Went to the Dandenongs on Friday.

Heh, enjoy driving my Jazz. It’s a simple, fun and effective car. It’s great for those countryside drives on occasion.

The destination was Miss Marples, a little cottage like looking place. Very cozy indoors, serving all sorts of European foods. On the menu they had salads, pies but we came for the dessert.

Carol and Vyanne ordered scones, while Ken had a Vicar’s Folly. I settled for Belgian Waffles the second the words popped into my mind from the menu. It’s to do with nostalgia of having waffles at A&W back in KL. The treats were gigantic in proportion and we washed it down with either tea or coffee.

Now to make your mouth water.

Belgian Waffle. Waffles with cream, ice cream and a sauce made from blueberries and raspberries.

Vicar’s Folly. Loaded with ice cream, honeycomb chocolate and a drizzle of caramel.

Scones not pictured, but eaten with butter and cream. Yum.

Am in Melbourne now, and will write about the horrendously long journey that was the 30 hour flight in a separate post.

On a lighter note, was at cousin’s place cooking pasta tonight, I made the sauce and she decided to have a go at making the actual pasta itself. I’m usually just content with boiling those things from packets as I have no idea how dough works anyhow.

So this is cousin chopping up the sheets to make pasta. The end product was something akin to ‘ban mein’, we were just missing the anchovies, pork mince, mushrooms and stock.

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Made pancakes this morning. I’ve been trying to make them on and off for 5 years now. Recipe books are quite useless other than to give you inspiration for ingredients at times. If you are a cooking idiot, like I was way at the beginning, you probably wouldn’t know what the ingredients looked like or what to do with them. The evolution of how I made pancakes started from my getting either a very runny mixture or something with the viscosity of mud. After that I’d have problems getting it to look like a pancake in the frying pan as they either extended like octopus tentacles or would not come out of the ladle at all due to the thickness of the mixture. I also recall at the beginning when I had no idea when to flip the pancake and ended up with mixture stuck to my spatula half the time and a half circle pancake. I have made black pancakes on occasion, turning the heat too high up.

So five years later, and after numerous attempts, I’ve finally understood the one to one ratio between flour and milk. Want a fluffier pancake, beat the eggwhites separately first before mixing them in. Add just enough butter to oil the pan (I’m a little partial to cast iron skillets now as they have better heat transfer, and all this is only open theory at the moment as I have no way to test it) and to get the pan hot enough. You ladle some mixture in and it should just slowly spread out nicely in a circular fashion. If it’s running off in all directions or not moving at all means it’s the wrong consistency. When you start to see the surface of the pancake bubbling, you know the other side has cooked enough to hold the shape of the pancake and you can now flip it. Heh, with just the tip of the spatula you can loosen the pancake from the pan and with some wrist action, you can flip the pancake without needing to touch it.

So now the pancakes come out pretty ok. I’m quite happy with them at the moment but would like to continue experimenting to get something more tasty out.

Heh, cooking is just stress relieving and so much fun. Think of it as problem solving that satisfies your stomach.

Managed to get all my stuff from my old place near Times Square to the new one in Jersey City. Underestimated the stuff I still had left behind and while I managed to coax all the stuff into my bag, it was quite a feat moving it from apartment to subway and subway to another subway to get to Jersey City. I still need to rid myself of that bad habit of leaving things to the last minute. Not sure why, but sometimes its just insecurity that causes me to procrastinate.

Finally here now, and feeling quite relieved. That’s part of the day gone and I’m glad that things are still going fine. Last issue is making my way to the airport and getting onto the plane. Heh, always manage to dramatise all of these issues but I’d prefer to be on the safe side. This is going to sound absurb, but for once I’d be happy to see the air stewards/stewardess on a Malaysian Airlines flight. Heh, I’ve grown so familiar with Malaysian/Australian faces and culture that it’s a comforting sight.

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Haven’t posted photos in a while, heh, here is one of me having ramen at some nice restaurant just near my workplace. It was a large bowl, and if it wasn’t for the two pints of Guinness plus Corona I had before dinner, I’d have wolfed it down hungrily.

Looking forward to the sights, sounds and smells of Melbourne and Malaysia.