as much as we usually do.

***If you want the sauce to be a little coarse, you can add some roasted dessicated grated coconut in it.

Ode to Hubby Turning 40

Ode to My Hubby Turning 40.

The best thing about Turning 40 is that you are 40 years between 2 potties
You are chummy with money and no longer have to count your pennies
Funny how you used to spend 10 hours in a coach to visit a city for 20
And nobody could force you now to even send a postcard to mommy.

You know what wines to order
What jokes to share
You may have lost your father
But your losses with grace you know how to bear
And like him you still have all your hair and to boot a cave hors pair!

A pretty house you have
A red car, Samsung Plasma and dezoned DVD
Crazy children you love
And almost all of your teeth.

Now you just need to throw a jolly little party and invite all your potes
That they come arms full of prezzies, bottles and anecdotes
To enjoy my canapés, roast meats and rich cake from Robert
And to toast you Grand Old 40 now that you are well on your way there!

---The above was what I came up with to grace the cover of the invitations that I've just sent out to my hubby's friends inviting them to his 40th Birthday in April.

Actually so lau liao* still have what Bday party, but then I have no idea of what present to give him so I thought I could kill a few birds with one stone : we'll do it at his mom's place, so Ah-Ma gets to see her son and some of his male friends whom she likes to flirt with; I invite his friends, he's happy; I cook, everyone's happy; and when they come, they bring the presents...

Actually he doesn't have that many friends come to think of it. But the numbers if everyone turns up would be quite big coz you also have to invite the other halves and the kids. So next thing to work the grey matter would be over what to concoct.

So far images of foie gras on toasts accompanied by a sweet white wine (I'm quite into the SWW) have been flashing in the mind. I also see sticks of satay lilit (have been itching to make it since the cooking demo I saw in Bali the last time we were there) and little tasting plates of risotto with truffles (just bought some truffles from Hediard). They could be followed by a few ravioles de foie gras (the raw lobes) cooked in a simple beef consommé, a couple of fried parcels of tiger prawns and cheese served on a bed of rocket salad leaves. For the main course, losing steam already so maybe I'll just do a classic roast leg of lamb with herbs and serve it with sautéed potatoes à la Sarladaise and green beans lightly fried in butter, garlic and parsley. For dessert, I'm totally giving up by now, am going to order a nice rich and very expensive cake from Robert.

I didn't mention the wines but you know they are unlikely to disappear from a meal in a French household. To limit damages to my wine cellar, I'm going to play SAM (Are you SAM? SAM is the person who drives. SAM is the person who does not drink...) messages from the French Police reminding people not to drink too much if they're going to drive (heh heh). I mean, seriously, you invite people to eat your food and drink your wine, and you could get into trouble with the law if they get caught for drunk driving. Quite one no-win situation. Now you know why in Holland when people invite you to their house for tea you have to bring your own cake.

Actually the truth is I have no idea about what wines to serve, that is more the Bday boy's domaine, so he'll have to deal with it himself. We'll finish with champagne and I guess coffee, tea and chocolates I recently ordered from Hediard.

Anybody got a better idea can always let me know.

*lau liao (Hokkien for ''old already'')

Who killed the Crow?

Who killed the Crow?

There are times when you come back from a holiday feeling like you need to go on another one in order to get over the one you just had.

We went skiing in the French Alps last week.

We set off on schedule, except that 45 minutes away from Switzerland we discovered that we had forgotten the camera and video camera and decided to return home for them.

Then 5 minutes from the Swiss immigration checkpoint, I suddenly realised that we would be entering Switzerland and Switzerland is another country and I had of course left the children's identity papers at home.

Visions of having to turn back and make a detour through France started to fill me though we sat tight and decided to go on anyway.

A nice shiny red Renault Espace with a good looking couple at its helm and 3 screaming children in the back is the best way to smuggle children across borders. We got across without any problems, relieved but at the same time disturbed at this administrative indifference.

Near Zurich were the Rheinfalls and we decided to eat the Thai pineapple fried rice that I've prepared in its carpark. It was nothing like the Niagara Falls, but you get cold and wet all the same and like my eldest son said, ''Wow, like the Tsunami...''

Not a very sensitive comment, but at least one couldn't say that we do not watch the news with our children. As a matter of fact, the boy in question watched the September 11 attacks on the news when we were living in Spain and for a while, each time we took the plane, he would be making sounds to imitate the planes crashing into the towers...Very nerve-wrecking as one can imagine.

It was while we were thinking of using the pay toilets near the carpark that I realised yet again that I had somehow failed to register the fact that we would be in Switzerland. As such I had not brought along the 150 Swiss Francs that I have been keeping at home for the past 10 years and wondering all the while when I would get to use them...

The rest of the journey was uneventful, though maybe mention should be made that we entered France with no control made of our identity papers either and we were driving in from Switzerland in a German-registered car. And I've read somewhere that Germans have been buying kids at the Czeck border...

Flaine is a lovely station in spite of the lack of pretty wooden chalets. Everything's made in concrete there, but so very conveniently-laid out for skiing honestly it doesn't matter.

We had chosen to stay in a hotel where you get 3 meals a day, childcare for the baby and kids' clubs for the older children within the premises, and ferrying to and from ski classes all taken care of by the staff.

That left me with time to concentrate on learning how to ski and getting all nervous about it. I mean at 33 you start to get a pretty good idea of what you are good at and I know that physical activity and sports in general do not agree with me. But I still went ahead with it I guess with some hope that a miracle could happen and that I should discover quite suddenly that I had some hidden talent for skiing and should be representing Singapore in Torino and not falling down every few metres in Flaine.

Which was of course quite the resumé of my 6 days on the slopes. But I wish to highlight the fact that I had finished my course, I had slowly and certainly painfully descended green, blue and red slopes, I had braved the snow and wind storms of my last 2 days there and even masochistically continued skiing for another 30 minutes after the end of my course. Riding on the pain. Turning up at the ski-rental shop complaining that their ski shoes caused my big toes to hurt really badly. And the 2 salespersons very unanimously replied that big toes hurt because I must have been skiing in a bad position, leaning too much backwards. Well, so much for hoping for some refund.

And then the trip back to Stuttgart. First we agonised over the trip down the mountains as we didn't have snow chains and did not intend to buy any. We got down fine only to get stuck for hours without end in a gigantic traffic jam between Lausanne and Zurich (and once again we got through immigration faster than you could say ''Thank God''). Our trip was supposed to last 6 hours and we took 17. Along the way, the wind blew, the snow fell, you kept listening to the same news over and over again on the radio you could present it yourself, and then you wondered why you didn't have the foresight to just check yourself into a nice hotel in Lausanne and spend your time eating fondue instead of munching chips in a car going nowhere.

But the best part was coming home. You had like 30cm of snow to remove from your pavement. You decided to unleash your kids in the garden so that they wouldn't get in the way and then just as you were about to do so you noticed a dead crow buried under some snow just at your doorstep.

After all the news you've been fed about bird flu in the 17 hours you had spent in your car, you knew better than to touch the thing. Besides I'm really afraid of dead birds with their head and feathers on. I do not want them to affect my love for roast chicken, I guess.

Anyway, I called the police and got one of them to come over to pick up the carcass. Which in a way was quite fitting. Who killed the crow? The cold, old age, the fat wild neighbourhood cat, the eagles that we see flying past from time to time, my glass door, bird flu?

Risotto à la Crème de Champignons

I like to think of myself as someone with ideas. But if the idea of writing in my blog makes me want to clam up, I can only put this down to a lack of exhibitionism. I want to be like everyone else but I may not want everyone to know about me...

But then it could also be beginner's blues. One needs to get the ink to flow. To whip up the appetite.

And food's one of my pet topics. I spend my time either cooking or eating or both. Mind you, I wasn't born a cook, but leaving home at 22, you start off by getting desperate and then you realise that you can only depend on yourself, you start to meditate and you try to awaken your hidden chef. And then get on the job.

Cooking for me is aphrodisiac. The pleasure is intense, the satisfaction deep.

So maybe to fill up the pages I'll start off with a recipe now and then.

A few days ago I made a risotto à la crème de champignons. Very easy. Some butter in a hot casserole, sliced mushrooms (brown or white) sauteed in the fat, 2 tablespoonfuls of flour, 300ml of milk. That's a basic béchamel sauce with mushrooms in it. Once the flour is cooked, put in half a litre of chicken stock and some herbs. Cook the soup over medium heat for 20mins and then blend everything with a handheld blender. If you wish, you can add in some crème fraîche.

In a separate frying pan (preferably non-stick), heat some olive oil, chopped onions, sliced mushrooms and slices of bacon or pancetta. When the onions, mushrooms and bacon are golden brown, pour in some white wine and 2 cups of Arborio rice. Stir the mixture in the pan and then ladle in just enough of the mushroom-chicken stock to cover the rice each time. Cover and cook over medium-low heat. And keep ladling in the stock until the rice is cooked.

Serve with a rich sprinkling of grated or sliced fresh Parmesan cheese and a sprig of parsley. Goes well with a side serving of Rucola salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese.

Not to forget a nice glass of white wine.

My first blog entry

Everyone else seems to be having a Blog or a personal webpage. In order not to look like a dinosaur, I decided to get myself a blog too. Or at least get one started, like a life insurance, doesn't matter what one has in it, it's the date one gets it opened that matters.