More pictures of poetry

That's me holding a huge beach bag.

The Sun, the Sea, the Sand

After another eventful year, we finally got to go on holiday again. Our "simple-life" goal has always been to indulge in all the "S"s - last year's trip to Hong Kong was an indulgence in the shops and the stomach - before I got diagnosed with all those allergies.

This time round, we opted to indulge in the sun, the sea, the sand, the stomach and...the Silence!

Have you ever been to a place where there is absolute silence? I have never - not in Singapore at least. Even at East Coast Park, you could always hear - besides the airplanes overhead - sounds of other beach goers, sounds of the cars whizzing by in the distance...and just...sounds.

This was definitely the best holiday we have had so far - far surpassed our experiences at Bali and Phuket.

This is the wonderful resort we went to - the Tanjung Rhu at Langkawi - and those other people on Tripadvisor couldn't have said it better. Someone described it as "heaven on earth" and another described it as "paradise" and none of them are exaggerating. The resort's website says it even better - "1001 acres of poetry". And those wonderful pictures you see on the hotel website are nothing compared to the real thing when you get there.

That's how it was for Tin Hang Zai and me! Here's how we spent our 5 days there on the "S"s - (minus 1 day because we needed to take a day trip to check out what else was in Langkawi)

• Stomach - we were on an all-inclusive plan where all meals were included and you could eat from any of the resorts' restaurants *unlimited* - and room service *all day*. (now how cool is that?) - and because I had informed them earlier about my shocking allergies - they took great pains to accomodate my meals. I had an egg-free dairy-free selection of 3 different breads baked for me daily and they even told me they had more on standby in case I happened to request it for room service at night!
  
• Sleeping - someone described our bedroom as "massive" and it really was
• Sun & Sea - having 2km of private beach, sunbeds scattered everywhere you might want to lounge around, and a half-empty resort is a good thing!

The Silence? Tin Hang Zai, Little Pixie and I took a walk one day along the entire stretch of beach - to the "Land of Far Beyond" - yes, the resort was THAT expansive - and we sat among some shrubs which sheltered us from the hot sun - and watched the sea and the islands far ahead and just sat still. And listenedto the sound of silence. It was AWESOME. I had never heard such silence before - there was just absolute peace, tranquility - and serenity. We really could have heard God whisper in there!

You've really got to see this place to believe it. It's the first time I've ever wanted to go back to a resort a 2nd time.

My First Snowskin Mooncake

Life-post-allergy-discovery - I now have to learn how to make all my favourite foods in order to ensure I don't accidentally ingest anything that might make me sick.

This is one of the few recipes around that doesn't use milk / egg - and tastes just as good. (The commercial baked ones all use milk & eggs - and the snowskin ones - some do and some don't).

This recipe is adapted from Cheryl - the famous gal with those famous bakes. Her pictures look much better and she has even got some nice background as to the origins of mooncakes - so check out her post if you are keen.

Snowskin Mooncakes

Ingredients

115g Hong Kong Flour (steam for 15 minutes, leave to cool)

115g fried glutinous rice flour

210g icing sugar

1 tablespoon shortening

5 tablespoons cold water* I had to use 7 tablespoons plus a few more drops to make the dough wet enough.

1 teaspoon banana essence - I completely omitted this since I'm allergic to bananas anyway. I decided against using the store-bought pandan flavour cuz it smelt so..fake. I have since read somewhere that you could replace all the water in this recipe with pandan water.

2 tablespoons Hong Kong Flour (mix with 2 tablespoons hot water to form hot dough)

Fillings

1.5 kg lotus paste * I used up approx 1kg of it - since I only bought a 1kg pack from Phoon Huat.

100g melon seeds (baked) - as this was my first time, I decided to omit this - but have since realised that adding this would improve the texture significantly.

salted egg yolks (steamed) - can't be bothered with this - since I'm allergic!

Method

• Sieve fried glutinous flour and Hong Kong flour, add in icing sugar.
• Make a well in the centre, add shortening, water and hot dough, and knead until smooth.
• Roll the dough and wrap lotus paste, press into moon cake mould.
• Scale - if you are using the small size (which I used), scale at 29-30g for the filling, and 18-20g for the dough - just changed the ratio along the way in order to maximise the use of all the remaining ingredients - since Cheryl's original recipe doesn't give you any exact weight to go by.
• Knock mooncake out from mould, chill and serve.

Notes
Cheryl scales hers at 1/3 total weight for dough and 2/3 total weight for filling, and Zu's recipe scales at something like 30g filling to 20g dough)

Simplicity through the Shops...and the Skin - Organic Skincare

You know I'm a walking encyclopaedia about all the poisons that go into skincare and what's all that hype about "organic" skincare.

After all my years of reading up, I've been using these baby products for myself.

Those brands that claim to be "organic" that you find in Watsons / Guardian are generally not all that "organic" - they merely use a few "natural" sounding ingredients and the rest is all that nasty petroleum-derived stuff).

These are a few brands that I would recommend and some comments about them.

• Lavera
  If you want lipstick or lipgloss that won't poison you, this is the brand to go for (the rest are baby brands and don't carry makeup). The range of colours is good and very moisturising.
  
  For sunblock, this brand wins hands down. It's the cheapest for the amount of sunblock in the bottle. And none of the nasty ingredients that go into the other non-organic brands at Watsons/ Guardian.
  
  However, I have been trying their moisturiser for oily skin - and I'm not sure if it's doing me all that good since I started using it a month ago. It contains alcohol too (a no-no for skincare).
  
• Aromababy
  This brand uses the least amount of ingredients for their Newborn Baby Lotion, which means it is least likely to irritate your skin should you have sensitive skin. However, their prices have gone up from when I first bought these products in 2005 - the 125 ml tube used to cost S$12 then, now it retails for S$28 at Robinsons. (!!!!)
  
• Buds Baby
  I bought this today at Robinsons because it was much cheaper (cost per unit weight) compared to Aromababy. The list of ingredients is slightly longer, though I would say it's equally safe. (for me, I can't even take moisturisers with vanilla in them!!)
  Their sunblock is equally effective as Lavera's, but not as cheap if you compare the costs per unit weight.
  
• GAIA
  I have tried their Baby Massage Oil for Little Pixie and I like it. Very short list of (safe) ingredients and price is the lowest amongst all 3 brands of Baby Massage Oil. Please do not even try Johnson & Johnson's or some other conventional baby brand like Avent or Mustela - they contain mineral oil which clogs pores!
  
  I bought their moisturiser too because, it is every bit as organic and safe as the rest - and it's also the cheapest. In fact, its advantage over Buds is that it doesn't use alien-sounding ingredients that Buds claim are safe.

Lastly, about the Pureen Fluoride-Free toothpaste. Fluoride isn't as good for teeth as the media would have you believe - at least that's what I read from the back-to-naturals literature. I have over the years tried buying fluoride-free toothpaste from Neways, from organic shops, and the cheapest I'd found was this brand called Nature's Gate (S$10 a tube). So I was elated to find this brand (it actually says : "fluoride-free - safe for baby" - can you believe it? If fluoride is harmful for babies then what makes it good for adults!?!?) selling for S$2.35, and it's sugar-free too!!!

Simplicity through the Shops ...and the Soles

Tin Hang Zai's Cushioned Slippers from Adidas and my Pink Crocs

Those of you who have known me through the years will know I can't stand window-shopping and shopping without a list. Those aimless strolls through the malls make me very nervous - with no promise of any "meaningful" outcome at the end of each trip.

I even think the last time I truly enjoyed shopping with THZ was when we were dating, like 10 years ago. Gasp!!

Well guess what, perhaps with the passage of time and with Little Pixie, I am learning not to be so hard on myself (why must every activity have a tangible outcome anyway?) and to well, indulge in the simple pleasures of life. Today I actually enjoyed window-shopping at Centrepoint with THZ and Little Pixie for like, 6 hrs!! We went to Robinsons, looked at "stuff", went to John Little, and then back to Robinsons, and then to Cold Storage!

About the Crocs - first, I wasn't even looking for shoes (see? that's what happens when you don't shop with a list). Second, I have never even been interested in Crocs after those horror stories about kids losing toes from wearing Crocs . THZ was smitten with the quirky Mary Janes and persuaded me to try them. And I was converted!!! They were so comfy I bought them right away and wore them out of Robinsons!

Lousy Spa Experience

Since we're on the topic of spas, I thought I'd write about a past experience of ours.

We're not quite spa connoisseurs - but we had a really bad experience at this place before. The advertising and all those features in Her World magazines - goodness, we figured that the spa boss must have friends in the industry.

The "therapists" gave Tin Hang Zai and I different treatments even though we had both signed up for the same thing.

Mine gave me what I believed to be a Thai massage - his gave him what was supposed to pass for Swedish - we were never sure because they both didn't look trained. We had asked for a couple room but were cajoled into having separate rooms with an adjoining (!!!!) bathroom which the boss said was the "same as having a couple room" - I didn't hear from THZ until the massage was over! The boss insisted that I could have peeped at THZ if I'd wanted to (*roll eyes*)

Needless to say, we didn't have any heated mat on the massage. (The Ultimate Spa does - and that's really important for a skeletal person like me)

The "couple package" consisted of a single jacuzzi tub which we had to take turns to soak in because it was so tiny. So it was like, we took turns being scrubbed by the same therapist, so that the other person who was not being scrubbed would then soak in the jacuzzi. (Is this what is considered a "couple deal"!?!?!)

And, we were also booted out of the jacuzzi before time was up because they had overbooked the room. And, right after we exited the jacuzzi room, they checked another couple right in! I don't think they had the time to change the tub water / sterilise / clean anything! The boss also tried to convince us that the grimy looking stuff in the jacuzzi was from some "wine extracts"! After we saw the next couple walk in, we got the creeps and started wondering if the grime in our tub was from the previous couple! Urgh!

The Ultimate Spa

OK, the heading of this post is NOT an accolade given by me. It's the real name of the spa!!

I am actually quite surprised that I'm recommending this spa despite its lousy counter service. You have to check this place out.

We first went there on Tin Hang Zai's birthday - the masseuses (or therapists if you prefer) are REALLY GOOD!!! We liked it so much after that first time that we actually signed up a short package - $100 per session of scrub + massage + soaking in jacuzzi tub (or what is known as a hydrobath in spa lingo) - you get to choose from a variety of scrub "flavours" and you can choose any massage you want (they have a comprehensive list).

So far we've tried a few more masseuses (I mean, therapists) and I must give this place a thumbs up for having really competent, trained professionals in their team. They are STRONG and really know their stuff.

Barring the lousy counter service (we got our appointments screwed a couple of times), I would really recommend this place if you are looking for good therapists.

Bento Breakfasts

Niceties introduced me to the concept of bentos. For various reasons (HFMD, Tin Hang Zai coming home too late, etc) , I've not been making dinners or lunches and have been depending on the Veteran's kindness for lunches and dinners (bless her heart).

Inspired by Niceties and Lunch-In-A-Box and Just Bento, I decided that since I wasn't making decent lunches and dinners for my two charges at home, I might as well focus my efforts on making nice bento-breakfasts that can double up as tea-time snacking and pre-dinner munchies for Tin Hang Zai's frequent late nights at work. (Plus make him feel special and pampered)

Menu for today:
Me - homemade wholemeal bread with NTUC-'s minimal-trans-fat and lactose-free margarine (since I'm allergic to butter now) and organic sausages from NTUC Finest
Little Pixie - Homemade wholemeal bread kosong with a slice of orange and homemade applesauce raisin wholemeal muffin
Tin Hang Zai - Homemade wholemeal bread with margarine and jam, whole orange minus 1 slice and homemade applesauce raisin wholemeal muffin

Artisan Bread Baking Class

I had been blessed with an opportunity to co-facilitate with Paul at a 3-day workshop with an offshore bank.

That paid for this bakery class. I had always wanted to attend some sort of formalised workshop where they teach you properly how to bake bread, instead of reading & fumbling my way through stacks and stacks of bread books at the library. I have been struggling with many bread books for over a year now, and until I attended this workshop, did not know how exactly the "dough window" was supposed to look like.

We focused on ciabatta and baguettes in this workshop - but this is all I need for now! It's a allergenic-person's dream come true - lean dough (no need for dairy stuff like butter or cream or eggs or even bread improvers - which also contain dairy & egg derivatives).

The flavour is ... sensational!! Tin Hang Zai and Little Pixie loved it - and I ended up eating this every day for a week. I'm still making this every week. And, I also learnt that what passes for ciabatta in Delifrance is not the "real thing". Duh.

Nothing beats learning from the professionals. The name of the company is CerealTech, a bio-technology & food ingredients company. Check them out if you are keen.

Food Allergy Attacks!

For the longest of time, I only knew I had serious lactose intolerance. I just didn't think it was anything more than that - a simple intolerance which could be easily rectified by taking lactase enzymes if I so wanted. I continued feasting on my own homemade butter cookies and goodies.

After a lot of reading up over the past few years and months, I came to the realisation that the occasional bout of "allergic rhinitis", respiratory and skin ailments that had plagued me all my life - was not triggered by just my environment, but also (horrors) by my food.

I had settled on two possible tests - the ALCAT test and the ELISA test, as early as last year. My preference was the ELISA test - but the only place I knew which carried this test here was this rather sleazy-looking importer of fish oil, without even a qualified doctor on its premises. So I didn't do anything for almost a year. By a sheer stroke of God's providence, Tin Hang Zai's boss has a super-allergic daughter too, who had once done the same test which I sought - at this place at Gleneagles - the Gilead Ear Nose & Throat Centre. (what an apt name!)

After 2 months, my blood test results came out. Tin Hang Zai and I were overjoyed for a few hours (finally!!! I can stop eating foods that make me sick!) ... and then the reality set in.

Here's the list:

Severely Allergic

• Eggs (think: Char Kway Teow, Carrot Cake, Oyster Omelette, McDonald's Breakfasts, Sunny-side eggs, pandan chiffon cakes, lor mee, egg prata...goodness, all the things I love!)
  
• Milk and all its derivatives - I have to check if prata is cooked in vegetable oil or in ghee !! (ghee is a milk derivative)
  No more chicken-in-a-biskit! Loads of snacks are now out! And no more KFC coleslaw!)
  
• Vanilla (can you believe it?? So even all my homemade biscuits, cookies, muffins, pancakes and cakes which were already egg-free and milk-free had also been poisoning me because of the vanilla essence!!!) - I found out that even commercial versions of all the Chinese kuehs (9-layer cake, wa ko kueh, pak tong ko, fatt kueh) all use vanilla!!
• Banana (ok, I can still live without this)
  
• Asparagus (ok, I can still live without this)

Moderately Allergic

• Cabbage - uh oh, there goes all my favourite dishes like fried bee hoon from the market (which has sesame oil & oyster sauce too), no more KFC coleslaw!
  
• Cucumber (so it wasn't the wheat or yeast in that Subway sandwich that made me sick, it was the cucumber!!)
  
• Pineapple (there goes my Hawaiian pizza, which is already minus-the-cheese-and-milk, or that Wu-Xiang Xia Bing Sauce!)
  
• Oyster
  
• Sesame Can you find a tze-char dish that doesn't have either oyster sauce or sesame oil!?!?! Or any other Chinese food for that matter? If it's not in the gravy (think Char Siew Rice, Duck rice, Bak Chor Mee, Lor Mee), it's in the marinade (chicken rice), or in the soup (pig trotters vinegar) or in the sauce (Wu Xiang Xia Bing, Rojak)
  

Have you fainted yet? Help! I'm losing weight much faster than I'm eating!

The Senses & the Stomachs

sp









It's Tin Hang Zai's birthday. To celebrate, we indulged by going to the spa & pigging out near the sea.

As a single-income family, it had been a loooong time since we wanted to go and splurge on things like spas. But well, what the heck. It's his birthday!

So we checked out The Ultimate Spa at the Civil Service Club (since it was so near our place), and we used some Maybank offer to get ourselves a cool 2 hrs of pampering (scrub, massage, hydrobath) at something like S$150+. And they give you some fancy drinks & dessert after that.

We had a great time, and we finished off by going to the neighbourhood foot reflexology for another 45 mins!

Evening time, we picked Little Pixie up and headed off to the far east to pig out at the Saltwater Cafe at Changi Village Hotel. I wasn't expecting too high a standard, but the food was amazingly fantastic! I'd always thought we'd outgrown buffets long ago, and certainly our last few buffets in 2007 weren't fantastic. (Think Merchant Court's high tea (yucks - you just don't want to pay more than S$20 to eat nothing but kuehs & kuehs) and Paris at Marina (just too much rich food in a day).

But this was different! I had everything I wanted to eat. The BBQ section was decent (I got to eat my favourite lamb chops - something I can't eat with Tin Hang Zai at home since he doesn't like lamb), the seafood was decent, and so was the sashimi! The desserts were decent too, so were the soups. The cold seafood selection was very decent too. All in all, I haven't (and we haven't) been so satisfied in a loong time. I finished up all the keropok the moment they were laid out (freshly fried). The poppadums were nice too.

Yum!!

I miss Hong Kong Food!!!

The one thing I really miss about the holiday is eating at this very tiny but cheery, orange-hued Cha Can Teng called the Happy Kitchen. What attracted us was the owner's claims that their street fare had no MSG.

And did we keep eating there for our 5 day stay! Everything I ate there was fantastic!!! And if you knew just how critical I am about food, you'd want to go there too!

There was a dish which stuck in my mind, but no search on the Internet would find me any recipes for anything remotely labelled "Hong Kong cuisine". Back home, I could not stop thinking about the Curry Beef Ramen I ate at that fantastic shop! (it's so tiny, their shop space is probably the size of my study, not a very big space).

I found a useful substitute at Happy Homebaker's Blog , and this is what I also used. Of course this dish above looks very gross compared to hers - it's not the Curry Beef Ramen I fantasized about, but a last-minute throw-together using S & B curry sauce mix from Cold Storage, potatoes, carrots, fresh shitake and onions, to be eaten on rice. It was good, but I think I'll try making my own sauce next time. Better still, it doesn't cause any fumes in the kitchen - where my laundry hangs. Definitely a keeper. (Meantime I have conveniently downloaded the remainder of the curry sauce to the Veterans).

Kitchen Horrors!

Not sure how many of you read this, but I wish they'd publish the names of the offending restaurants! Now I'm filled with these horrid thoughts whenever we eat out thanks to this article!

And I think I can guess at least one restaurant that's guilty. Check out the highlighted description (in red):
One 20-year-old, who used to work in the kitchen of an American chain of restaurants, said he would go to work in the morning to find cockroaches inside the giant mixer that the restaurant used to mix batter for its muffins. Hardly surprising, then, that at least three customers have returned with half-eaten food with feelers hanging out.

There are only that many American chains here, and there could only be two possibilities. One is predominantly dessert-based. The other one stands out for its famous YUMMY MUFFINS (comes in only one flavour) !!! Which Tin Hang Zai and I love!!!

When I related the story to Tin Hang Zai this morning (he hadn't read the article), the first thing he said was "XXXXX" and he guessed it right!

I'm going to start making my own now. Urgh!!

Sunday Times 16 December 2007
Kitchen Horrors
More food outlets have been fined this year - and the unsavoury items served up in eateries include cockroaches in muffins and dental floss in kaya toast

LACK OF HYGIENE is a major problem in food kitchens, with more outlets being fined this year by the National Environment Agency for filthy premises, rodent infestation and contaminated food. And to add to the mix, food is sometimes salvaged from the floor and thawed meat is put back in the freezer.

WHEN Ms Carol Yap ordered a kaya toast and coffee combo at a cafe recently, she wasn't counting on biting into anything more than hot kaya spread and a slab of butter on crispy bread.
There was something chewy and stringy in her mouth - it was a piece of dental floss and it wasn't hers.

This wasn't the first time the 36-year-old has made an unsavoury discovery in her food. A few years earlier, she thought her noodles at a Chinese restaurant might have been overdone until she spat out a 1.5cm piece of wire.

'Luckily I didn't cut myself or break a tooth,' said the shocked secretary.

Most people could probably cite at least one encounter with foreign matter in their food - maybe a strand of hair or a small dead bug.

The recent PrimaDeli food poisoning case, when more than 100 people became ill after eating the bakery's cakes, has put food hygiene in the spotlight.

In fact, more eateries and hawker stalls have landed themselves in the soup this year than the past three years, mostly for filthy premises, rodent infestation and contaminated food.

Offending food outlets fined by the National Environment Agency (NEA) so far this year numbered 2,148. This is up from 1,307 last year, 1,524 in 2005 and 1,857 in 2004.

NEA puts the high number down to stepped-up checks and more tip-offs from the public.

But just what goes on behind kitchen doors? Heard those stories about underpaid, overworked chefs spitting into your food? That's not an urban myth.

Although kitchen staff say it hardly happens now, waitresses at one Japanese food chain were known to have done that to picky customers.

But the most common transgression, it seems, is not washing hands after a visit to the loo.

Lack of hygiene
FOOD handlers say that in their rush to get orders out, they sometimes forget to soap up. And even though gloves are a must when it comes to handling cooked food, not all use them.
A chef who has been in the business for more than 20 years says he has seen it all: from the spitting to the scratching to the sneezing.

'When I catch them scratching their oily scalps and go back to preparing the food, I'll scold them and ask them: will you eat this food yourself?' he said.

Chef Ang Song Kang of Canton Wok by Chef Kang said: 'It's about personal hygiene. If you can't even be clean with yourself, how can you expect to serve others?'

Cooks in Chinese kitchens, especially, think nothing of handling raw and cooked food with the same set of bare hands.

One 50-year-old waitress, who has done the rounds in Chinese restaurants, readily admits she and her colleagues sometimes use their bare hands to arrange food on a plate, such as the cold dish served at wedding dinners.

At a top-end popular Chinese restaurant here, tea leaves are left exposed and vulnerable to cockroaches.

Another waitress said: 'When we're busy, we just use our hands to grab the tea leaves. Or if a plate is stained, we just wipe it with our fingers.'

A part-time kitchen helper at an American-style cafe said her manager even told her not to wear gloves when dishing out food, as it was easier and faster to work with bare hands.

'All the food got embedded in my nails. It was disgusting,' said the 18-year-old polytechnic student.

Food suppliers are just as culpable when it comes to lack of cleanliness. They are known to drop their uncovered fresh produce deliveries such as meat and vegetables on the greasy kitchen floor.

But sometimes, the problem has less to do with sloppy humans than pesky insects.

One 20-year-old, who used to work in the kitchen of an American chain of restaurants, said he would go to work in the morning to find cockroaches inside the giant mixer that the restaurant used to mix batter for its muffins.

Hardly surprising, then, that at least three customers have returned with half-eaten food with feelers hanging out.

The culinary misadventures of Singapore's kitchen keepers also extend to the all-important E word: ethics - or the lack of.
Don't expect cooks to throw out food articles past their expiry date. The rule, it seems, is: it's still good for another six months.
'As long as they don't smell bad, the expiry date can always be prolonged,' said one kitchen helper about sauces, seasoning and canned food which routinely get a new lease of life.

And just because your fruit tartlet doesn't look mouldy doesn't mean it wasn't before.

A caterer says it's not uncommon for food handlers to slice off mouldy bits on these tarts and continue to serve them as if they were fresh out of the oven.

Unwashed vegetables, food that is salvaged from the kitchen floor, thawed meat that gets absent-mindedly stuck back into the freezer: when the going gets tough, so do frazzled kitchen staff.

Pinning the responsibility
COOKS' greatest defence for most things unwashed and unclean: the heat from the stove will kill the germs anyway.
Serving and kitchen staff put the responsibility on their management. 'If they don't care, we don't care. If something goes wrong, it's their responsibility, not ours,' says one seasoned waitress.

At some kitchens, that responsibility is not taken lightly.
In the central kitchen of Bakerzin at Harper Road in MacPherson, a CCTV camera watches over food handlers. The company has three quality assurance officers who do daily rounds in the kitchen, said chief executive officer Daniel Tay.

It also routinely does hand, table and equipment swabs to test for cleanliness. Those who fail the hand swab test have their names pinned on a notice board.

'We want to build a culture of good, personal hygiene and that's not easy,' said Mr Tay, who hopes to model his kitchen after those in Japan where 'it's almost like a clean room'.

The same goes for Crystal Jade, which has 29 restaurants and 10 bakeries and one confectionery factory servicing the bakery outlets.

Workers caught flouting its hygiene policies are given a verbal, then a written, warning. Three strikes and you're out!

All unsold buns at its outlets are thrown out at the end of each day, while the shelf life of cakes is 24 hours.

The Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), which regulates all food manufacturers, conducts surprise checks on these factories as often as twice a month.

It has imposed 42 fines - of between $300 and $1,000 - so far this year on manufacturers who used unapproved additives, sold mouldy food and had dirty premises.

But for all the unappetising culinary secrets this well-known food paradise keeps, you are still much less likely to need an iron stomach now, thanks to strict government regulations that require all food handlers to go for typhoid jabs, wear protective gear and attend a food hygiene course.

In fact, the number of food outlets that have earned an A cleanliness rating from the NEA has risen from 18 per cent five years ago to 33 per cent this year.

Even the nasty episodes that Ms Yap had to endure haven't put her off eating out, which she does at least five times a week.
'I'm too busy to cook so I have no choice,' she said.
'Just don't let me see it.'

Health is really wealth...

Goodness me, I've been sick for more than a month!

A seemingly innocent trip with Little Pixie to the Botanic Gardens did me in. I came down with what I thought was flu - but the doc said it was an allergy.

I had it bad. Cough, post-nasal drip, couldn't breath!

I was almost getting better - and then had a 'relapse' after eating homemade sandwiches!!

I'd forgotten that when you have an allergic reaction - you have to stay away from ALL possible allergens - even if you're not usually sensitive to them in the first place! For me, this turned out to be bread.

It turned out that my relapse was due to the HUGE amounts of wheat and yeast I was eating - because I'd been in a bread-baking frenzy after getting to know Happy Homebaker.

Indeed, health is really wealth. I don't think I want to stinge on food anymore - the amount of money I saved from buying cheap, lousy food in an effort to be a better household budgeter was pittance compared to what the 5 doctor visits cost me this time round!

Thankfully, I also found another blogger who has experience in all these food intolerances etc!
Check out Main Main Masak Masak for all these fantastic healthy ideas!

This is what real grape juice looks like

Airport juiced a bunch of grapes which looked like Red Globe but didn't have seeds. Compare the rich colour and cloudiness with the processed, additive-rich, preserved juice-like drinks you find in the supermarket shelves!

Hanabi Trip

Sashimi Sampler

Lasik and Timberlake were very kind to celebrate my birthday with me at Hanabi. I had been wanting to visit this place for the longest time - and going with Tin Hang Zai wasn't a good idea because I eat so little of everything - and he gets repulsed by rawness, and the aroma of seaweed and stuff. Bless the Pink Couple!

Anyway, despite the service being rather lacklustre - we had a great time talking. The food was VERY fresh - and the variety was amazing. It was quirky because it's not a REAL Japanese restaurant - waitresses were mainly from China and I think a couple from Myanmar or something - not all of them understand English.

Overall, I'd give this place

8/10 for food quality - if you want a value-for-money buffet and ultra-fresh food (which is critical in Japanese cuisine) - this is the place to go.

4/10 for service - it's brusque at best. One waitress preferred to converse in 'item codes' whilst another insisted that we order by 'item name' instead. Another could not understand simple English. We were also 'chased out' 15 min before closing time so that they could all go home in time. For sure this is not a "real" Japanese restaurant.

Canola is not all that good!

Every other day, you read that something you've been using in your food for ages is toxic.

There are plants that give oil - coconut, palm, peanut, sunflower, what have you.

Have you ever wondered if there is such a plant called canola? There isn't. This thing is a GMO product!!

Please check out this article.

Baking Class at Civil Service Club

The Pixie decided to take the affection-starved Gremlin to a Baking Buddies Hands-On Baking Class at the Civil Service Club for an afternoon of bonding and undivided attention.

Gremlin was so excited about it that he fantasised about the class constantly for the one month before the class.

It turned out to be a very fun experience. For $38 per adult-plus-child pair, the two of them got to bake this Monster Cookie just in time for Father's Day. Tin Hang Zai and Little Pixie both got very cute cookies at the end of the session - whilst Gremlin took the Monster Cookie to share with the adults-who-ignore-him-and-keep-putting-him-down.

The Pixie got her chance to finally ask Judy Seah (the lovely little girl who was the 'teacher' for the session) some burning questions like:

• There is no way to substitute vegetable oil for butter in a cookie recipe. The effect's just not going to be the same.
• Brown sugar makes cookies soft - white makes it crisp. Adjust proportion to taste and preference.
• Addition of more flour to the recipe makes the dough less sticky and easier to manipulate - but the cookies will be crisper. Adjust to preference.
• Dough can be frozen for future use.
• Eggs make the cookies rise.

This was definitely a better value than the Phoon Huat class - but then again - this is hands-on, the other was a demo class. Can't compare apples with oranges. And of course, this is in a different league from the Imp's type of classes.

Judy's good with kids. (Gremlin kept talking non-stop - and she never lost her patience with him.) And she has her own website! Check this out - Baking Hobby Club.

Baking Classes at Phoon Huat

Desperate to learn from the experts 'once and for all' on how to make proper muffins, the Canton Pixie finally succumbed to signing up for a baking class at Phoon Huat.

The menu for the day was Cranberry Muffin and New York Cheese Cake. She was probably the only attendee there for the muffin. The other 43 people were there for the cheese cake.

The Phoon Huat experience is definitely highly recommended for an afternoon of cheap laughs. At $10 per session, redeemable for Phoon Huat products, it's a real steal!

Francis (the chef) speaks in really broken English ("nebber mind lah, got no white sugar, blahhun sooger also can. If no cake crumbs, just use biscuit crumbs. Anything will do, cheap cheap") and his Mandarin is peppered with lots of English words.

The Pixie was astounded. There were people of literally all shapes and sizes! From petite teenage girls to full-fledged rounded Aunties, my goodness! There was even a guy who came with his mother!

One Auntie kept shouting instructions to Francis. "Francis ah, if you beat the egg longer, I think your cake will be softer." "Francis ah, must add more water else not moist enough". "Francis ah, blah blah blah".
You so clever then be the chef lah!

One woman was rushing to catch the 4pm flight! (Class was from 2 to 4pm). There were more than 10 digital cameras zooming in at any one time. One woman even used her handphone to video the whole process. (Can't you bozos refer to the Internet!?!?!?)

The muffins (remember - this is a "cheap laugh" kind of baking class) were actually cakes in disguise. Urgh!!!

However, the cheese cake was GOOOD!!! And Phoon Huat sells Anchor butter at half the price of Shop n Save.

Supermarket Stress

I must say I find supermarket shopping quite stressful nowadays.

I was at Market Place, and only wanted to buy less-unhealthy snacks.

Read: Trans-fat-free, preservative-free, artificial flavouring/colouring-free, yeast-free, soy-free, lactose-free, MSG-free.

Result: I spent 1 hour searching and this is all I bought:

1. Kettle's Brand Organic Corn Chips (Sesame-Blue Corn)
2. Mountain Bread flat bread (more worth it than destroying my wok trying to make torteeyahs.
3. St Dalfour Jam (ok, just found out that NTUC sells the same thing at $1 per jar less than Shop N Save and Market Place!!)