Clouds

Some of my earliest memories were of watching the clouds past by on long flights, cuddled up against the coarse MAS blanket, nose stuffed and congested, eyes puffy, ears popping every now and then, but masked by some sort of sweet soothing music that Mak had put on my headphones to distract me from various in-flight discomforts.

I didn't particular like long flights, but it's always something special if your Dad's the one piloting the plane. You get to sit in the cockpit during take-offs and landings (remember, this was way before 9/11 happened and airlines started imposing all sorts of safety rules), stewardesses could never be nasty to you coz you're the pilot's baby and you get to sit first class for your yearly free tickets. But the most amazing and awesome feeling was being awestruck at how important and amazing your Dad's job is. Being the "head" of the flight, a daughter would get the illusion (or "delusion" to be more precise) that her Dad is the most important thing / person ever in the airplane.


Gosh. I miss those clouds. I took this picture during our Sabah trip last year to remind me to not take these sort of things for granted anymore.

Dad'll be retiring from flying in 3 years' time when he turns 65. I bet he'll miss those clouds even more than I do.

Babies Who Came Through

A friend who has experienced two miscarriages is now having slight bleeding on her third pregnancy which is going into its 7th week.

At our Arabic class earlier tonight, the lecturer mentioned that his wife is going through a similar situation. She is in her second month of pregnancy and with the bleeding, is also experiencing severe cramps.

And in both situations, the doctors say there's little they can do.

It makes me thankful and amazed for the babies who came through. Because it all comes down to the unbelievable miracle of fate.

What's meant to be is meant to be, MasyaAllah.


Picture taken in Melbourne, September 2008.

Never Underestimate Instant Paste!!

I haven't been able to blog as much as I wish I could because of reasons I've explained in Gib's blog.. so this blog didn't take off as I wanted it too. But nevermind :) All in good time. I have a feeling this place is going to be mostly about FOOD. Because I love food and can't stop experimenting and can't stop talking about it. Heh.

In particular, I like to talk about food that is suitable for the little ones.

But being a lazy cook, I just have to make something clear. Never ever underestimate the potential of good instant paste!

Many a meal in our home is made from instant paste because sometimes I just don't have the time to hover over the stove too much. The little fella isn't a big napper so he doesn't nap more than an hour and a half (tops!), so some days this just leaves me with very little time to cook + bake + surf + blog all in the same time frame. Hehe.

One of my all-time favourites is flavoured rice. Mom used to tell me the trick was in using good quality basmati. How right she is. I use Taj Mahal usually, but recently (pocket a bit high and dry this month!) I bought Giant-brand basmati (beras mati?) and it was surprisingly good. So maybe I'll stick to this for the time being.

If you're looking for something super quick, not too rich, definitely NOT spicy (just slightly spiced, suitable for toddlers because most beryani pastes out there are very spicy! Honestly. Go ahead and try em out..)... go for Maggi Nasi Beryani instant paste.



I'll put up the picture of the instant paste packet tomorrow, along with an update on changes I make when cooking the beryani.

Don't be a cooking snob! Try those instant pastes!

What's New, Pussycat?

This is :)



It weighs just a little over one kilo (approximately 1.2 kilos), so now I don't have to worry about straining my back when I carry my lappie. Yay!

Promises

• I promise not to continuously count all the negatives.
• I promise to always remind myself of all the positives.
• So I promise not to clutter this blog with any more negatives (if I can help it!).

Can There Be Such a Thing?

.. as being too crabby about life?

On a good day, I can count countless blessings and realise that I'm probably one of the most blessed persons in my own life. Am I making sense?

On bad days, negative thoughts just wash out any positive ones and make me feel as if the world is nothing but a sucky place.

Today our maid application (for replacement to get a new maid) was put under "Keep in View" ("KIV"; Probably the most common term heard when you're dealing with bureaucracy and government bodies). In other words, I gotta go there and appeal to some majestic pegawai for some "budi bicara". So who cares if I can't even pick up my own socks if it falls onto the floor, much less pick up my 14-kilo kid?

You know.. the world does not suck. It's the people in it that suck.

Taboo?

I was chatting on the phone with my Singapore-born Australian-raised friend Sarah Fraij on the phone yesterday evening and asked her about the forest fires and whether they've arrested guilty parties (obviously I haven't read The Age in days), and she said yes.

"Any of them Muslims?"

"Hah?? Apehal pulak?!" aiks.. this is strange. Sarah's usually very up to date with news and stuff.

"That forest jihat claim, what? You didn't hear about it?"

"Forest jihat?? Citer cepat!"

So I told her what I read and how they're saying that some extremist group was staking claims / taking on responsibilities for the forest arsons. It was certainly news to her. She had not heard about it because it was not discussed on Australian TV.

Hmm. I wonder why lah?

Really Easy Baked Salmon

The truth is that I am a lazy cook who enjoys good food. I cook because I can't tolerate food that is not done to my taste and I get really frustrated when we pay good money (lose so much $$$$) for food that's not even tasty enough!

Anyway, because I'm a lazy cook, I tend to cook my food very "simply" (simple and err... I'm always looking for short cuts).. and because of my love to simply cook with whatever there is in the pantry, H has taken to calling my dishes "ONE STEP TOO SHORT". Huh! Which basically means that I always ter-forgot (or purposely forgot!) to do a certain required step in preparing that dish (recently I really did forget to strain / tapis my agar-agar before I added in the fruits and chilled it) or I'd miss out a certain required ingredient for the dish (like the fact that I didn't have sago beads for my pengat pisang last weekend and put in some corn flour instead to make it thicker).

But this dish is something of a favourite to me because it's so simple, you just can't go wrong. Plus it tastes so good too. If you're having a busy day and want something you can just shove into the oven, this is it.

REALLY EASY BAKED SALMON

Ingredients:
1 piece salmon
2 teaspoons olive oil (I use really good quality olive oil because good ingredients make a lot of difference)
2 teaspoons of lemon juice (we opt for bottled concentrated lemon juice from Berri)
Seasonings; salt, fine black pepper, a small amount of fresh dill (or a sprinkling of dried dill from McCormicks)

Method:
- Heat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.
- After cleaning your salmon, pat dry with kitchen towel and put it on a plate, season generously (according to personal preferences) with salt, fine black pepper and fresh/dry dill.
- Place salmon in a piece of aluminium foil (large enough to wrap the salmon in).
- Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice all over the top of the salmon.
- Wrap the salmon in the foil, careful not to let the oil and juice escape.
- Place salmon on a tray, put the tray in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- If you prefer your salmon dryer / "crispier", open the foil after 20 minutes and bake the salmon for a further 10 minutes.

NOTE: H likes his salmon not-totally-cooked (he likes them soft and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside, whereas I like mine thoroughly cooked and somewhat dry!), so he bakes it for 15 minutes covered, 10 minutes opened. I cook mine as stated above.

Serve with lemon wedges, roasted potatoes and if you have it... an avacado salad would be perfect!

A Town Perished

Marysville is gone. The cause? Suspected arson. Could it be connected to this...?

That is unthinkable!

During our 3.5 years in Melbourne, we went backpacking and tracking into many woods and national parks. The natural beauty was always breath-taking and made us "syukur" for God's creations.


How could anyone destroy such creations?

I remember driving by an area licked clean by forest fire during our trip to the Grampians, and smoke was still curling up from the burnt ground. It was a scene right out of a horror / science-fiction movie. You bet we were scared. It was a relief to see firemen still at work and we were pretty sure that we would get out of the area safely.

I cannot begin to imagine the fear and shock faced by those who perished in the fire. May their souls rest in peace.

Turning Thirty

Things to remember about my thirtieth birthday:

- Friends who came to surprise me the night before the birthday, reminding me of the times when I was so ill, couldn't walk, and they were always around when I needed them. I hope to be as good a friend to them as they are to me.
- The Hi-Fibre cheesecake which everyone (except for H, Chip and myself) struggled to finish!
- Tam's silly text messages that said; "Enjoy the last day of being in your 20s" and then "Welcome to the 30s, cherish the memories of your 20s". You bitter old woman you, Atam!
- H sitting close to Gib's side and feeding him slowly and patiently all throughout the meal. How lucky can a woman be?
- The man seating next to our table who kept glancing at the way H handled Gibran. Jealous ke bang? Hehe :p Oh, and the irritating old man at that same table who smoked vanilla-scented rokok kretek that caused Gib to wheeze a little and gave me a bad sinus reaction which lasted the whole night. Bleah.
- Gibran and Nabeel nearly bringing down the house with their shouts and loud bangs from their "crashing" game of ride-on bulldozers going head-to-head while Shamel threw cushions at them to get them to stop because he deemed the activity unsafe.
- Feeling as if only a few days have gone by since I turned 20, and then remembering the harsh reality of how fortunate I am to make it to my 3rd decade because there will always be the memory of Ninie, forever young, leaving us all behind in the middle of 20s.

I am lucky to be alive, Alhamdulillah.. and there are things (many many things) still unfinished and undone.

Ilmu.
Ibadah.
Umrah.
Hajj.

I pray I'll achieve some of these this decade.

To Hear a Heart Beat

My close friend Nani went through a difficult ordeal two weaks ago when she was hospitalised with stomach cramps. The doctors discovered she had dengue, and she was pregnant. They suspected an ectopic pregnancy and when they opened her up (in the operating theatre of course), they discovered in shock that it was a burst appendix. So bad was the shape of the appendix that her blood was badly infected, and her chances of survival was reduced to 50-50. She spent three days in ICU and Alhamdulillah, she got better and recovered. The most unbelievable thing is that she was still pregnant at the end of all that. This is her fifth pregnancy. She's had one child before this, and three miscarriages.

But as usual the world is full of experts of all sorts as countless uncles and aunties appear to give her advice on how she needs to abort the baby because it is pretty much a sure thing that the baby is harmed in some way after all that ordeal. The "best" advice is to "get rid of it now, because, really.. why should you be in such hurry to have another baby when you're still so young?" because "you never know if the baby will be normal".

After weeks of moping around, this morning she had a scan on the 7-week fetus. They'd been waiting for this scan in anticipation because this scan was supposed to show the fetus' heart beating.

As I was cooking lunch, an upset Nani rang, convinced that the fetus is growing smaller, not bigger. And they could not hear the heartbeat.

I called my obgyn clinic (KJMC; Dr. Fatima Najla), fed Gibran his lunch, put him down for a nap, fetched Nani from her house (where 2 year-old Arfan excitedly watched me pull up in front of the gate because he was convinced he was coming along), and went down to the clinic to be squeezed into Dr. Fatima's busy schedule.

Suspense as the doctor squirted the ultrasound gel to begin the scanning process.

And I couldn't help letting out a loud whoop as I saw a small, pulsating dot on the screen.

The doctor turned on the audio and the sound of the fast, beating heart beats were the most beautiful thing I'd heard all week.

We were told that there is little to do but wait and see if the baby survives past 12 weeks. I pray the baby will survive.

Being blessed with a child is nothing short of a miracle :)

The best thing is that as I listened to the sound of heartbeats emitting from a fetus measuring a mere 1.66 cm, I realised that it should not matter if we will or will not be blessed with more children.

Because God has given me one such miracle to hold in my arms every night. So I have been blesssed :)


My miracle, with Shamel and Arfan (Nani's son).

Forest Jihat??

This is ridiculous.

Having gone backpacking deep into Australian forests and mountains, I cannot deny the disgust I feel at the argument that such a thing can ever be justified by Allah. For goodness' sake, we are the Khalifahs of this earth. Ruining it this way will never be justified.

And then there's this small part of me that feels utmost pity for the people who would resort to such desperate measures to have their voices heard. Ever wondered how terrorists are made?

Imagine having your entire family killed before your very eyes, including the babies you gave birth to, bodies laying still and covered by blood left behind by bullet holes shot through their little bodies by unseeing snipers.

And then imagine how you would feel about the people responsible for your babies and entire family's death.

Now do you still wonder how terrorists are made?

Waiter, There's a Hair in My Satay Kajang

Well, not in the satay, actually, in the nasi himpit!

Here's H holding up the said nasi himpit.


Eyeuw!

Coarse and short. I don't even want to start thinking which part of the body this hair came from. *uwerkkkk*

Lately Satay Samuri has been veryy disappointing to us. They've an outlet here in D'sara Utama and we buy from them a lot, especially if unexpected company appears. A few times the satay ayam were undercooked (still red and gooey!!), and once H even drove back to the shop to ask for replacement satays. And even the replacement satays were slightly undercooked! What the! Another time the maid and I ended up getting slight diarrhea from eating the satays.

You'd think we'd learned our lesson, eh? What can I say. There's no other decent satay place around the DU area. The satays in Uptown at night are as skinny as my index finger.

And now an icky hair in a piece of nasi himpit the maid was about to feed Gibran. Luckily Mummy has sharp eyes and spotted it. What can I say, my maid's eyesight is failing lah. Even when she measures water to make Gibran's milk, she holds up the cup up to the light like a scientist carrying out groundbreaking experiments. Hehehe.

So when you buy Satay Samuri, don't just pop em in your mouth without looking, okay?

Atuk's Marble Cake

It's only fitting for the first ever recipe that I share with friends to be Gibran's favourite cake; my Arwah Atuk's marble cake, which was my favourite cake too when I was growing up. This was the cake I made for Gibran's first and second birthdays because he gets really sugar-high if he eats chocolate cake. Hence I much prefer making this cake for him, and I usually top it off with a Buttercream Icing recipe which I got from Aunty Ani, the mother of Arwah Ninie who was one of my oldest and closest friends. The icing recipe however I will share another time. And since this is the first time I'm sharing recipes, please let me know if I can improve in any way! Thanks :)

GIBRAN'S GREAT-GRANDMA'S MARBLE CAKE.

Ingredients:
8 oz. butter.
8 oz. sugar (I use fine granulated sugar)
8 oz. plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
various colourings (I chose to use red and green colourings)

Method:
1. Using a mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Add egg one at a time, beat until incorporated and creamy.
3. Fold in flour, alternate with evaporated milk. This means a bit of flour, fold in. Then a bit of milk, fold in. Continue this until all flour and milk have been folded in. My Mom says the last to be folded in should always be flour because the batter will be softer that way.
4. Fold in vanilla extract.
5. Separate the batter into three different bowls.
6. Colour the batter in one bowl red. Colour the batter in another bowl green. A few drops of colourings would suffice. I leave the third bowl in its natural yellow buttery colour.
7. Now we pour the batter into a square greased and lined cake pan using this method; first put in a scoop of yellow batter, then green, then red. Repeat this process (just put in the batter at random) until all the batter is in the pan. Shake the pan a little to level the top of the cake batter.
8. Bake at 175 degree celcius, for approximately 50 minutes or when a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

This cake is nice and oh so moist because of the evaporated milk! Perfect for tea-time with a cup of Nescafe or teh tarik ;)

NOTE:
- You could add half a teaspoon of cocoa powder (instead of colouring) to one bowl of batter in order to give the cake some chocolatey swirls.

I Have Succumbed

A thing about conflicted mummies is that we have so much to say. Or as my own Mom likes to say, we like to membebel.

Thus I have succumbed to the need to have my own space where I can ramble or membebel about anything and everything I feel like, without feeling as if I am intruding in a space originally created for my son.

But that's the good thing about being a conflicted mommy. Once our minds are made up, we stand by our principles ;)

I created the original blog for the sole purpose of keeping track of Gibran's milestones, for memory's sake. And so, no, I ain't writing about things that lurk in this sometimes-messed-up conflicted mind of mine in a space which should be filled with issues pertaining raising Gibran Zayd.

So from now on, ramblings coming from Gibran's Mummy will be laid out here. Not there where the sun should always shine (in an ideal world! One can wish!).

Signing off (for now),
A Mummy infected by the blogging bug.