My ABC Runneth Over

It was a Sunday and I had all the time in the world to boil my soup. Actually I was already craving for ABC soup on Saturday but I couldn't possibly be using ABC soup as the soup base for the steamboat! Anyways, let's backtrack a bit. The soup on Saturday was good. I had used a lot of pork ribs for the soup and also an extra secret ingredient. It's not MSG or Ajinomoto ok? The ingredient is one of the secret in making good soups as told to me by my grandma since she used to be a hawker in the Pasar Besar Ipoh 2 decades ago.

In fact, I grew up in Ipoh town (now it's a city) with frequent visits to my grandma's stall in the wet market. She was famous then selling the fishball noodle with crispy "fu pei". We were quite arrogant then because it was selling like hot cakes and we always run out of fishballs. I grew up watching how my aunts and uncles helping my grandma scraping the meat off the fish and then making it into fishballs. Damn, I missed those fishballs. It was the best! Everyone (the older generation la) knew my grandma in town back then. I had some friends there whose mother is selling vegetables and another friend whose mother was selling nyoya kuih.

Maybe that's why I grew up not hating the wet market but in fact loving to go there. When I was in my primary school age, I used to follow my grandma to the market where she meets up with her friends there for breakfast and a chat till noon. After that, we'll head home and get ready for school. That has been my daily routine for a couple of years until I went to the morning session. During those times, I would pester my grandma to buy me marbles, balloons and toys from the market. There was once that I got so curious watching people ordering the soya milk mixed with cincau and I demanded I wanted the same thing. So she bought a cup for me. I triumphantly finished the whole cup and not more than five minutes later, I vomited all of it at the drain behind the stall. After that I had a phobia drinking it until I went to high school.

When I was 3. They said I was good looking! As a boy or girl?!!

I still have the same stare till today. I'm a natural!

Well, after two paragraphs of my childhood days, I'm still ain't telling you what the secret ingredient is just in case I want to revive my grandma's legacy. Hmm.. maybe I should call it Grandma Fishball Noodles - best in Ipoh & KL and some say JB. LOL.

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Getting back to the ABC soup, I fell asleep in the afternoon and when i got up at 5.30pm, I realised I'm running out of time to boil the soup as I wanted to have a Japanese dinner at Sushi Zanmai in Sunway Pyramid at 8pm. So I quickly went and boil the soup.

Diced potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and onions

Fresh chicken from the market

After I had boiled the chicken and pour away the bloody (no pun intended) water, I fill up the pressure cooker with water. Actually I think I am supposed to follow the guide line but I was a bit greedy and I filled a little more. Then I close the lid and started boiling the soup. It was fine and I had it boiling for almost 2 hours. When I had let go all the pressure from the pot, I lifted the lid up and then the soup kept oozing out like a shaken bottle of champagne! I don't know how to stop it but to allow it to keep flowing out from the pot till it stopped. It was a mess! It's like the soup had exploded from the pressure cooker. I had to clean up the stove and the counter. I managed to squeeze a bowl full of soup from the cloth!

Tomatoes & Onions blown out from the pot!

I had more than enough of ABC soup so much so that it had runneth over!

In Celebration of Freedom

There must be a reason to celebrate right in every party? Well, this steamboat party at my residence is not in celebration of me "getting married" or "getting pregnant" like what my naughty friends have suggested yesterday. It's more like a gathering for my sisters' friends and mine too. Knowing that my mom will be coming back from Dubai on Wed after being 2 months there, we gotta hold a party before she gets back man! I'll definitely be cleaning the house like mad these few days so why not dirty it and once and for all clean it properly after that?!! So a steamboat party seemed viable with lots of free booze on the house.

Let's do the headcount: Eiling, Ziling, Yiling, Jon, Hue Gee, Wan Hoong, Greg, Boon, Jill, Fernie, Rong Jiang, Jill, Param and Kenneth. Total = 14 heads + big mouths

Initially I thought there were only 10 of us, mana tahu extra 2 pulak. But lucky I have prepared the food fit for the whole village because they really can eat man!

Beware: This is a post full of pictures!

The Food

Fishball, Meatball, "Fu Pei", Salmon fillets, Quill eggs,
Golden Mushroom, clams, prawn, squid, lots of vege, noodles and acar.

Yiling's home-made Manuka Honey Roasted Chicken Wings

The People

Me (the hostess) & Gee sipping our wine.

My group - Jon, me, Gee & Hoong

I had to open another table using my beloved Solitaire antique table
due to lack of space at the main table.

My sisters & her friends at the main table.

Hey how come my eyes looked so small here?!!

The Booze, Games & Quizzes

Hue Gee brought a bottle of red wine, Boon brought a bottle of muscat and a bottle of red wine and I the hostess was kind enough to offer a bottle of Absolut Vodka, Bacardi and 4 liters of table wine for the party! Applause...applause....

Guys and their booze. Booze goes well with machoism?

My new concoction - Red Bull Vodka/Bacardi

Blackcurrant Vodka

Stanley table wine. Thumbs up!

During the dinner, everyone had a go at the IQ quizzes and there was so much crap you can ever imagined. Then after we cleared the dishes and table, they all started to play some games. Ziling's friend, Boon, suggested some party games that we can play. It was fun though minus the gross stuff that you have to endure.

Balance a tequila shot glass into a tall glass of gazzy drink with ice. Everyone will have a go at pouring the liquor into the shot glass. Anyone that sinks the shot glass will have to drink the whole damn thing!

The game gang

Then they had this deadly idea of playing this game where there will be 3 words chosen to play. For example, during the first round each one will have to say the word in sequence. A will say "Frog", B will say "Doink", C will say "Jump". Then D will have to go back to the first word "Frog", E will have to repeat the word "Frog" as this is the second round. Then when it comes to F, he'll have to say "Doink" and then the next person also will have to say the word "Doink".

Basically it's like that - Frog (F), Doink(D), Jump(J), FFDDJJ, FFFDDDJJJ, FFFFDDDDJJJJ and so on. It's fun if you play it fast and the members need to do some mind calculation how many times to repeat the same word as the round goes on.

The punishment for the one who uttered the wrong word will have to drink the gross stuff which consists of a glass of whatever they can find in my house. That night, they had acar mixed with vodka, barcardi, ribena, wine, vinegar, lemon, tau fu fah and whatever you can think of!

Yucky glass of gross stuff

Fernie had the honour of drinking it!


This following video is the WHO WHAT HUH game.

The punishment is also the yucky glass of gross stuff. Can't remember how it was played because many were confused and so the glass was finished quite fast. The wonder is no one complained about having stomachache the next day!

Finale

Most of the people left by 11pm and there were only 6 of us left so we decided to camwhore a bit before we call it a day as Yiling and I have a music class at 8am the next day. Yiling set the camera to a timer mode on top of the TV and this is our best shot!

Three girls, Three guys and a living room.

Thank you to everyone who made the effort to come. It's really a nice gathering bringing friends from all ages (from 19-26) to our home so that I could share my sisters' friends! Haha...