.....Bon Appetit.....

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry souffle. I did that at least twenty-eight times before I finally conquered it.
- Julia Child

Synopsis:

Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer-director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell’s Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with... Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer-director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell’s Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme.

Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

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Julie & Julia. I'm just so felt in love with this movie. On Thursday late afternoon, LKM and I decided to watch this movie before his summer holidays end and Fall semester starts this coming Monday. I watched the review of this movie when I had My sister's keepers with my gf couple weeks ago. I would give an A++, 5 stars, incredible, fantastic, awesome, excellent, SUPER...whatever fabulous word that I can describe this movie. This is the Best Movie I had ever watch in my entire life, perhaps it was about the cooking & baking.

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It was a inspirational, delightful movie full of humor and life lessons. I personally love Meryl Streep this character, of course her acting. Without questioning, Meryl Streep successfully transformed herself into character. She actually had you believing she was Julia Child. She is lovely, charming, humorous and a happy go lucky woman. Her acting was really good, love her slogan "Bon Appetit" which means good appetite or enjoy your meal in the movie, the way an American trying to speaks in French accent. :)

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Julie @ Amy Adams, she is so beautiful in this movie. I must give my salute to her, for her passion and self-discipline to accomplish the project (to finish 524 recipes in 365 days) on time. Although she faces difficulties, but she still managed to cleam them up and keep going. The movie does included her strong, romantic love journey with her hubby. It's funny that Julie mentioned that she loves her hubby so much just like the pigs loves shit. :P

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Things that I've learned from this movie-it's never too late or too old to let ours star shine. One seemingly small step can end up changing our life, just like Julia's (Meryl Streep) husband saying in the movie, when he was trying Julia not to give up on her hope to get some one in sponsoring her to publish the cook book. He said: "Your book will changes the whole world". And yes, she did! Do whatever we enjoy or talented at, with what God has gave us, we never know who we might inspire.

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There're so much I want to comment about this movie...

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Phew....OKOK... I think this is long enough...I wont's spoil this movie for you, go watch it. Hope you enjoy the movie.

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"Bon Appetittttttttttttttt...." :)

Vege Tuna Buns

If you know me very well, I'm a "bread" person, any kind of breads...put anything buns in front of me, my knees start to go weak...hehe...over the years, I've collected various of bread recipes. I particularly prefer the Asean style bread.
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This reminds me of the Indian uncle who used to ride on his small motorbike and sell 'roti' (bread in Malay) in my neighborhood, when I was still a little kid...my favorite bun..."Apollo", a type of long sweet bun with the creamy filling inside with different flavor, such as vanilla, pandan, coffee and chocolate. It only cost 25 cents (the price back to 10 years ago) for this yummy and delicious long bun. I'm wondering if they still sell this bun in M'sia, I hope they do so that I still have the chance to eat them when I go home next time.

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Bread, pastry, cake, pie and cookie. If you ask me to choose which one I like to eat the most, I'll list them in this sequence. There's why I never bake any cookie before ;p Apparently, I do agree that baking bread is much more easier comparing with others that may require special skills or baking method. I'll say baking bread is the most easiest than any other pastry and dessert.

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Last Saturday, I suddenly had the very strong "ohm" to make some buns, and I've decided to use the vege tuna as filling as I promised my friends that I wanna make for time since ages year ago. I remember that I read a pasty baking recipe book before, this famous France baker has mentioned that as a purist, he prefers using the artisan approach, working by his own hands instead of using any eletrical mixer if unneccessary. I was joking with LKM that this save some money on my dream Kitchen aid mixer, because I have a pair of "solar hands" =p
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Can you imagine how powerful is the little yeats, that make the dough size increase in double. I love the dough raising part alot. I love seeing and enjoying each moment, when peeping to see if my little dough is growing or not. ;p It's so exciting!!!

The not-so-good looking before putting into the oven...

...ta-da ta-da...

SUCCESS SUCCESS SUCCESS!!!!guys...these buns really taste very GOOD, they are as soft as those 'chan pau' we eat in M'sia...

.A friend of mine, ate 5 buns at one sitting :) I feel happy I'm able to bake good stuffs for people around me, and they enjoy too. It's really lots of fun in baking, and I'm loving every bit of it.

OK...will post the recipe here later...^^

Go Green-Stopping Global Warming

It has been a while I didn't update my blog so often as before, a little bit busy with my sticker business these days. I guess it was because the time kids about going back to school, perhaps.

I woke up pretty early today, as I promised LKM to make him breakfast before he goes to work. Just a simple healthy combo breakfast-banana pancake with mable syrup, and soy milk. This is a very simple and nice pancake recipe that I found couple weeks ago, but this time I replaced the milk with soy milk, and the margarine with oil. It turn out to be good too :)

I wasn't feel good these few days. As I talked with a friend here, and my buddy in Melbourne,Australia, I don't feel good that everyday when I read the news, typhoon is hitting TW and mainland China, tsunami is expected in Indian Ocean and Japan again, earthquake happens every where, even airplan crash is now happens more and more frequent...the change of the climate and weather, global warming, make the planet earth sick...sigh...

I just read an article couple minutes ago, global warming is actually causes the increase of temperature, much more rain is anticipated as the ice caps melt. As a result, rising sea levels could cause much more severe flooding especially in low-lying coastal areas...if we go back to the beginning, it's no doubts why is it rain flood and forest fires happens so often in everywhere- human-caused greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

One's lifestyle changes can actually reduce and solve the global warming problem by reducing the CO2 that leads to this severe problem, these are pretty knowledgeable information even I didn't know about it:

-NO#1 cause of global warming. According to the United Nations, raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, planes, ships, trucks, and trains in the world combined. So, save our planet-GO VEGETARIAN, at least try to take less meats.

-At home,replacing incandescent light bulb with compact fluorescent light bulbs can save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

-Moving the thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer can save 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

-Driving less, carpool to work can reduce annual carbon dioxide output by thousands of pounds annually.

-Buy Local and Organic-chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water supply, and require energy to produce.

-Air Dry Your Clothes-Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer. Save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $75 per year.

-Saving energy at home is good for the environment.

-Become a smart water consumer.

-Plant a Tree, protect a forest.

-Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!-producing new paper, glass, and metal products from recycled materials saves 70 to 90 percent of the energy and pollution, including CO2.

-Last but not least, spread the word!!!

For more simple things we can do in our daily live to solve the global warming, here's the link for more details:

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_actionitems.asp

As people like you and I get involved, the future will become safer and cleaner for us and the future generations.

A Day Worth of Hope for All of Us !!!!

Truly inspirational video for everyone....do share this with you friends...

My sister's keeper

Sara and Brian Fitzgerald's life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter, Kate, is forever altered when they learn that Kate has leukemia. The parents' only hope is to conceive another child, specifically intended to save Kate's life. For some, such genetic engineering would raise both moral and ethical questions; for the Fitzgeralds, Sara in particular, there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive. And what it takes is Anna. Kate and Anna share a bond closer than most sisters: though Kate is older, she relies on her little sister--in fact, her life depends on Anna. Throughout their young lives, the sisters endure various medical procedures and hospital stays--just another part of their close-knit family's otherwise normal life. Sara, a loving wife and mother who left her career as an attorney to care for her daughter, is sometimes lost inside the single-minded caregiver she has become in her efforts to save Kate. Her strong, supportive husband, Brian, is often rendered powerless and passive by his wife's strength and determination. And their only son, Jesse, drifts, at times all but forgotten as Kate and Anna take center stage. Until Anna, now 11, says "no." Seeking medical emancipation, she hires her own lawyer initiating a court case that divides the family and that could leave Kate's rapidly failing body in the hands of fate. The judgement goes on, and everybody has to take sides one way or another. Later on, the idea about emancipation was not Anna's, in fact it was Kate, the always-sick one, who asked her to put a stop to her endless suffering.

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This is a best, inspirational, touching movie that I would encourage everybody to have a watch. I went for this movie with a girlfriend last night. She read the book before, and we both were so interested on this movie. It made me cried. If you plan to go for this movie, make sure you bring some tissue with you. I can hear everybody sniffing and crying so obviously in the theater.

Here're some sharing.

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Watching this movie inspirated me, made me recalling both of my elder sisters, those sweet and sour memories. Time really flies, I still remember vividly when my eldest sis leave to US for her studies in 1998. It seems like just happened yesterday, and now it is about 12 years old. And that time my second sis was doing her studies in the local Uni, we barely meet each other as she came home once or twice every weekend. It is funny that, I spent 6 years together with my second sis without my eldest sis, and now I spent another 6 years with my eldest sis in the States without my second sis, PRETTY FAIR huh??? =p And now, 3 of us are apart from each other and I do miss them most of the time. Especially my second sis, everytime we chat online, she asked me when do I want to go back, if we are going back this Dec as I promised her before. I pray and hope that we will have the chance to re-union soon! I love you two =)

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Kate, I really think she is a beautiful and brave girl, the main character in the movie made me cry the most, when I see her suffer from the leukemia. And the strong-tight relationship between her and the whole family, how they supportand love each other. I was thinking that, how fragile of our live as a human being. Kate said in the movie, "She is pain, her entire life is a pain". This really made my heart feel so pain. All in all, I learn from this movie, to appreciate every single person and thing in my life. To always appreciate and be thankful for having a healthy body to do many meaningful things.

This is the link for a short review of the movie,

http://www.mysisterskeepermovie.com/
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Go watch this movie, experience it by youself...I hope you enjoy the movie!.

Appreciation-no more complaining

Yesterday, LKM was watching one of his favorite TV series. There's a episode about a group of doctors and people doing the voluntary job in Kenya, Africa- dealing and helping a group of poor africans with epidemic diseases. In this particular episode, an infectious boy died in his dad's arm, nothing much the doctor can do as the kid was already in a very chronic condition. Right before he die, the main female actor managed to took a photo of this father and son, Okana.
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It was a very touching moment. All in the sudden, something pop out from my mind. I told LKM that, "I wonder how many people in this world will never had the chance to even take just one photo of themselve in their whole life???" My thinking, may be it is an infinity figure!
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This give me an opportunity to reflect myself. Most the time I told my friends that life is not easy, life is suffer. But, compare with people in Africa, and many other poor countries, I really think I do not have the right to say the word of suffering. No more complaining or questioning such as the food is tasteless, the bed is not soft enough, why loads of work with such low pay,...why me???...why do I need to overcome all these problems...etc...
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I told myself that-I need to learn again, the true meaning of appreciation, and no more complaining, but sharing! Let's all add oil together!
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13 days old...

7/15/09 . Wed . 13 days old . Baby Leaves