Home Sweet Home

After two months of hotel bliss, Ben and I were finally ushered into the real world when we moved out of the Singapore Marriott hotel this week. Sure it was nice having a perfectly made bed, soft poached eggs to order, extra pillows upon request and virtually no messes to clean up…., but I must admit we are excited to be in a place we can call home….

What was I thinking when I wrote that!?! I was clearly delusional at that point because after only a week of making my own bed, moping the floors and batting of cockroaches, I realize that there are very few things that could keep me from living in a hotel for the rest of my life. The first is definitely the financial burden that would occur within the first couple of weeks and second that I can’t do much cooking from a hotel room. Sure you can make sandwiches, oatmeal, hot chocolate, etc, but it is the full on cooking that I miss. In fact, Ben and I both missed it so much that the other night Ben and I decided that we were going to try an experiment and cook in our hotel room. Now, I have to tell you that our hotel room was not, before Ben rigged something up, equipped with culinary gadgets, hot plates, or any cooking device, but that didn’t stop us.

Our weapon: standard Mitsubishi Iron.

Our mission: Buttermilk Pancakes
Outcome: a little inconsistency due to minor hot spots, but not bad.
Future missions: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Bacon-we may get caught for the smell, steak…ok probably too far there.

So, I wrote that post nearly 3 weeks ago and - at the time - I thought Ben and I were quite possibly the only people who would attempt to “cook” or prepare anything beyond a sandwich from their hotel room. Well, I was proven wrong.

Just the other day I was in the grocery store in Kuala Lumpur and a man in his 50’s approached me and said, “Excuse me Ma’am, do you work here?” My quick reply was, “Nope, but can I help you find something?” (I had been in the dairy section for nearly 30 minutes, trying to understand some of the dynamics of the Malaysian dairy industry and therefore knew just about everything in that case.) “Well I am looking for this whipped cream stuff from back home. It comes in a box and with a few shakes” he motioned with his hand “POOF, it turns into fresh whipped cream just like that!” he asked in his thick British accent. “Umm, I don’t know if I have seen that, but you can try this can of Reddiwhip”, as I proceeded to explain to him how it worked. “No way, that is so cool! Wow that would have saved me 12 minutes and the trouble of having to hand whip the cream for my dessert last night?”, he said. He then proceeded to pull out his phone and show me a picture of what looked like strawberry shortcake. “I’ve lived in a hotel here in Kuala Lumpur for 2 years now and just want you to know how much time this is going to save me when I make my desserts!”….. Turns out I am not the only crazy one

Ok back to the apartment. Sorry I get sidetracked easily. It is a 700 square foot apartment with the following luxurious amenities:
- 2 bedrooms (yay for all of you visitors!)
- A trash shoot….more on that later…trust me it is a good story filled with duct tape and cockroaches
- 3 “aircon” units- a must in Singapore
- 2 toilets equipped with fully functional bidets
- Close to MRT(Mass Rapid Transit), Bus Stop, My Office
- furnished (sometimes I wondering if this is a good thing or not.)
- Horn Man- a guy who walks around our complex honking his horn for hours alerting the people, I am here to gather free stuff! You don’t want it I’ll take it. He doesn’t actually say anything, he just honks his bike horn and people know that he wants anything you’ve got that is free.

Oh and the best part is Ben and I haven’t seen another white person since we moved here. There are some old men that play checkers in the breezeway all day and every time Ben walk by you can almost hear them say, “oh a white guy moved in, here goes the neighborhood.”It is so funny; people are so cautious around us and look at us like we are part of the government or something.
Our Living Room: Notice the stylish saloon girl curtains. Ben made me promise him that I would leave them up until I found some new ones....he loves them.

Our Bedroom: Yes those are bars on the doors, but don't worry Singapore is incredibly safe and the bars are more or less useless. Don't you love the retro tiles.

Our Kitchen: Note the tiny fridge (nearly 1/2 the size of our old fridge in the US) and super small microwave.

Sorry no pictures of our spare bedroom, too many boxes.

Ice Kachang

After a long day of walking through the humid streets of Singapore, Ben and I found ourselves sitting at a communal table in one of Singapore’s finest Hawker centers. We had just shared a spicy plate of one of our favorite local fares…pepper chicken. Although Pepper Chicken has a variety of complex flavors; it can be very spicy and is best followed by a lot of liquid! When water doesn’t seem to kick the heat, it never does, we suggest indulging in this delicious Singaporean treat-Ice kachang.





These tasty refreshing treats are a “knock off” of the classic Western Snow Cone, or was it the Westerners’ who plagiarized this scrumptious concoction? We may never know. Another thing we may never know is what specific ingredients make up this refreshing treat. At first glance, one might believe this is a traditional snow cone made by drizzling strawberry, lime, grape or "tigers blood" syrup over freshly shaved ice…think again. This Singapore and Malay classic begins with a shaved ice and is followed by sweet syrups, delicious accoutrements, and last minute garnishes. Since the variety of ingredients, and combinations, are endless, I have included a list of common ingredients I have seen over the past few weeks:
syrup flavors:
· Aloe vera (apparently it soothes sunburns and hungry tummies)
· Durian (more on this “aromatic” fruit later)
· Coconut milk-(goes perfectly with Palm Sugar Syrup)

· Palm Sugar syrup (This delicious syrup is one of our favorites. It is similar to brown sugar but has a richer caramel-e flavor, mmm.)
·Mango
· Strawberry
· Green Tea
Accoutrements:
· Aloe Vera Jelly
· Grass Jelly-exactly as it sounds, jelly made from grass:)
· Cubes of agar agar (think jell-o jigglers made with 1 part water instead of 4 parts water, very gelatinous)
· Attap Seeds (Palm seeds)- I must admit that for such a small ingredient these seeds intrigue me quite a bit. The transparent seeds are the immature fruit of the Attap Palm tree, found in Southeast Asia. They are small in size, about the size of a small marble, and have a very gummy/gelatinous texture. The initial flavor is sweet and starchy, which is followed by an interesting aftertaste. I don’t quite know how to explain the aftertaste of this fruit without turning people off from trying it, but here I go… The first time I bit into this interesting fruit it brought me back to some of my first experiences making pastry cream in a commercial kitchen. One particular kitchen had a very touchy gas range. I would adjust the knobs ever so lightly back and forth until I could get the heat just right. Occasionally a draft would come across the line and blow out my flickering flame. I noticed immediately when I could smell the faint aroma of propane. I don’t know why, but the pesky stove would always loose its flame when I was making pastry cream. Anyway, I started to associate the smell of pastry cream with its aromatic vanilla, egg, and starch notes; with the slightest hint propane. This combination of flavors/scents is exactly what I experienced when I first ate an attap seed. It is sweet and starchy in flavor, but has a delicate hint of....well propane... I hope this doesn’t discourage you from tasting it, because after all haven’t we all grown to love a delicious goat cheese, which can often be described as having “rustic barney”, or “grassy,” notes.
Last minute garnishes:
· Sweetened condensed milk
· Coconut milk
· Toasted peanuts
To the locals, and my husband, the best part of this dessert is not the toppings, but rather the surprise(s) found at the bottom. Although Ben didn’t know what the ingredients were at the bottom of his kachang when her first encountered them; after a minute of chewing he immediately turned to me and said, “it tastes like a quesadilla!” So what are those mystery ingredients, drumroll please......
· Red Adzuki Beans
· Sweet Corn kernals

Apartment #1

Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I decided to add a couple of pictures so you can see what we are looking at. This particular apartment was roughly 400 square feet, which must include the duct work, pipes and drains.

Here is the "kitchen", the small appliance you see on the left side is a tiny portable induction burner- hey they already fulfilled criteria #1: kitchen must have cooking capabilities. You can see the refrigerator in the corner is about 1/2 the width and 3/4 the height of refrigerators you would find in the US.

The realitor lost us when she said, "this kitchen would be perfect for a couple and is excellent for lite cooking". By light cooking, I think she meant cereal....if you can find a place to store it.

This next photo showcases the spacious restroom. Hey at least there is a toilet with a toilet seat.The part you don't see is towards the left, which is basically a shower head attached to the wall...and the best part is that the toilet doubles as a shower bench.

This photo also shows the spacious hall, which is pretty much the majority of the apartment. Behind the restroom is where you will find the "kitchen".

I love that the realitor described this as the master bedroom. I would have taken pictures from other angles, but there simply weren't any. That small waist height rack in the bottom right of the room is where we can store all of our clothes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the apartment does have a laundry room as shown in this picture. This may look familiar, but look you can see the washing machine under the counter.

Well I guess we may just need to use the space wisely like this architect in Hong Kong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak&feature=player_embedded

Apartment Hunting

Interestingly enough Ben and I were in the same boat exactly 2 years ago. The only difference this time around is what we are looking for. In Colorado it was a 2 car garage-for Ben of course, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a relatively big backyard. Well, now that we are 10,000 miles away our expectations have changed quite a bit. This time, we hope to find an apartment that has at least 1 bedroom, a “kitchen”-and by kitchen I mean an area with at least 1 burner and running water, a bathroom with a “western” toilet, and most importantly air conditioning. Sounds fabulous right? Well, the best part is, that all of these exquisite accommodations fit so neatly in roughly 500 square feet.Can you believe how wonderful that is? It's only 4 times the price of our mortgage in Denver and ¼ the size- I love Singapore!

Finally, A Productive Member of Society

After endless peer pressure, I have decided to jump on the social bandwagon and create my very own blog. I have come to accept that my social networking responsibilities of Facebook, simply are not enough. I need to stay competitive and not only post pictures, poke friends, and write on others walls; but now I must dialogue my daily activities, whether they be horribly mundane or fabulously extravagant.

And finally, after I begin this blog I will finally be able to graduate and truly become a productive member of my generation. So to all of you readers, mom that would be you in this case, here it is-my very own Blog.