Ah Ma

It's been a very long week, and I've just been too overwhelmed to actually sit down and talk about it. Now that a week has passed, I think that I am just about ready to process matters.

Exactly a week ago, it was just like any other Thursday. I had made plans to go to the blood bank with my girlfriend to donate blood, and had set my alarm earlier, for about 845am. But little did I know that things weren't going to happen as I had planned.

At 8 in the morning, Daddy woke me up with the words "Wake up, Ah Maa's gone already". I leapt out of bed instinctively, my mind still not yet fully awake to process the words.

My paternal grandmother (my Ah Ma) had been staying with us for several years already. Her health wasn't very good, she had diabetics and kidney problems, and pills and injections were a constant daily affair for her. About a year ago, she had a stroke that left her in a comatose stage, and we brought her back to our house. She couldn't speak, nor walk, and basically, was in a persistent vegetative state. A civic ambulance had to be called to bring to a private dialysis centre three times a week as she could no longer walk down our flight of stairs herself as she used to do so.

From a robust 60-70kg when she was still reasonably well a few years ago, she had been gradually losing weight in the recent years. In fact, within this one year, she lost so much weight that she was really boney and her weight was actually just 40kg. You can imagine how sad it is to see her be in this state when one remembers how plump she used to be.

Everything happened so fast as there were so many things to be done for a funeral. I had to ring my Sister, who had just left for Vietnam on Wednesday (a day before my Ah Ma passed), and arrange her flight details to come back immediately. Family had to be informed. Arrangements for funeral preparations had to be made. There was never a silent moment as my house, for the next few days, was packed with so many relatives, friends, and associates.

There was also family drama that was so unbelievable. In fact, it had seemed that the drama ensuing was even more drama-fied than the dramas one watch on television. Thank gosh that everything turned out fine in the end. I can only hope that there wouldn't be a big drama again in the future...

In a way, perhaps, due to the stroke she had a year ago, we were given a year long to prepare ourselves mentally for the time when Ah Ma will pass on. Thus, after the initial shock on the first day, most of the family can gradually accept Ah Ma's demise. After all, she was suffering for the last few years of her life, and her passing on means an end to her pain?

I've always believed that Ah Ma was the pillar of the family that supports and holds everyone together. Now that she's gone, my place just fill kinda empty. Like something's missing.

As a granddaughter, I couldn't converse much with her except for the basics, "Have you eaten?", "How are you today?", "What did you do today?", "Ah Ma, I bought your favourite XXX, later you can have some for tea!","Ah Ma, I'm going out to XXX now.","Ah Ma, I'm home!". My Ah Ma can only converse in dialect, and my Hokkien was not very good, I mean I can speak Hokkien, but I'm certainly not fluent in the language. Now that she's gone, I've learnt things that I've not known about my Ah Ma from cousins who can speak the language better than me, and I regret that I did not put in more effort to learn the dialect better to know more about my granny.

I'm fine now, just that perhaps, I need time to fully comprehend her death and come to terms with the fact that perhaps, my life will just be a little bit different from now on.

Happy Fathers' Day!

Fathers' Day Brunch for - who else but Daddy. Sis and me made brunch together. We planned the menu the day before - mozarella cheese on foccacia toast, sautéed mushrooms, crispy bacon and poached eggs. I did the mushrooms and bacon, she did the toast and poached eggs. Mmmmmm. Too bad there wasn't fresh juice to accompany our hearty fare. I paired mine with a cold glass of milk. Good enough! (:

Family weekend. And small tea cakes and financiers.

It's been a great and unusual weekend. Family weekend. Went shopping at Ion with Sista on Saturday. We didn't manage to walk alot cos it was nearing lunch time and we were starving. Yet, in that short span of time we were walking around, I got a pair of shoes from Rubi (Sis got 2 pairs!) and she also got 2 dresses. Bah.

The original plan was to lunch at Ion, but the queues during lunch time at the dining places were atrocious, so we walked over to Wheelock for good ole Sun & Moon. Since it's the weekend, everyone in Singapore must have been in town, cos everywhere was crowded. Gah. Our wait for a table took twenty minutes. Over lunch, Daddy and I made a date to watch Overheard together later on at night (Sis had plans), just the two of us. haha. So rare can. Anyway, the dessert we ordered was really interesting, I like - some Japanese sweet potato cream cream atop a bed of almond cream tart? Japanese food love.

Overheard was not bad I suppose, I mean, there's eyecandy - Daniel Wu, whose mere presence makes any movie a more enjoyable experience. ;) Interesting plot, which literally relates back to the movie's title.

Popo came over to teach me how to bake pandan cake today, and I must say it was seriously a hilarious affair. Popo, being popo, was being her typical amusing popo self. If you get what I mean. (: And, I must say, I used to read about food bloggers who spoke about it - getting hand-me-down recipes, but never understood the real meaning, until I actually experienced it first hand. When you are used to measuring everything out clearly down to the very gram required, learning baking from your elders can be exasperating when they actually do not use a measuring scale! Haha. It was really an eye opening experience to see Popo teaching me how to make a pandan chiffon using a traditional chinese bowl (the blue kind with little designs around it) as a measuring "cup". Amazing. The end result was a little sinky chiffon (but still yummy), I think I underbeat the egg whites :( It's okay, I can try again another day. (:

Then I went Ion again with Sis to continue part 2 of our shopping trip there. I got myself really nice shoes from Mitju (in fact I wished I could buy half the shop back with me, they have this series of shoes that scream "GIRLY", "FEMININE" and "CUTE".) and a pair of formal knee shorts. Happy.

After dinner, Dad, Sis and I went to NTUC for groceries shopping. I am one happy happy girl. Blueberries have been on sale for $3.95 for 2 punnets for the past few days. We had 2 and a half packets at home. We bought another 4 punnets. I may snap a photo of the 7 punnets of blueberries currently waiting to be eaten in our fridge tomorrow just for the sake of it. I mean, who knows when else can you find so many punnets of these babies in my fridge again? And I found black sesame paste in the Japanese section of the NTUC! (WOONLI!!!!!!!!!!!! Smiles.)

I think this has been a great weekend. Although we don't normally spend a lot of time together as a family. I reckon within this short three days period, we probably used up a month's worth of family time together or something. snigger.

Anyway, I made apricot tea cakes and raspberry brown butter coconut financiers for our last picnic, and here they are. I must say I rather prefer the raspberry financiers more to the apricot tea cakes. They were much moister and softer to nibble on than the tea cakes. ;)














I love the new camera Canon EOS 500D I'm using now. I have the normal lens and a macro lens and I just love using the macro for my food photos. It is so fun playing around with the focus. Love the comparisons between the two in the shot above. (: And the macro is superb for taking textures upclose. Flours, fruits and what nots, you can totally see everything clearly. Have I already mentioned how much I love the macro lens? ;)