Fowl manners

At the market today, I bought a chicken from my regular vendor.  A middle-aged woman was there before me but she was dallying over the chicken pieces.  I chose one chicken which the vendor immediately cut up.  Then she asked him to hurry up and tally up her purchases as she had to rush home.

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long but you’re still undecided,” he said.  He stopped chopping and tended to her.  After she left, he complained about that customer.

“Do you know that lady is a headmistress?  But I don’t like her as she’s very rude.  She always throws her money to me.  Sometimes it lands into the chicken.”  He pointed to a tray of innards.  “And I have to fish it out from there and the money gets wet and dirty.  I’m selling you things, you know, not asking for a hand-out.  Why must simply throw the money?  She’s so scared of touching my hand.  Today because you all are here, she gives me the money properly.”

No matter who we are and what we do, we want to be treated with some respect, don’t we?  People have feelings of self-worth, no matter how menial the task they perform.  Even fowl sellers crave no foul manners.

Be nice

Literary Saturday

Date: 28th June, 2008
Time: 3.30pm
Place: Seksan’s, 67, Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar (Map)

The readers for this month are:

• Lydia Teh – skilled observer of Malaysian life, reading some fiction for a change! (My first!)
• Elmo Jayawardena – award winning Sri Lankan author and all-round sweetheart
• Clarissa Tan – Singapore-based Malaysian winner of the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize
• Kam Raslan – giving us another rib-tickling episode in the life of our favourite datuk!
• Shahriza Hussein – author of the historical novel, Legacy
• Jacqueline Ann Surin – journalist, and author of Shape of a Pocket
  

We also have Zulkifli Ramli of the band Dewangga Sakti playing the gambus for us (listen here!) and a book giveaway sponsored by Pansing. (The books donated by are three of the titles nominated for the Best of Booker : The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Winners will be decided by lucky draw.)

Elmo will be bringing copies of his book Sam’s Story to sell to raise funds for AFLAC – the charity he founded.

Admission free and everyone very welcome. Please pass on the invitation to anyone else you think might be interested.

Above info and poster lifted from Sharon Bakar’s blog.

If you’re going to be in Bangsar this Saturday, you could also drop by MPH for this :

MPH Breakfast Club with … Elmo JAYAWARDENA

“COFFEE, CURRY PUFFS AND BOOKS:
WHAT A TANTALISING COMBINATION!”

The 14th MPH Breakfast Club on Saturday, June 28, 2008, at 11.30a.m. to 1.00p.m., will be featuring Singapore-based Sri Lankan novelist and short-story writer Elmo Jayawardena, the author of such novels as Sam’s Story (Vijitha Yapa Publications, Sri Lanka, 2000; Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 2004) and The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay (M.D. Gunasena & Co., Sri Lanka, 2003), as well as a self-published collection of short stories, Rainbows in Braille (Elmo Jayawardena, 2007).

Elmo Jayawardena writes novels and short stories when he is not flying jets for Singapore Airlines or working for his charitable foundation, AFLAC International. His first novel, Sam’s Story, was first published in Sri Lanka by Vijitha Yapa Publications in 2000 and in Singapore by Marshall Cavendish in 2004, and was awarded the prestigious 2001 Gratiaen Prize for the best literary work in English in Sri Lanka. (Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for The English Patient in 1992. In 1993, he gifted his prize money to institute a literary award in Sri Lanka, called the Gratiaen Prize, for the country’s best creative writing in English.) The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay, his second novel, won the State Literary Award in Sri Lanka for the best book of 2005. Jayawardena retired from Singapore Airlines in 2007 and now trains pilots for Sri Lankan Airlines.

Eric Forbes will be introducing Elmo Jayawardena while Tan May Lee will be moderating the session.

Date June 28, 2008 (Saturday)
Time 11.30a.m.-1.00p.m.
Venue MPH Bangsar Village II Lot 2F-1 (2nd Floor), Bangsar Village II, No. 2 Jalan Telawi 1, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Phone (603) 2287 3600

Food and refreshments will be served
All lovers of literature are most welcome

Info obtained from Eric Forbe’s blog.

A trio of books

For the past few months, my reading had been kind of sketchy. Due to writer’s block, I started to read again. Three books I devoured recently :

1. Jeffrey Archer’s A Twist in the Tale

2. Jodi Picoult’s Plain Truth

3. Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

I’m the sort who can’t wait to get to the end of the book if it’s a page turner. That’s why I’m scared to read such books as I’ll procrastinate and put-off other tasks in order to tear through the book at a feverish speed. Plain Truth is such a book. It’s about a disillusioned high-flying lawyer defending an unmarried Amish girl accused of murdering her new-born. Though sometimes the book tends to get a bit draggy on the Amish way of life and the court drama, it’s still a good read. It’s entertaining and informative (all that stuff about the Amish) and packs in a surprise ending.

Speaking of which, A Twist in the Tale has a surprise in each story. Not all the stories are good though. Not The Real Thing had so many incidents one leading to another that it would’ve been better off as a book on its own. In any case I didn’t finish this story as it was too hard to follow the chain of events. The Perfect Murder is a gripping read; Christina Rosenthal a tad too sentimental.

I keep referring to Haruki Murakami as Harukami. This is the first time I’m reading his book and I can tell you it’s depressing. I’m three quarters into the book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. So far, I can’t make sense of half the stories I’ve read, and the other half made me want to curl up into a ball and disappear into a crack in the wall. The sense of desolation and loneliness comes across so thick it’s almost suffocating. A story in point – Toni Takitani. If you’re down in the dumps, don’t read this one. It’ll send you spiralling down further.

I think I should to stick to short stories.  This way I won’t feel torn if I have to put down the book in order to hang up the laundry or cook.  A friend of mine had a way of dealing with can’t-wait-till-end-of-book-to-find-out-what-happens.  She reads the ending first so that she can then leisurely go through the book.  I’ll never do that!  What a way to kill off the reading experience.  Perhaps I should read more literary books like Harukami’s.  I can then take my own sweet time.

Dried up

Oh dear, I seem to be running dry.  Words just won’t flow.  It’s like trying to wring water out of rocks.  See, even the metaphor is so stale.

There are so many things I want to write about but thoughts won’t translate into words.  Words, words, I need words.  Where are you?  Floating in the breeze… Sailing in the ocean… Trudging wearily in the desert… Of my mind.

Maybe I should try a different tack.  Write on a laptop instead of a paper notebook and the desktop where I’m so easily distracted by the Internet.  Time to get a laptop?  Anyone has an old unit you want to sell cheap cheap?

Popular Winners

Congratulations to the winners of this contest!!

First prize – RM50 Popular book vouchers won by Lycia

Second prize – RM30 Popular book vouchers von by Picatho

Third prize – RM20 Popular book vouchers won by Kok

This is the second time that Picatho has won something from this blog. I was soooo tempted to chuck his name in order to give chance to those who haven’t won anything but since that wasn’t a condition of the contest, I couldn’t do that without feeling manipulative. Yes, nobody would be any wiser but I can’t have that on my conscience. All I can say is that luck is on your side, Picatho!  Congrats!

Winners, please email your address to tehlydia@yahoo.com. For the others who didn’t win anything, don’t worry, there’ll be other opportunities. Persistence does pay off. Ask Kok.

To all who have taken part and offered your well wishes, thank you very much.

Cheap carrot cake

Everyday we hear that prices of commodities are going up. Next up is petrol. On everyone’s lips is the catch phrase “lifestyle changes”. Don’t complain you don’t have money when you still drink coffee that costs RM10 per cup. Or eat a slice of carrot cake that costs RM5. I’m not saying we shouldn’t splurge once in a while for a treat. But if we regularly eat stuff like this, it’s no wonder our pockets will be burned through with a hole the size of Mars.

Eating in is one of the best ways to save money. For my family of six, I can cook a nice western meal for less than RM30. The same meal will cost me more than double in the restaurants. A simple fare of rice and three dishes cost anything from RM10 to M20 depending on how much meat I serve.

And for some sweet indulgence, bake your own carrot cake. The above cake costs me less than RM10 to make. (Compare that with RM5 per slice!) We had it for dessert and breakfast. For a long time I had been searching for a nice and simple recipe (using easily available ingredients). Recently my friend Jo who loves to bake, gave me this recipe. It is healthy too as there’s no butter and plenty of carrots.

No. 3 doesn’t like vegetables and I was able to persuade him to take a small slice to try. “You won’t be able to taste the carrots,” I said.

“No! No! Don’t ask him to try, he’ll eat a lot and we’ll get less!” the older kids had said earlier.

“Mmmm… nice,” no. 3 said after a bite, and served himself a second helping.

Oh no!

If you like to try your hand at it, here’s the recipe :

Swiss Carrot Cake

• 5 eggs
• 9 oz sugar
• 9 oz finely grated carrot
• 9 oz ground almonds (I used 4 oz only)
• 1 lemon juice and peel (I couldn’t find lemon so I used juice of 4 limes)
• 3 oz plain flour (I used 8 oz to make up for the shortfall in almonds)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

Whisk egg yolks and sugar till  it looks like thick cream. Add carrot, lemon juice, peel and ground almonds. Stir until well mixed. Fold in alternately egg white (which had been whisked till firm) and flour. Pour into 8″ tin and baked in preheated oven at 180 deg C for 30-40 minutes. Spread icing when cake is cool.

Topping : 8 oz icing sugar mixed with lemon juice.

I didn’t use Jo’s topping recipe. Instead I used a cream cheese icing which I copied from a cinammon roll recipe.

Cream cheese icing :

• 3 oz package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt

Beat all ingredients together till well mixed. Spread on cooled cake. I only used half of this serving for the cake. The remainder can be refrigerated for future use.

Sometimes the modification I make to the recipes yields disastrous results but fortunately the cake turned out pretty good. The colour is yellowish orangy and the texture is moist and crumbly. Next time I will use brown sugar.

Anyone has a simple and tasty carrot cake recipe to share? (Simple as in easy to make and ingredients are easily available).