Woody Inquiries

It was never meant to sound like an advertisement that posting of mine - "Woody Obsession". However, it somewhat created avid interests from furniture seekers all over. Inquiries came in various forms, through emails, text messages and some colleagues at work even asked me if I still kept the advertisement of the furniture shop. Guess, more folks are going for "wood stuffs" these days.

Advert is not very clear, it's Jln 9/1B

And because of that too, I don't mind sharing the info of the place where we did our haunts (and yes, the guy at the shop did ask me to tell my friends about his shop, so kira I'm doing him a favour lah here). Incidentally, the shop placed an advert in an English daily yesterday. Hence, making me able to cut the advert and scan the address of the place. It's kind of tiny the address. So, I did a search on Google map for better directions to get to the shop.

Map to Craft Roots@Bandar Sunway

Location of the shop

And these are my messages to those who have inquired.

Girls at work - go check it out.
AT - yes they do deliver outstation.
Pilot's Wife - not sure when I'm going again. Kinda filled up the space in the house already and last but not least to
Anon 10:43 Oct 10 - go terjah the place, before the new deliveries are gone.

Woody Obsession

One of the subjects ABE took during his undergrad studies was Wood Structures. It was a subject which he put a lot of interest in. And that semester, I learnt quite a bit about wood as well. He shared with me insights about the different types of wood like pine, mahogany, teak, rosewood, maple, just to name a few.

Choices of teak aplenty...filled to the brim

I though this “woody” business had ended after he sat for the finals of that paper at the end of the semester. Dah score dapat good grades tu habis lah kan. But tidak, that wasn’t the case. The attraction and fascination towards wood kept flaming in him even till present. When we first started looking for furniture before we moved into our house way back in the early 90s, most of the places we went to were the “woody” joints. And with that brief intro, we have now accumulated quite a number of wood pieces in the house.

My first piece was a wood display cabinet, bought just after we moved into our home. I remember rummaging through this antique furniture shop in Subang. After sometime of look see look see, I finally settled with a Merbau piece of orange-brown shade with simple floral carvings on the both sides. Unfortunately, the antique shop where I got it from closed sometime back, but I must say the piece still stands proud in our living room. Relatively not long after the Merbau cabinet, we got a dining set which was made from rosewood. Similarly, this set has become one of my favourite purchases. Even after having had it for more than 15 years, it looks very much like how we first brought it home. The six seater may have become somewhat small for our growing family. We ought to consider getting a bigger set but I simply don’t want to part with it just yet.

What's your fancy? Wall mirror??

And today, we went “wood” hunting again. A couple of weeks back, we stumbled upon this shop which sells teak furniture somewhere in Sunway. The shop, well more like a warehouse I should say, had like so many pieces of teak, mahogany, acacia wood furniture. Most of the furniture are simple in its design, nothing too gaudy nor too complicated and so very much to my liking. How lah to resist???

Bayar time... Gesek (swipe) aja Pak...encouraged the shop owner

So what was the outcome (damage pun iyer jugak) from the hunt?? Heh..heh…a mature coloured teak console cabinet. Its price was pretty reasonable and the shop will deliver tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I’d do some clearing up of the space where the cabinet is to be positioned. Hai…bercabinet baru lah pulak saya Raya ni nampak nyer ;-)

Chocolate Chip Cookies - 1st Attempt

I made these chocolate chip cookies on Saturday. Got the recipe on the Internet and I decided to give it a try. They turned out not too bad but a little too sweet for me. Next time I make them, I'll make it a point to remember to reduce the sugar. Otherwise, it will definately backfire on my "waist line reduction" efforts.

Back to Back Baking

This baking bug has really gotten into me. I baked back to back on both Friday and Saturday last week.

Friday evening

After 2 hours...this is what's left of the cake.

I tried out this new recipe I found on the Internet - Moist Butter Cake. The cake tasted just like those Sara Lee pound cake. That was on Friday evening. The 1/2 kg round cake was gone in a while. By the time I came back from my swim, there was just a quarter left.

Saturday morning

The mixture

Freshly baked...still hot from the oven

The next morning I baked cupcakes for Faris. He came to KL for a trip to the Islamic Museum in the city. We then met in Suria KLCC....and a box full of cupcakes was packed for him to take back to campus in Malacca. When we called him later, he said he had eaten 3 cupcakes at one go...gosh!!!

Baking Again

Last weekend was exceptionally thrilling for me. Me, the undomesticated soul, did some baking!!!

Wahh...a new, improved, domesticated MOI?? Even I was surprised with myself. Well, the story of my baking "trivia" started way back when I was studying in a secondary school in my hometown Seremban. Those days, we girls had to take this one subject known as "Sains Rumah Tangga" a.k.a Domestic Science. My girl friends and I always joked on the name of the subject. We renamed it to "Sains SURI Rumah Tangga".

Mrs Seow's glasses looked something like this.

This subject was somewhat interesting. We learned how to sew, cook and also bake. My teacher was a Chinese lady, Mrs Seow..if I recall her name well. She was some character. She was a bubbly small sized lady who had those 60's like a-go-go dancers glasses and was extremely sharp with her words. If we slacken in her class, she would tell us that we would end up as spinsters for we didn't know how to cook and wasn't able to get anyone to marry us. And if we did get married, our husbands would "lali" (lari...as how is was pronunced by her) with other women who were better cooks. At the age of 15...urgghhh...none of us girls was thinking of marriage. So we would totally ignore her treats.

I laughed most of the time in her class. As punishment, I had to sweep and clean the DSC (Domestic Science Classroom). She made sure I gilap (polish) all the cutlery until I could use them to look at the pimples on my face!!!

Mr Seow's BM was urghhh...how shall I put it...hilarious!!!. She would time and time again confuse these words...kelapa & kepala and kipas & lipas. Her favourite lines were, "Sekarang masukkan KEPALA ke dalam kuali". Literally translated, "Now put your HEADS into the pot". And with that statement...who wouldn't laugh until pecah perut!!! My friends and I almost fell off our stools when she said that. Mrs Seow meant KELAPA (coconut) and she had said KEPALA (HEAD). Just imagine, putting your heads into the ovens? Now...macamana tak ketawa???

One time she screamed her lungs out and said, "Saya ade nampak KIPAS!!!" We looked up towards the ceiling of our classroom. But she was instead pointing to the drawers. Ooo...she was confusing her words again. So...how not to laugh?? When she realised, she had fumbled on her words, she would say, "Kenapa awak semua ketawakan saya?" (Why are you laughing at me?)

Mrs Seow also used to get mad with me when my cakes didn't turn up well. No matter how hard I tried, the cakes I baked would not be as fluffy as others. They always would turn up hard or batat (flattened). Mr Seow said that if she threw my cakes to the wall, it might just make a hole in the wall. Wahhh...so teruk ka??? Well, I guess they did!!! It was then when I accepted the fact that I was not cut to be a baker, not even if I have to safe myself with the skill.

Mrs Seow continued teaching us until our form 3 exams. I did pretty OK in Domestic Science in the exam. When I showed Mrs Seow my result, she said this to me, "Good result. Ha...now u can get married already." Gosh...what a comment!!

With those not so glorifying experiences in my domestic science class, I had obviously stayed away from baking. There were a few times when I tried baking cakes for hari raya. Some of the cakes I baked turned up OK but many didn't. As the years passed, cake houses and bakeries mushroomed. I could still get nice cakes even without making them. I was extremely trilled with the sprouting of outlets like "Secret Recipe" and "La Manila". Cakes are still aplenty...no worries for me.

Milk, coco powder & kissable Hershey's

Basic ingredients butter, sugar & flour

My indifference towards baking came to a pause when one day last week, my daughter Farah, told me that she wanted to make cupcakes for her Kemahiran Hidup class. Sweaty palms and all, I was dumbfounded!! Aduss....she would now be relying on me to show how it's done. Instantaneously, those visions of my flattened cakes from school days came like a play back in my mind.

My cupcakes in the oven

So, during the wee hours of last week, I did my homework on baking. Got some useful tips on the Internet and finally...last nite, I gathered my guts, cleaned up my oven, got out my mixer and started baking.

Wallah...this is how they turned out to be!!!

The outcome of my effort was very rewarding. My cupcakes turned out OK. Not hard as how they used to be during those school day. Nissa ate 5 of them at one go after I took them out from the oven.

My baking still needs improvement for sure. But what made the most out of it was when Nissa told me, "Mom, U are the world's best baker!!!" She may not have any famous bakers she'd be comparing me with, but I know she was impressed with what I did. And that surely made my day...

I guess I'll be baking more in the months to come. Hopefully this newly found interest of mine will stay and not be short lived as some of my other "hot" pursuits.

Poem & Photo Editing

My first posting for the year. I used to write poems when I was in school. I thought I'd try my skills at it again. But this time combined with some photo editing tools.

The outcome...oh well...I'd rate it OK la ;-)