Sometime, I feel that pictures speak louder than what I have to say or write for that matter. Just look at the picture of mini chocolate cupcakes above. It is not merely dessert. I made it from scratch (main ingredients: moist dates and chocolate) so that I can bring it over to a friend’s open house during the Muslim festival of Hari Raya Eid Fitri Al Mubarak. It represents our friendship, it represents how food can transcends all and bring us all together and most of all, it represents the beauty of harmonious living despite our differences just like how dried fruits like dates could actually bind with chocolate to result in a very moist, naturally sweet and something simple and extraordinary all at the same time. You would have to taste it yourself to get what I fully meant.

So, why should you vote for me in Project Food Blog? Well, like I say in the beginning of this post, it is always about the food and I believe that through food photography and my blog posts, food gets the recognition it truly deserved. After all, it is always the first thing that gets left out and the first to be blamed for any health issues from weight gain to heart disease.

Let’s face it. We all love food at some point in life…so let’s give it the star rating it deserved and forget about nasty things like calories, fats and such. So, yeah, I am confident that I will be able to make it all about the food if given the chance. Will you give me and food a chance?

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There’s the iFoodex, which is the food expo by companies hawking their wares. Surprisingly, there’s some new things to be seen like Canned Ikan Keli (catfish) which is a first. There’s also a stall selling fresh and frozen abalone for those crazy over abalones (it’s RM55 for four, I think). Then, shockingly, there’s even a local cheese stall selling local-made mozzarella and ricotta. Amazing.

The rest are the usual canned food, packaged food, processed food and frozen food. My favourite stall will have to be the Haagen Daz stall. I mean, who doesn’t like ice cream eh?

The iFoodex, at Pisa, is open between 11am and 7pm. There’s also the Battle of the Chef (a cooking competition between chefs) inside the arena but it costs RM3 per entry per person so we didn’t bother to go in. In the evenings,between 6pm and midnight, there’s hawker foods galore outside on the grounds around Pisa:

Of course, I made a beeline to Satay Kajang which we can’t find in Penang on normal days…

And it’s only 60 sen per stick of skewered meat that is seasoned and barbequed to perfection. MMmmmmm…please remind me to go to Kajang for satay Kajang the next time I’m in KL. Really. Now, I only need to know which stall (in Kajang) has the best satay.  Move over Penang skinny itty-bitty bite-size meat satay! Just look at how thick and juicy the satay Kajang is. So, Kay EL people, please tell me, where can I find really good Satay Kajang there? I will need the stall name, an address and specific directions please. Thank you very much. No hurries, not like I am going there in a minute or so.

Next, I head for more carcinogen-filled stuff of barbequed chicken that’s almost blackened by the charcoal and grill used. Damn, who cares about carcinogen-whatever when the ayam percik tastes SO DARN GOOD?!

More artery clogging stuff…

Sadly, I didn’t take too many pictures of the whole event as I should have because I was…errr…too busy stuffing my face otherwise occupied. Anyway, there were supposedly about 60 hawker stalls outside ranging from local Malay fare to the usual Chinese hawker food to the spicy Indian fare. There are also some international food, mainly Japanese food and some western food. And they have also arranged some live bands and concerts in the evenings so it should be..err…fun. I think. The music starts around 8pm.

The whole Penang Food Festival event is till this Sunday so if you want to try out the Satay Kajang, get some fresh abalones or just to cram and jostle with the crowd this weekend, head on over to Pisa. Me? Been there, done that. I’m definitely staying away. It is still not worth braving the jams, parking problems and the crowds to go there again.

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Anyway, there were only five people who commented (sigh, why so few people only want to join in the contest? Doesn’t anybody else want to Pay it forward in the blogosphere? ) so, I run the random number generator and came up with the winners:

1. Colin Boyd of Get The Big Picture

2. Cory of Zestycook.com

5. Gera of Sweetsfoods.com

So, congratulations to the three lucky Pay it Forward-ers. Now, all you need to do is to send your name and mailing address to penangviews AT gmail DOT com. Of course, you don’t have to give me your full name, just the name that will ensure the handmade gift land in your hands and not someone else’s.

Also, remember the rule of the Pay it Forward contest. You will need to do the same by paying it forward and sending three handmade gifts to three other bloggers.

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So, this year, it is no different in my house where we coordinated a lavish seafood steamboat dinner good enough to choke our arteries and have a steamy time. Heheh. Team the steamy steamboat with our hot and humid weather, we have our regular steam bath right in my living room!

Here’s my steamboat soup recipe:

Seafood Steamboat Base Soup Recipe

Ingredients

4 pc dried scallops (as pictured below)

1 medium sized turnip (as pictured below)

1 medium sized burdock root (as pictured below)

2 carrots

3 tbsp kei chee (dried wolfberries)

2 – 3 garlic pods

water

Instructions

1. Clean and skin the burdock and turnip, then cut into large chunks like below.

2. Boil a pot of water

3. Dump all the ingredients in and let it simmer over low heat for about an hour and the soup is ready to use!

Now, the reason that I didn’t add any kinds of meat is because we preferred a clearer and milder soup so that after putting all the other steamboat ingredients in, we won’t get an overly cloying soup. For the raw ingredients we have loads of salmon, cod fish, fish balls, sui kow (chinese dumplings), tiger prawns, crabs, mushrooms, Japanese tofu, chicken breast meat, green vegetables and squid.

Since we have salmon, naturally, we also have some salmon sashimi:

And here’s our steamboat spread…

Steamboat is probably one of the easiest meals to have but don’t be fooled as the preparation time takes up to two hours since I have to slice the fish and chicken, open the cans (for the mushrooms), wash the vegetables, crack the crab shells, etc, etc, and then arrange it all on large plates.

It being a reunion dinner, of course, it also takes hours to enjoy a steamboat meal since it involved dumping the ingredients into the soup and sitting around chatting and waiting for it to boil.

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I am way in over my head with a new project I am undertaking, thus I hardly have time for this blog and my personal blog.

In these few weeks, my postings have been irregular and though I did cook up a storm and bake loads of stuff and pigged out at restaurants, I hardly have time to put it all up. Sigh. I am really, really overwhelmed and I can only wish I have 36 hours a day to do everything!

Anyway, I sorta won a gift over at The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch when I left a comment at her Pay It Forward post. SO. It is now my turn to pay it forward.

Pay It Forward

Okay, for those of you who don’t understand how it works or have not seen the movie ‘Pay it Forward’, let me explain the nitty gritty of this in one simple sentence:

I go out of my way to help three strangers and each of these strangers will in turn help three strangers respectively and on it goes.

Now, in blogland, it is slightly different. You just leave a comment here and I will use one of those online number randomizer to pick three people who commented and I will send them each a homemade gift. And yes, you can be from anywhere in the world and I will send the gift to you within the next 365 days. Honest. No tricks.But if nobody commented here…I guess, I will have to beg you nicely to let me pay it forward. So, please, can you please, pretty, pretty please leave a comment here? There, I did ask very nicely. I promise I will send over very nice handmade gift for the three chosen ones.

Now for the catch. The catch is for these three people to have blogs and to do the same. They will have to pick three people each and send the gifts to those people. That’s what we call Pay It Forward.

***********************************

Now, on to an award I received from Gera of Sweets Foods. Let me proudly present to you my latest award….

Thank you so much to Gera for thinking so highly of my humble little blog. Makes me even more guilty for my lack of regular posts in recent times.

Anyway, here are the details of this award:

The deserved Uber Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:

* inspires you
* makes you smile and laugh
* or maybe gives amazing information
* a great read
* has an amazing design
* and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:

* Put the logo on your blog or post.
* Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
* Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.
* Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

So, now, I have to find five Uber Amazing Blogs to pass this award to (why do I have this strange inkling as if it is an e-chain letter? lol..don’t mind me, I love passing on links to great blogs out there…)

Now, the 5 blogs deserving this award are…..*insert drumroll*…

1.  Nick, The Peanut Butter Boy (heck, who doesn’t love peanut butter and a blog exclusively on peanut butter?!?! Enaf said.)

2. Gretchen from Wasabi Bratwurst (her pictures are so beautiful and yes, her recipes are great too)

3. Foongpc from My Very First Blog (okay, so his blog is not exactly a food blog but I love his blog because he always post up quite interesting stuffs and informative too.)

4. Tartelette (I am a silent stalker of her blog. I simply LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her pictures! Go check her blog out and you will see what I mean)

5. Peanut Butter and Julie (I also silently stalk her blog. Like I said, who doesn’t love peanut butter? And Julie sure do have loads of PB posts too!)

So, there. Some blogs I think deserve the Uber Amazing Blog award.

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I just received another award from fellow food blogger April, The Hungry Engineer.

This is the Arte y Pico.

Thanks so much April! I’m sure you’ve read how I salivated over her Fig and Prosciutto Pizza just only recently. And then after that, she posted this absolutely fabulous to-die-for Chocolate Mousse Pie Recipe. If you are a chocolate lover, go there and check it out.

Okay, I was made to understand that this award comes with strings attached…heheh..it has rules to adhere to:

• Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

• Advertise name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

• Each award-winner, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

• Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

• Share these rules.

Okay, so now it’s my chance to pass this Arte y Pico award along to…

Jessie of Simply Scrumptious – she has a pretty blog with great recipes and reviews. Check out her Pesto Stuffed Steak with roasted red potatoes.

Lynn the Bentoist – Packed lunches will never be the same again once you check out this creative lady who could practically cook anything to fit into the bento! I simply love her Steamed Chicken Char Siew Buns and the great part about her posts is that there’s a slideshow to go with the recipe.

Freya at the Cocoa Lounge – I’m a die hard chocolate lover and this lady obviously is one too! Just go on over to the blog and drool over her Chocolate Brownie Cake.

Gail of The Pink Peppercorn – This is one blog where you will find beautiful pictures and recipes for delicious AND healthy food. Check out her ultra wholesome healthy breakfast.

Vanessa of Italy in SF – If it’s Italian food you are craving, you should just check out this site. I absolutely love this photo essay of how to make your own pasta!

That’s the end of my Arte y Pico Awards list. Now, I was made to understand that I could pass along the Fabulous Blogger Award that was given to me by Jessie of The Hungry Mouse, so now, I am passing it along too:

Cajun Chef Ryan – This chef has a lot of great recipes. Do, check out his Chicken Breast Sauté recipe.

Nicole at Bay Area Foodie – She does a lot of reviews of places in Bay Area and teamed it with beautiful pictures. This post makes me hungry and we know I have this weakness for desserts…

KianLam of Red Cook – Take a look behind a Chinese kitchen (okay, so mine is also a Chinese kitchen but I cook a lot of stuffs that are not so typically Chinese….) and the best part about his blog is that he has this stir-fry technique series for those who are new to Chinese cooking.

Reeni of Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice – If anything, I love her baking recipes and this one for peanut butter and jelly oatmeal muffins looks darn good.

Ken and his team of food tasters at Food Point of Interest – This blog has a lot of great food reviews teamed with plenty of mouthwatering pictures. Check out this video guide on how to make murukku, the Indian snack.

Lilian of Penang Foods -  This famous blogger, more popularly known as 5xmom, has a lot of food blogs and this is one of it where she introduces the places to eat in Penang.

Okay, that should end my long list for now. I actually have a Special E-Blogger Award coming up and I will mention that in a few days’ time.

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Although the Malaysian-German Society (MGS) here has been celebrating Octoberfest for years now, I had never actually made a point to go to it. Somehow I’d either miss it, forget about it or simply did not have the time to go for it.

So, this year, it is my first time I finally managed to go for the German celebration last night which is complete with loads of beer, naturally. Though I have really stopped drinking beer for years (and move on to wines occasionally), I remember loving the smoothness of German beer way back when I used to work at a German pub and restaurant. Coincidentally, the current MGS president is my former boss!

Anyway, here’s a look at the food and beer over at Octoberfest 2008 here:

The first to greet us after entering are of course these lovelies in bottles

These are the more common beer that we can have during normal days. In Octoberfest, we must of course, head for the GOOD stuff!

Now, this is what I call German beer!

As expected, food and drinks at the Octoberfest is hardly cheap eventhough we need to pay entrance fee (masked as donation) of RM25 per person (for non-members of MGS). But I think it is quite okay to pay more for German beer as it is not easy to find some of the brands available here in local pubs..

Someone getting a mug of German bitter from the giant beer can

This beer is particularly smooth, so much so that I almost drank more than I should…what with a toddler in tow, it is not advisable to imbibe in too much alcohol (and let’s not even talk about how my diet is shot with all these extra calories…heheheh).

Now on to the foods…

Gaily decorated gingerbread hearts

Gingerbread hearts is a very German thing, or so I heard and so they have two stalls selling these. I am not a gingerbread fan, as I just can’t stand the strong taste and smell of ginger in a bread, so I merely took pictures of these lovely looking pastry.

The prerequisite German sausage, meatloaf, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad

They have two main stalls selling the almost-compulsory German foot-long sausages, meatloaf, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad. No German event is complete without a meal of these food! We all know about the Germans, their beer and their meat! The set meal consisting of one meat of your choice, sauerkraut and potatoes costs RM15. An additional meat is RM8. So, the plate below costs RM23 which is pretty reasonable considering the huge portion.

German vienna sausage, ham, sauerkraut and potato salad

What can I say? Germans have a taste for the salty so the sausage and ham are quite salty. Not many people likes sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) due to its sourish flavour but I would have to say that combined with the sausage and ham and the potato salad, it makes a good side dish.

Here's a closer look...the portion is more than I could stomach, also due to the saltiness, so I shared this with my husband

Then I scout around and found two other stalls with non-German food…

Grilled Indian-style food - skewered chicken meat with onions

Braised lamb shank

I couldn’t resist the lamb shank so I bought one to-go…

Braised lamb shank with mashed potatoes

The juicy lamb shank served with mashed potatoes

The lamb shank is RM28 per set and I find that it is quite okay too considering it is cooked perfectly. It is tender, juicy and covered in a great brown sauce. Yummy! The mashed potatoes are a bit plain, though. It is merely mashed up boiled potatoes with no additional flavour. I think I could make better ones where I’d add cheese and milk to it to give it a richer taste.

So, that concludes my review of the foods and drinks in Octoberfest.

Auf Wiedersehen! (farewell in German)

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As with previous years, it was crowded and this year, there are more stalls and with even a ‘healthy food’ section selling organic food, vitamins, health drinks, etc. And to make things more interesting, they even coincide the event with a Chef’s challenge and a property and home show so there are more things to see.

I did not bother much with the property and home show since most are luxurious homes for the filthy rich and I am only rich in sarcasm not in $$ so forget it. The Chef challenge is pretty interesting enough if you manage to squeeze through the crowds gaping at the busy chefs trying to outdo each other and whipping up a storm.

So, other than the usual canned food (mushrooms, sardines, etc) which are being sold at slightly cheaper rates only, we went around and bought lots of unhealthy snacks…sigh..I have to search for more hiding places to keep it from my son… heheheh…

The bakwa pie (dried meat pie) from Bee Cheng Hiang is one of the foods that we bought. It’s RM10 for 5 pies, okay la considering their bakwa is quite expensive. We also bought their bakhu (dried minced meat) for use as sandwich fillings.

Other than food, they also have stalls selling pots and pans and blenders and other kitchen accessories. However, don’t bet on cheap bargain prices because most aren’t sold cheap. Perhaps a few ringgit cheaper but that’s it. No huge 50% discounts if that’s what you are expecting.

All in, it’s a great way to spend an hour or so browsing through different stalls and checking out stuffs being sold…much like going to an air-conditioned, stuffy and smoky (since some of them cooked within that confined space) pasar malam.

So, next year, I may probably go there again. After all, it is not exactly out of my way…

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I won’t know if it’s any good because I haven’t been to any of these things for ages! I am way beyond help when it comes to education…heheheh

Also, for those hungry ghosts out there, there’s a charity food fair coming up this Sunday. It is a two-in-one event. You get to eat and you get to help cancer patients! What a deal. Seriously. Okay, okay, so the eats aren’t free but hey, it is to help poor cancer patients and you have to eat right?

So, don’t forget to go to:

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