New Year's Meal 2015

I'm late in posting this but I just want to record this for my personal reference in the future.

After the Christmas gatherings, me and hubby were tired and sick. We decided to stay put and celebrated the New Year with only our small family. I wanted to do something really simple, but hubby still went out for grocery and prepared us a special meal with seafood theme.

We started with appetizer, typical French toast with difference kind of spreads.

Hubby made the bottom toast himself. He then spread them with sour cream, some herbs and salmon.

French toast with crab meat spread.

French toast with fish eggs spread.

French toast with oyster spread.

Some cheese and nuts.

Non alcoholic champagne for the big day so that me and Aelig could join in.

The entrée : gambas with basilic and pin nuts.

The main dish : salmon with herbs.

Dessert : Raspberry Christmas cake.

The girls had good time playing together.

Thanks hubby for these wonderful meals and good times together.

She doesn't know how to make the bed!

"She doesn't know how to make the bed!" Cried hubby.

This phrase still linger in my mind. It was the first time I visited France, he brought me to his grandmother's house, and we were asked to make the bed. I stood in the room, didn't know where to start. That was when hubby realised that I didn't know how to make a bed, so he shouted to inform his parents.

I don't know why people created such a tedious job to make the bed, and thus making my life miserable doing this task. Just so you know how easy it was when I lived in Malaysia : a bed sheet that covered the whole mattress, plus a blanket. So very morning I just need to fold the blanket, that was it.

Back to the scene in France. I discoverd that making the bed involves changing the pillow cases, putting a bed sheet on the mattress, adding another top bed sheet, following by several layers of blankets depending on the weather condition. When bed sheet + blankets are aligned, tuck the sides under the bed. A person then lies in between the top and bottom bed sheet.

Photo shows a bed that needs to be made before sleeping in.

It doesn't seem so complicated right? Well, let me tell you the tradition in my French family (the other French are probably practicing the same thing). When you invite someone over, you are normally responsible making the bed before they arrive. So, if you are inviting several people, all of the beds have to be done. In the case above we were asked to make our own bed because grandma was too old to have to make all the beds alone. In my house we use duvet with cover, so another thing to do is to dress the duvet. And most importantly, the pillow cases + bed sheet + duvet cover need to match in colors and design! My bed sheet in Malaysia was bought separately from the blanket, so they didn't match. I didn't know it was a big deal in France. Wait, we are not done yet, I have to also provide towels to the guests. Yeah, we are talking about providing services like in a hotel.

The worst thing is the laundry after our guests left. Even if they only stayed for one night, we have to wash all the pillow cases + bed sheets + duvet covers, and iron and fold them. I was shocked to see my MIL ironing all the bed sheets, towels, table clothes, napkins...it was a long process...

I do not think making the bed this way is more comfortable. For myself, I still do the same thing like in Malaysia, just a bed sheet + a blanket. And, I asked my guests to bring their own towels. I know, I'm bad.

The King Cake's Drama

France is mourning for its losts. What happened is wrong and sad. I might share about my thoughts later.

It is January, the month where we savour King Cake again. It is a tradition where the youngest kid will hide under the table, and call out the name of the person who will get a slide of the King Cake. When everyone gets its slide, they will eat their cake and find out who gets the fève (a porcelain figure hidden in the cake). That person will become the king or the queen of the day and is entitled to a paper crown. Most bakeries sell these during the whole month of January, the most common fillings being frangipane and chocolate.

We were going to the Wednesday Chinese class so I thought it would be a good idea to bring some King Cakes to share with the kids. As usual it took Aelig a little time to warm up before actively participing into the lessons. When the lesson ended, we were going to warm up the cakes when suddenly Aelig threw us a tantrum. She told me she wanted the fève for herself. I explained to her that it depended on her luck, I was not the one deciding who gets it. She wouldn't listen to any word I said and started crying and insisting she wanted to be the one getting the fève. While we were trying to warm up the cakes, she prevented other kids to touch the cakes and claimed that the one cake was for her alone. It was a whole mess as I had to feed Awena at the same time. I forgot what happened next, but finally she sat down eating her cake, and several minutes later she standed up with a smile telling me secretly that she won, as she flip opened the crust and saw the fève inside! When she finally got it, she jumped with joy and other kids were happy for her too.

Well, she didn't have to the drama queen, as it turned I got the fève from another cake. Together with what her grandma gave her, she has now three fève in collection, that she happily put with her frogs game.

I was very disturbed by her behavior, other kids didn't ask to get the fève, they were surprised at her crying. On the way home, I asked why she was so afraid that others would get the fève, while she didn't react that way while her classmates got it when they had King Cake at school. She told me that all her classmates are her friends and she likes them, so they can get it. But these kids from the Chinese lessons are not her friends, so she would be very angry if they get it. Wow, I didn't know that! They played along well, Why won't she consider them her friend? I probably need to pay more attention to her emotions.

French Christmas Meal 2014

Snow, turkey, Christmas tree, presents...these are the elements that make me think of Christmas.

In our region, it hardly snows; in my family, we seldom eat turkey.

So there you go, we celebrated Christmas with no snow, no turkey, but with Christmas trees, plenty of presents, and scrumptious foods.

Seafoods are usually on the menu in our region since we are very close to the sea. On Christmas Eve, we started our celebration with slice of salmon or tuna on a toasted bread spread with savour cream, then sprinked with some chopped shallots. A few drop of lemon juice added some fragrance to the combination. Then we had rolled ham spread with cream cheese. Other finger foods including carrots cut into stick form, some nuts, and some pomelo.

Celebration would not be completed without a glass of champagne.

Another French Christmas tradition : eating foie gras with onion on a toast, then sprinkled with some salt. This is a heavy meal, not everyone can digest well the foie gras. I stopped eating since several years ago.

One of the signature dish of my FIL : scallop with wine sauce, in my family we like to eat it with panfried apple.

As mentioned in my previous post, finish one's plate means mopping the sauce with a slice of bread. Here I had no problem cleaning the sauce on the pan as it was too good to leave them to waste.

We continued to the cheese section : crêpe stuffed with cheese (not sure what type of cheese), the two went along very well.

My MIL signature dessert: raspberry Christmas cake. The traditional Christmas cake is made of lots of butter so it was very heavy. My MIL reduced the butter and matched it with rasberry, very refleshing.

Hubby saw Mangosteen imported from Malaysia so he decided to buy two. Very expensive, at 20€/kg, these two costed around 2€. My MIL mentioned that French love to try out exotic fruits during Christmas season.

Santa Claus passed by earlier this year as the little girl was a bit sick, she went to bed without eating dinner days before. Luckily she recovered on Christmas Eve, after meeting Santa, she was able to stay with us.

Here the little angle, very satisfied with the presents, waiting to blow off the candles as she was also celebrating her birthday. Yes, she has turned 5!

Christmas day lunch. Here were the appetizer.

We had this wine from 1996 to go along with the meal.

Boudin blanc : one kind of stuffed sauce with apple. Apparently it was a very old tradition to eat this during Christmas, but we don't do it often. I'm not a big fun personally.

We did not eat capon like every year, instead we had beef fondue. Again, not a big fun so I didn't eat much. We had the leftover Christmas cake and Tiramisu as dessert.

After the meal, the sun was shinning so we decided to go for a walk in the park nearby.

We also had our annual family photo taken. This year we are blessed with Awena joining our family.

Hope everyone had a blast like us this year, and wishing everyone a prosperous year ahead!

Honey, please finish your plate!

When I eat rice, I make sure I finish every grain of rice in my plate. If I don't do it, this phrase will keep flashing in my brain "谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦". It literally means that every grain of rice represents the hard work of a farmer.

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So when hubby finishes eating and I see in his plate that there are some grain of rice left (just like what is shown on the photo above), I will ask him to clean up. Once he protested, saying that I do not clean up my plate when I left sauces in it. And he actually thinks that eating all those grain of rice is harder than cleaning up the sauce! Well, funny because I feel the complete contrary.

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For him, the plate on the photo above is an unfinished plate. To be fair, I left much more sauce on my plate compared to this photo, especially tomate sauce when we have pasta or spagehetti. 

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In France, I have seen many people mopping up their plate with a piece of bread. I do it when I really love the sauce, but not systhematically, and I don't think tomato sauce goes well with bread. Sometimes I feel full already and there will still be salad, cheese and dessert coming, so I figure I better leave some space in my stomach than filling it with bread and sauce. 

So, do you clean your plate of rice or sauce? Or maybe both?

In France, we have The Little Mouse

It happened. Her first tooth just dropped.

Unlike in the USA where tooth fairy would come collect the tooth, in France we have The Little Mouse. Yes, we told her that the mouse would passby to give her a present or a coin, she was excited.

She has a loose tooth since two days, then she decided to take it off, I suspect that she did it so that she could get a present quicker. She put the tooth under a pillow, and kept going to check it out if the mouse has passed by.

Well, she only got it the second morning, as we didn't expect the tooth would come out so quickly. I had to make a trip to the local grocery to pick up something. She was thrilled when she saw the present, and immediately put the two euro coin into her saving box.

Tooth fairy or Little Mouse, it is just something the occidental world created to please their kids, just like the character of Santa Claus. One day she would find out that it is just an invented story, hope she will take it well though.

Maman, can you carry this?

This happens a lot to me.
Me as the mama, + a baby on me + climbing up stair to fourth floor.
And Aelig would ask me to carry leaves / sticks / chestnuts...

Source : http://imgur.com/0DORWx9

Her play corner

With Aelig growing she needs more and more space. Spaces to store her toys, books, belongings, and also spaces for her play time.

Here is her cooking corner. During autume we have chetnuts all over the ground close to where we live so she collected them. They became her cooking ingredients.

Friends gave her a box of new game. She doesn't play it by the rule, but instead created her own game. She arranged the frogs by color, led by a queen, each on a lotus leave. Then she slowlly moves the first one forward, and all other follow suit. She can plays this for a good hour.

Another moving game of her. The car or bus follow each other closely. She would move the first one forward, then repeat the same move for the second, third...until the whole troop advanced. By the way, she cut a piece of white paper into pieces (on the left at the edge of the rail) and I was not allowed to throw them. It is her cooking ingredients apparently.

I place unused papers for her here so that she could draw on them before they go into the recycling bag. At her age she needs lot of papers.

She hasn't touched this puzzle for almost two years. One day she just decided to lay them on the floor, and match the bear family with different outfit. She would present them to me for each outfit to see if I like the combination she chose that day.

She is a big girl now, she can play alone. But most of the time, she asks me and her baby sister to sit beside her and see her advances her frogs or her buses/cars. She plays with them everyday and begs me to not tidy them up. Let's just say that my tolerance towards untidy rooms has increased so much after I have kids. It is either a battle to make them tidy up or just have one eye closed.

Stock up books from China

I have heard about purchasing services (代购) from China, but have never really used them. I love reading but I couldn't find cheap options buying Chinese books from France. The purchasing services I found online usually required some fees, and that topping with the hefty shipping costs have stopped me completely.

But a reading worm needs its foods. I bought some from Taiwan for my birthday. And finally, the urge to share my childhood readings with Aelig has prompted me to seek again, especially I heard many Malaysians are buying from TaoBao (淘宝), a website that hosts many sellers from China for a wide range of products. My effort didn't bear any fruit as some didn't ship overseas and some didn't accept international payment. I thought it wouldn't be possible without a Chinese banking account, but recently I found a solution. My friends recommended a purchaser, who specializes in buying books for overseas customers. I just sent him the websites (淘宝 or others), he calculated the shipping costs, we both agreed on the total (books + shipping), then I did a wire transfer to his French account. Once he received my transfer, he went to order the books, sent me a photo when the books arrived, then shipped them to me. He didn't charge any fees, but accumulated points from those websites and got some discount from the shipping company he used.

And voilà, two months after, the package has finally arrived!

And what did I order? 45 Doraemon comics! It is a shame that Doraemon is not famous in France, despite the fact that French are very familiar with Japanese mangas. Doraemon was my childhood hero, and the fact that Aelig has shown interested in comics, I thought it was time to introduce it to her. I think she will love this robotic cat who is afraid of mouse but who helps his master in many ventures that kids can only dream of.

I also ordered a set of Chinese story books. It features 366 legends related to traditional festivals, ancient believes, tales and myths. I looked online on books that are suitable to Aelig's age, and I always wonder why those famous parenting bloggers recommended classic western fairy tales or story books from USA (all translated into Chinese), instead of stories written by Chinese authors. In today's world every kid seems to read and watch Disney's cartoons, know by heart fairy tales like "The Ugly Duckling", "The Little Red Hat". What is it so wonderful to teach our kid about a wolf eating a little girl? Anyway, this set of books are arranged by month. We started with January so we touched about the story of Nian (why Chinese celebrate New Year with fire crackers), the Chinese Zodiac (she was intrigued). Some stories are not for her age but she still remembered some part of it so I think she will get there eventually. And, I have to say that by reading these it helps refresh my memories on certain legends or learning something new.

I read to her the first book of Doraemon. She was curious, she placed all of them beside her bed, but she decided that those are books that she would read alone without me. Ok, I don't want to force her. Anyway, I can't help but take one to read for myself. Maybe deep down I bought these for myself!

The Chinese legend series are arranged by color on the floor in her room.

Ok, I have to reveal that this is one of the saddest moments being a parent. Aelig is myopic so she has to wear glasses when she is in school or when she is watching TV. I felt guilty as I was myopic too so she probably got it from me. I hope all these books that I bought her would not increase her myopia though.

Mutual respect : 'I Want To Touch A Dog' event

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I was a bit surprise to see this photo circulated in Facebook.

Growing up in Malaysia, I know that my Muslim counterparts are not supposed to touch dogs. Their religion considers that dogs are unclean. If one has to be in contact with a dog, one needs to clean himself in a certain way. Therefore, seeing a Muslim Malaysian getting closed to a German Shepherd with her kid got me curious.

Reading further I found out the 'I Want To Touch A Dog' event recently organized in a park in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysians from different races and religions showed up. The goal was to help address animal cruelty and overcome prejudice and fear towards dogs.

Anyway, no matter what my Muslim counterparts decide, touching or not touching, this is their choice, and I learn to RESPECT. Just like they respect other Malaysians to own a dog at home. If one chooses to stay away from dogs due to religious aspect, one shouldn't be reprimanded.

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Living in France, I learn that believers from different countries have different practices even though they are from the same religion. For example, I talked to a coworker from Algeria. She was surprised to hear that my Muslim counterparts in Malaysia do not touch dogs, as she doesn't practice the same things. The same goes to Buddhism: Buddhists / Taoists in Malaysia do not eat beef in general , but Buddhists in Taiwan do. How about Christian? My Christian friends here were so surprised that some Christians in Malaysia do not drink alcohol. They told me that Jesus drank wine at his last supper (in the photo above there is some red liquid in a wine container on the table). People just have different beliefs and practices and what is important is that we learn to RESPECT their choice.

Coming from France, hubby and his friends discovered that Muslims in France and Muslims in Malaysia live a different life. They were charmed by the colourful traditional baju kurung (costumes) and the friendliness of my Muslims counterparts. One commented that the female workers in Carrefour looked so cute with their blue uniform and blue head scarf. Hubby loves to go to Hari Raya open houses.

In my opinion, Malaysians, regardless of race and religion background, could live in harmony as long as we show mutual respect. I missed those days when we got invited to Raya open house for some satay and ketupat; and Deepavali open house for some Indian breads.

By the way, Happy Deepavali to all Malaysians at home!