Definitely not as easy as it seems to be...

so i was reading this story book, "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho my sister borrowed from the school's library. i really don't usually read story books, especially when the title's not quite attractive. but this book, according to my sister's friend, is good for your spiritual side. i was like wah seriously? no harm giving it a try right. moreover, it's rather small and has less than 200 pages. okay i'll read it!

started reading it yesterday night until it was past 12am = time to send Steven a birthday message \\(^o^)// 

and it really turned out to be pretty interesting, it's about the journey of a shepherd boy to Egypt to find treasure, the many people he met on his way there, the many new encounters he came across and... (yet to find out, i'm only halfway through the book :P)  

few lines that made me pause and read again...

"Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own"

"The world's biggest lie is that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate"

"To do it successfully, you must have no fear of failure" 

* 

then this afternoon when i was reading the book, got a totally random call from Tse Wei asking if i had any baking powder at home. well, even the oven in my kitchen hasn't been touched for more than half a year i think, what more baking powder. about 10 minutes later, he called again asking if i wanted to join him in making his favourite apom since he was near my house.

now i think we can apply the third line i quoted from the book. sadly, the apom didn't turn out too well. there were two recipes, one from a malay blog, the other from a chinese blog. strangely, the difference between the two is quite big. 

for example, one needs 1 1/2 cups of rice flour, the other one only needs 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (such accurate measurement haha!) and the one with more rice flour needs less santan, something like that.

after all the ingredients and equipments were laid on the table, only we realised the electric mixer is missing its beaters -.- and there were no eggs left! drove out again and bought four eggs from the 7eleven near bu4 for 35cents each :)

then it was time to mix everything together! who knows the batter ended up really thick and sticky. so added more santan and some water to it until it looks more like the apom batter we see outside. left it to chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes while we played with Gopi who loves to eat grapes. very cute when he chews on the round grape, all the juice starts squirting out, then he'll lick the floor after eating it x)

next step was to fry it!! also the part where the kitchen got messed up. the tiny wok gets heated up real fast and everything starts to burn the minute you place it on the wok. even the butter turns brownish and white smoke keeps coming out. then have to wash and scrub the wok after every piece. anyways, we only managed to make two pieces which tasted like.....nothing. really quite tasteless, could only taste flour & egg. 

hence, innovation for the third piece. cracked another egg into the batter, added more hot water. then decided to use a non-stick pan this time! and sprinkled sugar + cranberries onto it x) slightly better lah but well, the third was also the last piece, wasted the remaining batter. 

how come people can make such nice apom? 

oh right, no fear of failure :)