Intelligence, Creativity, Einstein and Tang Yau Hoong

artwork by Tang Yau Hoong

I saw this image and quote on this site and was immediately attracted to it. 
After some searching online, I found and ordered a print from the artist Tang Yau Hoong as a birthday gift to myself. 
A signed print arrived from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia last week. I love it. I have yet to have it framed and put up on the wall. I love any print that can help explain our 'creatively' messy house. 

Great Train Race

I'm proud of the kids. They completed their third Great Train Race! ...well, third year as Nic and Mietta ran the Caboose (400m) race for the first year. This race is one mile in length and is for children only. It is very well organized, punctual with an emphasis on fun and participation. There are separate heats for each age group and for each gender. There are some very fast kids - the fastest this year was a local 16yo, completing the mile in 4:41! In fact there were five boys completing the race in under 5 minutes. 
All children bettered their times from last year. Luc beat his last year's time by 23 seconds, Mietta by 1min 8 sec and Nic by 1min 54 seconds!
After finishing the race, we went to Carl's for an ice-cream or shake... as this seems to have become our GTR day tradition! 

May the forth... be with you!

still waiting on some photos of the happy couple... this one stolen from Facebook!

Woohoo! I have another sister (in-law)!

Paul's youngest brother Matthew married the love-of-his-life Jody in Brisbane today.
We were SO very disappointed to have to miss this momentous event... particularly as all the rest of Paul's family were able to make it from near and far. 
Blasted recession issues, immigration hassles and severe lack of funds. We haven't had a chance to visit Australia's far horizons for over four years now. Way too long. GRRRRR! 

Char Siu Pork - BBQ Pork Chinese Style

Pork fillets always seem to be packaged as a pair. For our family, one is usually consumed and the second saved or frozen for another meal. While preparing one fillet, I left the other in a Char Siu marinade for a couple of days. 

It had been some time since I had made Char Siu - so thought I would give it another try. I often ate this dish when I spent time house-sharing with my cousin Julian and his (future) wife Barbara. I consulted my comprehensive Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon for the recipe, also found here. I also added a small amount of red food dye to give an authentic look to the pork. This marinade quantity is enough for two fillets. I use Charmaine's method 2 for cooking - on a rack over water. 

I found the cooking time of 45 minutes to be a little too long. I heated some of the water from the cooking pan, mixed with leftover marinade and added some cornflour (cornstarch) to thicken. I added a little more hoi sin and soy sauce to taste and used this for a gravy over the pork. I served the pork with brown basmati rice and boiled baby bok choy, drained and then quickly panfried in a little peanut oil and soy sauce. 

Rub-a-dub-cub

Today the boys' Cub-Scout Pack participated in the Rappahannock River Clean-Up. This was an exceptionally well-run volunteer clean-up effort, coordinated by the Friends of the Rappahannock organization. 

All volunteers met at Old Mill Park for a briefing, overview of safety procedures and dispersal of collection paraphernalia: trash bags, gloves, tongs... Each registered group was then assigned a collection area. 

All the boys involved were somewhat *disappointed* to find that there was limited trash to find and collect in their area - somewhat heartening to discover!

After the collection, all volunteers returned to Old Mill Park to dispose of collected trash, clean-up and partake in a lunch sponsored by Dominos Pizza.  

I was SO proud of the boys who were so dedicated to their task and learned some very valuable lessons in conservation and civic duty. 

Cake Walk

The boys participated in a 'Cake Walk' for their Cub Scout Pack. This involved making a cake, decorating it and then offering it up for a silent auction. Luc made (another) Carrot Cake. A relatively easy cake to make, the only difficult task is to grate carrots to measure two cups - enough to try the patience of a nine-year-old... for the second time in a week! He frosted it with a cream-cheese frosting and decorated it with letters and carrots he had made from another batch of fondant I had made. 

A busy schedule for Nic resulted in me making his cake - the fastest cooking cake I could find: the good old Swiss Roll. All Nic had to do was to spread it with freshly whipped cream, spread over some fresh raspberries, roll it up and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Easy. 

When at the function, each child became obsessed with a particular cake: Luc coveted a Pineapple-Upside-Down cake, Nic desperately wanted a cake covered with Marines in battle and Mietta was convinced she was going to get the much-admired (and highest bid) Campfire cake. The Campfire cake was SO very appropriate with a couple of marshmallows roasting over a burning log fire. It was truly breath-taking. 

We had two major meltdowns once it was discovered that only Luc had been successful in winning his choice of cake. Warren & Sarah, who had helped their son Jackson with his brilliant Campfire cake, stepped in and very graciously offered to make Mietta her VERY OWN Campfire Cake. 

We had one VERY happy young lady the next day when we collected her cake. 

Still very impressive, this cake was not half as spectacular as the cake sold in the auction. The marshmallows hadn't (yet) been toasted on the cake above, and the fire wasn't quite as roaring (flames were made from melted butterscotch and Lifesaver candy). 
Nic was appeased with the promise of some plastic Marine figurines to decorate his own (future) USMC cake. 

Extermi-cake!

Poor Luc always seems to have a delayed birthday party. It always seems to snow, or some bad weather makes entertaining at home seem like a really bad idea. This year was no exception... his February birthday party was held in April - after one postponement. 
Luc has several current obsessions - namely Minecraft, Doctor Who, Diary of a Wimpy Kid... but he decided to theme his birthday party an 'Everything' party (I'm not sure if he wanted to restrict himself to a particular theme).
Luc helped make his birthday cake and was going to help decorate it... but it got too late and he had to get to bed. As seems to be the case when I am doing things at the last moment, I changed my mind. Instead of making and icing 'cubes' of cake a la Minecraft style, I decided to change the theme to another of Luc's obsessions - Doctor Who! I had envisaged a TARDIS cake, but our 'round' carrot cake didn't really suit... how about a Dalek? I knew this would be a hit. I made a quick Banana Cake for the rest of the body. 
For those who don't know, Daleks have been scaring kids for generations. These are alien beings, indestructible, without a skerrick of emotion. They are fond of chasing around humans chanting "Exterminate. Exterminate! Exterminate" - before doing just that. I did a quick image search to look for the vital Dalek features. It turns out that there have been MANY Dalek cakes made over the years - very elaborate, very realistic and very time consuming! 

Of course I roud my decision when I found we were out of black gel color, and that with a bit of extra planning, I could have prepared some really great Dalek accoutrements, organized some silver spray color, bought some fondant instead of having to search for a recipe and then make some... 

Anyway, once I started, there was no turning back. 

You will understand how happy I felt when I found a beaming Luc in the morning - happy, surprised and totally appreciative. 
We served a simple lunch: Grilled burgers and sweet corn, chicken drumettes, tossed salad, asparagus... a perfect spring party :-)