Steamboat

Steamboat, is a common name we use to refer to hot pot in Malaysia. We prepare some soup base, and add anything from meats to vegetables and share the meal together. It is very handy for gatherings as you can prepare most of the things in advance.

I like having steamboat with friends and families. It is convivial and we usually share a nice moment together. This month alone, I had 4 steamboat gatherings. One in my place with 10 kids running around, and the other three were held friends' house. Just so happy to find some friends to share this nice meal together.

Christmas 2017 : My man and his dishes

This year we hosted the Christmas celebration in our place. We had 6 people joining us. It meant a lot of cooking, and sleeping arrangement.

Hubby's mind was concentrated on fine cuisine in early December. During the weekends, he browsed through websites to get ideas, and tried out dishes and desserts. 

On Christmas Eve, he spent almost the whole day in the kitchen. Here he was preparing the first dish.

 The first dish was served : puff pastry topping with apples and foie-gras.

 The first type of verrine : beet mousse

 Dressing the second dish : salmon with crab meats and cream cheese

 Second dish served.

 The second type of verrine : Shrimps with avocado mousse

 Dressing the third dish : scallop & leek on puff pastry

 Third dish served with two type of sauces 

At this point our guests complained that they were too full for more. We then switched to cheese.

By the time the desserts were served, it was already passed mid might. I was so tired that I went to sleep. Hubby prepared two type of Christmas cakes. One was with chocolate favor.

The second dessert with caramel favor.

During the weekends before Christmas, he tried out several site dishes. The results were disappointing so he abandoned them.

One weekend he prepared these five verrines for us. They were scrumptious so he served some of them during Christmas Eve, some on Christmas day. 

He wanted it to be perfect for the Christmas cake. So he did twice before Christmas. It looked and tasted good, unfortunately I was not a dessert person, and my girls didn't like it. So imagine, the chef had to eat every evening a slice of cake by himself, in order to finish it, before he tried again.

He got my total admiration on his determination and persistence on presenting the best dishes he could to serve our guests. There were a lot of stress as he had to prepare every dish until all the guests were gone. He did a very good job.

Eason Chan in Paris 30 Oct 2017

Even though I live in France, I still prefer to listen to Mandarin and Cantonese songs. I was hoping one day I could go to see Faye Wong's concert in live. Well, she is half retired now, and there are not many Asian singers performing in France.

Never say never, it just happened one day a friend posted on WeChat that she was going to see Eason Chan's concert alone. I was so excited as I really love this singer, and I have never imagined that he would hold a concert in Paris (relatively smaller Chinese community compare to London, Canada, USA). I decided on the spot that I was going with her, and I dragged another friend to join us.

There you go, Eason's C'mon in Tour in Paris. I seldom read Chinese news here so I almost missed it.

My friend wanted to stand close to the stage to enjoy the atmosphere. So we bought standing ticket. She dragged me to queue 4 hours before the concert in order to get a good spot, closer to Eason. It was a cold evening. There were already 25 people in front of us when we arrived. Another friend arrived just in time to deliver us some Chinese buns as dinner. Around 5pm, Eason got down from a bus and some fans were going crazy. He entered quickly to the concert hall for rehearsal. The entrance was supposed to open at 6:30pm but it only opened at 7pm.

As soon as the doors opened, we rushed in, and managed to stand at the forth row right in front of the stage. We were packed like sardines. We were with a bunch of Chinese youngsters and overall they were well behaved. Except the man in hat. The girl behind him asked several times if he could just remove his hat when the concert started. He ignored her at the beginning, but eventually snapped with an answer "they are tall people in front of me, should I ask them to cut off their heads?" I was speechless. 

The concert started around 8:30pm. By that time, we were already standing for 4 hours and a half. My feet were sore, but people kept pushing. Anyway, I was elated to see him singing so close by. It was worth the wait, but it would be the last time. I'm too old to get crazy like this.

 Here was how the concert hall looked behind us. Right in front of the stage a place that could fit around one thousand people standing, my guess. Audiences with seat were on the first floor above us.

He sang lots of new songs, the concert ticket came with his new album.

When hubby saw the photos, he commented that Eason dressed poorly. Well, he sings well, that's the most important to me.

The concert finished around 10:30pm. We waited a bit as the organizer said he would sign our album. But we were chased out of the concert hall, so we decided to go for supper. A bowl of ramen soup at 11:15pm, you don't get to do this in Nantes!

When walnut is a dessert

My in laws have been to our place often to help with the DIY projects. When they were here, we usually had a tapas type of Saturday dinner. Over the time I had made almost the same kind of food.

 We usually have these...

 This when I was in the mood to make something visually attractive...

 My in laws brought this because they were cheaper in their place...

 Stuffed mushroom with something, I tried to alternat the stuffing..

.

I made this, I would like it to be a bit more chruncy, still need improvement...

So one day I was putting all kind of appetizer on the table, and since I know my MIL loves walnut, I purposely put it right in front of her. She was eating everything else except walnut and cheese. I felt weird, but when they had finished other stuffs they moved on to cheese. Then I realized they were following the appetizer-main course-cheese-salad-dessert-coffee kind of sequence. And when we moved on to dessert, I saw my MIL eating walnut, finally. I was like, oh!!!! Walnut in the shell is dessert!!!! When the shell is removed packing with nut mixed it is appetizer.

And I only realized this after living more than 11 years in France??? Oh my.

PS : In Malaysia we can jump from appetizer to dessert then back to appetizer and cheese. So, that's why I still couldn't get why eating in sequence is so important.

New Year Gathering 2017

Happy New Year 2017!

We hosted a New Year celebration this year in our place with friends and their kids. 8 adults and 6 kids. We had a blast. I'm so glad that we did this, after the party, I feel the house is so empty, really miss the friends' company.

We started talking about New Year celebration in October, I was not sure if we were capable to host as even though we had moved in, the house was still undergoing some home improvement projects. Like for example we still didn't have a place to hang our winter costs, our dressing was not started (still not)...The house was not perfect to host, but our guests were very understanding, they didn't mind just for one night, they came with their sleeping bags.

I worked on Thursday and Friday. Since the girls were on holidays, they stayed with me, so I had to work from home while taking care of them. As soon as hubby was home, I rushed to the supermarket to buy groceries. It closed at 8pm, but the fresh food sections (meats, vegetables, seafood) started to get things of their display at 7pm. Saturday morning (31th) was spent to clear the house whereas hubby went for the last round of grocery shopping (for fresh meats mainly). I did this as soon as I had time but with the girls, the place got untidy and dirty quickly. The girls' rooms were cleanup to receive guests. 

Some guests arrived around 3pm. They helped us prepare the food. French women I know are all very capable, they usually prepare everything before hand so when guests arrive, the kitchen is spotless and they are with you through the meals. This is so unlike the Malaysian style, where my mother and aunt are busy cooking while the guests and other family members would start eating without them. Anyway, hubby likes to gather everyone and prepare things together. 

Our friends prepared a game for the kids : fishing for gifts!

I prepared a gift bag for the kids. Inside, it has some party items like a balloon, a hat...most importantly, I wanted to include some Malaysian touches : a paper lantern and a pack of handheld firework. Malaysian kids play paper lantern with candle during Autumn festival and firework during Chinese New Year. When it got dark, we had a work outside with lantern and firework, despite the freezing weather. For some reason, the firework was difficult to light compared to those we had in Malaysia, so finally not every kid got to play with it.

Apéro : Margaritas (a Tex-Mex drink we loved from US), some light starter. I also prepared a verrine (pamelo, avocado, smoked salmon with lemon juice) and some stuffed mushrooms.

The men were preparing Caïpirinha, a type of Brazilian drink with sugarcane liquor, sugar and lime. We learnt this from a Brazilian friend during our stay in Austin.

 The main course 1 : Chinese style hotpot

The main course 2 : Plancha (griddle) with 7 types of marinated meats. We bought 1,5kg of beef, 1kg of chicken, 500g of pork.

The kids were having fried rice and chicken nuggets at far end. In general people prefer the plancha, I was into hotpot. The hotpot ingredients could be grilled as well. Overall, people got their dose of meat and seafood, they seemed to be very satisfied.

At mid-night, we had champagne and kissed and wished everyone a prosperous New Year. We continued our soirée with a game. We had light dessert : mango and lycee around 2am in the morning. The courageous men stayed up till 5am.

In the morning, we gradually woke up around 11am, had breakfast, went for a walk, and continued the plancha for lunch. Some friends left before lunch, some after lunch, some helped us clean up (we don't have a dish washer). After they left, we took a nap. It was tiresome but we got a great time.

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Baby Gym Christmas Party 2016

The baby gym was having a Christmas party for the kids.

When we arrived, the trainers had set up a Christmas tree, and different kind of gym equipment for kids to jump, crawl, climb, run, and have fun.

The party has gathered three group of kids. After an hour of the usual gym classes, the main trainer gathered everyone together and yelling for "Santa". They screamed 4 times before he finally arrived.

 Kids surrounded him. He asked if everyone was well behaved, and all of them said yes.

Santa called out name and handed each a gift. They girls waited patiently for their turn. Parents prepared the gift at the beginning of the party and gave them discretely to the trainer. I asked the trainer to include a gift for Aelig who was not in the baby gym program.

Soon Santa called out their names. This time, Awena was not afraid at all. She happily kissed Santa as requested.

 Awena got a pair of pajamas, as for Aelig, it was a gift I had long in mind.

This toy was more for Awena's age than for Aelig. But she showed her interested each time she saw it :  in someone's house, when we were in the doctor / dentist waiting room... I know this would please her.

As expected that, she claimed that this was her favorite gift so far. Awena was disappointed though. She was happy to have the pajamas, but when she saw this toy, she checked again, and said "there was no toy for me". She sneaked into her sister room when she was not around so that she could play with it. As a parent, I was sad to see one happy and the other one disappointed. Hopefully I could catch up on the real Christmas gathering.

Company Christmas Event Dec 2016

This year my company year-end Christmas party was held in the Cité de Nantes. 

First we were invited to watch a show: three people playing music instruments while doing some acrobat, quite well done. The big daughter was glued to it the whole 1 hour, while the little one was following for 15 minutes then started climbing up and down from her seat.

After the show, we were handed two bags of snack for the kids, and the adults had to go through a long queue just to get a pastry and a hot drink. Food wise we can sense a huge budget cut compared to years before.

 We were told that some games areas were set up. The little one was intrigued by this book area, but since she didn't take a nap before coming, she became fussy quickly.

 The kids got their snack, while I was queuing for ours, managed to chit-chat with some coworkers. Later we played a game, quite easy, depending on the dice color we needed to blow down some fake colorful candles.

We were told then that there were more games upstairs. The kids were totally glued to as soon as they set foot in this area. The little one played with enthusiasm some cars and some trains that she had to put on those racks.

 What I loved the most was the Lego area. Tons of pieces of Lego for anyone to play with.

 Kids teamed up with their parents, constructed some crafts using Lego pieces, wrote down their team name, and I believed the organizers would choose a winner later.

 So many kids happy to find Lego pieces at their services.

 The big daughter was hooked to the train set for a while before joining her little sister.

When we left, the Christmas lighting was on, the girls was disappointed as they couldn't enter the area to get closed to Santa. By the way, due to budget cut, my company didn't invite Santa this year. I didn't know about this (I didn't go ask either), so I told my kids what we were going to see Santa. The big daughter accused of lying when we were about to go. Oh well, she will see Santa soon.