Such a nag – Mango Sago

So this is what they call a writer’s block. I have opened this window at least five times the last two weeks but closed it each time empty. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Haven’t a clue what to write. Until today. About time too!

I had a revelation today. Nagging works. As a kid, my mum would nag at me till she turned blue in her face but I would just carry on as I were. I often wondered why she bothered since it obviously didn’t work. She still nags at my sister today and having been in both positions as the nagger and the “naggee”, I got to say I feel sorry for my mum more. It’s very very frustrating. But nagging works! Ok, not always and it depends on who you’re nagging at but it DOES work.

Kaya (Coconut Egg Jam)

I am not a morning person, therefore I am not a breakfast person. Breakfast to me, is the most boring meal of the day. Unless you live in Asia, but we’ll get to that later. Here in Europe, breakfast is usually bread, butter, jam, nutella, etc. I have had asian friends ask me what I’m feeding my kids for breakfast and when I tell them, their responses were somewhere along the lines of “why are you starving your kids?!”, ” breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” and “that’s bordering on child abuse”.

You see, in Asia, breakfast is a huge thing. And the choices for it are ENDLESS! Just to name a few of my favourite breakfasts, we have braised duck porridge (my absolute favourite!), dry tossed noodles (I still haven’t found a recipe for that), fried carrot cake (savoury, not sweet),  nasi kuning, Indonesian meatball in broth and wanton noodles. Notice that it’s all savoury and involves meat? That doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy the Ol’ bread and jam though. In fact, we have a very unique jam that’s pretty much exclusive to Singapore and Malaysia.

Procrastination is queen – Chilli Chicken with Basil and Coconut Cream

I missed my own deadline…… [Insert random profanity]…… The plan was to put this post up by Sunday morning, but as usual, procrastination is queen in this household. I somehow managed to find more than one excuse to not finish this post; “the picture is out of focus”, “I don’t know what to write about”, “I’m soooo sleepy”, etc. You get the picture.

To be fair, I had started writing 3 posts by Saturday. But none of them got finished. Again, various excuses I’m not going to bore you with but it all boils down to procrastination. I’ve always said that if there was a competition held to find the biggest procrastinator, I wouldn’t win it. Not because there are bigger procrastinators out there, but because I would put off signing up for it till it’s too late and thus, not qualify. Oh, the irony.

It’s a horrible trait to have and I pray to God that my children would not take after me in this. It has been my New Year’s resolution for the past years (I’ve lost count how many) to procrastinate less. You could argue why not resolve to not procrastinate at all, but who are we kidding here? It’s never happened and it probably never will. Much like my resolution to eat less and exercise more (I’ve been putting that off too). I even put off satisfying my cravings.

I did manage to satisfy one craving recently though. Chilli chicken with basil and coconut cream.