We gave one of DD's empty toy container boxes to my dad for him to put his bits and bobs in - DD was furious - ie limbs flailing, eyeballs protruding kind of furious - that we hadnt asked her first. We tried to convince her that we had bought a new one specially for him and altho' it looked exactly like the purple coloured container boxes she owns it wasnt in fact hers (a lie of course as it was hers).
She eyeballed us suspiciously with that "you dont fool me for minute" look she has mastered then pottered off to her room and called us in 5 mins later to view her handiwork. She had taken her little name stickers (which we got for her books) and stuck them on all her container boxes, including her bed, mirror, cupboards, toy truck, and whatever else was within her reach. She said "NOW you wont get all mixed up isnt it mumma". DH and I were on the floor laughing at which point she stuck her name sticker on my forehead and said "you also belong to me mumma" ! ......which quite frankly scared the pants off me.
I baked my first cake in our new oven over the weekend - quite an achievement considering I'd bought the oven 6 months ago and was using it as an extra workspace. Finally dragged myself down to Taman Mayang to the cake shops to get all the ingredients and tools and decided to inaugurate the oven with Mrs Fernander's trusty old butter cake - which came out brilliant.There's nothing quite like the simple butter cake is there? get that right and you've mastered the essence of cake baking I think. So many cakes nowadays taste rubbish coz people scrimp on the ingredients. Mrs Fernander was of Dutch Burgher descent from Sri Lanka who used to teach cake making and icing from her home in Bangsar for 20 years during the 70's and 80's - she's long gone now, but her recipes are still solid gold.
She taught my mum and was a real stickler for being neat and getting things just right. She herself was always immaculately dressed and accesorized. I remember going with mum a couple of times to her baking class and being in awe of Mrs Fernander. The theme of her sitting room would change every 4 months ie she had a theme for summer, autumn, winter and spring! They dont make them like that anymore do they?
