february babies

after falling ill and still fighting to control and kick the flu bug.... i've finally gotten round to write abt feb so far...

feb is always the month of celebrations... it's when cny mostly happens so it means tons and tons of food and this year alot of - "please make sure this is the last year i'm giving you hongbaos...." or "when are u getting married?!" fending these qns off is an art that takes a lot of patience and creativity; creativity to come up with diff ans so that you wont sound like a broken record...

and of course... sinclair's birthday!!!

a mini hot dog party with an addition of the green fairy...

i baked the carrot-shaped carrot cake! haha it was a last minute thing coz gina only told me a few days before the party of her request and of course no where would take such a last minute order so i crossed my fingers and got down to make the cake... first time ever so i wasnt sure if it would turn out nice....
luckily it did!!!

then the 11th rolled around.... dinner was at my fav french restaurant!
i wasnt sure if i wanted to try a new restaurant or something good... well by the end of the night, i was glad we chose here instead :)

yummy starters of chicken liver pate and duck rillete!!

then it was our mains...

chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and one of the mains of the day... ribs... it was sooo yummy and dripping with fatty goodness...

this was sarah's first time there... so she didnt knw that at this restaurant, we would all fighting for every bit of food. once the dishes are placed in front of us, silence descends and food is quickly consumed and every surface cleaned... haha

then it was desserts! we had the good ol creme brulee and a pear mousse thingy...

overly stuffed we hurried on over to ps to watch black swan... a totally trippy movie but worth watching.

then we hurried over to overeasy to meet more friends :D and usher in midnight!!!

and then all thanks to my darlings!!! at midnight....

also thanks to the Overeasy staff for making this happen!

its always alittle difficult to have all my different groups of friends to come together... but guess what... by 1am.. i didnt realise anything or had any way of controlling myself all thanks to...

my usual foe (this year thks to gina) double waterfall, a 911, copious amts of champ and long island all consumed within the first hour of 12ve feb

then it was up to butter and of course by this time i really dont remember anything at all...

all thanks to my great friends for an awesome nite out... but now that im really old... we're so not going to do this anymore. or at least no more on my birthday!!! heh

woke up with a splitting headache to meet the girls for tea at inter-continental

it was a time for resting, eating and personally for me a time to face the world and find out the totally embarassing things i did the night before :(

after we all split up for dinner as gina had work, sarah plans with des and i had a nephew's bday to go too heh

we all met back later for last drinks as 12 feb passed at bar stories

my birthday drink :)

special order... it came with a candle and less alcohol... (at this point i was still reeling frm the taste of alcohol. actually i still am haha)

i heart my friends for the wonderful birthday :) a year older and a year wiser i hope!

anyway this came in the mail a few days ago :D

hehe from my darling all the way in melb :D

i'm really a spoilt and blessed girl with my best friends, good friends and cousins everyone. loving all of u!

Thanksgiving Dinner

this happened awhile ago and of course since gina had the photos coz it totally slipped my mind to take the photos, i cldnt publish this post without the food pictures!

since i will not be having aunties to be making turkey for me for the 2nd year running.... i decided to tempt fate and make my own for the very first time! well the story behind was that i was suppose to have a professional help coz mostly everything on the menu was going to be my first ever try so if anything were to go wrong, he'll be around to help! hahaha plus i needed extra hands to help prep. he was due to land friday nite and dinner was to be on sat nite.... and come friday evening he texted me saying that all flights out of surabaya was CANCELLED! for the longest time i thot he was just kidding.... i mean y? esp since sq/silkair barely cancels any of their flgihts.... then i remembered the stupid volcano.... i went online and found out he was being serious and his flight was actually cancelled hahaha after oh a mini panic episode that lasted abt 2 hours. finally, after much encouragement from everyone, i figured how hard can it be right? with an awesome oven, all will be good RIGHT? right? i know that the other dishes werent going to use the oven but if anything, mom made vongole so they can have tt? hahahaha

come sat i started prepping.... and thankfully denny arrived at 4! so even thou he didnt help with the prepping... he was around to do some damage control and help cook some dishes....

The final menu:

turkey (named bert)

stuffing

grilled lamb

roasted potatoes (tt really didnt end up good coz i didnt know i was suppose to par-boil it! whoops! lesson learnt.... still on a quest to get it rite)

roasted pumpkin

vongole

corn

cream spinach (frm scratch)

pumpkin soup (made from the crappy pumpkin i had initally used... luckily it turned out yummy! all thanks to denny's help)
dessert was the always trustworthy pavlova

so introducing..... our star..... BERT

all 8.82 kg worth of lean meat......

and this was his bath which he sat in for 1.5 days.... soaking up all the yummy deliciousness

then it was off to the oven for about 4 hours and he came out beautifully delicious!

and all the other dishes....

all in all i think this was very successful and looking forward to another thanksgiving later on this year!

lesson not to forget!

1. par boil potatoes before roasting

2. pick a turkey tt's not so well endowed - thou i have to say that since the potatoes werent touched and we had tons of leftover turkey.... i made shepard's pie the week after and it was yummy!

3. sarah and gina loves spinach.... buy about 3 packets of spinach or more :)