ON FAMILY...

Pete actually reminded me last night that I've been rather slack with the blogging thing, and I guess he's right... Ah well. Truth - we've both been up to our ears in work, and spend what little time we are not at the office desperately trying to catch up with sleep. Plus, I have to admit that I have not been very inspired of late, too many other things on my mind, some of which are not entirely blog-propriate. Also, we were also busy saying our goodbyes to the Chouasnes, who have upped and left for the sandy beaches of Southern California, where Lingus takes on a brand new life as a tai tai (*jealous*). Anyways, I'm back... Currently working on several new TeamWilliams projects, including.... *drumroll*... putting together our family tree, making a scrapbook on our early years, and trying to make sense of where we both came from (just in anyone ever asks, haha). Never a better time than the present, I say, and the best thing about it, really, is that you never know what you're going to find. So far, our historical excavation (with much help from Pete's Mum, Gladys, during our most recent trip to Eire) has uncovered some fascinating stuff, including an original tearsheet of Gladys and Matt's (my in-laws) wedding announcement, dated June 2, 1956, Pete's first Mother's Day card to Gladys, and documents relating to the history of the Williams family, including an explanation of the history of the name and coat of arms. Apparently, "Williams" was most likely adopted in honour of William the Conqueror after the Conquest of 1066 , which radically altered England's history. The family's crest is a "Cornish chough, proper".... If anyone knows what that translates as in real English, or, better yet, has a picture, please tell me!! On that note, we welcome all information, snippets, pictures, short stories, anecdotes... Just tell us... Okay, I have to get back to work and listen to a titillating *cringe* opposition rally (thank God elections are only once every five years) now... More later. Over and out. Art

OOPS...

It looks like Ben & Jerry's has struck out with its latest ice-cream flavour, somewhat distastefully named Black and Tan. Apparently, its is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name, but I don't think B & J's philosophy of "peace and love" are gonna get them out of this one.

OF MICE AND MEN...

I always worry when the wife goes off to her favourite Swedish furniture store (Note: IN PETE'S OPINION: WOOD NOT SUITABLE FOR THIS CLIMATE). She usually comes home with "stuff" - "stuff-we-don't-necessarily-need" kind of "stuff". On her most recent trip, Art picked up two bendable plastic chopping boards. Not quite what you'd need in the kitchen, I think, they slip all over the place. BUT... I noted a lovley texture on both surfaces. And I'm thinking... that there chopping board just might be 'optical friendly'. While alone at home sick, I ventured into the kitchen with a grin on my face, all cautious like a small child going to steal cookies. She had bought two colours, dark blue and white. Being a MAC user, it was a no brainer. With the white one under my arm, I made off to the study! The board (Note: WOOD NOT SUITABLE FOR THIS CLIMATE) worked a treat! My mice are very happy. So think twice before you spend $10 or more on an optical mouse pad (A5 in size) in some fancy or not computer store. This one's is A3, costs less than S$5 and everyone is happy. Well, almost everyone. Art did a double take when she came home and found two mice on her former chopping board... Pete Editor's Note of June 28, 2006: The reason we have removed the name of Art's favourite furniture store is because someone, evidently, notified someone else that Pete's post was slightly "objectionable". We're not sure if the fella is a big fan of the store, or his optical mousepad sales have been hurt. But we haven't heard anything else of it... Maybe the powers that be had all their shelves bend in the humidity too.... Ah well.

SIMPLICITY...

No, this is not turning into some kind of cooking blog, and we promise our posts will get back to normal after this one. Or as normal as we can be. Pete did something surprisingly simple but absolutely amazing with salmon the other day, and I reckon anyone out there who wants a great meal without being stuck in the kitchen too long might appreciate it, and so it was worth sharing (plus, its a favour to friends whose husbands/wives/other halves refuse to cook or learn how. Yes, it is this simple) Baked Salmon Two pieces of salmon 6-8 fresh button mushrooms, halved A handful of snow peas 1/2 a red pepper, sliced Spinach Lemon Butter Olive oil Salt/pepper A glass of white wine. Put a bit of olive oil and the salmon in an over-proof dish. Season with salt and pepper. Put two slices on lemon on the salmon. Throw in mushrooms, snow peas and red pepper Put in a couple of knobs of butter Put in the spinach Put in a glass - or bit more if you fancy - of white wine Cover with aluminium foil Bake at 180 degrees for 25 minutes. That's about it. We served it up with some mash potatoes on the side. Twas good. Burp.

THE ACCIDENTAL INDIAN, PART II

In response to the request for a stove top recipe for the Chicken Pilaf. My guess: remove the chicken pieces, add the two cups of rice, fry for a while, and then add two cups of water (for which I would ordinarily use three cups of water, but since there is already a cup of water added at the simmer stage making just over a cup of gravy, you'd need less). Cover and cook on slow heat till the rice is done, and then bring back the chicken... This one's even simpler - it leaves the chicken in there. Based on other esteemed sources, though, read: Google, most purists tend to go for this option: Do the chicken first in the same way. Spoon a bit of the oil off into a second pot. Add two cups of rice and salt to taste, and stir till the rice is nicely coated. Add one cup of the gravy from the chicken mixture and two cups of water. Cover and cook on low heat till the rice is done (add a bit more water if it starts to dry out). Once done, dish out the rice, and put the rest of the chicken n gravy on top. Here's one Pakistani variation that goes in that direction. It adds yoghurt and mint leaves too, and sounds pretty good, despite the work. Of course, you could just buy a rice cooker. :) Cheers! Art

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Congratulations to Hilary and Eoin, who have finally fixed the date for their wedding - March 9, 2007, in Galway, Ireland! We are so, so trying to make sure we are there! Brief intro to the couple of the hour: Le Groom, Eoin, first met Pete at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, on an occassion I can only describe as a random chat, which, if you've ever been to Ireland, happens a lot. The two got their degrees together and have remained fast friends. The other half of TeamWilliams met the two for the first time when they attended our wedding last year. We were very grateful to them both for, despite putting them (or Hilary, at least) through the agony of attempting to buy a sari at Serangoon Road in the middle of Thaipusam, still agreeing to do the Irish reading for the ceremony. Eoin did it in Gaelic (which makes him my most respected Gaelic speaker ever), which Hilary then translated (which makes her my most respected Gaelic translator ever). Go maire tú do shaol úr! Just in case we got that wrong: Congrats guys, and we love ya! (Art promises she will not doing anything to the fireplace this time. Really. Well, she'll try.) Slainte, TeamWilliams

THE ACCIDENTAL INDIAN...

In the name of Good Friday, I decided to be, well, good and all and stay in. Of course, by about 7pm, I needed some kind of project to distract me from the SMS-vites to head out, so I decided to try and make something my Mum used to make every now and then - Sindhi chicken pilaf. Real comfort food. But, erm, Problem 1: I had never made it before; Problem 2: I had never paid proper attention to Mum making it; Problem 3: I had no recipe for it and couldn't reach Mum; Problem 4: Google was not cooperating - it had heaps of recipes which called for some ingredients I didn't have in the fridge, like yoghurt. Besides, all of them were stove top recipes, and I distinctly remember Mum quite effectively making the pilaf in the rice cooker. What I did have was most of the ingredients in a simple stove-top recipe for fish pilaf from Poonam Vaswani's A Spoonful of Sindhi (which you can pick up at stores like MPH. The recipes are simple and pretty easy to follow, which is great, I'd recommend it). So I did the next best thing, I made the rest up, adding a couple of ingredients here and there, changing some of the proportions, and praying it worked out. Its not very purist, so Mum, if I have this completely wrong, I'm sorry! Either way, both victims of my little experiment gave it two thumbs up, polished it off, and feel perfectly fine today, heh, so I think it might be worth sharing. Hope it works as well for you if you decide to try it. Ingredients 2 - 3 Chicken breasts, chopped into bite sized pieces 2 - 3 Red onions, chopped (Yellow onions are fine too) 2 Green chillies, chopped 3 Tomatos, chopped 1 inch Ginger, chopped 2 Garlic cloves 1/2 - 1 tsp Garam masala (NB: I didn't wanna use Garam masala, and opted for fresh spices instead. It was a bit of guesswork, but seemed to work. I used: 1/2 Cinammon stick 1/4 tsp Coriander seeds 1 Bay leaf 2 Cloves Black pepper) 1 tsp Chicken masala 1 tsp Coriander powder 1/2 tsp Cumin powder (which I replaced with 1 tsp of Cumin seeds instead, coz I ran out of the powder) 1 tsp Chilli powder (less if you don't want so much of an edge) Salt to taste Olive oil 2 cups Basmati rice Coriander leaves, chopped. Using a medium size pot, heat the oil and fry the onions till they brown. Add the spices. Add the tomatos and green chillies, garlic and ginger, salt. keep stir frying. Add the chicken pieces and fry a little bit to seal in the flavour. Add a cupful of water and simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat. Wash two cups of rice, put in the rice cooker. Add the chicken mixture and mix well. Add about two more cups of water. Cook. (Some people like sultanas and nuts etc in pilaf as well, and I'm guessing it would be at the rice cooker stage that they would logically go in. I, however, hate sultanas, so I never had to try and figure that out.) When serving, sprinkle the coriander leaves on top (lovely suggestion on Ms Vaswani's part, really brings out the flavours). Enjoy. The whole thing takes under 40 minutes and apart from the bit of time that goes into the chicken, it's really simple, since the rice cooker takes care of the rest. Cheers, Art

SEVENTH HEAVEN...

Thanks to the vunderful Six Drunk Men, the good people who rescued Pete from a fate of drinking Guinness because they bring Beamish in straight from Cork, Team Williams found itself at the Standard Chartered Singapore Sevens last Sunday. Of course, the slight problem is that while half of TeamWilliams used to play rugby, the other half knows next to nothing about it. If you can imagine it: Art: Pete, what you do call it when all of them hug and stuff? Like a huddle? A cuddle? Pete: Erm, a scrum? Art: Hmm. And why do they do that? Pete: It's like a free kick, they gotta get it to the try line. Art: Righto. Look, that man is cute! We're not sure what everyone made of the fact that she cringed in pain everytime someone got tackled. Sigh ... That said, we both cheered - very loudly for Samoa (aiyoh, so cute) and Fiji (they played England in the final. No prizes for guessing the final score. Matt was NOT very happy.) Oh, and next year, Art's convinced she will make us dress up, so for inspiration... We have to say though, someone's gotta tip Mary off on what these chaps have been doing to her lamb. Oh, we also popped into the post party, where we got up close with some of the ruggers themselves. And we bumped into some of our very favourite ladies.... Think the pictures are self explanatory. Back to good ole fashion rambling after this... Or so we shall try. Slainte

LOOKIN' FOR SOMETHING IRISH?

Something good ole Pete stumbled upon yesterday. The Irish version of Google: Doogle! I particularly like where clickin' on "drink" takes you too. Enjoy. Slainte

GROWING UP IN IRELAND

This came to us from Dave and Joy Williams (thanks guys!), and while I've tried my darndest to establish the original author, the furthest I got was on Artslink, which traced it back to an author named Lindsey K. I reckon it started off as some kind of chain email of sorts, but it really did strike a chord with the man, and even if some of the localisms are a little different, it made me smile as well. So enjoy: Growing up in Ireland I'm talking about Hide and Seek in the park, The shop down the road, Hopscotch, Donkey, skipping, handstands, Stuck-in-the-Mud, football with an old can, Dandy, Beano, Twinkle and Roly Poly, Hula Hoops, jumping the stream, building a swing from a tyre and a piece of rope tied to a tree - (If you live in Dublin the lampost) - building tree-houses, climbing up onto roofs. Tennis on the street, the smell of the sun and fresh cut grass. Coat hangers hanging from electric wires. Crossing the road when you saw some skinheads coming... Hubba Bubba bubble gum and 2p Flogs, Macaroon bars and Woppas, 3p Refreshers and Wham Bars, Superhero chewing gum, golf ball chewing gums and liquorice whips, Desperate Dan and Roy of the Rovers, sherbet dips and Mr. Freezes, Marathon bars and everlasting gobstoppers. An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that plays a tune - chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe neopolitan Wait ... Watching Saturday Morning cartoons ... short commercials, Battle of the Planets, Road Runner, He-Man, Swapshop, and Why Don't You?, Transformers, How do you do?, Bosco (SANDY), Forty-coats, the Littlest Hobo and Lassie, Chucklevision, The Muppet Show, MacGyver, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, or staying up for Knight Rider and Magnum PI. And for the older ones: Magic Roundabout, Blue Peter, Pebble Mill at One, Felix the Cat, Wacky Races, Star Trek (in colour!), The Angelus, Daktari, Dr Who, When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like going somewhere. And how about going to school in the dark with your flourescent armband? A million midget bites, sticky fingers and mud all over you, knee-pads on your jeans, Cops and Robbers, Rounders, Tip the Can, Queenie-I-O, climbing trees, Spin-the-Bottle, building igloos out of snow banks, walking to school - no matter what the weather, running till you were out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach or your cheeks hurt, Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights, Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles. Being tired from playing... Remember that? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle. And don't forget the Marietta sandwiches we'd make by buttering a cupla Marietta biscuits and stickin' them together. And that quare oul mixture made in a tall glass with HB ice cream and Taylor Keith Red Lemonade. I'm not finished just yet... Eating raw jelly, orange squash ice pops Remember when ... There were two types of sneakers - girls and boys and Dunlop Green Flash and the only time you wore them, at school was for "P.E." - Gola football boots. It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends, when nobody owned a pure bred dog, when 25p was decent pocket money, when you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny, when nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there, when it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents. When any parent could discipline any kid or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it. When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of muggings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! and some of us are still afraid of them!!! Remember when.... Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!" "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly", the game of life and connect four, atari 2600's and commadore 64's. The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs. It was unbelievable that Red Rover or Rounders wasn't an Olympic event... Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a biro barrel pea shooter or an elastic band. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable vitamins. Ice cream was considered a basic food group. Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true. Abilities were discovered because of a "double dare" Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors. If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!! Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life... I DOUBLE DARE YA!!! Bagsy it, no returns and no magical changes