Lunch hour shopping again

又是 Lex Living 減價.  雖然家裏已有很多silicone utensils, 但看到這個粉藍色的, 仍然是忍不住買一個. 只要$25.

這種silicone 煲蓋, 很好用.  家裏有一個跟了我十年的不锈鋼煲, 小小的, 是我最常用的煲, 雖然用了十年, 但仍好好的, 只是之前的玻璃蓋摔爛了, 新配的蓋肉眼看好像很perfect, 但水滾時總是會在邊緣噴水出來, 之後換了一個這種矽膠蓋, 天衣無縫!  所以現在追加一個. 只要$36 元一個.
 

抺布一set 三條, 之前減價看過, $150七折, 也要$105, 沒有買. 現在只要 $30, 跳樓價! 

淘寶買物9-Martha Stewart Cake Stand

今次給我找到Martha Stewart 的 cake stand:

這隻碟的花紋很立體:

 

這個ceramic 的東東, 原本是花盆, 我打算把它當colander:

 

 

這兩隻小鴨子手工很好, 大愛!

 

石頭記

老爸喜歡人有我有, 見很多街坊都買了風乾機為愛犬做風乾小食, 就買了一部回家, 至今已有半年, 一次也沒有用過!  其實我覺得用風乾機做狗零食真的很無聊, 因為狗狗來來去去都是吃風乾雞肉, 牛肉, 三文魚......那些.  一次風乾要很久才完成, 為何不索性烚些雞牛肉給他們, 有些水份又不用浪費電力和時間. 

近來, 媽媽說老爸看到街坊買了個麵包機, 又有些心癢癢.  我怕他又弄一部回家 (但買了又不用), 於是便試試自己焗麵包.  早前買了獨角仙的書, 但發現內裏的recipe 都是用17小時的方法.  對於心急的我不大管用.  於是又翻開發黃的中學家政書來看, 因為當年所學的都已忘記了. 唯一記得的是當時我們是把bread dough 放在穫內蓋著, 再藏於廚柜內, 讓它發酵 (多原始!!!), 兩個多小時內每個同學都可做好自己的包包的.

跟著就做了這兩個石頭包出來.
表面看上去好像沒有大問題, 雖然樣子有點像皮蛋酥!

Moon My Love

星期天參加了Nuffnang 的情人節藝術派對 Painting Jam. 

其實一直也想學畫畫, 也曾經借書回家研究一番.  但奈何自己真的丁點天份也沒有, 總沒有勇氣去報名學繪畫. 在一班畫工出眾的小豆丁中鶴立雞群一定不好受, 也總覺得參加成人畫班的都是高人. 這次painting jam 就正好給自己一次機會, 試試畫畫是什麼一回事, 要什麼工具, 什麼材料. 讓我以後可以自己在家試畫.  多謝Nuffnang!
 
以下就是我的完全2D 拙作.  我覺得自己其實不是在繪畫, 而是在起草, 然後填色. 

為了貼近情人節的題目, 我便把强行把這畫當作是我老公的情人節禮物 (雖然還是只有自己才懂得欣賞), 然後再由他轉贈他的愛犬矇豬,  全句意思是 'The Moon My Love'.

字的來源是這樣的: 愛犬的名字隨老公心情常有不同: 例如:　矇, 矇仔,豬,豬仔, Moon......  叫得多, 我也跟了他叫 MOON.  現在叫以上任何一個名字, 我的愛犬也懂回應!　 

大皇的私人餐桌

我爸為我家大皇度身訂做的私人餐桌:

金屬部份可是來自我家的樓梯扶手!


很滿意! 又夠紮實, 又靚, 又夠高.  和我家慣用SK-II 的長腿矇很配襯呢!!

A good start to a fine day!

Having dragged myself through a couple of not-as-gripping/entertaining/inspiring-as-expected novels by Jeffery Archer, I finally find a book that can lighten up my morning - "YES MAN" by Danny Wallace.

It was described by Anneli Rufus of East Bay Express as "seizure-inducingly funny" and I can't agree more!
I have read up to p.10 only but couldn't hold my laughs on the bus this morning.

And then at breakfast, I read the column by 李純恩 about his happy encounter with some Indian lamas in Bhutan.  He wrote "佛寺也有外地和尚來參觀, 這天碰到一群印度喇嘛, 個個長相奇特, 拿着相機求我幫他們拍合影, 拍完了我說我也要替他們拍幾張, 欣然答應.  我讓他們幾個將大腦袋擠在一起, 照片拍得非常歡樂, 他們看了, 都興奮大叫起來."

Happiness can be as simple as that!  What a good start to a new day!

自製狗狗蛋糕

爸爸的愛犬Jacky 十一月七歲生日, 不過媽媽新年前才告訴我.  年初二那天做了個小蛋糕帶去補祝他生日.

就是這個粟子蛋糕:

Jacky很乖的.  雖然很想吃蛋糕, 但望都唔敢望, 看著我爸等指示

結果我分了很大份給他.

另外又做了些小小的黑芝麻杏仁蛋糕給狗狗.  不過沒有下油, 又沒有chemical raising agent, 實的的.

爸爸的狗狗很比面, 幾秒便吃完一個. 矇豬就有點勉强.

今天到蛋糕材料鋪, 看到有pandan cake mix, 買回家下午做來吃.  雖然過甜, 但也頗好吃.  忘記了要拍照.  下次要找些斑蘭葉自己做一個pandan cake. 

自己吃之餘也用家裏有的材料做了個包羅萬有的cake 給矇豬和爸爸的愛犬們.  蛋糕內有 榛子粉, wheat germ , cranberries.  也是無糖, 無fat, 無chemical raisng agent , 實的的那種. 矇豬好像也不是十分喜歡吃.  希望 爸爸的愛犬會比面!

大帝:
 

露宿者 x Miss HK x 日皇矇仁

祝大家龍年龍馬精神, 開開心心, 主人盤滿砵滿, 小動物們健康精靈!

Nothing to Envy Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

I have always been interested in reading about North Korea - one of the countries George Bush labeled the “axes of evil”.  The author of “Nothing to Envy Ordinary Lives in North Korea ”, Ms. Barbara Demick, was the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.  After interviewing about 100 North Koreans who defected to Seoul and visiting North Korea herself nine times, she wrote this book about the poignant stories of six North Koreans who once lived in Chongjin, a poor industrial town in the northeast.  The book is so absorbing from start to end and I am going to write in some length to introduce to you the tragic experiences of the six defectors.

The darkness

Demick began her book with a striking satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night – prosperous South Korea lit up by cities and commerce, in stark contrast with the total darkness of North Korea.

Photo Source: 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/10/061011-d -6570c -001.jpg

Mi-ran and Jun-sang

Mi-ran and Jun-sang were once lovers.  Mi-ran is the daughter of a kaolin miner, a South Korean prisoner of war and the ‘tainted blood’ has disqualified Mi-ran from moving up the social ladder.  On the other hand, Jun-sang came from a high-ranking family.  They took advantage of the complete absence of electricity and had romantic walks in the pitch black night, the only time the police in Chongjin could not locate them.  Had they been caught holding hands in the daytime, Jun-sang could have lost his job prospects.  According to Mi-ran’s recount, “It took us three years to hold hands. Another six to kiss.  At the time I left North Korea, I was 26 years old and a schoolteacher, but I didn’t know how babies were conceived.”

Jun-sang eventually went to a college in Pyongyang to study science and continued the romance with Mi-ran from afar.  However, the situation became far worse after the famine was at its peak in the 1990s.  Mi-ran witnessed her once cheerful students eaten away slowly by malnutrition-their limbs became bony, stomachs blown up, heads disproportionate to their bodies.  Fewer and fewer students showed up in class each month.

Compared to Mi-ran, Jun-sang had lived a relatively better life.  As a future scientist, he enjoyed more and better food at school.  He also had access to pirated broadcasts from the South.  However, as he had always been, like other North Koreans were, so isolated from the outside world all his life, when he first saw or heard reports of the lives of South Korean, he was skeptical about them. 

Despite the truth being laid out before the bare eyes of North Korean, the government assured its citizens that all was fine.  Officials accused the “American imperialist bastards” of creating the shortage by imposing on North Korea a blockade of food and oil.  In 1998, Mi-ran fled across the northern border to China and then flew to Seoul . She split with her lover and left without a word fearing that he would tell the secret police.

Devastated, Jun-sang followed her six years later to South Korea .  But it was too late: by then, she had married a South Korean.

Mrs. Song and Oak-Hee

Two defectors were a daughter and mother.  Mrs Song was a good communist housewife and head of the block’s inminban. Oak-hee, was her rebellious and enterprising daughter.  

In most part of her life, Mrs Song was committed to the cult of Kim Jong-il. She polished his photograph daily.  Family members who expressed the faintest sign of doubt about the regime were severely scolded by her.  She kept her job in a local factory till the very end even with no wages. When her husband died of starvation in their marriage bed, she still told herself that the country's misfortune was the fault of the American devils.

About Mrs. Song’s daughter, Oak-hee, I recalled her narratives of how North Koreans’ food rations were exchanged with a bucket of human poo.  The fields in North Korea were fertilised with human excrement.  Oak-hee was required to produce and bring to a barn a bucket of poo every week so that she would receive a chit for their food rations.  When nobody was watching the buckets of poo, Oak-hee would steal one and pretend it was her family's. 

However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea ’s frail economy also collapsed and the country ran out of money, goods and most importantly, food.  All the frogs in the country had disappeared into frying pans.  Dogs, which are traditionally on the Korean menu, had even less chance.  Half-dead from hunger, Mrs Song saw on sale in the market place rare sacks of rice stamped with Stars and Stripes, which were of course American food aid but sold for personal profit by the North Korean military.

Oak-hee’s hunger and hard life at home eventually sent her on a dangerous flight across a river into China.  She discovered from television the truth about her homeland when she crossed the border.  She later tricked her mother into visiting China and then lured her to South Korea.

With the deaths of her husband and son from slow starvation, and the flight of Oak-hee, Mrs. Song decided to leave North Korea and seek a new life with her daughter.  With Oak-hee’s arrangement and refugee smugglers’ assistance, Mrs Song went across the border into China.  One of the first things she saw was a dog being fed on a bowl of rice and meat.  The fact that dogs in rural north-eastern China ate better than the people of North Korea crumbled what Mrs Song had known and believed into dust.

Demick met with Mrs. Song regularly for dinner after she had settled into South Korean life.  According to Demick, Mrs Song said one night as they sat around a pot of shabu shabu, “When I see a good meal like this, it makes me cry,” “I can’t helping thinking of my husband’s last words, ‘Let’s go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine.' And when it came to her son, she was unable to speak.

(to be continued)