Need to Lose Weight

Somehow I find it hard to lose weight with all those food in front of you. I will try to eat less for a couple of days and then it is back to the old appetite. To be healthy, I need to lose 25kg for a healthier BMI. Being obese has its disadvantages and higher risks of getting sickness, but then again, I cannot resist good food with good company. Food is medicine as stated a few times in the web. It nourishes the body again after being depletion of energy and good for the soul.

Uber CPM

There is a new publishing company like Google Adsense and is a good alternative with many adverts on its banners placed at your sites. To join this network, click on http://ubercpm.com/index.php?rp=5377 where you can join immediately but never click on your own ads. It is good to leverage on your various blogs via this network should you be banned permanently from Adsense. I don't know how good the conversion rates are but you can withdraw via Paypal when you hit USD 10, unlike USD 100 for Adsense. Though it is lower income, but nevertheless, something is better than nothing at all, don't you agree? Don't be greedy and don't cheat. Honesty is the best policy!

What does it take to get Airline food off the ground

Every day at 10am, Calvin Soo sits down to a very large meal. He eats, or rather, takes small bites of, all the 25 different dishes on budget airline AirAsia’s Santan menu, tasting each element carefully.

“You get very used to the taste profile this way, so if there is even a slight variance in seasoning, we can detect it instantly. Every day, we have to make sure that the quality is at its best,” he says.

Soo is the resident chef at AirAsia and is responsible for the conceptualisation of all the dishes on the airline’s menu – from snacks like curry puffs and sandwiches to main meals like the famous Pak Nasser’s Nasi Lemak, Uncle Chin’s Chicken Rice, Nasi Dagang, Shepherd’s Pie and even desserts like the newly-introduced Chocolate Mousse.

Only 28, Soo has already chalked up quite a bit of experience, including being a chef-lecturer at HELP College as well as working at celebrity chef Emmanuel Stroobant’s restaurant Saint Pierre in Singapore.

He says that although his job is really exciting, there are a lot of challenges and limitations to what he can and cannot put on a menu. There are things he has to take into consideration that restaurateurs on-ground never, ever have to worry about.

Like the fact that a combination of dryness and low pressure in the cabin reduces the sensitivity of taste buds to sweet and salty foods by around 30%, which means every single dish has to more intense than it would be at ground level.

Or the fact that leafy vegetables are generally a no-no as these greens cannot withstand the chilling and re-heating process necessary in airline food procedures.

Anna Olsen is inspired by Asian Food

It is 11.30am on a sunny Tuesday morning and I am hovering over a hot stove, staring intently at the bubbling contents inside – a medley of rice, coconut milk and shrimp. I have never cooked a risotto before and have been paired with three other girls who – as luck would have it – have also never cooked the dish before. We are using a combination of common sense and our wits to forge ahead, but anxiety is still omnipresent in the kitchen. Then, like a ray of sunshine, Canadian celebrity chef Anna Olson walks by, a wide, disarming smile adorning her face. “Ooh, that looks lovely. You guys are doing a fantastic job,” she says. Instantly, spirits lift and we all do an internal high five. It isn’t every day you get a chef, much less a celebrity chef, all to yourself for a masterclass and if she says you’re doing a good job, well, don’t change anything you’re doing! “This isn’t so difficult after all,” I think to myself as I ladle out hot, heaping spoonfuls of the finished risotto and marvel at the fact that this velvety soft, delicious dish has been made from scratch by culinary neophytes.

Dinner at Old Town White Coffee Restaurant, Penang

This is the menu of Old Town White Coffee Restaurant on the 4th floor of First Avenue shopping mall near KOMTAR - right smack in the center of the heritage city. In the menu, it says "Aroma of Good Taste" which lives to its tagline. It serves local popular food like nasi lemak, curry puffs, steam chicken with lots of ginger, wan ton noodles, fish fillet with vegetables on the side and rice, koay teow soup, and the like.

Here is the ambience of Old Town White Coffee Restaurant with many tables and chairs in the medium sized outlet by any restaurant standards. There are comfortable white sofa seats too that can take in 6-8 people or for couples like us, we were seated by a round table, with 4 chairs for sitting and to put our bags and newspapers. The place is clean, not like the ones you find at hawker stalls and in an air-con place. Whenever possible, I will dine here now and then in Penang since First Avenue shopping mall is near my condominium at Penang Times Square.

Here are our orders of wan ton noodles with crispy wan ton and soup on the left side of the photo which was my order. My partner had springy noodles with chicken cutlet and vegetables on the right side of the photo. He also ordered an upscale coffee while I had iced enriched chocolate drink. This meal alone set us back by around RM 33, but then again a simple meal is not complete without good company.

My Birthday Celebration

We celebrated my birthday at Fong Wei Restaurant recently this month. Above are 4 seasons consisting of stir-fried de-shelled prawns with thousand island cream and sliced onions on the right side while on the left are spring rolls of chicken. Below the platter are 5 sets of tofu with fish balls on top and drizzled with delicious gravy. Above the plate is a mixture of vegetables mainly consisting of mushrooms, cashew nuts, carrots, spring onions and the like.

This is the signature dish of seafood soup with lots of crab meat, sliced fish stomach, mushrooms and many other ingredients to thicken the soup. It is garnished with parsley to add zing to the taste. When you dine at Fong Wei, never miss this dish as it is only served here that whets the big appetite.

These are 3 rolls of 'choon piah' that comes with a special sauce and consists of chopped carrots, turnips, shitake mushrooms, lettuce, etc. It is crunchy and sumptuous to the palate. There are two types of 'choon piah' - one is the rounder one like in the picture above, while the other is the flatter type consisting of prawns, chopped spring onions and then deep-fried to taste.

I had originally wanted to order the cheaper pomfret in 2 styles but it was out of order. Hence, I had to take cod fish instead which was steamed in scallion sauce and garnished with spring onions. Read somewhere that it was also the late Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's favourite dish as well. This dish alone set me back by RM75.

A birthday celebration is never complete without birthday noodles or also known as 'lam mee'. It has sliced pork, prawns, lots of bean sprouts, some crab meat, fried onions and spring onions with yellow noodles for longevity.

Writing Opportunity

I found a blogging or rather writing opportunity online and had already written 9 articles for USD 5 per article of 250 words minimum and 3 photos. For charity, I will donate USD 1 per article to any establishment of my choice like Doctors without Borders, National Kidney Foundation, orphanages and other charities. My second sister in UK just ran 5km to raise funds for cancer research by getting herself muddy, having to climb ropes and slide down an inflated giant slide for the fun of it while doing some charitable work. She also used Facebook to raise the cancer research funds and managed to collect Great Britain Pounds of 300 together with her course mates.