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Diplomatic Incidents

in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Career Girl Cooking Series: Choco-Cherry Almond Cookies

July 23, 2015

Career Girl Cooking Series, Baking, Cookies, Cherry, Cherry Season, Cherries Malaysia, Cherries Kuala Lumpur, Cherry Recipe, Chocolate, Almonds, Easy Cookie Recipe, Dessert, Domestic Diva, Domestication, Diplomat's Wife, Cookie, #Foodporn, Food

Yet another super easy recipe coming your way just in time for cherry season, my loves!

Baking is therapeutic. It is also a great way to impress people around you with your ‘domestic diva’ skills and make them think you’re like the best diplomat’s wife ever when in fact, you’ve only exerted a wee bit of effort. Haha! I do admit to them later on that baking is easy-peasy. You just have to get yourself into the kitchen, drop the fear that you might blow up your whole building, and dive right in. It takes a lot of time but it’s definitely fun and worth it. 😉

I haven’t been baking for quite a while since my husband and I have been so busy. I was actually looking for an excuse to bake something just so I can make some desserts and disrupt his dieting. 😛

Career Girl Cooking Series, Baking, Cookies, Cherry, Cherry Season, Cherries Malaysia, Cherries Kuala Lumpur, Cherry Recipe, Chocolate, Almonds, Easy Cookie Recipe, Dessert, Domestic Diva, Domestication, Diplomat's Wife, Cookie, #Foodporn, Food

It’s currently cherry season so that’s a wonderful excuse to bake something sweet and fruity. 😉 I was also recently given a pack of Northwest Cherries to try. Been eating them fresh and adding them to shakes. Naturally, the next step would actually be baking with them. I decided to try a recipe I found on the internet for plain cookies then adding my choice of toppings.

Here’s the recipe! Enjoy! 😉

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in Diplomatic Incidents, Events

Events + Photos: Oh My India! A Journey Around India Through Her Many Dance Traditions

July 21, 2015

A few weeks ago, my husband and I found ourselves with (awesome) seats to a dance showcase that I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. When my good friend Thana mentioned earlier that he’s been studying traditional Indian dance and added that he will be inviting Alvin and I to their showcase – naturally – I was extremely excited. Theirs is one of the most fascinating and colourful cultures I have ever encountered so I definitely had to see this show.

India – the most populous democracy, the land of Ghandi, where the Taj Mahal is located, Bollywood land, Hinduism’s homecourt, and the birthplace of Karma and Kama Sutra. And while I’m sure the last bit totally got your attention, I have to admit that my favourites are actually these two: Indian food and their art! Indian food in Malaysia is one of the reasons (Three words: Chicken Tikka Masala) I have to go to the gym and their art forms – from visuals to performances, to wearables – always leave me in awe.

I have been bugging my friends of Indian heritage to bring me along to any of their celebrations just so I can wear a saree. That’s how eager I am. Haha!

Oh My India, was an event that highlighted 10 of the dances found in the country’s different states. It’s a great way of peeking into the culture, religion, and lore that’s so unique and captivating. The event was held in Black Box in Publika and lasted for about 2 hours which, in my opinion, went by quite fast. I actually wanted to see more! 🙁

Oh My India, Indian Dance, Traditional Indian Dance, Karam, Yakshagana, Sattriya, Manipuri, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Oddisi, Kathakali, Mohiniattyam, Kathak, Black Box, Publika, Event, Dance Showcase, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Diplomat's Wife

Oh My India, Indian Dance, Traditional Indian Dance, Karam, Yakshagana, Sattriya, Manipuri, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Oddisi, Kathakali, Mohiniattyam, Kathak, Black Box, Publika, Event, Dance Showcase, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Diplomat's Wife

Oh My India, Indian Dance, Traditional Indian Dance, Karam, Yakshagana, Sattriya, Manipuri, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Oddisi, Kathakali, Mohiniattyam, Kathak, Black Box, Publika, Event, Dance Showcase, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Diplomat's Wife

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in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos

Career Girl Cooking Series: ‘Malaysianised’ Pasta Dishes!

July 15, 2015

San Remo, San Remo Pasta, Pasta Dish, Malaysian Food, Malaysian Dish, Malaysian Pasta, Malaysian Noodle Dish, Hari Raya, Recipes, Cooking, Diplomat's Wife

This weekend, our Muslim brothers and sisters will be celebrating Eid al-Fitr (Hari Raya) or the end of the Ramadan season. It’s going to be a huge celebration among families here in Malaysia. Being ‘that’ kind of foreigner who tries to immerse herself in different cultures to the point of either looking silly or too eager, I found myself quite excited for this year’s Hari Raya.

Last year – only a few weeks after our arrival here in KL – we were invited to a couple of open house celebrations which were the cause of major weight gain for us. Food in Malaysia is just too good and hard to pass up so I’ve been working out to get ready for this year’s celebrations! 😉 (But really, eating more should not be your motivation in working out! Don’t be like me! Haha!)

(Read more about the Career Girl Cooking Series here: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo)

I even found myself thinking as to what should I be cooking for Alvin and I this long weekend. I think it’s a great excuse for me to get myself back in the kitchen and enhance my cooking skills. 😉 While I am not confident that I can make Nasi Lemak from scratch yet, I can truly say that I can impress my husband by making pasta – my field of expertise. But for Raya, I shall be Malaysianizing (is that a word?) my usual pasta dishes!

Thanks to San Remo for teaching me some new recipes btw. They invited me to an event a while back where there was a cooking demo and some tips on how to make pasta that’s perfect for the Asian tastebuds. We even had a cooking challenge wherein the people who attended the event were divided into groups and were tasked to create their own, Asian pasta dish. That was a lot of fun!

https://instagram.com/p/2pnjZTCqeq/

I will be sharing with you two recipes! One that was shown to us during the event and another which is in the cook book they gave us and have already tried myself a couple of weeks back. They are super easy and they take very little time to prepare!

San Remo Angel Hair Pasta in Curry Gravy

San Remo, San Remo Pasta, Pasta Dish, Malaysian Food, Malaysian Dish, Malaysian Pasta, Malaysian Noodle Dish, Hari Raya, Recipes, Cooking, Diplomat's Wife

Ingredients:

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in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Cheesy Bacon Potato Boats

May 14, 2015

Recipe, Potatoes, Comfort Food, Cheesy Bacon Potato Boats, Cheese, Bacon, Baked, Foodie, Food Porn, Diplomat's Wife, Easy Recipe, Quick Meals

A cooking event I attended earlier today reminded me that I haven’t been posting much about my cooking. So I decided to just share with you guys this quickie post on one of my favourite types of comfort food. Almost effortless to make and so yummy!

(RELATED POST: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo)

But be warned! This is very fattening! So try not to eat everything on your own. Sharing is caring after all! 😉

I made this for my husband back when we first got our electric oven. So yes, this post should have gone up months and months ago but it ended up in the bowels of my file folders. 😛 Some of the photos even got lost that’s why I only have two to share. Here I go again, justifying the lateness of this post. Sorry. 🙁

(RELATED POST: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Baked Chicken Pesto Pockets)

I actually saw this recipe while watching a cooking show back when I was in college. I think this is a really easy dish to make and can even be served to your guests if you plan to entertain at home. So, without further ado, (and so I can go to bed since I have a long day tomorrow) here’s the recipe which I’ve continuously modified through the years:

Ingredients:

  • 2 large potatoes
  • 2 tbs butter
  • A dash of salt
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced (or if you have garlic powder, use 2 tsp)
  • 1 tbs sour cream / creme fraiche
  • 1/4 C parmesan cheese
  • 1 C Irish cheddar cheese
  • 1/4 C milk
  • 1/4 tsp pepper (for the mixture, not for rubbing the skin prior to baking)
  • 4 strips of streaky bacon, diced into bits and fried to a crisp

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in Diplomatic Incidents, Personal Musings

Random Thoughts and Happenings 2

April 15, 2015

Things that have been happening lately compiled into one blog post. Get ready for the word vomit! 😉

Home Alone

The husband is off to another work trip and this time, he’s going to Davao, in the Philippines for a couple of days. I’ve always been an independent person but I don’t think I will ever be used to him going on work trips and being gone for days. Knowing that he won’t be coming home for lunch and at around 7pm (yes, the people at the Philippine Embassy in KL work long hours) feels weird for me.

Also, I do tend to worry and I’m not that used to sleeping alone anymore. The teddy bears on our bed are actually there for a reason, you guys. 😉

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in Diplomatic Incidents, Personal Musings

Personal: The #DearMe Tag

March 20, 2015

180126_497321788647_5962682_n_Fotor_Collage

Been seeing the #DearMe videos all over YouTube done by my favourite vloggers and I just think that it’s such a great idea/initiative for women’s day/month! I know I’m kind of late to the party and this would have been executed better through a video blog but my video editing skills are not good enough. 😛

1. Always be kind

Even though people around you aren’t. There are times when your patience will be tested and your faith in humanity will be blown into smithereens but don’t let yourself be jaded. It will take years before you can change that way of thinking.

2. You don’t have to conform

When I was a kid, I would often be teased because I was the ‘different’ one. I was extremely thin and white (to the point of being pale), I had curly hair (straight hair was in), I preferred to read by myself during recess rather than play, and come high school, I still preferred to read instead of experiment with makeup during class and flirt with boys. Yes, your eyesight will be very bad by the time you’re a junior in college. You will feel bad when other kids would tease you. But! Eventually love wearing glasses and contacts. And those big eyes, curly hair, and white skin will eventually land you part time modelling jobs as early as high school and you will earn extra money from it. All your reading will end up giving you a wild imagination and that will make sure you are never bored – ever.

3. It gets better

Related to number 2 – don’t worry. Your awkward phase will end. Some of those mean kids who teased you when you were in primary school will actually tell you you’ve got pretty eyes and hair by the time you get to college and it would be a gratifying moment when you tell them that you’re not interested. 😉 You will question yourself why you were ever insecure about those body parts ever. You will have the time to experiment with makeup the summer before college and you will thank yourself later on that you preserved your skin for as long as you can from the harsh chemicals makeup has (except for those few times you enjoyed trying it on for school programmes). That summer before college will also be about change. You will be more sociable and you will actually start to like having friends and going out. So, primary school Carol. Don’t ask yourself why your interests are so different from the cool kids. Don’t even try to conform. There will come a time for everything and later on, being the school nerd will be cool. Other kids will start worshipping Harry Potter and Star Wars and you will wonder why they do that now when everyone thought it was uncool to read those thick books and talk about light sabres when you were 8 years old.

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in Diplomatic Incidents

Random Thoughts and Happenings 1

March 16, 2015

I decided to put together small stories/thoughts worth taking note of and just putting them into one blog post. Something short and sweet to update you with some of the not-so-big yet still fun-to-talk about bits of our daily expat/diplomatic/normal life here in KL. 🙂

Winning the hubby lottery

Okay, I said this on Twitter earlier but I’ll just type it here once more for posterity’s sake. My husband is a very practical guy. But I love how when it comes to me and our marriage, he can totally morph into a cheeseball every now and then. A couple of nights ago, I asked him what’s the next ‘occasion’ this year so we can plan maybe a quick getaway or a special date. (He’s been so stressed with work lately as there are so many things happening in KL right now – ASEAN Summit, meetings, visits, etc) “May 3”, he said. I just gave him a generic reply. Like “Ok” or something. But to be honest, I was really giddy and a bit over the moon. May 3 is our first date and I just find it so sweet that he would still want it celebrated when we’ve already been married for over a year and we have our actual wedding anniversary in October. He didn’t promise a major celebration but to me, him saying that our first date is still that important to him makes a world of difference. Romance doesn’t die with marriage, people. Believe me on this. 😉

Painting woes

Yesterday, our building’s painters finally reached our side. You see, our building is going through a facade makeover. The painters left a good amount of dirt on our balcony which left me rather miffed since yesterday. They’re still coming back tomorrow to do 2 more coats on our balcony’s walls so it would be rather useless to clean it now, right? But the dirt was just there and it was bugging me. So I got our floor cleaning brush with this really long handle and started pouring water on the balcony and brushing. My husband came home from work and found me struggling. In the end, he had to help me out. I’ll have to admit – when it comes to cleaning, my husband is better and more patient than I am. I’ll stick with cooking and the laundry, shall I?

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in Diplomatic Incidents, Personal Musings

On International Women’s Day

March 9, 2015

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued” – Aung San Suu Kyi

I am lucky to come from a country where women are respected, celebrated, and valued. I am lucky that I am married to a man who sees how different I am from him and from what the society dictates me to be. I am opinionated, stubborn, and I put so much value into my independence and instead of those qualities making him feel threatened, they only make him love me more.

Not all women are as lucky. We must all push for gender equality and break the chains of stereotyping and the norm. We all have a right as to who we want to be, whatever gender was assigned to us at birth.

No more slut and body shaming (Curves are all the rage by feminists nowadays but that doesn’t give anyone the right to body shame skinny people who don’t have eating disorders – just fast metabolism. Having less curves doesn’t make you less of a woman!) . No more telling us what to do and how a woman should be like so. Not all of us are meek and not all of us will let men take the lead 24/7. Equality. That’s what we want. Men who are secure of themselves will not be afraid to give us that.

Happy international women’s day, ladies!

Quick recipe, Pesto, Chicken, Baked, Parmesan, Low-Carb, Healthy
in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Baked Chicken Pesto Pockets

February 5, 2015

Here’s a quick, easy, and well-loved recipe in this household. It’s actually the dish that finally convinced my mom that yes – baby girl can cook. 😉

It’s great for when you’re having guests or family over. Or when you’re trying to cut some of the carbs in your diet without sacrificing the taste that comes with an actual, filling (and yummy!) meal.

It’s healthy, low-carb, and a great way to get some greens into your system if you’re not much of a veggie eater (like hubby and I).

Related Post: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo

Quick recipe, Pesto, Chicken, Baked, Parmesan, Low-Carb, Healthy

I always use a mortar and pestle to crush my garlic. I like them in really small pieces. When my OCD is really acting up, I even use a food processor. Hee. 😀

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