Keropok Lekor Di Atas Siling

Peringatan: Walaupun keropok lekor nampak sedap tapi ia mampu berubah menjadi satu objek yang sangat mengerikan

This happened to me abt a month ago. It was one fine Sunday evening and everyone was at the living room watching TV (except for hubby, he was at work - kesian kena kerja hari Ahad). It was natural on any evening that you'd feel hungry and wanted something to munch on. So someone voiced out that keropok lekor would be a great tea time snack. MIL said that there were a few batangs of keropok lekor in the freezer, and me (trying to be a super-daughter-in-law) naturally volunteered to fry those slimey stuffs.

I took out the keropok out of the freezer - keraih kedekiang I tell you...malas nya nak tunggu dia lembut...MIL said I can rebus the keropok, but the lightbulb in my head goes ting! Mari kita rendam dia dalam air panas! Memang bernas sungguh, tak sampai 10 minit dah lembut2 keropok tu...hence I cut them into short pieces of about 2-3 inches each.

The wok was already hot with the oil in it, so I put in a few keropok to fry. The first batch went fine, but the keropok sort of stuck to each other and the wok (I wonder why?). It was very frustrating!

In went the second batch. When they were halfway fried, one of them went a bit menggelembung (apparently this type of keropok lekor sort of has a layer or skin surrounding it) and a loud POP! The skin burst and ripped open, and you can see the isi keropok inside. Which looked a bit uncooked.

From the living room MIL called over "Sha are you OKKK?", I went "Yea I'm fine, this keropok dunno why letup2 pulakkk" Sambil menyumpah2 dalam hati keropok bodoh ni, time ni jugak la kau nak letup. Expired ke apa keropok ni. Jgn malukan aku pls.

Then, as if they can hear me cursing, another keropok went POP! And another! And blardy anotherrr!! Really loud popping I tell you, so loud until the MIL came scurrying into the kitchen, with the look of utmost concern on her face. She asked me what did I do, I told her what I did. Which is basically soaking the keropok in air panas and into the wok (which I think was a smart thing to do-seriously).

In the midst of that, went another loud explosion (oh well, it felt like an explosion at that time).Not any mere explosion, siap dengan minyak panas merecik tau. And the keropok jumped out of the kuali! Both of us screamed again, quickly turn off the dapur. A series of explosion followed, we screamed again and ran outside through the door. Memang jerit ketakutan I tell you....

I found it funny that I could not stop laughing. MIL looked a bit scared, and concerned asking me whether I'm OK, examined my face and said "Eh, kena minyak ke ni". I said "No laa, ni jerawat la Mak....". Bongok kau jerawat! But I did get a couple of hot oil splashes on my hand.

While we were outside, a couple or so explosions came about. I did not think my MIL see it, but one keropok exploded, and jumped up, and melekat atas siling! Like, literally lompat dan melekat berjuntai atas siling! I saw it and laughed and laughed. MIL looked puzzled but I don't want to point it out to her - I'm sooo malu!!!! Total kitchen mishap!

After a while we went back in, MIL somehow found a penutup kuali and slowly approaching the dapur one step at a time, extending the cover in front of her, macam perisai. What a cute scene I tell you!!

I suppose the oil cooled down, and there were no more popping. MIL told me that maybe we should rebus the whole keropok again, upon post-mortem we discovered that the internal part of the keropok is still cool and hard, thus the imbalance in the pressure of the internal and external part of the keropok that made it explode in the kuali. And apparently the shortcut that I took by soaking the keropok in air panas does not make the heat distribute evenly to the inner part of keropok. OK since when do frying keropok lekor needs a good command of scientific knowledge?

And so we rebus the keropok through and through, and fried them. Miraculously, not a single explosion this time. Damn you keropok. You successfully embarrassed me. I'm sure MIL would think, "Takkan nak kena aku masuk kitchen jugak baru nak get things right?" :(

In the mean time, while MIL had her back to the dapur, the keropok yang dok terjuntai atas siling tu pun gugur masuk balik dalam kuali.

Nasib baik keropok lekor yang digoreng semua habis dimakan.

But I am so not going to fry any keropok lekor ever again!!!

Nasib baik hubby kat tempat kerja, if not he would never make me forget this incident! But I did tell him when he came back from work, he laughed and said "teruknya you ni...". Which did not help console me.

Lesson learnt: When in the kitchen, there is no such thing as short-cuts!

Pet Peeve #1

I have this thing about Chinese with their perasan English names.

I can live peacefully with Jeremy Chan, Sharon Tan, Jason Lim, Alex Khoo, Sarah Cheng (surnames are randomly attached for illustration purposes).

But when it comes to Angel Lee, Barbie Chow, Rachel Angie Lim (this one takes the cake-apa kau ingat kau ni Hollywood star?), Apple Wong (if your mom's called Gwyneth Paltrow, silakan), Donovan, Tristan (omg are you like a Roman warrior in your past life?), Summer. There was this lady at my previous workplace, called Honey Tan or Teh or something. I won't complain if she is a sweet and pleasant lady. The thing is, her face is always sulky and she can be very mean! I got scolded by her once, without any good reason. And you call yourself Honey?

I bumped into a guy who called himself Bacfree Lim (bacteria-free; get it?) Cuz he sells those RO water filter thingy.

Oh, I noticed that there is this obsession amongst the girls with the name that sounds something like "Reen" or "Lynn" at the end. Like Cherlynn, Shareen, Charlene. Bestnya bulih pilih nama sedap2 kalau tak suka nama mak bapak bagi.

Macam ni I pun nak la....glamour sikitttt...

Eh, but I'm not a racist tau...far from it!!

Dah dah....pi sambung buat kerja tu....

That Thing You Do

...when you're forced by your wife to. =P

Hubby tried so hard to make me feel at home, at my new home. FYI I moved down to KL from my hometown Penang shortly after our wedding. One of the most emotional episodes in my life, things in KL are not exactly a bed of roses for me (read: work). Thus hubby is willing to revamp his whole room (FYI I'm living with the in-laws) and trusted lil ol me to decorate his room (don't get me started to describe how the room was, before). Nak bagi aku happy la tu. Lagi stress ada la... :S There were soooo many things in his room I just don't know where to chuck them!

Anyway here are a few pics I snapped, within the span of 3 months ago when I started to move in...

Painting the room lilac. Not my choice of colour, but his. Though I like purple/pink but it never crossed my mind to have our bedroom wall painted with any purple/pink hues. That's soo 6 years old pls! I was thinking along the line of some natural, earthy tones but he insisted lilac. Said he wanted something different. Errr, who's the male one, again?

Him kissing the toilet bowl cuz I asked him to...not! Haha. This is him changing the toilet bowl seat and some how the screw tu at different ends so no choice gotta hug the toilet bowl in order to tighten up the screw. LOL. "Look honey, I'm even willing to hug the toilet bowl for you!".

The rat race lifestyle

Hate my KL lifestyle.

Hate my KL lifestyle.

Hate my KL lifestyle.

It's making me oh-so-fat. And I got more zits than usual now, on my face.

No time to exercise.

And have I mentioned dinner at 10pm average, everyday?

Hey, I'm pretty much in shape. Round is a shape, is it not?

Weekend Images

Harlo...thought wanna put up some pics from last weekend activities (macam la ada orang dok tunggu nak tengok). Hahaha. Well some images for me to flip back in the future and remember the fun (tiring, maybe) times I had last weekend!

Yours truly tgh try guna mesin rumput. First time mowing a lawn (ok I know, I'm peghak), instead of mowing in a straight line I went excited and pusing2, nasib baik garden tak jadi macam rupa dalam cerita Signs yang M. Night Shyamalan direct tu. Ekeke. Sorry gambar mcm berpinar2, Hubbs cakap ni one of the effects of capturing pictures. Can't see the rationale.

This is Hubbs, yang all the time throughout the mowing activity spoke with a Chinese accent (cuz I'm supposed to look like Cina Bukit, remember?) And suddenly changed accent to an Australian accent (perasan jadi Steve Irwin) bila nampak garden cockroaches (below pic) and pretending he is in Crocodile (or rather, Cockroach) Hunter.

Garden cockroaches underneath the stone steps. So many of these. Geliiiiii.

Weekend Mania

What a totally work-free weekend.

On Saturday went running (or rather, walking) with Hubbs at the Lake Garden. It's a great place to go for a run...somehow it reminds me of the Hyde Park in London...and Lake Garden is huge...Takde la kena jog in circles...boring tau...And I found out you can do water activities there, e.g. rowing, canoeing, surf bikes and yang kayuh2 ada bumbung tu...and so cheap too! RM3/person for 30mins...Will probably try the rowing next weekend. After that we excitedly went to eat nasik lemak Tanglin (it's within the Lake Garden, opp. the Govt Clinic) - only to find out that the one we ate was kedai sebelah punya!!! Tu la makan thru order lagi. Lain kali beratur sendiri. Patut la rasa tak sedap semacam... :(

Balik rumah I did some household chores; sapu & mop lantai, basuh baju, masak sayur. Haha. Nak masak bombastik tak reti la kan. Tolong2 potong bawang bulih la... Kesiannya my FMIL dapat menantu macam ni *tsk*

Then went to MV for a little shopping with my child (teen?)hood friend. I wanted to get some work attires...but could not find nice ones...just bought one piece. And managed to grab a couple of running pants.

At night went out on a date with Hubbs at KLCC, had dinner at Sakae Sushi. Yums! But was still full from brekky and lunch. And oh, it was Earth Hour too. Was a bit surprised to hear ppl making announcement at Suria KLCC, when we saw the lights were dimmed only we remembered it was Earth Hour. Hubbs is so AGAINST the Earth Hour. Don't ask me why. Him and his anti-mainstream thinking. Part of the reason why we were at Sakae Sushi, cuz the restaurant was most brightly-lit than the other restaurants. LOL.

Then comes Sunday.

Ah... Woke up early for a run. Did not wake Hubbs up (thought he needed the rest and plus, if he comes along means I would have to walk, again - Sorry Bee, huhuhu). Had a pleasant run but today the Lake Garden was a bit noisy due to some marathon event so there were canopies with loud music. Grr.

Went back home, had brekky (can't eat nasik lemak again - ate sooo much yesterday so today I vowed to eat healthily) and MIL asked Hubbs to mow the lawn. He was a bit malas2 but I volunteered to help. Teringin nak guna mesin potong rumput... And so we mowed the lawn... Had fun! I donned a straw hat which I found in the store, Hubbs thinks I looked like Cina Bukit. Sigh. What else is new?

Lunch...oh this is awesome. Had the yummiest and tastiest lunch ever. We have been wanting to try out the Mendy rice (some Yemeni food) recommended by a friend at Hadramawt, a Yemeni restaurant. So today (since dapat gaji and all, why not belanja FMIL kan, plus yours truly tak reti masak haha) we went to Hadramawt to bungkus. One portion can feed 2-3 orang I tell you, banyak! Even it is pricey, you only buy half of the number of people.

And sangat sedap...bak kata FIL, sedap sampai nak menangis...Masa makan tu tak tau berapa kali perkataan sedap keluar. LOL. Sila lah try... (hope ada balance nasik tu untuk makan esok heheh).

Kesimpulannya, it's really a work-free weekend.

Which means, the whole week must work macam orang gila. OMG.

Nak lari dari kegilaan ini!!! Help!!

You Don't Like It?

Wow, been ages since I last wrote. Blame it on my job, pls! However, things have started to get a wee bit better. Cuz I somehow managed to conclude an engagement (read: task, not pertunangan) and focus on the other one. Rather than having to juggle 2 at once. Really got no time I tell you, even to think!

But still. I wish I have more free time on my hand. To spend on myself, and family. Friends, too.

I wish I have more team members to assist me in my engagements. Or at least put in someone who is responsible, independent, self-initiative, understanding, among others. But alas, what have I got instead? Don't get me started.

Do you really need me to tell you one by one on what needs to be done? Can't you see I'm struggling? Drowning? Can't you go the extra mile to find out what could be done to help lessen my burden? And oh, that face... I know you're unhappy. You think I am? You think I like it, directing you to complete those tasks? If I have another pair of hands and brain, I'd gladly do everything on my own.

You can sit there and look pretty, thank you.

*Tak pasal-pasal ter-emo pulak malam2 Jumaat ni*

Anyway, don't know why the whole day I felt like as if I'm floating. Felt so dazed...and my eyes were so heavy throughout the day. Was it something that I ate? Well, had Subway for breakfast and normal black coffee. Nothing extraordinary.

So today was not a very productive day for me at work. Spent half the time surfing...but somehow managed to complete the Inventory section. Not bad. Anyway, it's not helping that today's Friday. TGIF! And the salary is in today! Yehuu...

Called Hubs to suggest that we go out tonight...but it rained and with the Friday traffic...urght... As usual, dinner was ready when I reached home. Makan kat rumah aja la. Maybe tomorrow can go out...Oh, need to run tomorrow morning!!! My fave black pants is already tight at the thighs! "-_-