Languages

I was born with a Hokkien tongue, yes Hokkien is my mother tongue and Hokkien is a dialect of the Chinese language. Both my parents do not speak English and I wasn't sure when I was exposed to the English language. I attended an English medium school and everyone speak English in school. In Malaysia it is compulsory to study Bahasa Malaysia which is the national language of the country.

By the time I finished school I could only speak English, Bahasa Malaysia and Hokkien. In Malacca where my home is most Chinese speak Mandarin but Hokkien is acceptable to a certain level. Being educated in an English medium school and every one I know seems to speak English only, in my own little world I thought I was from England when I was a little kid .... hehe!!!

When I started working in Kuala Lumpur, the majority of people speaks Cantonese which is also a Chinese dialect which I couldn't speak a word of. Anyway I was able to get by with some kind of universal sign language and managed to learn a few word for my own survival in this vicious place. Then there was this Cantonese TV soap opera series "Man In The Net"which I have no idea how I got myself deeply interested in watching it. I don't even understand the language or dialect but I was watching it. With sheer determination I learned to understand and speak Cantonese, not to master the language but enough to get by. I was able to enjoy the Cantonese soap opera series more and continued to watch more soap operas ........ hehe!!!

My children all went to Chinese Primary School where the main medium of instruction is Mandarin and are very fluent with the language now. We parents were non speakers of this language mainly because we do not know how. Me, I had a little lesson while in primary school, very very little ...... just enough to write my own name and sometimes I even get it wrong ...blush! blush!

Recently my Princess who had just finished her final year university is back home with us and she had been speaking alot of Mandarin with me. I do not know how it started but we converse a lot in Mandarin and this really help me in improving my spoken ability for this language. I am now confidence enough to engage in a Mandarin conversation with anyone who can speak it. Princess had started blogging too, just click on Princess and you will get to her blog.

A language learned even though just spoken is very vast knowledge earned.

Pandan

The pandan is a very versatile plant even though only the leaves are useable. It's fragrant is really pleasant and is used in cooking and baking. Just as vanilla is to the Europeans, pandan is to the Asians. Yes I have it in my mini farm and it is one of the first residence.

Before planting the pandan, it was always a big challenge to get it whenever Home Minister need it for a certain dish that calls for pandan as part of its recipe. First there is the reconnaissance mission so that proper tools can be brought along for the infiltrate, retrieve and run mission ..... hehe!! In impromptu cases it is normally snatch, hide and look Innocent ........ this is only possible when the plant is by the road side.... hehe!!

Pandan is a must have for 'nasi lemak' or else it is just not 'nasi lemak'. When cooking rice just add a leaf of pandan and you will extra fragrance rice. A leaf of pandan in a kettle of boiling water for drinking will give the plain drinking water a wonderful aroma too. 'Kaya' without pandan is nonsense.

One of my favourite cake is pandan chiffon, not any store bought pandan chiffon but only home made by Home Minister herself is the best. To make pandan chiffon guest who have to extract the juice from the pandan leaves, yes yours truly...... me!Extracting the juice is no easy task, it takes about two hours and the leaves from two pandan plants to get about a quarter cup of juice concentrate. The effort is really well worth it because the juice is natural and organic while the pandan chiffon is really yummy!!

Having not eaten pandan leaf chicken for a long time, together with Princess we decided to make it ourself. She did the seasoning and baking while I did the wrapping. She had a great idea of her own to weave a basket of pandan leaves and bake the chicken in it. I preferred the traditional way of wrapping bite size pieces of chicken meat with the leaves because of the close contact of the leaves with the meat.

Pandan leaf chicken is actually a Thai dish and we had the cooking process modified to make it healthier. Instead of frying it we baked it and the aroma was fantastic. The end result was a real yummy dinner.

Stall No.1

Our Princess gave us a treat a couple of weeks ago at this open restaurant in the Portuguese Settlement. Stall no.1 as it is commonly know to many is the first stall located in the row of food stalls serving Portuguese styled seafood in the Portuguese Settlement. The actual name of the restaurant is Sea Terrace.

The first time we went there with the intention to eat was with a very close long time friend of the Home Minister from her uni days and her sister from England. We were disappointed because it was not open and we were crowded with very hard selling representative from all the other stalls....... luckily we managed to sneak away from them and made a quick getaway. We were told that if we cannot get a place in store no.1, don't bother to try the others. I guess it must be the very over selling by the hard selling from the other stalls that turn us off from even eating at any of the other stalls that day.

From our experience at stall no.1, the food is generally very much Malaccanised and there is not a hint of Portuguese in it at all, even the name of the dishes. The calamari deep fried rings were really good and it is a must eat. The BBQ clams and mussels were good too but the dip is a disappointment. The otak otak is nice and only male crabs available ......... hmmm wonder whatever happened to the females crabs, haven't had crab roe like for a thousand years.

On the whole we enjoyed the seafood dinner ....... if you are thinking of Portuguese food then it will be a real BIG disappointment, but then again were they promoting Portuguese food?? Or is it just by default that we expect Portuguese food because it is located in the Portugese Settlement and operated by them.

Oh ya! the crowd seems to be in Stall no.1 only.