Saturday 16 April 2011

Famous Breakfast of Kuala Lipis/著名的瓜拉立卑的早餐 - 糯米飯仁当.

                                          Rendang and Pulut aka Dry Beef Curry and Sticky Rice
I was born in Kuala Lumpur and raised in Kuala Lipis by my grandparents. Kuala Lipis was the old capital of the state of Pahang, it is situated in the middle of Pahang. The railroad from Kelantan to Singapore has to pass through Kuala Lipis. Kuala Lipis used to be the capital of the state of Pahang but later it was  change to Kuantan. After the changed Kuala Lipis became a death town, business stated moving with the capital and people being transferred away from Lipis. I've always like Kuala Lipis, it's quiet and peaceful. There are three streets and a back lane in the town of Kuala Lipis. The street are Main street, Jelai street and Cross street. Jelai street is beside the Jelai river. The famous breakfast can be bought at Cross street. The store was run by an Indonesian migrant and now it is operated by his brother's son. It is basically dry beef curry served with steamed sticky or glutinous rice. The curry has beef or chicken, roasted grated coconut, spices, kaffir lime leaves and ketchup manis aka sweet dark soy sauce in it. When I was young, they used to sell them in banana leaf packet. One packet consist of  a small amount of sticky rice and a small lump of sauce without the meat cost 10 cents. If one wants a piece of meat with it, one have to pay 50 cents more for the meat. It is eaten as breakfast or lunch, most of the school children will buy a packet to bring to school as lunch. You can still buy them at Cross street today, but it will definitely cost more than 10 cents. I am not sure how much it will cost now because I haven't been back to Kuala Lipis for 20 year. So here is the famous Kuala Lipis breakfast that I have cooked for my family breakfast yesterday. Enjoy.
                                                                                              

Saturday 2 April 2011

My First Love-Tatting/我的初恋 - 梭织






Tatting is my first love, I learned how to tat when I was 10 years old. It was taught to me by my 4th aunty, who in turn learned it from a nurse in Kuala Lipis general hospital, When she was admitted while waiting for an operation. She discharge herself half way through waiting and so was her learning how to tat. I finished my lesson from a teacher who came to my class as a replacement teacher. I tatted for a while, and didn't touch it till now. At first I thought that tatting was dead, I began to crochet instead. I have kept my shuttles with me all this while, till one day while I was browsing the internet for ideas to crochet. Out of curiosity I type the word tatting blogspot, and to my surprise there were quite a lot of sites came on screen. I was so happy that tatting is not dead, it still very much alive and it's all over the world. I was so excited like I've found my long lost friend again. Here is a bracelet that I've tatted and the pattern is from a Japanese tatting book and I've altered a bit of it. I would like to say thank you to Mrs. Lee Beng Keong once again for showing me how to do the picot join.