year end...looking back

american boy parody

this is just too funny that i have to post it. listen to the lyrics carefully.

Christmas

Its Christmas time again
The season of renewal
Love, faith, charity
And all that is beautiful
Chimes greatly in to every heart
Beating in celebrations
Of Spirit, togetherness, and affirmation.

-Unknown-





Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.

And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to make you glad.

-John Greenleaf Whittier-




Whatever else be lost among the years,
Let us keep Christmas still a shinning thing:
Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears,
Let us hold close one, remembering
Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith again.

-Grace Noll Crowell-



The merry family gatherings –
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.

-Helen Lowrie Marshall-

nyc-christmas on fifth avenue

few more pics taken last saturday some of the christmas decorations on fifth avenue and window display at bergdorf goddman. i know they are terrible pics. didn't have enough time to walk around as i was late for my meeting.

white christmas - central park

went through central park yesterday just to take few pictures before heading to work for a meeting. supposed to be a white christmas this year? well...probably not because it is raining today and pretty sure all the snow will be washed away.

nyc - holiday season

everyone knows that the christmas and holiday season is a great time to visit nyc, which explains all the crowds in the pic. was walking by the rockefeller center yesterday morning at 8 am and the place was already somewhat busy. been to that area in the evening during this time of the year...well, forget about it. of course you have the christmas treet at the rockefeller center, a must see attraction if you're visiting the city during the holiday season.

experiment

i've been scouting around looking for easy holiday recipes for my christmas dinner next week. .
i came upon this roasted lamb dish by barefoot contessa on the food network.com. it looked so good on the computer screen that I went to get 2 pounds of lamb and give this recipe a shot. i tried a smaller version of the recipe below

Christmas Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb
Ingredients
12 large unpeeled garlic cloves,
divided 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 (6-pound) boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and tied
4 to 5 pounds small unpeeled potatoes (16 to 20 potatoes)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Place the oven rack in the lower third of the oven so the lamb will sit in the middle of the oven.
Instructions:
Peel 6 of the cloves of garlic and place them in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the rosemary, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, and butter. Process until the garlic and rosemary are finely minced. Thoroughly coat the top and sides of the lamb with the rosemary mixture. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Toss the potatoes and remaining unpeeled garlic in a bowl with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place in the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place the lamb on top of the potatoes and roast for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the internal temperature of the lamb is 135 degrees (rare) or 145 degrees (medium). Remove from the oven and put the lamb on a platter; cover tightly with aluminum foil. Allow the lamb to rest for about 20 minutes. Slice and serve with the potatoes.
Recipe SummaryDifficulty:
Easy Prep Time: 15 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 50 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Yield: 10 servings

took the lamb out when the thermometer popped out and give it a rest for 20 minutes. I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to cut the end piece and found that it looked way too medium rare for me. Well, since this is just an experiment, I threw it back in at 325 degrees for another 20 minutes. this is what I got. notes to kadazan man, probably need to roast the lamb for early 30 minutes at 450 degrees and then reduce to 350 or 375 degrees. think i am going to pick this as one of my main dish for christmas. if i screw this up on christmas day, guess i have to fire up the wok and make some fried rice lah or curry.

bbkk in nyc

thanks to alvin and andy at borneoutara.com, i finally received my own bbkk bag earlier this week. i didn't get the chance to show it off in the last couple of days because of the rain. nonetheless, got to bring it around yesterday while doing couple of errands in the city. i guess you can say that my new bbkk bag went sight-seeing with me.

us$1 in nyc

what can get for us$1 in nyc? some of the following and yes, i have tried them all.
*plain bagel with jelly
*small coffee or tea
*roast pork buns in a chinese bakery(used to be 75cents but just found out recently that they
increased the price)
*5 pieces of fried wonton at that dumpling shop on mosco street in chinatown
*fried noodle from a food vendor in elmhurst
*15 minutes on a drying machine
*8 minutes worth of conversation when using public phones
*maybe 45-60 minutes of metered parking
*a copy of new york times
*4 minutes at the peep show
*1 piece of fried chicken from a deli on 45 street between 8 and 9 avenue
*1 piece of southern style fried chicken from soulfood on 29th street between 7th and 8th avenue *6-10 minutes of internet access

payau in my backyard

woke up early on sunday and saw outside a family of payau hanging around in my backyard. they were just taking their sweet time enjoying their sunday brunch with no sense of urgency or fear at all. guess they are very lucky to be living in long island. don't people back home like to cook payau "masak kicap" or something?

turkey after thanksgiving

didn't bother to get turkey on thanksgiving. instead, i went to a japanese restaurant and had my thanksgiving meal there. only had turkey on sunday night when we found it on sale at waldbaum. it was a big one too about 13 lbs and on sale for 39 cents per-pound. a very big bird for 3 people.

thanksgiving parade

went to bed last night and was thinking about waking up early to get a good spot for the macy's thanksgiving parade. i figured i should try to watch the parade at least once while i am in new york. of course i woke up late and only caught the ver last few floats of parade from a distant in times square. maybe next year....if i remember to get up early.

malaysian food...new york style

how can one miss food from back home when you can get almost any kind of paste for any recipe from back home in chinatown and prepare it yourself at home. hopefully i have the chance to try out some of the following this weekend. looks delicious. maybe eat it some fried rice. or maybe with chicken rendang. i have tried the beef rendang, malaysian style of the same brand but didn't quite like it. will try the chicken rendang and find out if it is any good. so many things to do, so little time.

noodle bar

was in chinatown again today for my eye doctor's exam. when done, wanted to go to the food hawkers on east broadway that sell mixed rice for us$4 per-plate but somehow ended up in this somewhat new fancy noodle place on division street just before the manhattan bridge underpass. i think the name is hong kong station. the menu display on the street caught my eye especially where it said us$3 for a bowl of noodles. i scanned through things they have and luckily they had picture menu because the rest of them were in chinese. so, i decided to give it a shot, walked in and point my finger at the picture for pork feet noodle soup....yummy. nothing fancy really, just plain and simple to satisfy my tastebud. they gave me a decent size bowl of yellow noodle and 4 pieces of juicy pork feet. it was only later after i have taken the picture that i noticed from the placemat on my tray, in english, that you could actually create you own noodle with whatever choices they have on display behind the counter. wonder if it would still cost me us$3 for that. another reason for me to go back to this place.

sompoton and sago palm

here is an excerpt from a book written by Thomas Rhys Williams entitled The Dusun:A North Borneo Society. a very interesting story about the origin of sompoton shared to him by the headman of sensuron village during his stay there from august 1959-august 1960. i have heard many different stories about the origin of sompoton. however, i have to say that i have never heard this one before, or maybe someone had way too much tapai and came up with this story.

…There are a variety of more than 30 folktales regarding creation of specific animals and plants. Dao, the headman of Sensuron village, told this story of the origin of the sago palm and the sago “beetle”:

There was a beautiful girl who was asleep in her house in the middle of the day. As the young hunter Saro passed that girl’s house he heard her call out in her sleep, “cut me bamboo to make sEmputan (musical instrument).” So he did that, and took the bamboo to the girl. But when she came onto the veranda of the house, and he gave her the bamboo, she would not take it, saying, ”I did not ask you for that”. But her vagina called out to Saro and said, “it was this girl’s vagina that called out for the bamboo!” The girl was very ashamed of her vagina, she went to the deep jungle and took it out and placed it on the stump of a tree. Then a deer came and rubbed its side against that vagina and left hair upon it. Then the tree stump grew again and became the sago palm and the vagina became the beetle you find inside there. (pg. 15)

what can you buy with RM1?...in new york

this posting is a response to kupi O kaw kaw's recent posting. based on current currency exchange rate us$1 = rm3.60081. so, rm1.00 is roughly about us$0.277115. so, what can you buy with rm1.00 or say, us$0.25 in new york?
...you will get 3 minutes worth of time to dry your clothes in a self service laundromat dryer machine
...probably 2 minutes to pump your wheels at a gas station. some may be free.
...new york post newspaper? or is it us$o.50 now
...5 pages or may be 2 pages from a photo copy machine at office supplies stores or drug stores
...bus fare for seniors? or maybe it is us$0.50?
...oh..not forgetting maybe 10-15 minutes or even less for metered parking
...extra toppings for your salad bowl
...couldn't think of anything else....

when you have to go...especially in new york

man...when you have to go in new york, you better have a place in mind to go. its a hassle to some people like me who goes to bathroom quite often especially in the winter...its the weather. or even for people visiting new york. its good to know that someone is actually taking care the problem of locating a bathroom for me. thanks diaroogle.com. you are a life saver.

cuci kain

laundry day. unlike the old days when i used to soak my clothes overnight in a "besin" or "baldi" and then the next morning, quickly "berus" each one of them, rinse and then hang them all out in the sun to dry. hours of work. well, we did have a washing machine but as far as i know we only use it to spin our washed clothes in order to extract the water out before hanging them out in the sun. well...those were the days. now within 2 hours you get clean and fresh sock, jocks etc. and no i don't have to do it everyday, only every other week. i wouldn't be surprise if they have self service laudromat like this in malaysia these days.

backyard - red & yellow

a wet and dreary day in new york. my backyard, on the other had, looks red and yellow like its on fire. couldn't really catch it with my lousy camera but when you step outside you can feel the intensity of the colors.