New Cleansing
Sorry, it should have read “New Cleaning”. I thought I’d be a little more dramatic. 2 days ago, we got rid of our old washing machine. It was a top loading unit which was recommended to me when I arrived in Melbourne over 2 years ago. I had never bought a washing machine in my life. When my wife and I got married in Klang, we moved into our new house and were given various prezzies which included a top loading washing machine. So when I got here and looked for a washing machine, I naturally looked for another top loader. The guy in the store told me top loaders have a “middle stump”, which wreaked havoc with your clothes. There was this unit which is a top loader without the middle stump, and it was cheap! The catch? It was branded “Centrex”, a Made in China immitator. It worked alright but in the past, say, 6 months or so, Theresa has been complaining that it has not done much washing for our clothes. On the odd occasion when I did the laundry, I thought she was right.
2 days ago, after advertising in the Trading Post for a few days, I got rid of the Centrex Top Loader, capacity 6kg. Aquired 19 Nove 2004, disposed 29 Dec 2006.
Yesterday afternoon, I took kiddo to a white goods store, and looked at various units.
This morning, Theresa and I went again. We bought ourselves a front loader this time. A Bosch one. 7.5kg capacity. Paid a little for extended warranty so that for the next 5 years, we’d have less to worry. The lady at the store told us it was made in Germany. All Bosch products are, she said. She was a sales lady. She is expected to lie. We should have known. When it was delivered about 3 hours ago, and I did some installation work, I found a largeish sticker on the back. It said “Made in Thailand”. Liar you. Stupid us. Anyway, we had to go out to buy some groceries to cook a dish for tomorrow night’s New Year’s Eve dinner with some church friends so we didnt have too much time to fume.
About 20 minutes ago, we put the new Bosch 7.5kg front loader on. It’s spinning now. It sounds like James Taylor compared to the Centrex. Smooth, unpertubed, and sounds like it’s on valium. The Centrex had always sounded like it was always on crack or something more potent. Are Germans really more serene than the Chinese? Waiting now with baited breath, to see if the wash would turn out better than the Chinese laundry work…
More dinners
Last night we were at yet another dinner. Another pot luck thing, this time at Auntie Hooi’s. I did a tofu with chicken mince and prawns, which went down okay. No one got sick and only one person politely left the little piece on her plate untouched. Recipe:
400g chicken mince (approximately, based on “lift the bag and guess” weighing method)
For seasoning: Salt and pepper, five spice powder, basil, corriander, soy sauce, sherry (dry and sweet) sesame oil
Chopped onions and carrots (1 large one each)
2 eggs (beaten and mixed into the above lot)
500g tofu
500g peeled uncooked medium prawns
Method: just mix the seasoned chicken mince with the chopped carrots and onions and leave for about 1 hour. Mix the beaten eggs into the mince, and set aside.
Slice the tofu into 1.5cm thick pieces and spread across square baking dish. Whack a layer of the mince on the tofu. Line again with another layer of tofu, and top it off with another layer of chicken mince. Press the prawns into the top layer of mince. Top off with some olive oil, cover with foil and whack the dish into the oven (preheated 220 deg for about 10-15 mins) at about 200 deg for 45 mins. After 45 mins, take dish out, remove foil and whack it back for another 10 mins at 220 deg. Take it out carefully, dont burn yourself, put the fear of God into your wife to drive extremely carefully to the host’s house and let the ladies there take care of the rest.
Tomorrow night there would be another dinner. It would be a costume party thing, and we had bought some skivvies to dress up as the Wiggles. Kiddo would be the Blue Wiggle, Theresa the Red and I, the Yellow. There would be no Purple, because we couldnt find a purple skivvy. I would be cooking a vegetable curry. I looked at Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe, and remembered how unpalatable her cooking looked on the Travel Channel in Astro back in Malaysia. I tried Judy’s websites (2 separate ones) but couldnt find any recipes for vegetable curry. I also looked at a few other sites (like this one) but decided I’d just go with my own alcohol infused inspiration.
Meanwhile the Bosch is humming away, and I thought what a year this has turned out to be. I need a good wash, better than the Bosch or any other washer could do, to get rid of the grime which has accumulated on account of a wreck of a career this year and my father’s passing. God, please refresh me. Have a blessed New Year, everyone.
“So, I commend the enjoyment of life.” (From the Bible – really. Eccl 8:15)
Ante 