家卉Tisha's 21st BD celebration on Elysium 10 Dec 2011

家卉Tisha's 21st BD celebration on Elysium 10 Dec 2011

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Mummy's Birthday

Mum's 70th birthday! A time for celebration.

I've known my mum for 39 years. The time I spend with her has far exceeded the time I spent with my natural mum (deceased). She cares for my sister & I since we were little. Always giving & feeding us the best she can, even after my dad has passed away. A virtue I've learned from her is to always be sincere to others & do not expect a good deed done to be rewarded in kind. She is always so contented & joyful . I know she is the kind of mum every child will wish to have & cherish.

Although it was just another dinner with her, I wanted this dinner to be a little special for her. I know she likes novelty eating places, so this time round, I chose a table at Gallery by the Straits, to dine by the seaside.

We could see the sunset & feel the sea breeze while enjoying our dinner. That's definitely something I believe she would have enjoyed & will remember.

I pray & ask for God's grace & blessings in watching over my mum with good health & happiness, always.

Reminiscence of the Past

Hi, my dear cousin,

Those were the happy kiddie days when you & I would meet often whenever I stayed over at grandma's place during the school holidays.

Your house was just right behind grandma's, divided by a small field. Because of the easy walking distance separating the two houses; for easy access, a footpath was crafted out by clearing a tidy stretch of wild grass in the field just right between the two doors of the houses. Over the years, with all the many frequent steps on that footpath; interestingly, no grass could have a chance to re-surface on that stretch of soil, ha ha ha ...

So easy & convenient was the accessibility that I did not have to worry about sometime having to stay up a little late at your place to finish watching a TV program together with all my other dear cousins (of course, I am referring to Pat, Victor & Sylvia). For the sake of my safety, you would stood by your back door to make sure that I have safely walked across the pitch-dark field back to grandma's house & shut my door behind me before you would shut yours. Thank you for that thoughtfulness - I appreciate that deep down in my heart.

I believe you will remember, one of our favourite past-times was to stroll the shopping area around the Hollywood Theatre along Tanjong Katong Road. That theatre was situated next to the Lion City Hotel. The site is now occupied by Sheng Shiong Supermarket. In those days, there wasn't any such hip places like those we can see along the Orchard Road belt now. Anyway, that was our hip during that time, ha ha ha.

We, the two cousins, would spend many afternoons window shopping in the Chinese Emporium & buy our favourite yummy snacks with our savings from school pocket money. Oh! I really miss the fragrant spicy chicken curry puffs. Hmmm ... those chunky chicken meat & not too mashy potatoes inside. That kind of flavour nowhere to be found these days. Not even the now famous Old Chang Kee has fight for it. I loved to bring back a piece for our grandma as well whenever we patronized the curry puff store. As a kid,I truly enjoyed watching her carefully sink her teeth into the yummy afternoon snack I brought back for her with my pocket money.

I am glad my recent day out with you to the Holland Shopping Centre was a fruitful one. Not only have you added to your wardrobe many pieces of cheery & comfortable tops but also we had time to enjoy our lunch at the newly opened Sushi Teh & also leisurely had our tea-break at the Holland Village Food Centre.

Although time has moved forward, but to me, you are still the same cousin I will always remember.

Dinner Ideas

Do you dread hearing family members asking ... What's for dinner?

Quite sick of eating out sometimes but you have no idea what to prepare to let your loved ones tuck in to have an enjoyable time eating together?

This is one of my many impromptu dinner ideas I have to share with you. Besides, speed of preparation, nutritional value is not forgotten. Enjoy ...


A plate of fried rice of your choice. I only used dried shrimp, beaten eggs & preserved olive. (I will share with you the recipe in my next post)


Scoop a mouthful of fried rice onto a leaf of lettuce.


Wrap the lettuce with the fried rice inside into the shape of a cup & eat it as a mouthful each time.


Make a bowl of simple vegetable salad. To blend in the taste of my fried rice dish, I get the idea of my salad dish from one of the Korean vegetable salad recipes. (I will share with you my re-created Korean vegetable salad dish in another post)


Don't forget about fruits


Yummy chicken pies from Dino. Highly recommended.


If you are at Dino, must not give their Apple Crumbles a miss! That's their hot selling item.


My hubby & I ate lunch at Upper Thomson area this afternoon & since Dino was just opposite of where we were eating, so we decided to add the chicken pies & apple crumbles in our dinner menu. The additional items have made our dinner more fun.

Korean BBQ at Home

Nothing comes better than eating together as a family. Eating slowly & chit chatting about anything under the sun while enjoying our dinner. Steam boat & Korean bbq are two of our favourite dinner settings. In fact, both ways are good for me because everyone gets to cook by themselves. For this evening, the children choose to have the grill.

Cold Storage is just within walking distance from our home. My boy accompanied me there to pick up all the necessary ingredients such as sliced pork, porcini mushroom, Japanese fish cakes & difference types of lettuce & fruits. For this round, we shall skip the beef & instead have more sliced pork & mushroom. My girl likes lots of porcini mushroom. It is very meaty & is very good to be used for grills.

A Rewarding Shopping Day at Great Singapore Sale (GSS)

Last week, I dated both my children for a day of GSS shopping. With them growing so rapidly & seeing them always busy with their school works & friends, it is really not a easy task to find a day when both of them are free. Finally, a weekday was reserved & there we went on our shopping spree for the whole day.

It was a day well spent with them not just merely getting to buy the things we had wanted for ourselves. It was fun helping each other to make up our minds on the colour selections & many other final details before deciding on the purchases. In between our shopping, we stopped to rest our tired legs & to enjoy our coffee break at Toast Box.

There were so much to see & buy just along the stretch of shopping centres in Orchard Road alone. After a day of tired but happy shopping, the three of us landed ourselves for a good Chinese dinner at Crystal Jade in Ngee Ann City. Hmmm . . . the pan-fried black pepper beef cubes with wine, steam cod & their spinach with three types of eggs in superior stock were all very yummy. My boy highly recommended the dish of beef. The texture & fragrance was done just right to be accompanied with rice.

Too bad, their dad was too busy with his work & couldn't join us for dinner that evening. After dinner, we continued our last stop of shopping at Heeren before their dad came to fetch us home. After dropping off the children to go home with all our shopping stuffs, I accompanied their dad for his dinner. Just giving him my companionship was also a delight although I couldn't join him to eat.

New Cell Group Bonding

In the mist of our busy schedule, our cell members have found time during the start of June school holidays for relaxation & bonding at National Service Resort & Country Club . We had a bbq dinner on the last night of our stay. A sumptuous spread of food were prepared by various members of our group. We had satays, marinated stingrays, marinated pork chops, 2 types of marinated chicken wings (mustard, honey & herb and also teriyaki), beautiful mixed vegetables & fruits salads, chicken curry, sausages, cuttlefish balls, ice-creams, agar agar, fruits & wine.

So, as best said, let that picture speak a thousand words . . . . . .






More chefs at work. Hahaha ... Hurry, hurry, many are getting hungry.


Child labour? Why not? Under daddy's supervision is perfectly acceptable.




























Hey, who cooked it?


Byran, look here! you're on candid camera.


Thanks David, you've brightened our day! We love your shirt.






Tempting, right?'










"Two's a company, three's a crowd." Wrong, who said that? It should be "Two's a company, three's a party"


four's a celebration; and five's . . . .


Yum, yum, not bluffing you, the satay tastes reeeeal good ... hmmm ...







Want to know how we handle the leftovers? Oh well! losers eat them all. Poor Joel, must have gotten to eat most of them . . . .



Taking a break from eating.