15 Years...

...of Living Together

Last night mad redo1 and his roomey celebrated their 15 years together.

The usual cliche "How time flies" is applicable here, considering it seems just like yesterday (another cliche) that he just said his aqad to end his single roving days.


As everything in life, the fifteen years are not without ups and downs. For that mad redo1 is very thankful to have found someone that complement his life while he tries his best to ensure the favour is returned.

There are quite a number of things we share our passion and one of them is cooking. Thus we decided the best way to celebrate the 15 years is to cook our own dinner instead of having someone else do it for us.


Furthermore, it is much better to have food prepared in the name of love and for someone you loved, while feeling the love in the food prepared by the love of your life.


Thus for our 15 years celebration dinner, mad redo1 cooked the fish and chicken: pan-frying the salmon to (his term of) perfection while the marinated chicken breasts were grilled (though in reality they were pan-fried too).


The roomey meanwhile prepared the pasta and the #2 AKS lent a hand by preparing the salad in thousand islands dressing.


It was a simple dinner, shared in joy and happiness marking a very important landmark in our life as a family.


To the next fifteen years... and beyond!


Note: mad redo1 apologizes for the quality of the photos, he left the big guns at his office thus used the phone camera and the deploy the AKS to snap these moments.


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The Last Bites...

..in July.

The Darul Iman League 2009 saw mad redo1 travelling up and down the state of Terengganu, overseeing the technical aspects of the competition on match-days. Today he was down to his favourite town, Dungun where the home side took on the team from the capital ciry, Kuala Terengganu 'B' at Padang Dewan Merdeka.

This venue used to be known as 'Padang Zink Merah' or loosely translated as the Red Zinc Field; due to the red coloured zinc used as the wall to the pitch. This was where important football matches were played in Dungun such as the final of the Inter-Schools football competition. mad redo1 played quite a few times there when he representing his school during his younger days.

The wall had since been taken down and it is open to the public.

The match itself was a closely fought one but the visitors hit the home team with two quick goals inside the first three minutes. Dungun managed to reduce the deficit in the last minute of the first half. Both goalkeepers did not concede any goal in the second half as the capital team recorded their first win of the season and opened up the race for the semi-final places between them, Dungun, Setiu and Hulu Terengganu.

Linda and the AKSes tagged along this time but of course they preferred to go somewhere else than being stuck at pitchside with mad redo1. After the match was over I found out that they and a friend of Linda have gone to a beach cafe in Paka.

So, after a twenty minutes drive mad redo1 arrived at 'BITES' which was located just a shout away from the Residence Inn, a popular hotel in Paka. The owner of the cafe is another friend of Linda, a sweet and beautiful lady who goes by the name Min.

The ladies (mothers and daughters) already had their share of 'tucker' thus leaving mad redo1 having to eat alone. But Berg, showing she shares the same gene pool of food lovers in mad redo1, ordered a bowl of 'Mee Jawa' to accompany his daddy's Chicken Chop. Before mad redo1's arrival they already had a bowl of 'Assam Laksa' and Nina had Spicy Lamb.

The portion of the chicken was quite generous though mad redo1 found the sauce a bit too little for his liking as he prefers to have his chicken chop 'drowning' in the sauce. But the taste of the sauce was spot-on. The bowl of 'mee jawa' quickly made its way around the table and despite the thick sauce it was still enjoyable.

Then as we were about to leave BITES, Min handed the AKSes 'Ais-Krim Goreng' which the 'Quarelling Duo' finished in no time at all.

It was another enjoyable day and mad redo1 hopes there will be more in the Independent Month of August.


...

Bekang...

...anybody?

It is another Terengganu delicacy which I remember having for the first time when I was eight years old in Pasir Panjang. It was during a school holiday and I was staying at a relative's house to prepare for a function. It was quite vague but I remember lining up before this old lady who had a reputation as the best bekang maker in town. If not, why the line was so long with people waiting patiently to get their hands on the bekang.

The bekang comes with two sauces, the sweet sauce and cream sauce. My preference is the former. The sweet sauce (above) is brown in colour, most probably due to the use of brown sugar while the cream sauce is white.

The bekang basically is made from rice flour and eggs. According to my mother, the bekang will taste perfect if the right mix of the two ingredients is achieved. However I found the current makers of bekang tend to hold back on the eggs which makes the bekang a bit less tasty.

Nowadays, the place is no longer there. The old lady most probably has long gone to meet the Maker. We can always look for the current version but it is not what it used to taste like. Then again, we always think that foods from yester-years taste better than their counterparts today.

...

An Evening...

...with the Kambengs!

It was not really out of the blue as Milla already texted me they (she and Mr Kambeng) will be holidaying in Terengganu.

Today she gave me a call when they were about to leave the island. We picked them up at the kT Bus Station. I was caught by surprise with the large number of people in town today, but there were quite a number of things going on actually.

The road in front of the Paya Keladi Business Centre leading up to Pasar Payang was closed and they opened stalls a-la 'upmarkets'. Over at the Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium, a President Cup match involving T-Team was underway.

Of course, there would be the Search's 'Di Awan Biru' concert at the Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah Stadium in the evening.

We saw them walking and promply picked them up. Without any specific place to go we just drove around to the Batu Buruk Beach where, you can guess it; there were more people there. So we just proceeded to the Tengku Tengah Zaharah Mosque or more famously known as the 'Masjid Terapung'.

After a few snaps, our stomach began to growl for dinner. To make it more convenient we decided to have it somewhere near to the airport. Of course it would not be the usual 'tom yam' place which sprouted all over town.

Instead we took them to a place where they have this 'Air Buah Gelas Besar' (fruit juice in large glass) in Seberang Takir. But before reaching the place mad redo1 decided to make a detour to Pulau Duyong and we snapped a few shots at the Ri-Yaz Heritage Resort & Spa.

 

Only after then we proceeded to the 'makan' place where Milla had a plate of Nasi Minyak while Mr Kambeng had a bowl of 'laksam'. Of course in between there were quite a substantial number of 'keropok' passing through our esofargus.

With Milla's low tolerance to hot food she had to decline from trying eating more delicacies though in reality it should not be the case as Terengganu food is not known for being hot.

Mr Kambeng was quite good with children and that was the case when he entertained Nina in wrapping the hot 'keropok'. As Yoda would say: "A good father he will become."

Then after filling our stomach to the fullest (well, that was the case for mad redo1 at least) we finally made the move to the airport which was just five minutes away.

Hopefully they had a good holiday over here and meeting us would not diminish the experience. Come again in the future, you all!


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