How to make a snowman

It has been snowing on and off the past few days and it's looking very much like last winter. December was very dreary with lots of grey, windy and rainy days.  It's was more like a very prolonged autumn without any of the beautifully colored leaves on the trees or on the ground.  I was missing the snow especially when last winter was gloriously snowy, even in December. 

But winter is now firmly here, this January.  We didn't get as much snow as last year but at least there's enough to make the whole city look nice and white and lovely. Temperatures have been kinder too.  It hasn't been too cold for me, either indoors or out.  Have I adapted better to the climate since I got here? I don't know.  Maybe. I know that I feel quite comfortable now.  Last year I was always well covered, even indoors with my long pants, long sleeved top and thick socks. Now, I can even sleep in just shorts and a tank top.  

Since closing the kitchen, we have had time to enjoy the weather.  The day we had real, thick snow, we had planned to go to the store to get some milk and butter.  Since it was snowing when we headed out, we decided to go to the store that's a bit further away.  That walk was nice since it wasn't too cold  and the was some light snow falling.  The ground was fully covered in snow and everything looked so beautiful.

On our way back, we decided to stop for awhile and make a snowman.  Would you believe I haven't made a proper snowman since the day I moved here?  Pete said to make a snowman, the snow must be at the right texture and temperature. And he's right. Sometimes the snow would crunch under your feet and that means that the snow will not stick together. You can even make a decent snowball with that type of snow.  In the past, when we had time to play in the snow, it wasn't ideal to make a proper snowman so we would just take a walk instead. Anyway, that day, we put our butter and milk carefully in the snow and spent some time making a snowman and snowballs.  

Now that we are not working or studying, we have time to enjoy the snow.  We have had some fun building small snowmen and snowball fights. It's no easy task, building the snowman.  It takes quite awhile to gather and pack enough snow to build the shapes. All the bending and rolling makes you sweaty under all your layers of warm clothing.  So too, the snowball making and the snowball fights. I guess that's one way of keeping fit in winter.

If we don't go out, I would enjoy the snow from the warmth of the apartment. I love looking out the window while it's snowing outside. Sometimes the snowflakes are big and fluffy. Sometimes they are tiny. When it's windy, you can see the tiny specks flying all over the place.  Sometimes it looks windy and cold and the snow falls in a heavy shower. And when I see people walking their dog or walking while carrying bags of groceries at these times, I do pity them and I would feel grateful for not having to brave the weather. 

Oh but the best part of cold, snowy, wintery days are coming home, shedding the layers of outerwear and changing into nice, warm clothes and having a hot cup of tea. It's even better when you're curled up under the blanket with a cat on your lap and enjoying some freshly baked buns, cookies or cake.  That's how I like my winter.

Korv Stroganoff

One of the best things about living here is that the kitchen is very spacious, cool, and well equipped.  It is in here that I feel comfortable enough to try out new recipes - recipes that I wouldn't have tried when I was back home.  Also, some of the ingredients are cheaper here. Dairy and wheat products, especially, are much cheaper so I usually have my pantry well stocked so that I could whip something up whenever I feel like it or whenever I come across good recipes.  Especially when the recipe comes with drool-inducing pictures.

I have been cooking a lot of different types of food here - Malay, Chinese, Indian, and of course Swedish. It's not too difficult to make the Swedish dishes halal since I can get halal meats easily here. A dish that Pete has been asking for quite often is korv stroganoff. Korv is the Swedish thick sausage that is usually made of pork. Here, there are many types of halal sausages sold so it was easy to just pick one out that is made of chicken, beef or turkey.

Although stroganoff is a Russian dish, it has become popular in Sweden for many years.  Here, the sausage is cut into smaller pieces and cooked in a creamy tomato sauce.  It's usually served with rice and salad.  Pete remembers eating the dish when he was in school.  Before I cooked it, I have never tasted it before since I couldn't find a halal version of it sold elsewhere.  One day, after repeated requests from Pete to cook him that dish, I googled a recipe and found a super simple one.  After trying it out, I didn't know why I didn't cook it earlier.  It really is simple and fast to cook.  I can imagine busy Swedish moms coming home after work and spending less than 30 mins in the kitchen to produce a simple, hearty supper for her family. 

So I will share the recipe here.  It might be difficult to find juicy, thick halal sausages back home, but any decent quality sausage should do the trick.  I found it a bit odd to eat cream-based gravy with rice at first. I'm so used to eating spicy gravy with rice, I guess, but in the end, I got used to eating creamy stroganoff or stews with rice.  But if you don't like that idea, you can also serve this with pasta. This recipe makes a tasty pasta sauce too.

Korv Stroganoff

1 big white onion, sliced

400g sausages, cut into strips (size of thick-cut fries)

2tbsp tomato purée 

400g can of crushed tomatoes

300ml cream

Pepper to taste

Sauté the onions. 

Once they're translucent, add the sausages and cook until they start to brown.

Add the tomato purée and cook for about 2mins.

Add the crushed tomatoes and mix well.

Lastly, add the cream and pepper to taste.   

Voila! It's done!

Where did the snow go?

We have been having such a mild winter this year as compared to last year.  Last winter was nice and snowy and white.  There was snow even until late winter and early spring.  I remember walking on snow a lot and had to often wear warm clothing even inside the apartment. It was really cold.  

This time, we had a few hours of snow early in December, but none after that.  I thought it was going to be another wintery, snowy December but it turned out I was tricked. The temperature rose after that and worse of all, there was a lot of rain. It felt more like fall, but without the beautiful brown, yellow and orange leaves littering the ground.  If only it was colder, we would have snow instead of rain.  

And it really rained a lot.  My sisters came to visit in the middle of December and I was really hoping we would get snow but no.  Rain came down instead.  And it was cold and grey most of the time.  Not really great weather to show off to our visitors. Needless to say, my sister didn't really enjoy the stay.  She felt it was too cold and I don't blame her.  It's no fun walking around in the rain in temperatures of 4 or 5C and in wet clothes.

Anyway, after giving up on the idea of a snowy winter, it snowed yesterday afternoon.  Pete and I had to go to town and I was lucky to have checked the weather forecast before heading out. Since it hadn't been too cold ( I have pretty much adapted to the lower temperatures ) I haven't been wearing too many layers when I head out.  But when I checked the weather forecast yesterday, I saw that the temperature could go lower than 0C.  

When I stepped out of the door, the wind blew into my face and the biting cold jolted me awake.  It hasn't been so cold this winter.  I was so glad for the extra layers and scarf that I put on.  Even Pete felt that it was cold, and for that snowman to say it's cold, you know that it's cold.  But it didn't snow when we were out.

Some time after we got home, I looked out the window and saw big flakes of snow falling down and coating everything in white. Beautiful! The balcony was full of stuff we brought home from our kitchen but there was space to stand and look out at the wintery scene.  But I couldn't stay there too long.  It got really cold in the balcony. I didn't realize one of the cats snuck into the balcony too and closed the door.  When I heard the familiar scratching noise, I opened the door and sure enough, Nymeria, the ever-curious girl was there. I picked her up and he whole body was cold.  She also couldn't stay long there.

The snow continued to fall for a couple more hours. As the sun started to set, I could see some kids playing in the snow.  I guess I wasn't the only one who missed the snow.  I guess they decided to play in the snow since who knows it would snow again.  And the kids made the best decision.  When we got to bed, there was snow everywhere. But when I woke up this morning, there wasn't a trace of snow at all.  It rained during the night and melted all the snow.  I wonder when I'll see snow again.

And so that's how 2013 ended

It's been a long time since I've written here. Life got in the way, I guess.  In that few months, lots of things have happened that took up lots of my mental and emotional energies. And now, I'm back here again.

This is the first post of the year and sadly, I have to begin with disappointing news.  A couple of posts back, we were brimming with excitement while working on our new venture - a catering/take away business.  We met with a lot of setbacks. While on the paperwork stage, we've had to wait longer for approvals and such since it coincided with the summer holidays. Somehow, everyone we needed to seek approval from and have contact with went on long vacations and so we had wait much longer than we expected.

Those delays meant that we couldn't do anything else until all the paperwork and approvals were given.  Then, when we started to equip the kitchen, we were met with more delays.  Delays in the deliveries and the installation of equipment meant that we had to push back our opening.  And not only that, we discovered we had to install more equipment so that our small kitchen could meet the standard set by the health department of the the city. That meant more expenses that we didn't budget for.

We were already working with a small budget so that made things more difficult for us.  We had to forgo putting up signs outside the building and printed menus.  We had to be creative and made our own signs and put together own own menu displays for the walls outside our kitchen. In the end, we were quite satisfied with our efforts. The displayed menus and signs looked just the way I wanted - simple and welcoming.

When we finally opened, we got some customers - friends who read our Facebook post and some who worked around the area.  But the number of sales were much fewer than we thought.  That first week was dismal.  We had some more customers, mainly people working around the area, but still very far off our initial target.  

The worse part is the delays cost us at least 30 lunch orders a day.  We managed to find a company that wanted to change catering companies. Their workers were tired of the poor quality of their usual caterers and were very interested in our menu. But because we started late, they couldn't wait any longer and stuck to their usual caters.

We also visited a lot of companies to market ourselves and met a lot of people who seemed very interested in our menus. But we took too long to get started and they lost interest or forgot about us.  We even emailed our menus weekly but either the menus don't reach them or reached the wrong people. We kept on visiting other companies sometimes even with some samples, but the samples don't reach everyone in the company and the people we met didn't really spread the word about us.

We have regular customers, mainly those who work near our kitchen. They like our food, even the traditional Malay dishes, and some nice ones helped to spread word about us.  But it's too slow and too late.  Although we tried to find new customers, make changes to the menus, lower the prices and put up more signs, we didn't manage to turn things around.

After a lot of discussions, we have come to the painful decision to close the kitchen.  Before we lose too much, it's better to cut our losses.  This is really not something that we want to do.  We really love our kitchen. It's well equipped and well planned, if I do say so myself.  Every morning, we both are so excited and happy as we prepare the food.  The wait for customers deflated us a bit but we both simply enjoy working together and I truly love cooking and serving customers. I still can't speak Swedish well, but I'll speak English with some of them.

This whole journey has been tough, with much more downs than ups. We've even shed tears and a couple of times, we even lost hope.  The feeling of helplessness was the worst of all.  We sometimes feel like crawling and curling up in bed and not wake up till all the problems are over.  But we are each other's rock.  When one of us fall apart, the other is there to be a pillar of support.  And truly, that is the best thing that came out of this.  Our relationship is as strong as ever and that is something we both treasure and not take for granted.

So on this first day of the year, with heavy hearts we have to admit defeat and close our business. But at the same time, we count our blessings and regain hope.  "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope," said Martin Luther King.  And that is exactly what we will do.  We are going to keep our heads clear and think carefully about our future. Things might continue to be difficult, we most like will face more hard times, but with each other's support, and hope in our hearts we will get through everything. 

And here, I would like to wish you all a happy new year and may all 2014 be good to you all.

It's getting colder

"Don't trust what you see out the window".  Pete was referring to the weather, of course.  The last couple of days, the mornings start off grey and dark but by the afternoon, the skies would clear and turn brilliant blue.  So lovely.  If it was summer, you know that it would be a warm day.  But autumn is upon us and that means temperatures are falling.  So even though it looks nice and bright outside, the temperature could be below 10C.

These days, temperatures range between 7 to 12C.  The main concern for me now is planning what to wear when we have to head outdoors.  Some times, mornings could be very cold and windy but would be warmer as the day progresses.  Hence, if I were to wear clothes that are too warm, I could be sweating later that day.  I guess I have to layer well - not too many thick layers but not too thin that I would get cold.  I really have to get that balance right.  

I try to look at what others are wearing to figure out what I should wear.  But I find there are lots of variations.  Some people are already wearing thick down jackets and woollen hats but at the same time, I find some people layering with just a thin jacket.  And of course, there would always be that one guy who would be walking around in a pair of shorts. 

I find that I can handle the cold better now.  Maybe it's all the extra layer of fat that I've developed since I got here.  Or maybe it's Pete's influence.  I don't really need such thick clothes to keep me warm.  It was only just a couple of days ago I ditched my capris and started wearing long pants when I am outdoors.  If my clothes are too warm, I would feel comfortable when outdoors but when I'm indoors, I immediately start sweating.  That's not good so I really have to plan well.

I also have to start using the moisturiser all over the body, especially the hands and feet.  The air is dry and there's no sweat to keep my skin moist.  That's the part I don't really enjoy.  It takes up time to apply the creams but if I don't do that, I know my skin will suffer.  It gets tight and feel itchy.  So I really can't skip that.

But that aside, I do enjoy the cold weather. It feels good to be in nice, warm clothes and feel the chilly air on your face.  It freshens up my face, clears my head and makes me alert.  And nothing beats the feeling of going indoors and warm up with a nice cup of tea or hot chocolate. I'd have a nice mug of Milo, but my stash is all gone.  Sigh.  

Fork & Spoon

I have been cooking lots of Asian dishes at home and I have paired them with rice most of the time.  When it comes to serving the food, Pete knows to bring a fork for him and a spoon for me, or sometimes I even forgo the spoon and eat rice the Malay way - with my fingers.  I am used to eating rice with spoons.  That's how it is back home.  We usually eat rice dishes with a fork and a spoon, pushing the rice with the back of the fork into the spoon.  The spoon is used to scoop everything up neatly into our mouths.

But here people use a knife and fork to eat, even when rice is served.  When I am invited to other people's houses for a meal, I notice that the table would be laid with a fork on the left of the plate and a knife on the right.  And it's interesting to see how they would eat the bits of rice, whatever they could push with their knife onto the fork.  When we invite people over, I would make sure I lay the table with fork, knife and spoon.  But I notice that I am the only one using the fork and spoon to eat the rice.

I guess the difference is that back home, rice is the main component of the meal.  The other dishes that are served with it, whether it's chicken, beef or seafood, are accompaniments. Here, rice is usually the side dish.  Hence the difference in the cutlery used.  And it's not only in the homes that the fork and knife combo is the norm.  When we went to an Asian buffet restaurant where dishes like chicken curry are served, again the spoons are missing. 

It looks like I have to get used to eating rice with a fork but at home, I am still going to use the spoon or even better, my fingers.  That way, I can enjoy my rice dishes fully. 

A taste of the competition

Things are moving very slowly with regards to the business. We are waiting and waiting for other people to reply or to get back to us before we can start so for now, we are focusing on other parts of the business. 

I have been trying out our new dough mixer and testing out recipes.  Since the equipment and baking pans are new, I need to try them out so see exactly how much batter I would need for each pan.  I don't want to have either too little nor too much batter and this is the best time to experiment so that I can get all recipes sorted.  It is important to do that for the cake batters since baking calls for exact measurements.  I want the baking to go well from the moment we start so that I don't have too many things to worry about.  It would be my first time at cooking many dishes in bulk so I would definitely be stressed out at first.

I have also been cooking dishes and baking cakes so that I could take photos of them.  The photos would go into our website, menus and flyers so I end up making more to have on standby so that I could take the perfect shot.  Because of that, we sometimes have lots of food left over.  Luckily we didn't have to eat everything ourselves. I have been giving them away to Pete's family or my friend who lives in the next block.  That's a win-win since we get feedback from them and also we don't have to waste any food.

Another task that we have been doing is a bit more fun - food testing.  But not our own food.  We have been trying some Asian food that are available here.  We have tried mainly Chinese and Thai food since those are a bit similar to ours.  So far, though, I haven't been impressed by their flavours.  Growing up in a place where street food is cheap, good and varied, I have tasted many different, delicious flavours and I think the Asian food here is sadly not up to scratch.  The sauces I have tried tasted like they either came out of a bottle or there were many ingredients missing resulting in insipid flavours.

Whenever I tasted the food, I would compare it with what I've experienced or with my own food.  I do think mine is more flavourful but I don't know if this would give me an edge over my competition.  What if our customers are more used to the bland flavours and are put off by my strong tasting foods?  I certainly don't want them to reject my food because they can't handle the spices or the new flavours they have never experienced.  Should I tone down the spices to cater to more palates or do I stick to the traditional flavours that I grew up with?

It's the same with cakes.  Most of the cakes here are very heavily laden with cream.  The cakes have only two thin layers of sponge and then filled and covered with whipped cream.  The cakes I am used to are more varied and much better looking.  I have been spoilt by world famous bakeries that have opened in Singapore and I thoroughly enjoyed the French and Japanese baked goods.  I can't make similarly exquisite desserts but the cakes that I can bake and love to eat are very different from those that are found here.  Cakes such as the humble butter cake, moist chocolate cake with ganache frosting, red velvet cake and lemon pound cake are not easily found here.

But with the cakes, I am going to stick to the recipes I know and love.  I am going to give our customers new choices.  If they want the usual cream cakes, I'm sure they can find those easily. But if they want something new, hopefully they will buy them from us.  What we need to do is to market our products well, maybe give out samples so they know what we have to offer.  And that's our challenge for now.