Hainanese Beef Noodles Dry Version

In my hubby’s first efforts to learn how to cook bak chor mee a few weeks ago, he bought a packet of frozen beef balls, and used very little of it. I can’t leave the beef balls in the freezer forever. And I don’t know when my husband’s cooking forays will start again; he’s been so busy at work lately. So it’s up to me to do something about it.

Hubby helped in finding me an online guide on Chef2Chef Culinary Portal: Singapore Signature Dishes http://forums.chef2chef.net/viewtopic.php?t=287257, and the recipes were posted by a chef/cooking teacher. Many thanks to you, kitchencapers! I could not comment on the forum nor send you a message because I did not want to join as a forum member. Surely there are many others like me who appreciate your recipes, because all your original pictures and recipes look simply delicious! I would recommend it to anyone! ^_^

I could not abide by the recipe fully as I don’t have all the stuff needed. So here’s an account of what I did. Enjoy!

Ingredients
Part A:
~250g beef, club sandwich type. (I would have bought more if I realised earlier it was all I had left!)
2 large onions, it looks like A LOT because America’s onions are huge.
0.5 cup Dark Soya Sauce
0.5 cup Light Soya Sauce
2 cinnamon sticks
0 aniseeds (I couldn’t find them in the markets here. *pout*)
11 cloves
Part B:
1 Napa lettuce leaf sliced (yep, just some random veges in my fridge)
1 leek leaf sliced (too bad I don’t have bean sprouts!)
5 frozen beefballs
Dried Kway Teow

Method:

Soup:
1. In a medium sized pot ( I don’t have a large one because I usually cook for 2), I put 0.4 to 0.5 gallons of Poland Spring bottled water. This is because I have not bought a water filter yet.
2. When the water is boiling and bubbling, I added in ingredients from Part A.
3. Partially cover the pot and cook over low heat for 2 hours.

To make the dry version sauce:
Here’s what I did, and hopefully it can be helpful to others trying to thicken their recipe.
1. Put 3 cups of the soup’s liquid into a smaller sauce pot for a boil.
2. In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of water, 2 tablespoons of soup and 3 tablespoons of potato starch into a “paste”.
3. Turn the heat off the boiling soup, stir in the “paste”, a bit at a time. Stop when you deem fit.
I used all the paste, but you use less (or more) if the thickness is good enough for you. Remember, the sauce will thicken more when it cools! At salt to your taste. I didn’t add any.
To serve:
Cook ingredients from Part B in boiling water. Arrange nicely before adding sauce. I garnished with some homegrown spring onions to replace the Chinese parsley. Yep I grow spring onions in a container at home! Hee hee!
To “ta pao” (a.k.a. to pack away in a lunch box for hubby to bring to office):
1. Mix olive oil with the veges, so that it stays fresh-green when he opens it hours later.
2. Mix olive oil with the boiled kway teow and add bits of spring onions, so that it doesn’t adhere to eachother when it cools.
3. Position the kway teow, veges, beef balls, beef meat and onions into his lunch container. Close.
4. Pour the dry version sauce into another smaller container. Close.
5. Paste a Post-it “love note” onto his lunch box before putting them into his bag. ;-)

Hair Modelling for Free Styling Products

There is something that occurs in New York City that is amazing. And I don't think it occurs with as much frequency, quality and generosity in Singapore/Asia. This amazing thing I am referring to is... BARGAIN OPPORTUNITIES. And not just regular bargains, I mean super-bargains! Like up to 95% off the price of high-end designer stuff (I usually don't buy branded stuff, but when it is 85% off or more, it gets consideration. And the quality and cut is usually splendid!). There are also warehouse clubs where you can find fresh produce and electronics etc., factory outlets, as well as free stuff and services!

So here is an example of my adventure yesterday:

So I responded to the ad, and on the other line of the call was a friendly lady, who told me the details. I made my way down to the salon on the Upper East Side with the address she gave me. And wow, I found the area to be quite posh when I stepped out of the Metro Station. After walking down 3 streets, I found the Salon just off Lexington Avenue. It was a beautiful Salon, and quite large, occupying 3 storeys. I was sent up to the second storey where I became a hair model for a styling class.

My stylist was G. She was an african-american woman, medium built and a very curvy figure, and had a sweet voice and demeanour. There were 3 other stylists practicing together with G, and the instructor (whom G refers to as a superb stylist) was a thin and petite caucasian woman with a brunette bob called S.

G who had some years of experience of working in a boutique and a hair salon was a well educated woman originally from South America. She has a degree in Political Science, but admits that her first love is fashion. So she took up this 2-2.5 year apprenticeship, so that she can travel world, work a few days of the week, and get well paid. This Salon frequently sends stylists to support the fashion shows in Paris, to work on the models' hair.

So for today, the instructor S required them to do 2 styles. The first was a blow-back style. This was an important basic requirement - the starting palete - before doing other upward combing hairstyles like french twists and buns. The most important part of it is that every root direction has sculpted universally towards the back, such that there is no visible parting in the hair. This is more work then it sounds, and when S spots any imperfection, she points it out to G, explains it and G worked on my hair again until the goal is reached.

The second style was a flat-ironed, center-parted, no volume hair style. Another basic to achieve as a starting point for creating runway hair styles. G was able to achieve this in no time. She was telling me that she worked with all sorts of challenging hair types, and by now she can handle a poodle that comes in and needs to blow it's hair straight out. Lol!

At the end of the day G fulfilled her 2 assignments on my hair before 5.30pm. She went the extra mile in giving me what I requested: soft curls to my hair, as I wanted to go home and surprise hubby (it did not pan out in the end because when I had a hot steamy bath, all the curls fell straight! *sob*). I also collected my FREE three full-sized quality styling products. One for prepping, one for holding, and one for shine. Sweet! G also gave me several free samples as I requested stuff for dry hair ends.

Stuff like these, like free haircuts, free dental, happens often in New York City, because there are many apprentices come here to learn from the "Best". There are just so many talented people all over the world, and I hear that many of them congregate in New York City. You just have to be lucky enough to catch these bargains at the right place, at the right time, and sign up.

What do you think about bargain hunting in Singapore/ NYC?

Revisiting the topic one year later: How to integrate into a Foreign Place/ Culture?

It has been 11 months since I posted my first reflection. Ahhh.... How time flies! After 2 months of living in Brooklyn, I returned to Singapore, packed more stuff to bring over. Several months later, I'm back in New York. This time, I do not know for how long God wills.

The good thing about writing your thoughts down sometimes, is you can look back and read, and realise how much you've grown, and how differently you may be thinking now.

Firstly, i thought my friends and family would be crying buckets at the airport, and that parting would be difficult. It wasn't. Well, my bestfriend and I resolved the sadness of parting months before, so my airport departure wasn't too much of a problem. And as for the rest of my friends and family, nobody cried. Everybody seemed happy, everyone wanted me to make the best out of it, and everyone was keen to visit me in NYC - haha!

1. Location of my Home
Yep, I stay in a relatively safe place now. But man, it's a little far from Manhatten because my husb wanted to save little more on rent. It's like staying in Jurong West, when your office is in Raffles Place (but on a larger scale). And somewhat like Jurong West, I stay in relatively close to the beach - Coney Island. We live beside a street of Chinese supermarkets and restaurants on Avenue U, so that satisfies us as we see lots of chinese faces everywhere. So yup, we feel at home. For now. We are going to move, and I'll update you more on that some other time. What's important in searching for an apartment? Safety definately! And my new reflection is that taking the time to walk the street, and to talk to folks around the street about how they feel about the neighbourhood is a much better way than looking through forums and "bestplaces.net". Do you like the condition of how the houses in the surrounding neighbourhood? What is your gut feel about the people walking around this neighbourhood? Are the shops around there useful and sufficient for you? Are you near the Metro? If your answer is "Yes/Good", and the rent is within your budget, that can potentially be your new home.

2. Picking up the Lingo
To my surprise, there is no pressing need to speak in an American accent here. There is no need to 'blend in perfectly'. In Singapore, I witnessed that if you spoke fluently in English and included an accent, other friends who favour Singlish might tease you - "Wah! Your England so powderful ah! Dun let that leh..." But here, the city of immigrants, united by the common goal of making money, respect eachother's language and accent. If you think Singapore is quite a multi-racial society, then New York is super-duper-multi-racial-multi-national. Possibly 200 over nationalities/languages squeezed into this city. They try their best with their English, and try their best to understand the other person. People of common mother tongues cluster together naturally, but they always seem happy to converse with you. The one who is more cautious in conversing with others is usually me, the sheltered Singaporean.

3. Community Activity/ Service
Hmm...I have not much to say about this other than that there are plenty of FREE community activities here... mostly to do with the Arts. And yup, we've been attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church regularly, and have yet to start attending a regular group. Once again, I'm looking forward to that!

4. Sharing a Universal Love
Ah...recycling is hot here, and I've joined a recycing group called Freecycle. I'm not close to anyone yet, but I definately enjoyed the activities! I'm still looking for an amateur group to share my love of music. Sigh~ I need to get myself a music-keyboard to play at least.

I'll revisit all these thoughts again next year. ;-)