H1N1 Virus

Its official. I have the H1N1 virus. My parents sent me to the hospital last night because it was getting worse and the doctor said that I have be infected with the H1N1 virus. I must be quarantined for 7 days. By the way, I am totally NOT happy about this because my grades will drop dramatically. Totally missing out on the whole block! 20 marks GONE!!! Argh!!! I wonder if I can still get an A.

Oh well, I feel much better than yesterday already. More energy. So thats good :)

Sick

I have been so sick for the past 2 days. I had a bit of headache when I woke up on Thursday morning but I thought it was nothing so I went to school. It got worse after lunch so I took my temperature and it was 37.7ºC. Since the day was almost over, I decided to hang in there. After school, I took my temperature again and it was 38.3ºC. The cycle back home was the longest EVER!

For that night, it was just horrible. I kept vomiting for at least 5 times. Terrible headache, it was so uncomfortable! The next day, my mom brought me to the polyclinic and there were so many people having a fever. So i was there for like 2 hours. It was so so cold even though i had my jacket.

Well, I am getting better now. I hope I will be fine by Monday because that when we start a new block (Sugarloaf Production). Its not good to miss out on that.

Weird

I always say time flies, time flies. But do we actually embrace the time that we have? Can someone please tell me? When we lose the time, we say time flies. It is when we lose it, we do not make use of our time properly. Of course this is not always true because when we have fun, time flies too. But does that mean that we did not make use of it properly? It does not. 

Now that the holiday is almost over, i am starting to miss it. Term 2 will be more hellish than term 1 I think because of the Commis Challenge and stuff. Plus I will be having the dining experience THIS COMING WEDNESDAY!!! Gosh...I have not even remember the flavours and the descriptive words! I am so dead.

Black Pepper Crab

Sorry G. that this took so long to be posted. But here it is now. To tell you the truth, I have never cooked black pepper crab before (but I still have the recipe). My mom and I always cook chilli crab.

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 crabs, washed
• 4 tbs freshly ground black pepper
• 3 - 4 fresh red chilli, seeded, minced
• 4 tbs butter
• 10 cloves garlic, peeled, minced
• 10 slices ginger 
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp sugar (optional)
• Coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Chop off the 2 clippers of the crab, separate the body of crab from its top shell, chop the body part into half.
2. Dry-fry black pepper in frying pan till fragrant.
   
3. Remove and set it aside.
   
4. Heat the wok/ whatever that can hold the crabs & the sauce, add butter.
5. When it melts, add garlic, ginger and chilli, stir-fry until its fragrant, about 3 - 4 minutes.
6. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar (if using), stir well.
7. Add the crabs and stir to cover the crabs with the sauce, stir-fry for about 5 minutes.
8. Add the dry-fried black pepper and stir-fry on high heat for a few more minutes.
9. Serve with the garnish.

P.S. Each slice of ginger is about 3 mm thick.

P.S. Dry-frying is frying without any oil.

P.S. It depends on how big your crab is, if its big, you need to cook it longer.

Kitchen From Hell

It has been more than a month since I blogged. I have been extremely busy (and a bit lazy too) with school. Its really hell! Let me start with my typical day: I will wake up at 6:00 am, have breakfast and shower and leave my house latest by 6:55 am. We need to be there by 7:50 am for the roll call in full chef uniform. After that we will go into the culinary theatre for a demo & explanation of what we will be doing that day. And immediately after that, we will proceed down to the kitchen to cook. We will be marked on the dishes we produce each and every day (so we have to be on our top every single day). 

After the cookery, we will have a 45 minutes break and start the lecture/ knife skills. All these will end only at 4:00 pm or 5:00 pm (depends on how fast we work). To add on, we still have lessons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm. After that, when I get home and shower, it will be almost 7:00 pm already. Have dinner till like 7:30 pm and need to print the recipes for the next day and read them well. By the time I am done with that, it will be at least 8:30 pm or 9 pm already. And not forgetting that I will need to iron my chef uniform for the next day. After that, I will need to get ready for bed because of the early next day. And it goes all over again. 

Not forgetting that we still have homework, which is to cut up carrots into different sizes and that will take at least 30 minutes. So, to conclude, I really do not have much time for anything else. Well, thats the life of a chef-in-training. What to do..... except to live through it (hopefully).

Finale

Oh finally!!!! The big big day tomorrow. I am finally getting out of Singapore. Will be leaving home at 7am. The coach is 9am and its at harbour front (I know, its so far). And everything is almost packed now, just need to put in the medicines, toothbrush and thats it I guess. I am so so excited already. I hope I can sleep tonight.

But still have some last minute school stuff to do. Need to pass the injection certificate to my friend because the school needs it by 14 April and I will not be in Singapore. They will have the kitchen orientation on 14 April and I will miss that. So disappointed. I don't want to miss out anything. But no choice, the tickets are already booked. And don't get me wrong, I am equally excited about the trip and the orientation.

So, see you guys when I am back!

P.S. I will be bringing a journal so I can write down everything and will be posting it on here after I am back.

Time

Time flies. I have not ben blogging because I was busy preparing for the music exam, buying my friend's birthday present (gosh, that was long, but worth it), and work.

I just came back from work at the Holiday Inn ParkView Hotel. My feet are absolutely killing me. They need to be soaked in warm water hehe. Last Wednesday was the CCM Dinner and Dance and it was just all right. The food was absolutely divine but the activities they planned were boring and meaningless (as expected though). Well, that was the last day of 1J02 and that was the saddest part of it all. We love our class so much! A bunch of weird people (including me) but still, we love each other :D