The day before 2007

I have spent almost the whole day at home except for feeding the community cats in the morning and just now.

In the late morning, I cleaned and made the surface of my piano shiny by using Lemon Pledge before I tried playing some of David Lanz's pieces and other old pieces I used to practise when I was learning piano.

In the mood of tidying my bedroom, I moved on to packing the drawers where I keep gifts and cards from friends, extracted forms and materials that I would need when I man the booth for Cat Welfare Society at the cat show @ Malay Village on 7 Jan (Sun) 2007.

Lunch was junk food of spicy tapioca chips, St Leaven's cranberry bread sticks and chocolate while sis and I watched the movie "Red Eye", the DVD my friend lent me. Quite exciting.

I have borrowed the next 2 books in the Termeraire series from the library and Esther. So far I'm only halfway of book 2: Throne of Jade while sis has already finished that and Book 3: Black Powder War. I will try to complete book 2 over the next few days and start by reading more of it later.

I initially wanted to bake today but it would mean not being able to do the above activities, so for dinner, I made a simple dish of instant noodle with the cod roe sauce, egg and shitake mushroom . My instant noodle didn't turn out soggy and tasteless as it did in the past as I didn't over cook it in boiling water in a pan but it was quite dry. I shall remember to retain some of the boiled water it is soaked in to give it some moisture the next time. Otherwise, the noodle tasted quite yummy although mum wasn't keen to try. Hee.

In a few more hours, it will be 2007. I hope the new year will be a good year for my friends, family, the community cats and my hamsters :)

Comfort drink

Lukewarm water with milk powder and honey or warm milk with honey is something I would make if I want to have something light when I feel a little hungry but it's already late @ night :)

Lunch with family @ Sun with Moon

I have been visiting Sun with Moon @ Wheelock Place with my friends and I thought it would be nice to introduce my parents and sis to the nice food there too. It seems to be quite hard to get reservations at the restaurant, so I booked way in advance a few days before yesterday.

The lunch experience yesterday with my family was good. I was happy to see them enjoying the food as much as me. We ordered different sets for variety, so that we could sample the different dishes. I had tried the miso cod set before and I like it, so I ordered that. The miso sauce goes well with the cod fish and I like the sashimi salad .

Sis had some duck and toufu set . She prefers our sets but I thought her set is quite yummy too.

Dad tried the beef sirloin set . The most expensive of all our sets but it was worth it as the medium done beef was tender and juicy and it came with peppery fried rice .

I recommended the simmered mackerel and pork katsu set to mum. I don't like the mackerel but the pork katsu makes up for it. We ended our meal with their strong coffee . I normally don't drink coffee but when I'm @ Sun with Moon, I will order their coffee or iced tea.

This is the first time we went to a Japanese restaurant as a family. Dad is not adventurous about eating Japanese food as he thinks it tastes very different from Chinese and western food. Sun with Moon set has a good variety and sometimes I think the cooking style is similar to mum's and dad's fusion cooking style. I'm glad I brought them there as we could go there together in future but we agree that such good food is meant to be enjoyed once in a while.

Birthday dinner

kuro.shiro.neko invited me and a couple of friends to her place as her hubby was cooking for her birthday. His porridge had lots of century egg, some salted egg and home-made pork bone stock. Yummy. A pity I forgot to take a photo of the food.

After a hearty dinner, I disturbed the cats by stroking them. Hee. The 2 sisters look almost identical and they gave me this look when I took a photo of them. So cute!

This is the photo of birthday cake (chocolate fudge cake) from Jane's Cake Station from Jalan Kayu) that some of you are waiting for :)
Nice and chocolatey

Tau Suan with corn flakes

Mum made tau suan using green beans, sago, rock sugar, sweet potato. It tasted nice with corn flakes. I had it as part of breakfast on Thurs morning.

Yummy meals on Wed

Lunch on Wed was @ Sun with Moon Restaurant @ Wheelock Place with my 3 lunch mates. I ordered a beef fillet lunch set. The beef was juicy and tender and the set came with pickles , fruits, salad and coffee/tea.

I met my friend Weiling for dinner @ Sunflower Vegetarian @ Far East Plaza. This is a favorite lunch place for me and my friends/colleagues as we love their brown rice with veggie dishes. After 3pm, they will have ala carte menu instead of the brown rice/bee hoon/white rice set.

I ordered miso ramen and it sure didn't disappoint me. The miso soup is tasty with generous serving of vegetable. Weiling had spicy pasta which looks yummy too.

Beautiful wild flower outside our flat

Don't ask me where my mum gets it from :)

First visit to Vivo City

I stepped into Vivo City for the first time on Tues. It was crowded and Bam, FR and I couldn't find an empty table in the foodcourt and had to settle for dinner @ Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. We ordered Chilled Spicy Chicken pasta, Linzer Surprise and Turkey Ham & Cheese Ciabatta to share. I like the cake as it reminds me of the cake using grounded hazelnut I had baked a long time ago.

We also visited PageOne bookshop and I found a piano score book on David Lanz's songs and bought it. I shall try to play them on my piano over the long weekend. I know I will make them sound horrible. Haha.

Pip, the sleepy head

Bush lying @ my feet

Cleaning/covering up

Bush was doing his business (peeing/pooing) and I took a series of photos to show that cats cover their poo with soil. So neat!

Relaxing in the park

Shadow looked so comfortable resting at the foot reflexology stone pavement in the park.

Breakfast in the park

After feeding Noisy, we walked to the park to feed the cats their breakfast. We are always happy to see Shadow, Fat Cat, White Neck and Bush eating together.

Shadow looking at me with her beautiful eyes

I had to sneakily zoom in my camera to take a photo of Fat Cat or he would run away upon hearing any weird noises from my camera.

The look of White Neck after finishing his breakfast. He looked so funny with his sleepy look.

Rubbish!

I don't understand why people can't throw their rubbish in the bin provided. I feel sad and angry to see the park dirtied by such inconsiderate people.

Noisy on Christmas day morning

I brought my camera down this morning and snapped a shot of Noisy at the void deck.

Christmas Eve dinner

Before I headed for Joan's place for dinner yesterday, I tried this new chocolate cookie recipe @ the baker's blog and the cookies turned out quite nice. I brought a small container to Joan's place for them to try.

Joan whipped so many dishes for 8 of us - family and friends. And the desserts she made - creme brulee, cherry crumble and lava cake with vanilla ice cream were very delicious!

Joan and her family have also put up a Christmas tree full of angels. After dinner, we played 2 rounds of Pictionary and it was really fun for me, a first time player. I stayed over and only slept after 2am with a nice satisfied stomach.

A feast with my family on the eve of Christmas eve

Before we started our actual feast on Sat, mum had made some dessert with pre-made glutinous rice dumplings (sesame and peanut) and I took 2 .

After making shepherd's pie a few times for my family and friends, it has been quite easy to prepare the dish for my family on Sat. We ate the pie with lettuce. Mum baked some freeze honey chicken wings and I earlier bought some sushi for mum from the supermarket.

Sis suggested having Sara Lee pound cakes (chocolate or swirl) to go with ice cream and she was in charge of scooping the Dreyers ice cream on top of our slice of cakes . It was a nice sweet touch to our family dinner @ home :)