School has been underway for about 3 weeks now. We're still adjusting to schedules and adjusting the schedules to suit us.
This term's targets
1. For Sarah to learn to be more on task and do everything without a)daydreaming, b)fidgeting or c)being distracted by things around her.
2. For Ben to be able to fully come on board.
3. For Gabriel to learn to occupy himself without too much interruption to us
4. For me to manage all my household chores, and sleep earlier at night.
Today, I attempted to fry up some kueh bakul. That's a sticky glutinous rice 'cake' that is the tradition of the Lunar New Year. Legend has it that some monster (or god??) is released during the month before the Lunar New Year, and it prowls the kitchens looking for food and gossip to report to the 'gods'. So people make this sticky cake to glue up the kitchen monster's mouth so that it cannot report all the bad things to the gods in 'heaven'.
Well, I called Mum this morning to ask her how to do the kueh bakul (also known as 'nian gao') with yam slices. She said to sandwich the yam between slices of kueh bakul, dip in batter and fry. It didn't sound right to me. Shouldn't one sandwich the kueh between the yam instead? That would make it less sweet!! Anyhow, I tried it her way. It turned out quite nice, except that the yam was not sufficiently cooked inside. But just now, I looked it up online, and actually, I was right all along. The yam should be on the outside... it would cook better. And also the melted kueh bakul would not stick onto my wok like it did just now. So, conclusion : sandwich kueh bakul between slices of yam.
OK. Time to start school now.
