The past weekend had been a glutty one! Starting with Friday night, the 21st of December, where Chinese normally celebrates the “arrival of winter”, or dong zhì. My mom asked us to go back home to have dinner; my grandma cooked so much of beautiful food which I haven’t eaten for like, ages! OK, I know what you’re going to say, that I should learn from my folks and cook at home. Go on, hit me.
But the point is, my grandma is the best cook on earth! She brewed one of my favourite soups! Onion chicken soup! It’s awfully easy to make, just boil a handful of onions till its soft and almost mushed and dissolved, taking care not to overcook and burn them, then put in some cubed carrots if you will and chicken parts, and some pounded pepper, (pepper powder is fine if you don’t have the grounds). Bring to boil and simmer over low heat for a couple of hours and add just a little salt to taste before serving; then dish out with more pepper powder if you like, and a dash of soy sauce. It’ll be finger licking good! I especially love the chicken breast when dipped in soy sauce (I love soy sauce in my soups! No need for salt, soy sauce is the way to go!)! Yummo!
So after dinner, we went straight on to join our home-life for another round of food! Not many turned up, but it was a good, quiet fellowship; until Jason brought up my creepy story in Mid Valley, then all hell broke loose and everyone shared their creepy, ghost stories! -_- I cannot sleep after that lah!
So with all the food to digest, and ghost stories to stomach, I couldn’t sleep till pretty late, and ended up waking up late the following day, the day which we were supposed to wake up early, clean up the house, and balik kampung to Melaka. Jason was a sweetie; he didn’t wake me up but cleaned up the whole house himself (which is what he does almost all weekends. Oops! :). Piggy me slept through the whole time what with his splashing of water to wash the toilet, and moving of furniture to sweep and mop. Heh. Tired mah.
Flash floods hit our southern states with Johor being the worst hit state during the pre-Christmas week. Melaka wasn’t spared either but thank God my in law’s place wasn’t affected. Scenes of submerged houses, floating cars, and rising death tolls bombarded the news and we half expected to see a ghostly Melaka town, but Jason (not me ah!) was rather disappointed to see all things were rather normal, and life goes on like any other day; but if we look closely, of course we see the terrible aftermath of the flood. Every family threw out minimum one set of their furniture, and all things were taken out from the house to be sunned, the houses were muddied, and evoked terrible fishy stench. And most victims are like any one of us, an average income earner with a family of youngs to support. It was sad.
We put up the weekend over at Sis. Chye Hong’s and we had a wonderful time fellowshipping. Her son, Zeph and Jason joined the church members and went on cleaning rounds to help flood victims to wash their houses on Christmas Eve. Jason loved it and said this should be the way to spend Christmas day - helping peeps in need instead of spending money for luxuries and jollies. The guy’s got a point.
I, the lazy bum, spent the day at David Bong’s cyber café to clear up my pending write ups; I still have 5 more articles to cover and it’s like what? 5 days more before New Year’s Day! But I’m so proud of myself because yesterday saw me churning up 3 magazine-page full of articles and by these 2 days I shall be good for the New Year countdown.
We’ve also met up Jason’s boss who’s spending the weekend holidays in Melaka, and we had thosai and Masala thosai! (I’m now officially a Masala Thosai fan!); spent Christmas Eve night having home cooked dinner prepared by Sis. Chye Hong before we headed out to the lovely Catherine and Say Wee and their daughter, Rachel’s place, where we had more food, Christmas carols, root beer float, Mr. Poo’s witty banters, and loads of laughing. The couple is one of the best house decorators in town; Christmas house decoration is an annually custom. And the home is a cosy whimsical land every year, without fail. We bought a Christmas cake and spend the quiet Christmas night with Sis’ Chye Hong and her children. It was nice. Too bad Chei Keat can’t be home for Christmas, but we all look forward to his home coming for New Year though! Oh, and Sis Chye Hong blessed us with Christmas lunch organized by the church, and we had scrumptious, village-style Chinese dishes!
You tell me, how not to get fat ah? Oh, and for Christmas, Jason bought me Starbuck's Coffee Frappucino and a box of chocolate! Bliss.
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