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Had a long chat with sis on msn today. Seems like after daylight savings ended, the 7hrs difference has made it quite difficult for us both to be online at the same time. Hence it has been quite some time since I chatted with sis. In the past, once a while, we’ll have night talks where we’ll sleep on the same bed and talk/gossip/bitch till one of us fell asleep (which 99.999% of the time is sis). I miss those sessions. It was fun. Mummy who is a super light sleeper will complain that we are wasting electricity cos our room light will be on or she will come into the room (to scold us) and we’ll pretend to be asleep then when mummy left we’ll burst out laughing. Its just so coincidental that sis (ace is staying at his grandparent’s and max is out) and I (net having night flying so I dun have to cook dinner) are alone at home and are free.

It was a good long heart to heart “chat”. We were discussing how our life story were actually quite similar. It seems like we were living the same life, but in different countries. I mean everything that sis told me, I can totally relate cos they are what I have been feeling lately also. I always tought only twins have telephaty. I think sis and me have telepathy also.

I just want to say that you are not alone, sis. Here I am, on the other side of the globe, feeling the exact same feelings as u are feeling. And I really miss u loads loads loads. Though our chat is short just now (as compared to our night talks) but I felt hey, I am not alone out there. Somehow I felt better knowing this. So jia you ok?? I love you!! 

 miss hanging out… just the 2 of us…

Hence when it comes to our regular tea session, we decided to do Oreo Cheesecake. Whoever invented Oreo cookies, I think he/she is damn smart la cos Oreo goes with anything. You can put Oreo cookies in ice cream, in cakes, they all taste good.

And this is the end result of our cheesecake. Recipe taken from Kraft website.

 perfect for tea time…

I have baked several cheesecakes and till now my cakes still crack, although the severity of the crack is getting lesser each time I bake. I am still figuring the way to bake a perfect cheesecake. Will be baking it again for sure. I just bought a baking tin big enough for me to do steam baking. Keke.

One food that is very close to my heart is soya sauce chicken. This is my ah mah’s speciality. When I was young, ah mah will definitely cook soya sauce chicken when we go to her place for dinner. We will always request for her to cook this dish when we are there. We never get tired of it. And ah mah will make sure that each of us will have one drumstick. Tll now, I have never eaten a soya sauce chicken that tastes nicer than hers. My ah mah cooks the best soya sauce chicken in the world.

As ah mah gets older, she gradually stopped cooking. Now, I think she won’t even remember how to cook soya sauce chicken anymore. It has been a long long time since I last ate her soya sauce chicken and I have never stopped missing it.

Hence, when I came across the recipe for soya sauce chicken one day, I was very happy and I decided I must cook it. And this is my soya sauce chicken.

My soya sauce chicken definitely doesn’t taste as nice as ah mah’s. But it brings a heartwarming smile to my face as I was telling net how ah mah will always cook this dish when my cousins and us (sis and I) went over to her house, how we will always stay over at her place during school holidays, the silly games we play, how ah mah always cook many many dishes and how yeye will always open canned lychee after dinner…

I wished I can be back in Singapore this very moment to cook this dish for ah mah and I will tell her: you cook soya sauce chicken for me when I was young. Now you are old, it is my turn to cook for you. Hopefully this dish will bring her as many happy memories as it has brought me.

**

My house phone rang the other day. Thinking it was net, since he is the only one who calls our house phone. Turns out, I was wrong. It was some telemarketeer trying to get us to sign on with thier internet service. The guy was blahing away in french and I do not understand a single word he said. So I asked him my best one-liner french: parlez vous anglais (do you speak english)? He paused for a second and said: A little. You no speak french?? I answered: No. And he retorted: Then why you live in France?? Wah lau, I was damn pissed when he said that. In my mind I was thinking: KNN!! You think limpeh like to stay in your country ah?? If limpeh got choice, limpeh will go live in a country which speaks english. Kaoz. Anyway, after he said that i just told him: Je parle petit peu francais (I speak a little french). And he resumed back to speaking french. But whatever he said, I just replied: pardon, je nai sai pas (sorry, I don’t know). After a while, he got fed up and ended the call. Hahaha.

**

 (this is specially for power)

Lately, I am hooked to this game called cafeworld on fb, where you managed a cafe, earn points to level up and earn money to decorate your cafe. In this game, you can hire your friends to be your waiter/waitress. Su was the one who introduced this game to me so when I first have to hire a friend, I chose her. As my level got higher and I expanded my cafe, I was able to hire more helpers and I subsequently hired net (feels good to see him serving in my cafe, eventhough its just virtual) and my sis. Keke. I was so hooked to this game that I was playing it everyday. One night, while I was playing, I noticed that eventhough I have a lot of food on the counters, my waiter/waitresses are not serving the customers. They just stood at one corner, not moving. Initially I thought there was something wrong with the game so I log off and login again. Same problem. Then I thought maybe I need to change the waiters so I “fired” my sis and “hired” power. But it’s still the same. Power, being the newest waitress, is not serving food as well. So I told net something is wrong with the game. I told him I changed waiter already but the problem is still there. And net asked me:

Net: huh?? u fired me ah??

Me: no, I changed my sis.

Net: so who did you hire?

Me: power. keke

Net: aiya, you hire power, she so KL one, of course she won’t serve customer for you la. hahahaha.

In the end, after much pondering, I finally realised what is wrong. I adjusted my counters and it seems that I have accidentally trapped my waiters between the counters and the tables. :p

So, the problem is solved and now power is happily serving food on my cafe. If you are playing cafe world as well, please add me as your neighbour.

When net first asked me if I wanted to go watch the matches live, I wasn’t keen. I am not a soccer fan afterall. But net says the atmosphere at the stadium is very different and it is something that I should experience at least once in my life. What’s more, the chances of me catching a UEFA match live is near zero when we are back in Singapore. So I agreed. There were 3 matches in total. 1st match, Bordeaux vs Macabi. 2nd match, Bordeaux vs Bayern Munich and the last match is Bordeaux vs Juventus. I was only interested to watch the last match but the price of getting only one match ticket is almost the same as getting all 3 matches and hence we bought tixs for all 3 of them.

As what net has said, the atmosphere was indeed very different. The whole stadium is filled with people cheering. And eventhough it was homeground for Bordeaux, there was still a section of Bayern fans and they were cheering and singing almost throughout the whole match.

We were “seated” behind the goalpost, which is where the diehard Bordeaux fans were situated. Beside us were the competittor’s fans. I punctuated seated because everyone was standing and its impossible to sit if you want to catch the match. So I stood for a full 90 mins. Bayern fans, though were only a small portion compared to Bordeaux fans, as they were the away team, their cheering was no softer than Bordeauxs’. They sang, cheered and waved their flags almost throughout the match (only stopped when it became quite apparent that Bordeaux would most probably win the match). Sercurity was also very tight throughout to make sure that no Bordeaux fan will come into contact with any Bayern fans. But during halftime, there was a fight within the Bayern fans. Dunno what happened, why they would have internal fight but everyone at Bordeaux side was booing them when they fought. Alot of them even took out their cameras and phones to take pics and videos. I was too hum to do that so I just watched on.

Though Bordeaux won the match, but its a pity that they missed the 2 penalties. If you ask me, watching the match on TV will give you a clearer view but watching the live match is full of excitement and anticipation. Especially when a goal was scored, and more so if that goal is an equalizer or puts the team ahead. The crowd just  goes ecastic. They cheered, they burn this red flash thingy. And when they felt the referee was unjust, or if the opponent team’s goal keeper is taking too much time to kick the ball (wasting time), they booed and booed.

I took this video after Bordeaux scored a goal. Can hear how loud the fans are cheering. At the end of the video, there is a section of fans in red. Those are the Bayern fans. 

Overall, watching live football is fun. I am very looking forward to the next match, which is Bordeaux vs Juventus. I just discovered Buffon is the goal keeper for Juventus. I love him (after Totti of course, but too bad Totti is in Roma and not Juventus)!! But since we will be sitting with the Bordeaux fans, I think I will support Bordeaux but secretly support Juventus. :p

Some pictures that I’ve taken.

 see the red spark of light? that was what the fans will light when Bordeaux scored a goal.

 getting ready to kick the penalty…

 the final score: 2:1

 match ended.

 Bordeaux team doing their warm down. We wanted to stay cause we heard that sometimes they will throw their jerserys to the spectators when they are doing their warm downs. But the sercurity was chasing us away. Seems that if we don’t clear, they cant let the Bayern fans go. That’s how tight the sercurity was.

 net and me. I purposely wore my navy blue trench coat and red scarf (which was passed to net later cos it was damn cold and he didnt bring  his jacket), the colour of the Bordeaux jersey. But they wore their red away jersey that day. I wonder why.

One of the tong shui which I liked very much is Ginko Barley (yee mai fu zhok). Ginko is good for the brains, barley is cooling and fu zhok (the beancurd skin) is good for the skin. So this is a very nourishing dessert that is good for the body and our beauty.

In my opinion, Ginko Barley is also one of daddy’s best dessert. He cooks it differently. Where the normal ginko barley has transparent soup, daddy’s soup is white and tastes like bean curd. And finally, I have found the recipe (from one of the wives here) to cook fu zhok daddy’s style.

 can be served hot or cold. both ways equally yummy

This dessert reminds me of daddy. Today is daddy’s birthday. Happy birthday, daddy. Every year when we celebrate daddy’s birthday, he has to cook for the celebration. Next year I will whip up a fest for u.

To my very much surprise, it is actually quite easy to cook cereal prawn. Think I will never eat cereal prawn outside again cos cooking myself saves a lot of moolah!! We had a damn full dinner that night. We’ll be doing laksa yong tau hu this week.

 Actually I was quite proud of myself. First attempt and its a success!! There is still big room for improvement la but I feel happy to see everyone savouring it so happily.

I know my blog is turning into a food blog. But there is nothing much interesting in my life other than what I’ve been cooking. I still have loads of stuffs I’ve baked and cooked that I have not posted yet. Coming soon.

Best part of being here is definitely being able to explore the European countries. I have never been much of a traveller and being able to cover so many European countries in a span of 1 year is like a dream come true for me.

I guess the other big reward I got here is that my cooking skills has improved tremendously. I would never imgine that one day I’d be able to cook so many dishes nor would I imagine that one day I’d be able to bake beautiful cakes. Though I wouldn’t say that I am a good cook or baker, but I have past the stage of thinking it is impossible to cook or bake anything (unless I can’t get the ingredients here) if I have the recipe.

Actually other than cooking/baking, my clothes folding, mopping, scrubbing, vaccuming, washing skills and speed also improved by leaps and bounds. I think my Chinese also improved (from reading the subtitles when watching K dramas) Keke.

 But the greatest gift I have received from being here is my deeper understanding of building a relationship between husbands and wifes. Well, this is a stage I think all newly weds will go through but I think being here without families, and the drastic change in our lifestyle has amplified and maybe sped up the process. There were tears, pouty silences, hurtful words in the process but we have overcame them and each time we did, we got one step closer to partnership.

The uneventful part of life here would be the mundane stuffs I am doing everyday, which is really nothing much. Sometimes I get so bored I want to cry. And then I’d feel totally useless, my self esteem dips, I feel like there is nothing to look forward to. But I am still coming to terms with my self worth issue. I think god must have heard my complains cos An and I are starting a small project. Will blog about it when everything is finalised.

So there. I love France, I hate France. Till now if you asked me would I want to stay another year if I have the choice, I’d tell you I really don’t know. Sometimes I wished we can be here longer, sometimes I wished we can go back tomorrow.

For the record, my french still sucks big time. I still cannot hold a decent conversation or understand what the cashier is telling me. Net says I have been attending French class for nothing. Keke :p

So, under net’s suggestion, we cooked prawn mee soup and invited An and Mal (our mj addict neighbours) up for dinner followed by mooncake appreciation followed by MJ.

The prawn mee soup recipe was from Francis, who is known to cook the best prawn mee soup in La Teste. Surprisingly, its not very difficult to cook. But u need to have ample time to stew a pot of delicious aromatic prawn soup.

 praw mee in a row… ready to be eaten

 view of the full moon from our balcony… we eat and 赏月at the same time…