Pounds devaluation - pros and cons

For all those family and friends who hasn't visited us in the last 2 years, I think it is probably a good time to do it now with the pound being so weak. Branded stuff like LV and Pradas are probably 20% - 30% cheaper. If you buy enough of it, it might even pay for the cost of your plane ticket here. AirAsia X has just announced the rights to land in Paris as well. Good news all around for Malaysians who plan to visit this part of the world. As for us, it is just the other way around because, pound devaluing is an indirect pay cut for me. Basically the decline in the sterling is importing inflation into this country. All imported stuff is costing a lot more and travelling around Europe is painful now since it is 20% more expensive now compared to a few years ago. Pound and Euro is almost at parity now! Sterling is expected to remain weak until end 2010 so please come visit us when it is cheap to do so. Hope to see some mates and family soon.

Mr. Clarkson disses Proton AGAIN

The man (Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear) who famously destroyed Proton's reputation in the UK has done it again in his latest article on BMW 135i M Sport convertible. I think somebody from Proton should just spend a little bit of money to bribe (ps: people with moral high ground should not live in Malaysia because bribing is a way of life) Jeremy to say good things about Proton or just don't say anything at all. It is better than spending a disgusting amount of money on F1 to promote our national car.

Excerpt from the article
"I’ve never been able to put my finger on quite why I don’t like cars made by Proton and so on. But now I do. They are not joyous. They are built purely to shore up an emerging nation’s balance of trade, and you will never find any joy in anything where every single part has come from the lowest bidder. "

Original article from here.

Unfortunately there are talks that Malaysia/Proton is joining the whole F1 racing fiesta with their very own Lotus powered car next year. I'm proud and worried at the same time because I read somewhere that everything will be made in Malaysia and staffed by Malaysian crew. Seriously, who are we kidding? Money in F1 can't buy success and if Team Malaysia fails miserably, it will be an even worst publicity for Malaysia, especially Proton and even Lotus.

- Adrian

Yummy 'Nai Wong' Bun

Last weekend we went down to London for Dim Sum with Steph's cousin. Steph's cousin is leaving London and going back to Singapore after 3.5 years here so we thought it will be a good idea to have a farewell lunch and at the same time satisfy Steph's craving for Dim Sum. Too bad I'm no Dim Sum chef so we will have to let the real chefs do the cooking this time. Well, as usual when you go for Dim Sum, you will order the standard Char Siew Bao, Har Gao, Cheong Fun and etc. A conversation came up on Custard Bun aka Nai Wong Bao which Steph recalls was introduced to her when she was working in Singapore. So I told myself that I will attempt to make that for her when I have the time. Well, I attempted it...........and here are the results in pictures. I didn't attempt to make a steamed version this time because I wanted to try the baked version. Turned out pretty nice but the filling wasn't gooey. Probably too much egg and flour this time.

Willen Park @ Milton Keynes

It was a lovely weekend of sunshine. As usual, when the weather is good, we spend our time outside! "Life is too short to be wasted indoor" Adrian's belief . Sometimes (not all the time) I do hope that the weather will not be as good, so that I can stay indoor and chill. "If you have nowhere to go, no point wasting time outside" Stephenie's belief.

We went to Milton Keynes on Saturday, often abbreviated as MK is a new town developed to ease congestion in London. We've been to MK a couple of times since it is quite near our town, just under 30mins drive. It has a massive shopping complex and I to walk the whole complex, you'll probably need the whole day. The town also has an indoor ski, rock climbing, indoor skydiving facilities, and the list goes on. Definitely a more happening town compared to Luton.

This time around, we went to Willen park to take some pictures. We've been to the park a few times already but have not cover the whole place coz it's massive. They have a huge lake at the centre of the park which is a popular spot for water activities such as cable skiing, fishing, wind surfing, canoeing.

One of the main attraction is the Peace Pagoda. Taken care of by the monks and nuns of the Nipponzan, it is the 1st peace pagoda to be built in Europe. The 1st Peace Pagoda was built in Hiroshima after the 2nd World War. Set on the edge of the beautiful and peaceful Willen Lake, there is a spectacular view all around the stupa. A thousand cherry and cedar trees have been planted on the surrounding hill all around the stupa as a mark of remembrance to the victims of all wars. Next to the Peace Pagoda, you have the Japanese Shrine.

Lion at the Peace Pagoda

Granite sculpture

Pampas Grass

Stone arrangements Oh, and the exciting bit of the journey was... we saw lotsa blackberries! Cant resist plucking them, and in the end we have about half a sandwich bag filled with blackberries to bring home. Yummy!Fat spider

St Albans Roman town

Continuing from our previous post, we often drive down to St Albans town which is only 20mins from our place. This was once a Roman town, and the name of the town originates from a priest St Alban, the first British Christian martyr which was beheaded in the town.

There is a huge park next to St Albans cathedral which we always go to and also the popular weekend outdoor market. The cathedral is quite similar with the other churches here, not one of those rare ones which makes us go aww but still not too bad. When we were there last week, we got to witness a wedding ceremony taking place in the cathedral.

Childrn's water play area at the park, quite a cool concept. Wish I could join them.

Bird watching @ St Albans

Some interesting birdy pictures from our trip to St Albans park.

Steamed baoz and mantao

Its officially autumn in the UK but surprisingly it isn't that cold yet. We can still go out with a single layer of clothing but I doubt that will last for long. Just completed a round of pau and mantao making and was very satisfied with the results. The texture and taste was very nice and similar to the ones you usually get at dimsum restaurants. The colour was a bit yellow compared to the extra white ones you get at dimsum place probably due to some additives they use. Anyway, just thought we share some pics we took of our pau and mantao. The flavours were black+gold (red bean and kaya) and for the mantao was black sesame.

-Adrian

Steam buns @ Mantou

Back to blogging again!

It's been awhile since our last blog. I blame it on the good Summer that has come and gone. To be honest, I'm just feeling lazy.

What have we been up to the last couple of months?

Abit of travelling, catching up with friends in the UK, random drive and exploring different parts of UK, playing host to family and friends who came visiting, celebrating birthdays, engagements, baby shower party, football, BBQ, phototaking, berries picking, and of course our favourite pastime baking & cooking!!

And what have we done today?
We had Mantao with chicken curry, I made the curry and Adrian made the "Mantao", usually reffered as Chinese steamed buns. This is what I call team effort! You can easilly get those Mantao frozen pre-cooked from supermarkets and all you need to do is just steam it. But Adrian being him, made them from scratch. There is a popular story in China that the name Mantou actually originated from "barbarian's head" (direct translation). Interesting yea? Anyway, Adrian knead the dough yesterday to let it rest in the fridge. He rolled them up into individual mantao and steamed them today. He made unfilled mantao but he added a cheeky amount of butter into each one to give a nice buttery taste.

The mantao look really gorgeous sitting in the steamer.
I was really excited when I see the Mantao double in size. I somehow thought they look like alot like durian puff.. wish we had some durian paste around. Maybe we shall do that the nextime, or maybe not considering that it cost close to 10 pounds for us to buy one durian here.
Adrian then decided to panfry them later to go with our chicken curry. It was good, we had an amazing dinner tonight (as usual) =)

We will be making more mantao tomorrow, but with black sesame as stuffings. Hopefully will post some pictures up.

Breads galore

The obsession with baking our own bread started a few months ago and I think we have made a few more different variation of breads. What goes into your bread is really up to you. It is so simple to make. The smell of fermentation is just so..........addictive. Once I got over my fear of yeast and baking, there is just no stopping the creative juices. So far we have made, Apple bread, Coffee bread, Roasted garlic bread, Cinnamon bread and Mixed nuts bread. I'm going to try to make a bread with mixed herbs next. Life is good when you have freshly baked bread for breakfast or just for snacking.

I think this dark coloured bread was the coffee bread

This was the Apple bread. This was made the morning my Mum and Dad arrived in the UK.

This is Steph's first bread (I'm so proud of her). Made it when I was in Norwich. She didn't use enough dough so it came out looking like a flat bread. She cut it into thin slices and spread them with garlic and butter and roast for abit in the oven .. she calls it her garlic bread sticks.

This was our favourite bread of all - Cinnamon bread.Our next few breads would probably be something with Nutella, herbs, cheese or some root vegetables.

-Adrian

Long time no blog

Wonder what happened to us in the last couple of months?
I wonder what happened too? I remember we would blog every now and then but then all of sudden just silence. I think I was busy juggling my work and my studies but not sure why Steph decided to stop penning her daily/weekly life. Well I should start the ball rolling again by posting this.

I must say I do miss cooking a little bit but I don't have the chance to do this the last couple of months because I'm on an outstation job in Norwich. Only back on weekends and usually that doesn't give me much 'kitchen time'. Anyway, hopefully this assignment will end soon so I can stay at home a lot more. The plus point of working outstation is having the chance of eating three course meals everyday. I'm quite sick of eating out now but it is nice to have somebody do the cooking and cleaning for a change. I've definitely gain some weight from this assignment but hopefully the weight don't get too comfortable on my body because I will definitely lose them when I get back to my normal routine - 5 small meals a day.

Summer has been nice in the UK this year. I'm not complaining too much even though it rains occasionally. Somehow Norwich is blessed with better weather compared to the rest of the UK. Steph manage to visit Norwich last week and she trully enjoyed her stay here. I haven't done the touristy stuff yet because by the time I finish work, the shops are usually closed. That is UK for you. By 6pm most shops are closed for the day. Well at least Steph enjoyed herself.

-Adrian