FUNNYACCENT

Keep Looking In the Mirror

For Nina, MsJ, GustiAdipati and mama-irma, I thank you and appreciate your effort for being a sport on January 25th.'s entry.

It doesn't matter how many shortcomings or weakness we have, we all do. Weather we want to admit it or not, if we don't continuously and gently gently remind ourselves that we have wonderful quality as a person, we always think about our shortcomings.

How many times a day, the moment we open our eyes until we go to bed, we have doubt about ourselves? Our decisions? And how many times a day we pat ourselves on the back that we've been doing a great job?

Most bloody likely our self-doubts pop outs  more than one time? two, three, four or more than fingers and toes we have?

So, you see, we all have amazing quality which very often we ignore them. We constantly abuse ourselves, belief it or not by listening to our self-doubts than our divine self.

And for those three things you like about yourself, I would print out with beautiful fonts on colored papers. I give the paper to the owners and ask them to pin on the wall next to their beds. I tell them, let these words be the last thing they see before they fall asleep an the first thing they see when they open their eyes.

And as the time goes by, I tell them they can add more when they are comfortable with it.

It takes a discipline, a repetition, but it works slowly but surely.

More to come...........

Questions and Wonders

Two weeks ago, my friend Jessi called me around 9:15 pm and told me to turn on channel TLC.

"What is it? What are they having?"

"Just turn your dusty tv on and watch the program. Call me when it is over."

Jessi knows I seldom watch tv, but she would call me when she thinks I would find some programs are interesting enough to watch.

So, I turned on channel TLC.

It was a Duggars family. Dad is Jim Bob , mom is Mitchell. Both of them are not even 40 and they are the parents of 16 children, aged between 8 months to 16 years and mom was pregnant again.

It was interesting program to watch and at the same time I wondered, ""Doesn't she ever get physically, emotionally and mentally tired with 16 children in the house 24/7?" She and her husband home school their children. She had her first baby when she was 21 and she gets pregnant every year (she had twins twice).

She and her husband have their own good reasons to have many children and they have the right to do whatever they prefer that suit their lifestyles.

They assign a buddy system. The older kids (it seemed that the girls have more responsibilities: ). These girls have become a mother years before they hit their puberty. They have to take care of their younger siblings.

I used to get annoyed when people asked me,"How come you don't have children?", "Who is going to take care of you when you're old?".

I'm sure people ask them tons of questions too when they go out, but it doesn't stop me to wonder, "Is it fair to these children?"

One thing for sure being a mother for one or two children is hard enough. I couldn't imagine being a mother of 16 children.

When is her body recuperate?

When does she have a quiet time?

Does she ever had enough sleep?

And all other questions.

Only she has all the answers.

At the end of the show, all Duggars children and papa Duggar were in the delivery room when mama Duggar delivered the 16th. baby girl.

I was exhausted by the end of the program. I called Jessi the next day.

Check out this, read the 50 comments on Staci Schoff's entry on Duggars   family, and read Addy's comment and her blog.Google Duggars family, you'll read a lot of pros and contras.

Beat It, Whisk It

To mama-irma and a few bloggers who wrote me an e-mail asking about fluffy pancake ingredients. Perhaps I didn't write in detail the last time I wrote the ingredients/method.

I would like to emphasize again I got this fluffy pancake recipe from The Food Section, the pancake was known as David Eyre's Pancake.

As usual I like to switch, adds or eliminate certain ingredients, so here we go:

3 eggs

1/3 cup of milk

1/3 cup of flour

1 tablespoon of sugar (eliminate sugar if you plan to eat your pancake with maple syrup or fruit compote)

1/4 stick of butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

I use a small  non-stick oven proof pan. Melt the butter in a pan on low heat burner while you whisk the eggs, milk, flour and sugar (optional) in a mixing bowl. I use  a petite size spiral egg beater to whisk them about five to seven minutes.  Pour the batter into a pan and turn the heat to medium and leave on the burner for five minutes. After five minutes, transfer the pan into the oven and bake about 20 minutes or until the pancake exploded in your oven (no, I'm kidding) turn brown.

Please let me know the outcome.

To Nina With Love

First of all I'd like to ^10 to Nina for her wonderful method of cooking Briyani/Tomato Rice.

"How did she do it?" as I was staring at every single beautiful rice, sebijiksebijik , she prepared.

She left a comment in my blog and today after I left the gym,I got myself two pounds of basmati rice from Harvest Supermarket.

I prepared Briyani Rice instead of Tomato Rice but I fried the rice as Nina did before I added some water.

While marinated mackerel,ikan temenung was sizzling in a broiler I got the idea from Mahanadi's food blog when she prepared Arati Kaya Kura,  plaintains curry. I switched and eliminated a few ingredients, but I love the outcome.

Note: I almost done with 2 quilts projects I've been working since two weeks ago. I uploaded the photos on RightSideBrain.

Thank you Nina and Mahanandi.

To All The Men I've Loved Before...

Errrrrrr........What I meant was to all the pancakes I ate before........

And this morning I had durian pancake. I bought seedless durian from Super88Market the other day. I used the same fluffy pancake recipe and added two pieces of durians (dua ulas). It didn't rise because of durian's extra weight. A slice of durian pancake and a glass of soy milk for late breakfast.

You must be wondering, "What's up with this woman and her fluffy pancakes? The thing is I love them.

It Begins With Small

I salute these kids and the grown ups who stand up for what they belief. In 15 degree weather, wind blew as sharp as dull needles, their heads held high, they moved  with synchronized steps and chanted stop the war and schools not war.

The spectators was bigger (I was one of them) than the participants, but small is better than nothing at all. It's like when you are told over and over again, one person isn't going to change anything or make any difference when everybody else is doing it when you hold on to an empty coffee cup, or banana peel, or when you drop a milkyway wrapper back into your pocket until you come across a trash bin.

You do it because it is in your conscience.

I tried to stay a little longer but my fingers were getting numb and I needed to go to a bathroom.

Note: More photos from Dennis Fox's site

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on

What's Going On -Marvin Gaye

Turkey Necks Soup

It's so cold today when I called Kak N before dinner I told her, "Haghi ni punyalah sejuk sampai terkeluag ayag mata." -It so cold today, I got tears in my eyes.

Since I read Pomegranate Soup, I've tried a few times of Marsha Mehran's split peas soup. I don't exactly follow her recipes in the book. As usual I switch or add the ingredients to my liking, but I keep the basic structure. After all we need a solid foundation to build a solid house, right?

I used turkey necks which offered a lot of meat (like salmon's head too-lotta meat) instead of lamb.

I added sweet potatoes, carrots and chopped celery. I let it simmer on low heat until the meat fell off the bones, and my turkey neck soup looked more like a stew than a soup. Ohhh...Mak......Am I genius or am I genius?

Does Your Image Shrink When You Look In the Mirror?

The first thing I ask new clients to do when I meet them for the first time is to give them a blank sheet of paper (11"x7"), and ask them to write 3 things they like about themselves.

What will you write if I ask you the same thing?

Talk to me :))

Men

In my mail box. This is not to offend any men because we can say a lot about women too, but I found it too funny.

1. Men are like....Laxatives......They irritate the shit out of you.
2. Men are like....Bananas........The older they get, the less firm they are.
3. Men are like....Weather........Nothing can be done to change them.
4. Men are like....Blenders........You need one, but you're not quite sure why.
5. Men are like....Chocolate Bars.....Sweet, smooth & they usually head right for your hips.
6. Men are like....Commercials......You can't believe a word they say.
7. Men are like....Department Stores.....Their clothes are always 1/2 off.
8. Men are like....Goverment Bonds.....They take sooooooo long to mature.
9. Men are like....Mascara.......They ususally run at the first sign of emotion.
10. Men are like....Popcorn.......They satisfy you, but onley for a little while.
11. Men are like....Snowstorms....You never know when they're coming, how many inches you'll get or how long will it last.
12. Men are like....Lava Lamp....Fun to look at, but not very bright.
13. Men are like....Parking Spot....All the good ones are taken, the rest are handicapped.

Soup In the Book

The split-peas and sweet potato soup was sensational. It won't be this good if I had it yesterday. Some dishes taste better when they're freshly prepared but  dishes like rendang, curry, pajeri (or paceri) are unbelievable phenomenal on the second day.

Let me tell you, I got my sensational soup from Pomegranate Soup. I wonder if Masha Mehran wrote her book while she was sitting in her kitchen, sipping her herbal tea or stirring abgousht in a big pot in her warm aromatic kitchen.

Set in a small village in county Mayo Ireland, Marjan Aminpour and her two younger sisters fled Iran  seven years ago. They lived in London and later set up a small eating place called Babylon Cafe' on the Main Street beneath a holy mountain , Croagh Patrick.

Marsha Mehran had a way to pull me into her delicious Persian dishes and hectic life. The amazing thing was, I felt a tranquility in her kitchen every time  I got to the part when Marjan      began to prepare her dishes. I was right there in her kitchen watching her chopped the onions, rolled the dough and made a cup of mint tea. I finished the book in three hours. I have one word for Pomegranate Soup: Charming.

Sigrid Nunez is one of my favorite authors. The first time I read her book  a few years ago, I fell in love with it. For two months I hunted down all the bookstores in the city (used and new) to get her other two books For Rouenna and The Naked Sleeper. I could've ordered from Amazon or even from the bookstores, but hunting down the book I wanted so badly is an exhilarating experience especially when I am in used bookstores.

Bending down to the lowest shelf, gradually move my eyes to a higher shelf until I hurt your neck. And when my and my neck give me in, I grab an empty chair or a stool and climb on it. I never know what will I see between the cramp, overflow bookshelves. Sometimes I find the book I made a mental note to get it, but I completely forget about it until I see the title on its spine on the top shelf. And I get this rush and warm feeling in my heart, "aahahhh....."

Okay, back to The Last of Her Kind which was about two freshman girls meet at Barnard College in the 60's.  Ann Drayton the only child, a brilliant girl from old money family and Georgette comes from working class family. Getting to college was Georgette's way to escape from her dreadful life, while Ann an idealist longed for underprivileged life and despised her family. Race and class are the major theme of this book.

I flipped the pages pretty fast in the one third of the book, but when Ann was convicted for murder and sent to prison for life, reading a personal essay came close to mind. Ms. Nunez distanced herself from the characters. It was pretty heavy but the story didn't depress me as The God of Small Things did to me a few years back. I placed The Last of Her Kind on TO KEEP shelf.