Food for Thought

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

Funny, if this question would've been asked ten years ago I wouldn't even have believed a prediction of living abroad lest being an expat for the last ten years in Asia. However time revealed and decided that we did as a family spent our time in sub-tropical countries and we enjoyed every minute being in a different culture and life-style.

At the moment we've moved back to our origins which is The Netherlands while our ancestral roots are Chinese we've become native Dutch for the last three generations. So at this point with this question viewing the next ten years I now know that we will be spending time on both sides of the Globe due to work and built-up lives here in Europe as well as South-east Asia with family and friends.

For a short while I signed our travel stories as modern No-Mads, realizing we are actually the Third generation without borders as the lyrics goes; "Wherever I lay my hat is my home".
Just now I finished a similar conversation with a friend who asked if I wasn't tiered of moving and living without a base, I replied: "On the contrary wherever we go we will make a place to call our own".

And without exaggeration true friendship doesn't have any borders, hesitation, any conversation at any time will be continued or a new topic will be shared as time goes by.

TypePad Conversations » Answer this question!

Comfy Roti John for breakfast, snack and brunch

Roti John with porkmince

This weekend the temperature dropped together with rain and wind it's getting chilly, a good reason to bring in some warmth with comfy food. We strolled over the local freshmarket in the centre of Leiden and stopped at a Morrocan stall where we bought fresh baked flatbread, other mediterranean ingredients and moved on for our dinner groceries.

Once home hubby suggested a Dutch winterdish "Prei Stampot", however we modified the original recipe with extra ingredients and a thick cut pan-fried pork chop just to satisfy the boys tastebuds. But the real surprise comfy food was when I'd prepared a "Roti John" for brunch, just by looking at the crusty loaf, minced meat and a tin of sardines it made me remember our visits to Tekka Mall Foodcourt, Sim Lim Tower for Kaya toast and other eateries in the basement foodcourt.

Roti John, is a popular Malay breakfast and favourite snack at Kopitiams in Singapore and Malaysia. Basically a meat-omelet sandwhich with choices of Chicken/Lamb mince, sardines or tuna together with onion, garlic, chilipaste and eggs all scrambled together topped on bread and then pan-fried. Tea Tarik would've just made it picture perfect with this simple snack, but we indulged ourselves anyway .

The first loaf was with Sardines and it tastes so good, that we had another Roti John this morning with porkmince and Sambal Badjak as chili paste instead. It didn't last long either.......

Ingredients

• 1 French loaf (Turkish/Morrocan crusty flatbread is better)
• 100 gms Minced Chicken/Pork/Lamb/Beef or small tin sardines/tuna in tomato sauce
• 3 Eggs
• 1 Onion & 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 Tbl chili paste (Sambal Belanchan or any chili paste to your liking
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Chillies, slice diagonally to mix in or just scatter on top
• Garnish with tomato parts, cucumber slices (fresh chili's) with a dollop of chili sauce on the side

Method:

1. In a bowl mix the first five ingredients and beat together with the eggs.

2. Slice the french bread in halves, press cavity and fill in with above mixture.

4. Heat up the pan and add vegetable/olive oil.

5. Put the bread with the egg-meat side into the frying pan, mixture side down.

6. Listen to it sizzles, cook and turnover both sides until golden brown and sprinkle chillies to your liking.

7. Serve with a sweet chili sauce, garnished with cucumber and tomato slices.

Give it a try, you'll like it:)

Are you a boot person or a shoe person? Why?

I'm a true shoe-ish type, a shoe's shape; model, color, heel height, straps, sandal, sling-back, flats, outdoor, evening-wear all suit me fine. Boots however were bound to weather circumstances and often connected to work/survival outfits, but nowadays you see young women wearing fashionable boots even during warmer days due to use of new material different from leather.

Nevertheless a high-heeled shoe defines a woman's calf and arch of the feet, add to that a well-maintained pedicure and our toe nails just shine like jewels up front and a clean smooth heel at the back. Nothings worse when you look at cracks like a Grand Canyon or Tarokko Gorge for Asian fit.

Same counts when we don't maintain our shoes, what's the point of wearing a pair like crunched soda cans or last best seen on purchase day. With the right shoe on your feet, it complements your outfit or just make you walk your day.

Whether you wear boots, clogs/Dutch wooden shoes, you choose for comfort and/or fashion statement the choices are limitless. Unforutnately my shoe closet isn't....

Mobile application finally at work

Enjoying nifty gadgets and figuring out which features applies best to my liking and tools can be time consuming and comes along with small annoyances. However once it's installed and delivers their promise it gratifies the time and choice for mobile or PC use. Just installed pixelpipe with other social networks accounts controlled under this mobile application, giving me flexibilty with destinations of posts or tweets and when to publish mobility. The N900 is a small tablet PC with mobile phone function and my expectation is that both will operate smoothly as time will show and future posts.

Crossover between words and ingredients

Ok, after receiving the closing e-mail a few days ago I just briefly went over and hit the button making the switch to TypePad while I actually had abandoned Vox blog for quite some time due to spam annoyance and trouble with previous vox blog settings. Being curious is what actually brought me here to experience how this will work out and perhaps even make a jump to a professional account who know

Co-incidently I made another cross-over, after having spent a decade in Asia my family is back to country of origin, The Netherlands. A  short-stay has transferred into moving back for a longer term untill the next job/project sends us abroad again. Till then this will be home again where luckily all Asian spices and ingredients are abundently available so the flavors will be on our table soon again to taste.

Due to circumstances we are still staying at a hotel and tonight we've finally enjoyed a home-cooked dinner after evenings of dining out, which is easy but nothing beats a home meal. Dinner plan for tomorrow is a Dutch mash potato dish, but then again that's the plan depending what we come across on offer shopping for ingredients.

Beware of scam post on VOX

Instead of writing a post on the subject I thought it might be more useful to just share what Internet prowlers are up to using VOX to find new victims. At the same time annoyance that VOX Help page and feedback form links are useless to file report or even offer a block button option.

Hi Abuse Team,

 If you come across content on a Vox blog that you feel is in violation of our terms of service, you can report it through our feedback form. Choose the 'Abuse or Spam Reports' option from the drop-down menu. When contacting us, please be sure to include a valid email address, along with the specific URL of the blog post you are reporting and any pertinent information regarding the issue in the 'Comment or question' textbox.

This information will then be sent to the Vox Abuse Team for review. We may contact you for additional information after reviewing your report.

 

The drop-down menu option are unavailable for Spam reports, as specified for:

"unsolicited private message"

·         Specific URL blog scam post:  

                  http://www.vox.com/messages/read/6a00fa969412a200020137a59013e2860d/?_c=epm1

·         Content  blog post:

Cornelia Geoffrey

Blog|Profile|Jun 7, 2010 9:55 PM

From: Mrs Cornelia Geoffrey

From: Mrs Cornelia Geoffrey

Beloved,

Compliments of the day to you ! By this e-mail, I do sincerely apologize for my intrusion of your privacy. However, I have a serious concern with which I believe you might be of help and for this reason, I can not but reach out to someone. My name as given above is Mrs Cornelia Geoffrey. I am married to Mr Stephen Geoffrey, who worked with the embassy in ABIDJAN IVORY COAST for nine years before he died in the plane crash On 31st of July 2000 with other passengers aboard. We were a dedicated Christians and decided to serve mankind to the best of our ability. Since his death, I have lived with the memories, fighting effortlessly to lead a normal life but all to no avail. I suffered mentally and psychologically and shortly was diagnosed of Cancer. I lived with the scourge praying earnestly for divine intervention. Just a month ago, the doctor informed me that I have just about three months more to live. I was not shocked. I accepted the news in good fate.

Brethren, it is in this regard that I write to you, having sourced your address from www.vox.com, after fervent prayers. Before my husband died, he deposited a sum of $7.6Million (Seven Million six Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) with a bank in cote d'ivoire. I have wholeheartedly decided to donate the entirety of this fund to any devoted believer or organization and to achieve this, I need an individual that will utilize this funds adherent for these purposes.

1: For the sick, less-privileged and destitute,
2: For the Widows and the motherless babies e.t.c.
3: orphanages, Research centers and widows propagating.

These are the wishes of a dying woman. They are the desires of my heart, hence my decision as I do not have a child to take over my inheritance. Please, understand that I am not doing this because of fear of death as I am certain where my place already is. At this point, friends, well wishers, and my husbands relatives are all clambered around me as I sojourn in my hospital bed and are unaware of plight, hence I will not be able to make an open conversation. When I receive your response, I will direct you at once to the bank.

All I need from you is Truthfulness, Honesty and Sincerity assuring me that you can in all honesty and obedience utilize the funds for the purpose with which it is meant. In any a case, a quick response from you will be highly appreciated as I am already on a count-down and may not have ample time to finalize the procedures. Any delay in response may compel me to source for other measures or perhaps choose the alternative which I will not be happy to. Please, do not see this as a strange possibility or an unbelievable opportunity to make wealth, rather see this as a rare chance to assist the less privileged in truth and in spirit with a substance. I await your immediate response.

Please Contact me on my private Email: cornelia225@aol.com if you can be trusted.

Thank You and Bless You richly!
Yours Sincerely
Mrs Cornelia Geoffrey. 

 

Block this account asap!

 

QotD: Talk the Talk?

With so many features available on mobile phones, talking is not always everyone’s first priority. What do you use your phone for the most? What features couldn’t you live without?
Sponsored by Sprint, bringing you the first wireless 4G network from a national carrier.

Foremost using it as a phone! Internet, wireless and all other gadgets are neat, but it's only when the camera-phone's got upgraded and started to have higher Mega-pixel's did it grab my attention and it's a feature which takes away the compact camera to carry around too.  

Since today I heard about the new launch of Nokia N8 touchscreen smart phone, with 12 Mega-pixel, HDTV, Symbian OS 3 etc.

While we were browsing and looking around for a compact camera, this became instantly swiped away with the specifications views of Nokia N8 gets official: 370 Euro in Q3 This looks sweet and slim and if the specs are all working in top gear without hiccups this could be a real option for replacing my "old" (what's old these days...) phone and I'll be clicking, zooming and snapping away.

So you could say the mobile phone including high pixel camera tops my list of must have's for today's gadget and second runner up would be free accessible Wi-Fi connection everywhere.

New Delhi without Wi-Fi & superfast 3 G

Having a new broadband router & wi-fi installed after the previous one got fried by a power surge in Delhi’s electricity network. I downloaded several applications from Symbian-Freeware (mobile) website through wi-fi connection directly and it installed smoothly without any hiccups. The only apps which failed to download is BatteryLife v1.13, a battery manager for Symbian which needs a certain certificate in order to be able to install the program. 

Bambuser - “Live video streaming from your mobile phone or webcam”. That’s what the ad said and I downloaded this application, made a test run at home before travel and it works, great! Only to find out that outside your home/network provider you’ll have to rely on (fast working) Wi-Fi hotspots, otherwise your life-feed turns in a very costly gadget adventure roaming outside your network is double charged if not more.

Internet Access (source: Wikipedia) - In addition to private use in homes and offices, Wi-Fi can provide public access at Wi-Fi hotspots provided either free-of-charge or to subscribers to various commercial services. Organizations and businesses - such as those running airports, hotels and restaurants - often provide free-use hotspots to attract or assist clients. Enthusiasts or authorities who wish to provide services or even to promote business in selected areas sometimes provide free Wi-Fi access. 

While vacationing in Thailand I gave up after many attempts of Live video streaming or uploading photo, video or even a blogpost from my N82 mobile and laptop. The Wi-Fi connections worked but were so slow that just sending an e-mail with one photo took forever, video never came through and forget live video stream if you’re not around a high-speed Wi-Fi hotspot. 

Many cities around the world announced plans for city-wide Wi-Fi networks. Reality showed more difficulties than their promoters initially envisioned with the result that most of these projects were either canceled or placed on indefinite hold.

Don’t think New Delhi was mentioned on that list or any attempt of implementing Wi-Fi hotspots for even paid services, forget about free network service. It didn’t happen during the last two years, what did instead is the MRT-line for the upcoming Commonwealth Games but than we still have to see the first train riding from the new stations yet as well as acquiring a 3G network after four delays to auction off licences for superfast 3G phone service.

The 3G airwave race has touched down in India with no increase of new Telecom firms interests. According to an article in BusinessWeek excerpt: 

The 3G track record doesn’t inspire confidence. In Europe, overbidding nearly bankrupted many operators. India’s state-owned BSNL, which the government allowed to launch 3G a year ago, now offers service in 300 cities, has just 700,000 customers, and has cut tariffs at least twice. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment, but its record doesn’t encourage rivals. “Now we have to spend billions of dollars on a network that 2% of the country will use?” grumbles a senior finance official at Bharti Airtel, the country’s leading carrier, with 116 million customers. “It’s not like everybody in a village is carrying a BlackBerry (RIMM),” adds the executive, who asked not to be named because Airtel’s official policy is that it’s eager to offer 3G to the Indian masses.

A true fact which makes it certain that a Wi-Fi hotspot will not happen this or next year to come.

Local neighborhood wet-market, Pattaya

Just a normal weekday I accompanied my friend while she shopped at a small
local neighbourhood wet-market. Can't believe how clean and good all the
food items were displayed at the various market stalls what a difference
coming from New Delhi. Which reminds me to post pictures of local markets
here in New Delhi soon.

29 March 2010

Pattaya, local neighbourhood wet-market

Foot massage at Thepprasit Night Market in Pattaya, Thailand

While the kids are having their shopping bonanza getting their stuff, we opted for a foot massage instead. An hour for just 180Bht, just cheap and simple.

Foot massage @ Teppesit night market.jpg

snack time

Had to pick up vouchers and passed along a new Korean food outlet. Since I had to wait why not grab a bite.:)

Korean outlet shop, MGM Mall Saket main entrance (next to Select City Walk).

Veggie roll costs 200Rs, freshly made and taste good:), shot taken with N82.

23032010819-001.jpg