Postcards from Penang

8am and blurry-eyed

Snaps of our converted shophouse hotel room - Straits Collection Residences on Stewart Lane

First meal of the day at De Tai Tong on Lebuh Cintra, where super friendly, chatty old ladies work the floor. :)

 Auntie Sim offers a peek into our futures. 4 kids for Ceci!

Chendol pilgrimage

Sunlit stroll back to the hotel after our foot reflex session.

Chilling at Kopi Cine on 55 Stewart Lane, right beside our room.

Restless conversations on paper.

Breakfasting by the roadside in Little India

More drinks while waiting for our pedicure.

Yummiest meal in Penang at Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant on 2 Chulia Lane. I think even the fussy Khoo bibiks at home would be satisfied.

Showing off our pimped out nails

Background: Livers fried in dark soy sauce.
Foreground: Assam prawns.

Ikan gulai

Friendly local who readily dished out foodie tips. He's 60 this year and hikes regularly. Respect!

Coffee and toast break in an alley kopitiam.

Street food: Lok lok - things on sticks. Kinda like steamboat meets satay.

All set for the "EPIC" train ride home. Well, we made it didn't we, babe?

17 hours

14:18 hrs
Somewhere between Penang and KL

It's a long journey home and for the past 7 hours, I've done little more than eat, read and nap. For 17 hours, my life is distilled into the simplest choices between feeding my body or my mind, or closing my eyes and letting the world, along with its cheery platform send-offs, pass me by.

For 17 hours, life exists and revolves around this tiny carriage with chattering old folks and petulant toddlers. I've found my place right here – 10D by the window – and I stay firmly in my seat, watching the changing scenery outside the train doors. I contemplate crawling over my sleeping companion to stretch my legs, but the hypnotic blur of passing shrubs and the soothing lull of a moving train keeps me rooted, at least for another minute.

The feeling of staying put yet simultaneously moving is an odd but comfortable contrast. It's a soothing balm for a restless spirit, and an unshackled grounding for a gypsy heart.

Sing me a song again, daddy.

"Once when my younger heart was broken, your shoulder was there to cry on.
Sing me those songs I know will linger, long after you have gone."

He never had to use harsh words or to hold a cane in his hand, but his strong silence was very effective in keeping a young, feisty girl in check. I used to think that I feared him, all those nights I stayed past my curfew and stared at my ringing phone with trepidation, but now that I've grown up, I realised that it wasn't fear that had me scurrying home. It was respect.

Something he told me when I was really young has stuck with me all these years. I was no more than 9, and it was just another ordinary night at the dinner table. I can't remember the context of our conversation, but I do remember him turning to me and saying, very matter-of-factly. "Respect is something that has to be earned, not given. For example, I want you to call me papa because you respect me, not because you have to."

We've had our differences – we still do – for I've made some unconventional choices through the years. But in his quiet way he's stood by me through all of it – sending me off at the airport to India (muttering under his breath about the dangers of an uncharted land), sending me off at the airport to Paris (grumbling about the strange Frenchman who stole my heart), and rubbing my shoulders in comfort when I returned home from a trip sobbing over a heartbreak (no, not the Frenchman). Very calmly, he put down the evening papers and held out his arms when I dropped my backpack at the front door.

In recent years, I feel like we've swopped roles, now that his strength is gradually slipping away with age. But when I slipped my hand into his this morning as we walked home from breakfast, I felt it – the rock-steady spirit I know I can always rely on, even when he doesn't look it.

Isn't he amazing?

Foodie perks and fangirl moments.

A few months ago, I had the chance of meeting Poh Ling Yeow. For the uninitiated, Poh's a MasterChef Australia (season 1) finalist and the host of Poh's Kitchen on TLC. I've been a fan of her vivacious TV personality and I was chuffed to get to interview her for my column. It took a hell lot of restraint not to blog about this that very weekend, and after what seems like forever, our June issue's finally out on the newsstands.

Apart from all that eating, getting to meet and pick the brains of foodies and chefs has got to be one of the best perks of my job. The excitement never gets old, although I like to think that I've developed a bit more poise since the year I ran across a ballroom just to get a picture with David Rocco. Coincidentally, my dear photographer friend Sook Wai, who egged me on to cop a shot with Rocco then, was snapping for this event as well. This is me, immortalised on film.

I burst out laughing when I first saw this. So this is what I really look like when I'm in food heaven.

Speaking of MasterChef, Ran and I attended a cooking class organised by Cookpad International last Sunday. It was organised team competition style, which was new but kinda fun, in a Masterchef-y sorta way. The kitchen zen I so enjoy while slicing things up eluded me and I found myself alternating between fervently checking the clock and anxiously thawing-frying-grilling beef. It almost felt like I was back at Saffron, 'cept that there was no nasty-tempered head chef staring holes into our backs. It was quite a Sunday evening and one thing's for sure – there's no way in hell I'm ever signing up to be on Masterchef, ever!

My team of lovely ladies.

Our tomato salad and under-caramelised onions.

The burgers turned out pretty well, though.

Jacqui treated us to her awesomely yummy cupcakes. That's the salted caramel and vanilla bean.

And that's Jon, the event organiser and director of international product for Cookpad, Inc. Within 5 minutes of Facebooking this shot, I had two very enthusiastic texts from my female friends asking who that hunk of a man was. Focus on the food, women!

No angry, no angry!

I'm writing a wellness article (food-related, duh!) and I'm researching a diet that's believed to cure cancer. All that talk about the disease is making me terribly attuned with my cells, and I have this gnawing fear that my suppressed aggression may one day colonise and multiply those cells. Scary! I should seriously get back to yoga.

Contemplation.

I have developed a temporary penchant for blogger-authors – bloggers who achieve so much success online they've taken their publishing offline. A little ironic, but who are we to question the peculiar laws publishing thrives on?

Reading Brit writer/Francophile Catherine Sanderson's Petite Anglaise brings back as many beautiful memories of my summer in Paris as it forces me to question why I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon. Afterall, it wasn't that long ago that I too, like her, tore up the keyboard with torrents of words. Perhaps it is time to admit that beneath the gratifying cathartic release of pent-up self-expression is a need to justify myself to both friends and strangers.

I like to think that the need for self-representation, along with the urge to share every single detail of my life, has diminished with age. However, I do miss the cave of contemplation I retreat to each time I write a solemn, soul-searching post. Having to translate an inner whirlpool of thoughts into comprehensible words forces me to dig deep to express the very essence of what I'm feeling, and needless to say, it has been a long while since I've burrowed that deep within.

But well, there's no better time than now I suppose, to put on my thinking blogger cap for a bit as I contemplate life at 24 going on 25.

A characteristic signpost of growing older is probably the sinking realisation that you are nowhere near what or where you thought you'd be at this age. I've charted out many paths in my imagination, but none of them have mapped out quite the way I'd envisioned. I haven't always been this driven, but I'm glad my half-hearted fumblings have led me to where I am today. I've gained some, lost some, and beneath it all, learnt the all-important lesson that nothing will ever stay the same.

Change is the only constant, they say. If I weren't already convinced by the age-old saying, then the recent spate of developments has most certainly made a convert out of me. There's a melancholic bittersweetness about acknowledging successes and dealing with losses. It's hard to explain any further without disclosing whatever I'm not yet supposed to, so all I can say for now is damn, tarot cards are spookily accurate!

And that's me back to skimming the surface once again. :)

Island love.

From my balcony in Junjungan Ubud, Bali. 2011.

Friends say the darnest things.

Two of my bestest girlfriends have, in the recent weeks, said some things that made me LOL. Even in retrospect.

Ceci (aka moisturiser/scent addict) on Aesop
Me: I love shopping at Aesop. Stepping into an Aesop shop instantly transports me back to
that rainy Sydney morning.
Ceci: Ya the smell's so calming. At the end of a shit day, there's Aesop.

 Jins, world-class lazy bum
Me (after a press trip where I was plied with way too much food): Babe I need to detox.
Jin: Ok, let's go to a retreat where we do nothing but sit by the pool and drink smoothies all day.

It's not your fault if you don't find it funny. My sense of humour is known to be a little... different. But I'm documenting this all the same for future stress-busting!

Postcards from paradise.

My recent island trip was supposedly for work, but the bunch of uber colourful characters made burning my weekend so worth it!

Jungle dining

Breakfast for one, which I really enjoyed! :) I love my morning zen.

Sunsets

Sneak peek into a super luxe retreat

Trust me to find time to cop out for not one, but two foot massages! Right across the hotel.

Friendships forged over plenty of coma-inducing meals!

Off to the islands.

I like to think my beach girl days are over. Gone are the times when I would daydream about lying in a hammock, lulled into a catnap by the sound of waves lapping against a not so distant shore; when my idea of fun involved baking myself in the intense sunshine; and when I fervently sussed out deals for beach getaways and island retreats.

It's a little ironic then that work is, once again, taking me back to the islands. And despite the bad leg situation, I was so excited it took me awhile to get to sleep last night. I may have hung up my beach sarong indefinitely, but I guess you can never quite tame my inner island chick. :)

Finding my food voice.

Around this time last year, I started lickthyspoon. I was then an eager, eager novice, having just signed on for the job of my dreams. I was very excited, but also a little daunted, by the steep learning curve that lay before me. I was a sponge, ready to lap up anything and everything that fell on my lap, and my plate.

lickthyspoon was my way of documenting my learning journey, but I took it down a while later as a lot of what I was writing professionally seemed to overlap with my blogging, and I really wasn't keen on navigating those grey, murky areas.

A year later and my portfolio's different enough for me to draw the line between my professional and personal writing. I also like to think that writing about food outside of work constraints will help me find and develop my professional voice. This may sound queer, but never question my always irrational mind!

I know my readership has dwindled greatly ever since I shut the blog down before the passing of my brother, but to whoever's reading - click on here and let me know how you like lickthyspoon. :)

Recharge.

It's been quite a week - not a bad one, and on the contrary one that brought some pretty good news - but I've woken up each morning more exhausted than the last. Things are rolling along rather nicely at the office, but I guess I've been placing one foot in front of the other a little too quickly in my pursuit of fast-forwarding growth. Cryptic, I know, but that's the best I can do on this grapevine of a world wide web.

So what do you do when you're mentally exhausted and in dire need of new batteries? Take the day off, of course. I've postponed this my leave many times over because work kept cropping, until I realised that there'll never really be a good time to take off because someone or something will always warrant your attention. So off I went.

But while I had grand plans to spend the morning sipping coffee and kneading dough, my past week of stunted productivity had me pounding away at my laptop all morning in hopes of hitting my revised target of submitting my article at noon. I did, thank goodness, so I spent a long while watching the rain pound down, reveling in the illicit feeling of having the rest of a supposed working day to myself.

And then I took my aunt to tea at PS. Cafe at Ann Siang, where I spent another two hours revelling in the illicit feeling of having a working day off. :)

Moving on.

So I've started yoga classes, again. Yep, three years after my last class with Sunil, I've finally moved on and found my inner yogi another home.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it just yet. It's in a quaint neighbourhood not unlike Whatever studio and I'm at ease with the instructor. But like a great love relationship, those surreal Wednesday evenings at Whatever are quite a (seemingly impossible) feat to measure up to, though I can never be sure if I'm looking back through rose-tinted glasses.

But yes, move on I shall. And it really is quite a nice start to the weekend, even if I have to propel/roll myself out of bed to get to class by 9.

Make it from scratch.

Changes don't happen overtime. More often than not, they manifest stealthily, sinuously... kinda like vines creeping up wrought-iron fences. Some changes are inconspicuous, inconsequential, while others are huge, especially when cast upon unsuspecting ol' me.

It started off innocently enough. On Monday, I initiated a Messenger chat with a friend to arrange for dinner, having missed a gathering while I was away in Japan. She suggested that we pop over to hers for some nosh and I, in typical dessert queen fashion, offered to bring dessert. The dinner was set for Friday, and I immediately started plotting the logistics. Bake cupcakes on Thursday night after chap goh meh dinner. Zip home after work on Friday, make frosting and ice cupcakes, pack them and cab over. Easy peasy. And then I lost myself browsing recipes online.

Fast forward to a wet, gloomy Friday evening. My work had taken and left me stranded in the middle of the CBD where every other person was waiting/calling for a cab. I had exactly an hour to get home, conjure up a batch of icing, frost the cupcakes and leave the house. My feet were aching, and I was starting to feel like an underdressed clown amidst the sea of perfectly coiffed executives. Deciding to brave the rain, I eased out of the taxi queue and went off in search of a bus-stop. And guess what cranky ol' me had to flip-flop past? Three dessert places. Ice-cream. Pastries. Perfectly iced cupcakes.

That's when it dawned on me. I should have bought dessert instead! A box of macarons or chocolate truffles, or maybe a tub of ice-cream. That would have saved me the late-night baking sweatshop and a prior trip home. Instead, when I had volunteered to bring the sweets, I had, without any further thought, already set my mind on baking something. Buying a readymade dessert could not have been further from my mind.

Thanks to the string of work-related recipe testings, cooking and baking from scratch have become so ingrained in me that I never thought to consider non-culinary possibilities. For a person who loves convenience and efficiency, and who only in the past year roasted a perfect bird, fully overcome her fear of knives and really derived pleasure from cooking, this change is huge. It's monumental. And I love it.

Next up? Bread and homemade ice-cream, me thinks. Can't wait. And here they are, the babies born out of Thursday night's baking sweatshop. I couldn't be prouder.

earl grey cupcakes with vanilla bean and cream cheese frosting

adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini gâteau au yaourt, and a million other recipes

The pantry diaries.

So, I was lounging on the couch with Sophie Dahl's cookbook on my tummy, mentally running through my pantry as I lingered over any recipe that caught my eye. This is a routine I've been through for several years, way before I began my career in food writing. I almost always end up dismissing the recipes as, more often than not, I do not have the ingredients in my pantry. The kitchen really is still the domain of my Peranakan aunt and I didn't see the point of stocking up on bottles of balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar and all those fancy schmancy things Western recipes ask for. Granted, I don't always want to cook the dishes, but being the female that I am, I like having the option of actually trying out a recipe without having to lug back a cartful of condiments I wouldn't use for another two years.

But as I flitted through the beautiful Sophie's book today, it dawned on me that a good portion of the ingredients the recipes called for were already in my pantry. Balsamic vinegar, check. Fleur de sel, check. Rolled oats, check. Grapeseed oil, check. I may not have nicely fillet pieces of sole waiting in my fridge, but as far as condiments and dry ingredients go, I am pretty much covered.

And that, my friends, is the beautiful byproduct of the many recipe testings I have to do every month. A job in publishing may hardly pay the bills but boy, does it stock your pantry!

{image from weheartit}