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I switched on the TV late Sunday night and there was this news about earthquake in South Asia. At first, I didn’t give much attention but when I heard that the areas that were badly affected in Thailand were in the southern region and there were people died in Malaysia a sudden shiver came all over me because I thought that the northern states in Malaysia must be affected too. I reached for my cell phone and called mom. It felt like ages before the called was answered but while waiting I thought, “Well, at least the phone line is still ok,” Then my brother answered the phone and I asked, “Was there an earthquake?” He said’ “Yes, talk to mom,” “What I wanna talk to you,” Apparently he’s on his cell phone I assumed talking to his girlfriend…hmm

My mom told me she was in Alor Star during the earthquake and she saw the dining table shaking. She thought her blood pressure was high so she postponed her plan to go to my brother’s place in Kulim. But when she finally heard the news she sticked to her plans and drove to Kulim. Mom told me that there were deaths at the beaches where people were enjoying their holiday. While I was talking to mom the news showed footage from Malaysia.

By the way, I don’t really like my mom to go back and forth between Alor Setar and Kulim cause the drive will take her about one and a half hours. I don’t think she should drive long distance at her age. But what am I to do. She wants to have her own car at my brother’s place so that she can go wherever she wants to go while my brother is at his office. Once she even drove all the way to Carrefour in Penang just to do her groceries.

But now, I’m just glad everyone’s ok. I don’t like the feeling that I had when I heard something bad happened and I don’t know if my family is ok. It just gives me shivers down my spine.

Billy called me last night from Hong Kong to ask me if my family is okay because he heard from the news that there are deaths in Penang and Langkawi. He knows that my family lives in the Northern region. In fact he knows many places in Malaysia because he had planned to travel there. Thanks Billy for your concern…

Hmmm…after reading Mon’s blog, I decided to put up another recipe that I’ve been experimenting with. But before that, I want to tell about my recent achievement. I managed not to see nor speak to anyone for a full 24 hours. Since the summer started and Billy went home, I wanted to see if I can not speak single word in one day. But there were always obstacles for me to achieve that; my mom called or my cousin sent me text massage thus I have to reply or my friends came to my unit. Once I thought I almost accomplished my mission but the cleaners came thus I had to talk to them…

Now, about the recipe, when my neighbours left the village for summer they had been kind enough to give me their cooking oil for they didn’t want the oil to go to the waste. I have cooking oil in abundance now and this is a perfect time for me to deep fry something. And of course I need to finish up the so called ‘Malaysian curry’.

Ingredients:
Chicken breast
Plain flour
Curry powder
Salt and pepper
Minced garlic
Egg

Procedures:
Cut the chicken breast into strips. Heat the oil in a pan. Season flour with salt, pepper, and curry powder; put the salt, pepper and curry powder according to your taste. Beat egg lightly with minced garlic. Put the chicken strips in the egg mixture before coating them with the seasoned flour and fry until golden in hot oil.

Result:
Yummy fried chicken. Eat with rice or wrap in tortilla. Dip in tomato sauce. As for me, I use made-in-Malaysia Ayam Brand hot chili sauce that are available in leading supermarkets in Oz. Oh boy the sauce is REALLY HOT. I should have bought the one without the flaming label ‘HOT’….

Well, to those who cook, you might want to try this recipe:

Ingredients:
2 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 tsp of minced garlic (preferably the one in the bottle which is so full of preservatives)
3 sun-ripened tomatoes
1 tbsp of so-called ‘Malaysian’ curry from a Sri Lanka spice shop
1 fillet of chicken breast

Procedures:
Grilled tomatoes and peel. Chopped chicken to pieces. Heat oil in frying pan. Saute garlic until brown and add curry powder. Dump in chicken and tomatoes. Cover and cook over slow heat until all the juice comes out from the tomatoes. Mash tomatoes in frying pan until you can't no longer see it in the juice; this is the tricky part cause you don't wanna mash the chicken too. Serves with rice or pasta.

Result:
VERY HOT tomato curry chicken! I guess I put too much curry. The last time I made this I just put 1 tsp of curry. I couldn’t taste the curry then so I put 1 heap tbsp of curry now. But it’s TOO HOT. VERY HOT! I’m sure the curry that I bought is not the same as Alagappa’s or Baba’s or Cap O (Cap O curry is very famous in Kedah). That’s why it is too hot. I only have one packet of Alagappa’s curry left that my mom sent me thus ‘sayang’ to use it. Up until now I can’t find the correct way to translate ‘sayang’ in this context. If I were to translate ‘sayang’ as ‘love’ then I would say that I don’t want to use the curry powder cause I love it so much to use it. Hmm…how can I fall in love with a pack of curry powder?

It is easy to get Asian food and the ingredients for Asian food here in Oz. The two biggest supermarkets here in Ipswich even have Asian food section. There is a Sri Lanka spice shop in Chinatown. And in Brisbane there is a Malaysian Restaurant called ‘Satay Club’ which is owned by Chinese Indonesian and satay is not the main dish in the menu. So Asian food is everywhere. But the problem is I still have to cook at home!!!

Last night I went to Uni without taking a shower although the day was very hot. I thought I could have my shower when I got home from Uni. At midnight I got home from Uni and idled around the house reading Christmas catalogue. When I finally decided to take a shower at about 1, there was NO WATER SUPPLY!!!

This morning, there is still no water. In fact water supply for the whole village is disrupted. So I decided to go to Uni to have my shower. I felt very hot and my drinking water supply is finishing. On my way to Uni, I saw a friend of mine taking a bucket of water out of the swimming pool. ‘Kampung style!’ he said smiling. I’ve taken my shower and feel fresh now. God, I hate it when there is no water flowing from the tap when I turn it on. I have never anticipated that I would face this kind of situation in Oz.

The weather had not been great. It had been raining for a week after a week of hot spell. Yesterday was very hot too. I don’t know how I will get use to this weather. I just stayed at home and that’s why I hadn’t updated this blog for a while.

This morning too I said something to someone that I think may hurt that person’s feeling. I did that because I thought that it would be better if I directly tell people how I don’t like the way they treat me than just pretending to be nice all the time. Malays are known to suppress their feelings because they don’t like to cause disturbance. In the act of being polite, they will not say what they feel if what they are going to say will hurt others’ feelings. In order not to offend others they keep quiet even though they are being mistreated. That’s why some Malays run amok. In fact the English phrase 'run amok' is borrowed from Malay 'mengamuk'. When people suppress their feelings too much there’s a tendency for them to 'mengamuk' of course!

OMG…it is so hot nowadays. The temperatures are mostly above 35 degree Celsius. God…I just stayed at home, opened all the windows and closed the blinds. Yesterday, I felt like passing out after buying my groceries in Ipswich city. I heard that last year 4 people died in Ipswich because of heatwave.

To add to my misery, for the past few weeks I always got attack by a magpie which I guest is nesting on a tree in front of my unit when I wbet out of my front door. This magpie is not that small cute ones that we have in Malaysia, but as big as a crow! Luckily the plovers nesting season is over. Plover is a bird which to me looks like a bangau. It nests on the ground and very territorial. During the winter, a pair of plovers had a nest between Oxford unit and Yale unit and lot of people got attack! Can you imagine a bird as big as a bangau swooping over your head trying to jab its claws into your skull? Scary…yea? At that time in Uni there was also another pair of plovers nesting and Uni management had to put a sign:

‘Beware! Plover Nesting – please take another route’

At first I thought it was because the birds were shy and the environmentalists were trying to minimize their contact with human. But oh boy…I was totally wrong…I’d better not to assume too much…Hmm…before I got here nobody told me about the heatwave and crazy birds in Ipswich!