Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Cookies n Cream


My daughter and daughter in law to be, testing my body butter!


For some reason everything comes to a standstill this month, and the meetings get postponed to the next, so turning my creative energies elsewhere,  I invariably end up in the Kitchen... uh where else!!

Since a very young age I've been told to use cream on my skin, being in Europe as well made my skin very dry.  I remember as a kid before we went skiing or hiking in the mountains my mother would make us slather Nivea cream on our faces,  my stepdad said we looked like we had kissed the frying pan!  As I grew up, trying this and that, I've narrowed  down the two products that  have worked wonders for my skin.    The two products are coconut oil and cocoa butter.

So having one of my moments in the bathroom, hey admit it, we all get our brilliant ideas when we're in there, mine especially in the shower, it must be the steamy, foamy environment... Ok moving on, anyway I was wondering what would happen if I combined the two together, alchemy I thought.  Well not so much alchemy as a test of sorts.



I gathered up my all natural  TRU RA cacao butter and my cold pressed coconut oil, and went to work.  I started with the cacao butter, because its a solid block in it's natural state, and will melt at body temperature.  If you think you can just rub the entire block down your body and it's going to melt on contact you'd be at it the whole day!!!   What I usually do is melt some first as needed and then apply it, so yes it can be a bit time consuming if your want pure cacao butter.

I cut a wedge of cacao butter

Virgin Coconut oil

First of all I melted the cacao butter in a make shift bain marie, then I mixed in the coconut oil


Once the two were combined I chilled it in the freezer for a few minutes :


Whisked it all up again, and this was the result :


Really awesome Caco Coconut Body Butter!  

Just put  it into an empty container and you have your OWN pure Body Butter

Obviously the more edible solution would be the Choc Chip and Sultana Cookies I made afterwards!!!

Cookie Monster!
I don't think I'll go into production yet for the cacao coco butter which reminds me I have to get cracking as another batch of ginger awaits me as the Tickled Pink Ginger™ is flying off the shelves since I launched my brand of pickled ginger!  Thanks again for reading my blog and for subscribing! Have a great week ahead!











Sunday, June 12, 2016

The "M" word


So much has been spinning through my mind lately, it was hard to focus on exactly which topic I wanted to write about this week.  I realised that sometimes you do have to share some personal aspects of your life because somewhere, someone is going through the same thing and could possibly benefit from knowing they're not alone in their experience.

Lets set the scenario shall we.  I get a text from my son Christopher in the UK and he says "hey mum, you wanna Skype on Sunday?'.  Nothing out of the ordinary there as we usually speak once a month on Skype, so when we did have face time I was surprised to see his girlfriend Irena next to him on the screen.  Even more surprising was the fact that he was just staring at me after the initial hello and was keeping silent.  My youngest son Ayden who was next to me said "dude, this is getting awkward man, say something" aaanndd he did, "Mum Irena and I have decided to get married, after all we've been with each other for 6 years now and feel the time is right " he must have said more but all I could hear was "I'm getting married".   Now my son is 26, which is not an unusual age to get married, after all I got married at 25... WHICH is why I freaked out all the way from Skype, to my room,  to calling my mother up in the UK, to crying on the phone to my best friend in Australia.

father and son

Why was I freaking out?  Firstly he'd just finished his degree in Uni, had hardly been working for more than 6 months at a job he didn't particularly like whilst waiting and applying for what he was qualified for, secondly he had no assets what so ever including savings and LASTLY as I quoted to him, my marriage to his father at such a young age was a total disaster and I didn't want the same for him.  The most worrying part was that he was going to quit his job, pack up his flat and come back to Malaysia (as Irena is Malaysian) because Irena wanted a "traditional" wedding and he thought he could work here for a few months whilst all the marriage preparations was going on and wanted my blessing, (cue me clutching my chest and doing a southern belle swoon, well more like a Hobbit needing CPR if you ask me)

Back to the Skype conversation, by this time I was incoherent with anger, sadness, frustration because everything I had been hoping for, for him to work towards was thrown out of the window in a blink of an eye in a spectacular manner.  I said I did not agree to the marriage, and would not give him my blessing.. the conversation stuttered to a halt, and eventually I excused myself whilst Ayden took over (ever the diplomat to smooth things over)

To try to write about what transpired in those two months would be akin to a Latina Telenovella script.  Once Irena flew back to Malaysia, he packed up his things, went to stay with my mother for a week, and though she tried to talk some sense into him he was determined to see it through. Meantime back in the land of no smiles and political unrest, my father had been diagnosed with non hodgkins lymphoma and was undergoing chemo, my youngest brother whom I had not seen for 20 years was coming back to KL to see him and Christopher flew into town without informing me, which really hurt.

My best bud Ron and my brother Zaki on the right

Seeing my younger brother after so long was like a ray of sunshine, we had grown up in our teens and twenties in Hong Kong and had been close.   He had eventually settled his family in Australia and has been working offshore all this time, I have missed him so.   I took him aside at the family get together to have a quiet word with him, and he in turn had one with me.  He said "do you remember what  you were like in your twenties? and when you wanted to marry Chris's dad and how mum was totally against it? did anyone or anything stop you? think about it.  It's his life, and if it's a mistake it's his mistake to make, give him your blessing and let it go"  I mulled it over for a bit, thinking back to when I was the same age and what I was going through and feeling at the time. I laughed out loud in realisation because my mother reacted the same way as I did when I told her I was getting married!

Yup I got married against my mother's wishes !
So I wrote my eldest son, whom I love so much and had gone through so much for to have in my life, a letter from my heart to tell him in the gentlest way my concerns, to reassure him of my love for him and to give him my blessing because at the end of the day, the most important thing was his happiness.  Isn't that what all mothers want for their children?

Today I'm helping him sort out his wedding trays (in Malaysia they are called "Dulang" it holds the gifts he will present to her at their wedding ceremony),  making the door gifts for the guests, listening and discussing with him possible job opportunities, attending the food tasting for the banquet and generally any information he needs to help make his marriage and time here (as he's reassured me he's not going to "live" here) as stress free and as smooth as possible.  We've got a month and a bit more to go before the big day.

at his 21st b'day when Chris started dating Irena

The most important thing we are put on this earth, is for and to love,  and it is with love I write this (but please god let my other two kids be 350 years old before they get married!!!)   Have a great week and thank you again for reading my blog.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Bulging Eyes and Ringing Ears


Yeah of course the photo bomb
I've been researching a certain type of television program for the past week to see how they measure up to my latest concept,  and my eyes and ears are beginning to rebel from overexposure to media.  I'm sure if anyone saw me, all they'd think is, "huh, lucky for some, surfing shows daily."  Well believe me, most times it's not, especially if you see how much drivel is out there masquerading itself as a show.  (Now you understand why my kids try not to go to the movies with me, they usually shush me as I mutter a stream of comments under my breath ...)

So when the ladies organised a get together for Wednesday night, it was with a resounding yes that I agreed to go.  Suffice to say I've not gone out to clubs/bars/watering holes, whatever you want to call them, in quite a while so it was interesting to discover this new place called Elysium in town. Situated atop one of the business towers in town, it was relatively easy and painless to get there (yes this all really counts OK!) The lovely hostess guided me to the lift that whisked me up to the 31st floor, where the friendly waiters showed me to a lovely terrace overlooking the Kuala Lumpur Skyline.  It had just finished raining so the evening was cool and balmy.  I was introduced to everyone as there were fresh new faces there, one of the other reasons I went.

Great View
The young helpful young waiter efficiently went through a list of cocktails especially prepared for ladies night.  Unfortunately though, his accent was so thick I kept saying " sorry, could you repeat that " and leaned closer to hear him.  He sort of rolled his eyes and produced the menu for me to read for myself ... Oh you mean "urban legend" I said.  He gave me that look, you know the one, we've all done it before the "that's what I said" look.  Oooo kayy then.

biggest plate of nachos ever!

Back to the Ladies, so we have a former COO of radio broadcasting, 1 producer, 1 zero waste campaigner,  1 marketing and promotions whiz , 1 traffic news presenter and a high flyer from a major research company.  As you can imagine the conversation was eclectic and ranged from trips to the south and north pole to chasing escaping pets on a beach!  One thing we all had in common, we were all tired of the  chauvinistic behaviour still rampant in our  respective industries even though we've moved into the 21st century (I guess the burning of bras was not enough to break the glass celing!) and that feminism was more about equality, not who's better.  The conversation came to a head when we discussed how we could collectively begin to create a network of women to set up a form of "old boys club" in order to help each other move up the ladder.  I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean.  It was also refreshing to go out and have a lively and entertaining discussion, as opposed to being bored out of your mind with the company, conversation, place, time...zzzzz.

Pro back lighting yall he he he
As the night wound down,  the DJ started ramping it up, (must say really good choice of tunes from the lady jock).  We said our farewells.   A few of the girls had already agreed to meet up separately  for potential collaborations.  I'd say that was well and truly worth the night out.

And the best part?  We'll be meeting up again soon.  Right I have to get cracking, only two more days to our Scandelabra Showcase, now that Lisa is well and up and about, it's full steam ahead!  Look forward to seeing you there!  Keep those e mails coming in and thank you again for your subscription.