Home-cooked Samgyetang (Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup) ~ CMCO Day 168 (Tuesday, 24 Nov 2020)

It's Korean tonight!  

We're happy guinea pigs again to Chef Sherilyn's new dish ~ a soothing Samgyetang (Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup) to restore our energy. It's complete with her appetizing homemade Banchan ~ long cabbage kimchi, green chili kimchi, spring onion kimchi and pickled radish.   Everyone enjoyed their Korean meal tremendously. Had we ordered all these at a Korean restaurant, it would have cost us double or even triple the price. This meal only cost about RM60 and we had an entire organic chicken.

너무 맛있어!

Dipping sauce and condiments for the chicken ~ her homemade Tare sauce with chopped spring onions and ground black + white sesame seeds with pink sea salt and pepper.

Stuffing inside the chicken cavity ~ Japanese rice, fresh chestnuts, a few red dates and garlic.  Soak the uncooked rice for at least 2 hours before stuffing and cooking.

Online Food Ordering

Though hubby's chef cooks on an almost daily basis and we eat them regularly, I still order food from random home-based sellers on Facebook to support these sellers.   I do this once every fortnightly.   Once or twice a week, I get takeout dishes from our neighborhood eateries to support these business owners, who have become my friends.  A lady boss of our favorite eatery often gave us souvenirs whenever she went for a holiday. She would also gift us mooncakes, tang yuan and bak zhang during these Chinese festivals.  Our girls have been recipients of ang pows from her during Chinese New Year for the past 12 years.  She would sometimes treat us to the roast pork and roast chicken from her shop. And we reciprocate by ordering food from her shop at least once a week.

Ordering food and drinks online makes me a very happy bunny. Now that I can't indulge in my twice monthly retail therapy, ordering food, drinks and buying stuff online give me the same satisfaction I get as when I go mall shopping 😬

Last Saturday, I ordered Western food and fusion Malay food from a random homebased cook on Facebook.  For someone who's non-anal when it comes to food, I'm pretty satisfied with the food.  I thanked the seller for giving me an extra meat ball. But for my 3 finicky girls, especially our Junior Master Chef, they made quite a bit of fuss about the food 😂.  And I paid RM81 for all these including delivery charges.  

In conclusion, they still prefer the food from their daddy's shop 😁

Chicken chop with fries.

Grilled lemongrass chicken thigh with buttered rice. I love the lemongrass chicken with a smokey aroma.

  

 

Chicken pie and fish pie

Monster meat balls.

Flowers For Every Occasion

Everyone loves flowers as they are beautifully created by God to bring joy to people. Since the beginning of time, flowers have been playing their special role in our life. A prominent preacher once said that “Flowers Are The Sweetest Things God Ever Made And Forgot To Put A Soul Into.” This statement holds so much truth in it.  Flowers are such pretty natural blossom and they grow in all shapes, sizes, colors with different unique scents.  Anyone would be in a cheery mood to wake up to a beautiful vase of pleasant-smelling flowers in their house.

Flowers sent to someone when they are going through a tough time can lift up their mood and put an instant smile on their face.  A good friend once visited me with a big bouquet of beautiful flowers during one of the darkest moments of my life when Cass was diagnosed with kidney reflux and was scheduled to go for surgery. I will never forget my friend’s kindness and the joy the flowers had brought me.  

For those of you with good friends and loved ones living in Hong Kong, you can order high quality gifts and flowers online for these people for all occasions from Give.Gift.Boutique. Though you are not able to meet these special people in your life right now due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, send them flowers and gifts from Give.Gift.Boutique to show your care and appreciation for Valentine’s Day, birthdays, Mother’s Day or just to tell them that you’re thinking about them.   Hong Kong Give.Gift.Boutique. is a leading florist and gift shop which delivers top quality gifts, hampers, and bouquets. 

I wonder when I’d ever receive something like this Crabtree & Evelyn Body Care Jewelry Box Set With Flowers for Mother’s Day?

Valentine’s Day will only be here in 3 months’ time but it’s never too early to start planning a surprise for the love of your life. You could even plan a proposal to her on Valentine’s Day with a bouquet of 99 red roses with matching greens, wrapped in red gauze and organza bow for a grand presentation alongside a  diamond ring! 

Or fancy sending blue roses arranged in a synthetic purple heart-shape box to the special someone whose favorite color is blue?  I’ll be in seventh heaven if I received this box of bright blue roses 😍

Throughout life, there are so many reasons to gift flowers besides Valentine’ Day and Mother’s Day. Whether it’s birthdays, anniversaries, birth of a baby, housewarming or congratulating a friend for a promotion or grand opening of a shop, flowers are a great way to show that you are proud of their accomplishment. 

A grand arrangement of an assortment of colorful flowers on a basket stand is sure to warm the cockles of the heart of a friend on the grand opening of his shop or office. 

Out of sight does not mean out of mind.  As the world is crippled by COVID-19 and borders remain closed in most countries, our loved ones and dear friends are now more than ever on our minds. Though we can’t meet them, we can spread our love and care to them with unique and wonderful gifts for any occasion.  One of the best reasons to send gifts and flowers is for no reason at all! Receiving a surprise bouquet of flowers on your door step for no reason at all is guaranteed to make anyone’s day a great one. I’ll be in a good mood the entire week if I received a surprise gift or flowers from someone for no specific reason.

It does not matter that you’re currently not able to celebrate with your loved ones and friends who are in Hong Kong on their special day.  No matter which part of the world you are in right now, you can still brighten their days with a luxurious gift or beautiful flowers.   Give.Gift.Boutique helps you spread joy during these uncertain times with special gifts and flowers delivery. You can order gifts and flowers to your loved ones anytime in Hong Kong today!

Life At Home & At Work During CMCO

Everyone has been whispering in the house for the past 1 week - from 8 a.m. through 3 p.m.. And I'm also not allowed to turn on the radio because Alycia is having a trial online exam before the actual SPM trials.  Her high school has never conducted a major exam via online mode before, thus the teachers are testing the effectiveness before Form 5 students sit for their SPM trials via online mode. The silence and whispering has to go on for another week until this Saturday! It's a torture and really inconvenient as I can't live without music while I'm at work. And I can't even dress up shabbily as the camera is turned on!   Alycia usually attends online lessons in her room but the internet has been extremely laggy for the past one week, thus she has to sit at the dining table to receive a better internet connection.  Being seated right smack in the middle of the house, everyone has no privacy to talk, play the piano, guitar or be around her. We can't even have our breakfast or lunch in peace.  I can't even chide off someone; once I did very loudly and Alycia's friends asked  her what happened😅  

 

I'm usually busy with work from home from Tuesdays to Thursdays. Sometimes there's work from Monday to Sunday. Whenever I have the time, I will drive to hubby's shop to help him with photography as I am managing his shop's Facebook page and orders for online delivery.

Here are some behind the scenes photos taken while everyone was busy at work at the shop. Peak hours are from 10 a.m. - 12 noon.  I don't fancy going to his shop a time when he's busy as he'll be a grumpy old man hollering at everyone 😡.  Can't really fault him because if he loses concentration and  switches customers' orders or leaves out something, it's going to be very costly.  Most times, he has to test taste the food before they go into the boxes.   Once, the Mee Siam turned out starchy as his staff bought the wrong type of vermicelli. And guess what? All the Mee Siam was discarded and a new batch cooked again with the right type of vermicelli (100% rice with no added starch).  This happened again last week and the entire big packet of uncooked vermicelli had to be given away to his part-time staff.  It's really not easy to be in the F&B business and you can't rely on your staff 100%. 

 

Food porn overload - these petite and delicate santan jellies in flower and fish shape are too pretty to be eaten. The girls and I love  them to bits!

 

I usually get food from the shop for our lunch or dinner.  We love his Indonesian chef's Nasi Lemak  with Ayam Goreng Berempah, otak-otak and crispy anchovies and peanuts.

CMCO Day 162 ~ Wednesday, 18 November 2020

Dinner today is prepped by our Chef Sherilyn ~ miso glazed pan fried salmon and Wakame salad. We also tried her homemade kimchi, which tastes quite like the real deal!! A little too tangy and complex as I think it over fermented -  the past few days were super hot.  For our next batch, we will just let the kimchi ferment for 1 day in room temperature or ferment for a longer time in the fridge.  I think she can sell her long cabbage and radish kimchi once the taste is perfected!  Her pickled radish is very delicious - light and refreshing.

Lunch yesterday was the extra turkey ham spaghetti and roti jala from hubby's shop.  And lunch today is Nasi Hujan Panas cooked extra for us from Catermate 😋

Alycia commented that Sherilyn looked just like a Korean housewife - snipping wakame while watching Korean drama LOL!

Nasi Hujan Panas (Rainbow Ghee Rice) from Catermate.

CMCO Day 159 ~ Sunday, 15 November 2020

Hubs and I have become the Sunday couple as we only have the time to go on a date on Sundays, just the both of us.  Last Sunday we went on a  jaunt to Petaling Street and Kwai Chai Hong @ Chinatown. Hubs wanted to try out new cafes. Being in the F&B business, which is extremely competitive (more so during this pandemic), he has to keep himself updated with the latest offerings in the F&B market.  Likewise, he has to sample similar dishes offered by other eateries and compare  them with his shop's.  He wanted to try out a cafe in PJ that sells a similar spread of food on their menu as his shop but I reminded him that we were not allowed to travel inter district!  So he made a detour to China Town.  

I was astounded when I saw long queues at most of the new and Instagrammable cafes along Jalan Panggong / Lorong Panggong.  I had imagined the streets to be a ghost town as portrayed in some dailies but it's quite the opposite.  Hubs and I hopped into Kaffe 16, a brand new cafe that opened its doors on 10 October 2020.  I salute the owners who had the spunk to open a new cafe during the RMCO period when many eateries had shuttered for good.

Contemporary design in a pre-war building, Kaffe 16 is tastefully refurbished.  As per the SOP, each table can only be seated by 2 customers with a meter distancing from the next table.

The last time we dined at this part of the city was exactly a year ago when my parents were in KL and my SIL from Hawaii was here as well. The 10 of us squeezed into hubby's 10-seater MPV and we had an enjoyable outing at China Town, traipsing around Kwai Chai Hong, cafe hopping and camwhoring.  How I really miss those care free days where we could go anywhere to dine with no restriction on the number of people in a car or to a table.   I know I should not even be missing this when many less fortunate people are struggling to find money to put food on their dining table during this extremely tough time in the midst of a seemingly never-ending pandemic. I really should count my blessings, although now, we have to limit such outings as we are still not out of the woods yet. As long as social gatherings are still prohibited, hubby's wings will continued to be clipped.  We are just taking one day at a time and learning to live in the moment in the midst of this terrible pandemic. 

Indonesian Yellow Fish Soup

We were guinea pigs to our chef Sherilyn's new dish again - Indonesian Yellow Fish Soup.  It's so yummy!

The girls who don't really fancy fish scarfed down this very flavorful dish in a jiffy.  This dish is cooked with a bunch of aromatic herb and spices - galangal, turmeric, shallots, lemon grass, ginger, kafir lime leaves, chillis and fresh lime juice. The soup is boiled using fish bones and anchovies. We used golden pomfret and fish paste.

Since there're still some raw ingredients left, I'm going to get more fish from the supermarket to make this dish again! 😋

Benefits of Wearing Body Shaper

A body shaper is a tight garment that you wear to give an illusion of a flatter mid-section and slimmer body. It is also called shapewear.  It comes in different shapes, shades and sizes. Shapewear is everything you need to sculpt and support your body to achieve a more attractive silhouette. Body shapewear for women like waist shaper and tummy control body shaper are designed to impermanently alter the wearer’s body shape and they also work to provide support to the bust and back area. Shapewear can do wonders to your body shape in the blink of an eye. Your giggly tummy, big butt or thunder thighs can magically disappear once you've slipped into the best shapewear for women. 

Shapewear can be bought online from online stores like Lover Beauty but if you wish to try on several brands and styles, you can go to a physical store.  If you're planning to buy the shapewear for a specific outfit, it is recommended to bring it with you for fitting. A quick hip and waist measurement can help you make sure you're looking at the right size.

The Slimming High Waist Cincher Panty below comes with an abdominal shaping belt and is great for slim fit clothing.

The Body Shaper Buttock Lifter below instantly builds a sexy hourglass figure as it compresses your torso, waist, and abdomen with a comfortable feel. It's a great shapewear to be worn after pregnancy as it offers all the support and compression your ab needs to get back in its original shape.  It has wide adjustable shoulder straps to reduce stress and comes with a crotchless design which makes going to the toilet convenient.

Some of the top benefits of wearing a body shaper are summarized below:

1. Helps you achieve an instant slimmer figure.
2. Easy to achieve a better appearance
3. Improvement in posture
4. You tend to consume lesser food when your midsection is under compression.  
5. Affordable compared to other weight loss or body toning solutions.
6. Invisible beneath clothes
7. Compliments a weight loss diet and fitness program
8. Postpartum support
9. Bustline support
10. More calories burnt when you wear a body shaper during exercise from sweating more.

The flexible crotchless shapewear below offers good support and compresses the abdomen to help you get back in shape. The straps are adjustable and detachable while the crotchless design makes going to the toilet convenient.

Always remember to choose body shapers that fit you well, as being comfortable and relaxed is equally important as achieving that gorgeous look. 

Stories From The Ward @ Institute of Urology and Nephrology, HKL

Cass and I were put into a first class room with 4 beds at the Institute of Urology and Nephrology last week when she did a Cystoscopy procedure under GA.  The room was very clean and has en suite facilities. It's a far cry from the ward that we were put into at the pediatric ward at the old HKL building 6 years ago when Cass did her first MRI.  That ward was creepy and old and the toilets outside still give me bad dreams. It certainly didn't give me a good impression of government hospitals.

Directly opposite our bed was a jovial and chatty Indian lady in her mid 60s. She had been staying at the ward for 10 days and the day we checked in was her discharge day. She was in the hospital for an eye surgery followed by a bladder surgery to have some stents removed. She told me that she's been a cancer survivor for 10 years but sadly the cancer relapsed recently. She told her oncologist that she didn't want to get treatment and would just prefer to die slowly. What made me truly sad for her is on the day of her discharge, she had to take a taxi home by herself and lugged her big suitcase down to the lobby all by herself. She told me that her son is a lawyer and has been extremely busy, thus couldn't fetch her back from the hospital.  What if this happened to me 20 years down the road when my 3 daughters are too busy to help me discharge from the hospital? 😌

On the left opposite side of us was an Indian lady with her 6-year old daughter. They had taken a train from Ipoh in the morning and came straight to the hospital from the train station. She had bought 2 boxes of KFC which were to be her lunch and dinner that day. Her daughter has recurring renal stones and this was her second (or perhaps third) admission for laser removal of the stones.  This mother looked very aloof and was very terse with her answers and just didn't want to have any eye contact with me. She looked very distressed and I truly understood what's going on in her mind. The pissed off look on her face could be because she's extremely worried. Moreover she's alone with her daughter and hundreds of miles away from her other children and husband.  When her daughter came out of the surgery the next day and refused to pee or eat her medicine, this mummy, out of frustration, threatened the daughter that she would not look after her anymore and would send her to her grandma's house. Her daughter bawled and then mummy hugged her and cried along. This made me tear up too.  Mummy continued coaxing her girl to pee and eat her medicine for more than hour. When we left in the late evening, she was still coaxing her daughter.  We bade our farewells and I tried to coax the little girl to eat her medicine. I hope she didn't give her mummy many days of heart-breaking time in the hospital.

On our left bed was a Malay lady in her early 50s who's been in the ward for more than a week. I didn't really get to chat with her except for the daily "hi and bye" but I think she's got some urinary tract issues as well. She had a bunch of disposable urinary catheter to help her drain her urine out and she needed diapers. 

After the senior Indian woman was discharged, a Malay lady with her 9-year old girl got themselves checked in. The little girl  has recurring renal stones too and needed to undergo a laser procedure for removal of renal stones.  The girl is such a bubbly and smiley girl who would smile and wave to me each time she saw me.

Cass was the last of 5 patients to be wheeled into the OT as she was the oldest kid.  And we were the last to be ambulanced back to the ward. Again! And all 4 kids before her had renal stones removal. I was shocked to know that even young kids are prone to recurring renal stones.

When we left in the evening, Cass commented that it felt strange to be in a room with people who have quite similar problems with her.  I think it won't be too long before we are back for another stay when Cass undergoes another surgery. This time, it would be a major surgery. I've been having sleepless nights thinking about Cass' next surgery. I've never really had a good relationship with hope but I am trying my best to stay positive and not let my anxiety affect me. I truly need lots of miracles and divine intervention for Cass now. 🙏

This is another photo that I stealthily took outside the OT when Cass was waiting for her turn to be wheeled into the OT.

Me in OT scrubs and OT Crocs with Cass next to me playing with her phone. All the kids waiting for their turns for surgery sought comfort from their phones. And they all looked just as tough and calm as Cass. I'm sure they'd gone through a lot, just like Cass.

Tonkatsu and Japanese Curry For Lunch ~ 6 November 2020

Now that the CMCO has been extended to 6 December 2020,  our daily groceries bill will be expanded in tandem, as with our waist lines!  Our chef Sherilyn spends her days in the kitchen trying out new recipes and feeding us with good food. Last Friday she cooked Tonkatsu, Japanese curry and miso soup for lunch. It was so good!  When Cass and I were in the hospital last week, she made some super cute peach and mango jello using bear and ginger breadboy molds.

Cass who was famished the whole day while in the hospital for a procedure polished off almost all her 2 che's yummy dishes and cute jellos 🤭

Yachae Jook (Korean Vegetables Porridge)

Sherilyn had her 3rd tooth extracted for braces on Monday. The next day, she cooked a very flavorful pot of Korean vegetables porridge (yachae jook). It's got such vibrant colors and flavors and very very delish, not to mention easy on her gums.

The porridge is cooked using a flavor intense stock consisting of dashi + dried mushrooms + bonito flakes. And so many colorful ingredients go into the porridge:

1. Whole head of organic broccoli

2. Half a Japanese pumpkin

3. One carrot

4. Minced Berkcious free-range pork

5. Seaweed

6. Japanese rice

Yachae Jook is different from Chinese style porridge in that all the ingredients are sauteed with sesame seed oil and garlic until aromatic before the dashi stock is added and simmered. Even I can't resist having this incredibly flavorsome porridge for lunch.  She cooked such a big pot that the both of us ate it for 3 days straight! And yet, as of typing this post, I'm missing this yummy porridge already 😋

 

The wholesome rainbow colored ingredients that went into the porridge:

Looks like toddlers' porridge but it's so yummy that even an old lady like me loves it!  Porridge with a slew of  colorful vegetables and stock has always been my comfort food 😊