Day by day…

The days seem to go by so quickly. This time last month, it was the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan and most of the shops and stalls were closed but of course, there were the bazaars in the late afternoon and after that came Hari Raya and many did not resume business till at least two weeks after the auspicious annual celebration like this one here and as soon as it opened, we went straight away for its Saturday-only nasi kerabu…

…that we truly enjoy a lot.

My missus bought a tub of tempoyak (fermented durian) from our regular Malay food stall at the Ramadhan bazaar at Bandong here for only RM5.00 and she used it to cook this meat dish…

It was so good and we went back there a few times wanting to buy some more but unfortunately, they did not make anymore.

My friend, Philip, is back in the US by now but he was home at the time and while he was here, he dropped by my house one day to pass me the pek ting eyok duck soup that his sister cooked. This so-called Eight Treasures herbal soup is very popular among the Foochows here and is available at the stalls/shops but only with chicken or pork leg. I do not mind those though I can’t say that I am very fond of it that way – for me, it has to be with duck which would bring the taste to a whole new level. Unfortunately, my missus does not eat duck so cooking our own at home is completely out of the question. I guess Philip knows that so that nice and thoughtful man went through all the trouble to pass me some to enjoy and I cooked some mee sua to go with it…

Ooooo…it was absolutely glorious! I have not had it (with duck) for so long and I truly enjoyed it so very much. Thank you so much, Philip.

And speaking of thank yous, I also must thank my friend, Alex, ex-tuition class student and ex-blogger, who went over in Melbourne, Australia and when he came back, he brought me these…

He’s such a nice chap, really – the previous time he went to Taiwan, he also brought back some stuff for me from there.

Another one that I must thank is my ex-student, Xavier, who was in Kuching and when he came back, he gave me this big loaf of butter cheese cake…

…from a bakery there. He always makes it a point to bring me back something from KL, Taiwan or the UK or wherever he goes. I loved the cake very much – it was very moist and had a very lovely buttery taste and fragrance, almost like those awesome butter cupcakes from Kapit except that their shapes were different and this one did look a bit nicer. Thanks so much, Xavier – it was so sweet of you truly.

For one thing, time does seem to go by a little bit faster when you’re caught up in a lot of things and that, I would say, was very true in my case so much so that I had had a lot of things to blog about and everything else had to take a back seat temporarily. I did blog about this new instant kampua on the market and since then, I had also tried their mee pok (flat noodles) version…

…and tossed with my missus’ own-made pounded chili, I thought it was really good.

There was also the usual cooking that I would do on some mornings for breakfast. As usual, whenever there was some leftover rice, then we would have some fried rice like this one here…

…with the very nice wine-infused  lap cheong (Chinese sausage) from KL that Annie-Q gave me…or this one…

…with some leftover pork belly that I had in the fridge one morning…and on another morning, I tried cooking this garlic butter rice…

…to go with some leftover corned beef and potatoes from the previous night’s dinner and I actually liked it a lot!

Of course, when my girl was home for the one-week Raya break and also on weekends, we would spend some quality time together going out to eat or look around and shop for anything we might fancy and it was on one of those outings that I spotted this nice t-shirt…

…that I would have loved to buy but unfortunately, they did not have my size. Indeed, the days pass by so quickly and time is too short to spend moaning and groaning and complaining about anything and everything under the sun. In the words of William Shakespeare, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Personally, I do believe that life is for us to live the best we can, trusting in God that He will always protect and bless us in all that we do and let us pray always that…
…God will always grant us the serenity
to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can
and wisdom to know the difference,
living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace,
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as we would have it,
trusting that He will make all things right
if we surrender to His Will,
that we may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
(Reinhold Niebuhr, adapted)