UV-Musings

I was plagued by the dreaded flu virus (above) last weekend. Had all the works, from runny nose to cough coupled with intermittent fevers. Ughhhhh, the bane of being sick! I slept thru the weekend while popping in some home med but didn’t seem to recover. Took a sickie on Mon and suddenly felt so much better…my mood that is…hehehehe. The day’s weather however was a tad gloomy with pouring rain clouding the entire day. A nice day for sleeping in which was exactly what I did in a bid to cure my flu. In my bouts of waking hours, I did some errands like servicing my car and banking stuff. It sometimes astonish me that the weekends just whoosh me by and I couldn’t find the time to do any of my own stuff but come to taking a leave or sickie, there’s suddenly a list of things to do. Of course the banks nowadays only open 5 days which is much better than your truly here, who still has to slog on sats. How absolutely crappy!

After work last sat, I attended a cooking workshop. Well, truth to be told, it was more of a cooking demo class. We were given the chef cap, apron and mitts upon registration so I reckon we could be cooking hands-on in the hotel. Blimey! We just sat and watch the whole cooking session demo by the hotel chef! The worst thing was we were not even sitting higher than where the wok was placed so I could only imagine the ingredients that the cook was throwing in to the wok! We had the recipes on hand, which wasn’t exactly to the rule.

And to top it all, the chef’s grasp of the English language was limited at best, which he resort to subsituting with a smatter of Canto along the way or literally translate from Canto. I couldn’t help guffawing at certain junctures as the chef also looks like one of the HK stars, 8 kati of Gold (Pat Liong Kam). We ‘learned’ a few canto culinary dishes, namely Stir Fried Ostrich with fresh mango, Braised Tiger Prawn and Steamed Canadian Cod Fish with Crispy Beans. Heck, we even received a cert for this. Erm, I think basically the dishes are quite simple to cook, as are most of the chinese dishes, albeit the ingredients that goes in which elevates the dish from home-cook to restaurant culinary styled. Most of the participants were aunties so they threw questions to the chef on where to buy the special ingredients and stuff. There was even a short banter on the type of knives to be used.

After the cooking session was over, we proceeded to the restaurant to be served the dishes demostrated earlier. The stir fried ostrich was really juicy and succulent and well marinated. Paired with the fresh mango, it somehow brings out the flavour. The braised tiger prawns were fresh but since I’m rather neutral when it comes to prawns, it was alright. My fave dish was the steamed cod fish! Whoa, the fish was really fresh and the crispy beans (tau sou) and soft taufu adds to the joy of gobbling it down. The chef’s fried rice was spicy but otherwise nondescript. Well, I guess the RM50 that we paid was well worth the cod fish, ostrich and tiger prawns that we savoured tho’ I felt we didn’t really learn anything. This kind of courses are prob more suited for the housewives or those who cook frequently instead of greenies like me and my friends.

The last time I went for a baking class, we were given hands-on lessons on how to make the dough and bake the breads, which I reckon is more apt of what a baking class should be.