The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith

My first book on "THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY". Well, this book was not Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle. But it gave me warmth and I felt happy reading it.

I had a three days training course in Cyberjaya from Tuesday. I hate traffic jams, so I left the house early and reached the training centre early in the morning. In fact, my car was the first car on the parking area. So, I sat in the car and read.

In this detective story, there were no speedy car chase, violence, high tech spying technology, science of deduction. In this series, the lady detective, Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi didn't handle huge big cases, but they did help their customers. I like the way the office habit was portrayed in the story, a hot cup of tea every morning, every occasions, sad or happy. Well, coffee or tea are playing a big part in office politics anywhere, I think.

Sun Dried Mango

A colleague of mine just returned from Philippine for a short holiday back home and he brought us some dried mango as souvenirs. Well, I like the dried mango and I think it's delicious. When I was chewing the dried mango, I happened to remember that there's a mango tree near my house and the fruits were plentiful. However, most of fruits were left to rot because the mango was quite sourish. So, I thought that maybe I could make dried mango with the not so in demand mangoes.

After making up my mind, I googled around for the methods to make dried mango. Most recipes called for food dehydrator. Well, I don't have that gadget and I won't buy one just for the sake of trying, so I opted for sun dried method. Well, sun dried is one of the methods to prolong the life of food. However, compared to food dehydrator, sun dried method will take longer period and exposed to the environment (dust, and maybe a fly or two). After researching online, I gave up because it is too much work. 

Eric by Terry Pratchett

Today is a public holiday and my wish to sleep late was squashed by a phone call from the company at 6.30 a.m. After I woke up, I had trouble to go back to sleep and it was too early to do anything. So, I read. I chose a book by Terry Pratchett that I bought from The Big Bad Wolf sales last year. 

Well, this's my first Terry Pratchett and I love this book! It's very funny, plus the font is big and not long winded, I finished this up in 3 hours, had breakfast in the middle ♥.

The story is about a boy, Eric (a demonologist) who wanted to summon a demon to fulfil his three wishes, to rule the world, to meet the most beautiful woman ever lived and to live forever. Instead of a demon, he summoned a wizard instead and not just any wizard, but the most incompetent wizard in the universe (the words used in the back cover of the book)! Well, this is my first discworld novel, so I am not so familiar with the settings and characters in the book, I enjoyed it and I am thinking to find other discworld novels.

Bee Hoon Kueh

I like Bee Hoon Kueh, everytime my mom cooked it, I would have eaten three to four bowls of it. It is a comfort food for me. Apart from nasi lemak and spicy food, Bee Hoon Kueh was one of the food I craved in Japan. 

One time, I was craving for it so hard that I actually cycled out to supermarket to buy flour. After I went home with the ingredient that I remembered that I didn't know how to cook Bee Hoon Kueh. So, thanks to skype, I called my mom and she told me how to cook it. 

Ingredients:

Flour, salt, dried anchovies for the soup stock. 

(I added prawn too because I had it with me that time, and prawn really didn't go well with Bee Hoon Kueh)

flour, salt and soup stock

Discounted Food Items Near Expiry Date

In Japan, it's easy to find near expiry food items being heavily discounted in supermarket. I bought many food stuffs on discount there and I don't mind the expiry date. To me, as long as the colour and taste remain the same, it is safe to eat although it is over the expiry date. (Well, at least this is what my friend in food industry told me)

The items near expiry date I bought include meat, bento, bread, fish, dairy products and even tofu! Sometimes, I would even eat the tofu one or two days after the expiry date, as long as the tofu didn't smell bad.

I was staying alone in Japan then, so I had difficulty to finish up the salt, sugar, miso paste before the expiry date, I continued to consume all the items after the expiry date. I think it is absurd to set a expiry date on salt though, sugar does become less sweet after awhile (my feeling), while miso paste is a fermented stuff, it couldn't get any worse, right? I did dispose my cooking oil after I realised it's over the expiry date, I was worried about the oil getting rancid.

For meat products, the supermarket would start to offer discount 2 days before the expiry date. Hmmm, I wonder how they determined the expiry date of meat!

pork 50% discount (半額=50% discount)