Awang Goneng And Kak Teh At Kinokuniya KLCC

Those who were there,

Standing left to right: Dr. Bubbles, Pak Zawi. Jaflam, Zabs, Mat Salo

Sitting: Wan, Awang Goneng, Kak Teh, Captain Yusof, Elviza with Luqman on her lap

Jaflam of Jaff Point had made arrangement for Awang Goneng to make a personal appearance at The Coffee Club above The Kinokuinya Book Store KLCC on 9the December 2007. Awang Goneng is the pen name of Wan A Hulaimi, a Malaysian residing in London. He just came back from London. He did the signing of his books at Royal Asiatic Society on 26th October 2007 and another signing in Singapore a few days ago. The signing was especially arranged for bloggers in Malaysia who were notified about the event a few days earlier.

The 9th of December was an auspicious date as it was their 28th Annivessary. To Awang Goneng and his wife Kak Teh we wish you a Happy 28th Annivessary.

Kak Teh with hubby Awang Goneng.
Happy Annivessary to the two of you.

Akmal of Wise Up and me was the first to arrive at The Coffee Club as we came from The KL Convention Center where the computer fair was held. I bought a laptop there after Akmal bought one at the same fair a day earlier. Now we are really mobile bloggers. After having a cup of coffee each and there was only minutes to 4 pm, there was not another single blogger that we know came to The Coffee Club. That of made us askance whether we got the right date or the right place. Akmal being 38 years younger than me was given the task to run down to Kinokuniya to check whether the bloggers were gathered at the book store below. He came back shaking his head from side to side which I took it to mean that non others were there. The only other blogger whom I know to have promised to come was Elviza and she didnt answer my call. I guess her one and a half year old son Luqman must have hidden her 2 handphones. A sms to Pak Idrus was answered with the message that he was in Singapore because a relative of his was hospitalized there and he asked me to convey his hello to Awang Goneng.




Thats my new toy sitting pretty on the table at the Coffee Club. We were the first to arrive.


Akmal had a beautiful admirer at the Computer Fair. U Lee would defintely approve.

The appearance of Jaflam made us feel at ease that we were at the right place on the right date. Soon Zabs of Realiti Kehidupan and Captain Yusoff of The Ancient Mariner came followed by Mat Salo of Borneo Blues. Mat salo of course will never leave home without his his Nikon SLR. Thanks to it that we get these pictures, already resized and ready for uploading into the net. The black T shirt with the word Zildjian he was wearing showed clearly that Mat Salo made lots more noise with the drums than the guitar. Mat Salo with the guitar that decorated his blog that made us assume that he was a guitarist. Next came Dr. Bubbles of Blowing Bubbles. Elviza of Elviza's Write Away came with Luqman. How nice to see Luqman looking healthy after the bout of viral infection. Dr. Musa should be thanked for helping Luqman recover this fast and so well. Awang Goneng came next with his wife. Awang Goneng looked smart in his beige suit with a Nehru collar shirt. Kak Teh looked resplendent in her blue dress with a matching scarf. How I envy the slim look of Awang Goneng. He could have sold his books to the ladies by his look alone if he would have stood at the door of Kinokuniya with it. Kak Teh could have done the same to the male readers.

If I remember right Wan of Kookabooras came after Awang Goneng. Wan was specially mentioned in GUIT.

Akmal had spent his fortune a day earlier when he paid RM3,000 for a laptop. He must have spent his last few ringgit to get himself a GUIT to have it signed at the gathering. Well Akmal, the occassion don't come everyday so better grab the opportunity while it was there. He ran down to the bookstore below, spent 10 sen shy of RM40 for a GUIT and had it signed by Awang Goneng at The Coffee club.


With best wishes.........

This is what Awang Goneng wrote for me.

While chatting, somebody received the news that Unker Zorro had been detained by the police for marching with the lawyers. The government had regarded the march as an illegal. Unker, you will have quite a story to tell in your next blog.


Pssst for your ears only. Jaflam trying to say something to Awang Goneng while the rest tried their best to hear.

Parking around KLCC on that Sunday was next to impossible as the computer fair must have drawn a record crowd. The last day price slash never failed to draw the crowd. This could have deterred some of the bloggers from stopping by to have their GUIT signed on that day. The usually quiet Coffee Club was quite crowded even though it was a Sunday.

The three Kelantanese at the gathering.

A special word of thanks is directed to Jaflam for making this gathering possible and for the refreshment. For Awang Goneng and his wife Kak Teh, thank you for coming and we wish you success with your book GUIT.

At about 6.00 PM, we clutched our treasured copy of GUIT duly signed by it's author, Awang Goneng from Trengganu, as we headed for home. My ride on the RapidKL bus 69 to Amanputra Puchong was another story to tell in my next blog. The story will tell you why I will never ride a bus again in KL.

Tamarind Fruit Pickle

Tamarind Pickles For Pat's Asiana's Cafe

I have wanted to post a recipe sometimes after drooling over recipes by others especially by Pak Idrus of in passing - malaysian, zaitgha of Day In Day Out and by another by another American girl I cant seem to find. I have tried one of zaitgha's recipe rendang daging cili api with my daughter and the dish turnout to be very well received especially by my most vocal of critics, my wife Fatthiyah who said the recipe doesnt have enough ingredient to make it into a rendang. The most noticeable absence was the curry powder. We did try the recipe without the cury powder but we added the kerisek and daun curry to enhance the flavour to suit our taste. The rendang was really mean due to the abundant use of the potent chili padi to suit my own lust for hot food. Wonder of wonders, this dish was finished in record time when everyone except the small kids turn to like it when we serve it to the family on the morning of Eidil Fitri. It went well when served with the nasi himpit(compressed rice).

When visiting Pat's Asiana's Cafe, I promise her that I will send her some tamarind pickles for her to serve at her new cafe.

The tamarind tree is a large tropical tree with small leaves attached to a profusion of branches. The tree produces seasonal fruits that begins to bear them sometimes in August and all the fruits will have dropped off completely after ripening by the end of November based on the last seasons observation. The fruits are attached at the very end of the branches and thus collection is quite difficult for a tall tree if unripe fruits are to be collected. Unripe fruit can be taken raw if you can bear the very acid taste. It can be pickled and I consider that this is the best way to enjoy it.

Ripe tamarind is used to make tamarind paste. Most paste come from Thailand or India. The main use of tamarind paste is in making cordial drinks which is soothing to the throat. When added to cookings to give it a special taste. My fish head curry will never be complete without it nor is my my canned sardine fish dishes. I used to apply the slightly diluted paste on fresh water fishes to remove the hanyir (fishy) smell as well as to make the flesh of the fish firmer. Tamarind paste is a good natural preservative.

For the pickles, matured but underipe tamarind fruits is needed. Too young a fruit will make the seeds inside to become soft and ejecting it out while eating will be difficult. Collecting the fruits from the tree is often difficult as my sister in law found out. Since she has the fruits growing on her own tree, I guess she had no choice but to pluck them from the tree by using a long pole with a metal hook tied at one end.

I chose the easier way out by buying the fruits from the Pasir Mas market and made the process easier still by buying the deskinned fruits at RM4.00 a kg. A kg of the fruits cost RM2.00. Knowing how difficult it is to peel off the skin, RM4.00 a kg was definitely a good buy. The price shot up to RM5.00 the next day due to better quality fruit size. The one in the picture is the latter. Removing the skin can be made easier by blanching the fruits in hot boiling water.

Fresh tamarind fruit without the skin

For this occassion I used 3 kg of the peeled fruit. (My first trial of 2 kg was finished in slightly more than a day by two persons, me and my wife with me consuming the most of course).

Now for the ingredients:

For 3 kg of tamarind fruits.

1. 6 pieces of gula melaka (cocnut sugar) the size of a CD each. (About half kg)

Gula Melaka (Coconut sugar)

2. 15 dried chilles devoid of its seed and core.

Dried Chillies

3. 15 chilly padi (the hottest kind) reduce the amount or none at all if kids are to consume it.

Chili Padi Pedas

Hey thats about all!

The way to do it(cara membuatnya):

Place the fruits in a suitable sized container which is able to stand boiling hot water. Immerse the fruits in water till all are covered up with the water. Apply a dose of salt (about 2 tablespoonfuls) and stir till all the salt is dissoved let it stand it for 10 minutes. The purpose of the salt is to sterilise the fruits without boiling it. Did you know that salt is a good germkiller beside being a good preservative? A brine solution which is water with dissolved table salt can be used to relieve sore throat by gargling with it. I do it often when my tonsilities make its unrequested appearance. It can also be used as an antidote for chemical poisoning when no other antidote such as coconut water is not available. Atropine is the recconmended antidote but where to get atropine in an emergency? If the guy chose to use unadulterated paraquat is which is a banned weedkiller, forget about it. Even tokasid can't save him what more that he is now holidaying in Egypt. The paraquat will burn his internal tissues in no time. That is why paraquat is banned all over the world, but it was only recently banned in Malaysia.

After 10 minutes decant the brine solution so that most of the salt is removed.

While waiting for the ten minutes to lapse, soak the decored dried chillies in hot water and after awhile it will be softened blend it with some water. Dont forget to add the chilly padi to taste.

In another pot warm up a litre of water and add the coconut sugar and the blended chillies. Bring it to a boil until all the coconut sugar is dissolved. Remove the coconut sugar casing rings if you are too lazy (like me) to remove it earlier.

Now pour the boiling hot coconut sugar solution in the container full of the tamarind fruits (devoid of the brine solution). Let them cool and stand overnight. If you dont like the lizard to taste it before you do, make sure it is kept covered under the saji (traditional malay food cover which nowadays can be made of plastic) Since no other stronger peservative like Boric acid is used as is found in most pickles nowadays, fungus may develop when it is exposed to the atmosphere or when contaminated utensils like spoons or ladles are used. Keeping them in the fridge will give them a longer shelf life . Dont worry much about fungus developing if you have a big family, it will be consumed in no time. The tasting alone will ensure that not much will be left for those who wants to wait till the next day when the ingredient will penetrate fully into the fruits flesh. The Johoreans call it sudah mesra.

Who says cooking is boring?

The kitchen where the pickles were made.

You Can Call Me A 'Jakun'

This is a picture of an aborigine from Gua Musang Kelantan

Pak Idrus of the famous blogsite In Passing - Malaysian called me on Tuesday to find out whether I was able to meet up with him in KL. From our previous email contacts he knew that I would be around the capital as I was supposed to play nanny to my two grandchildren Nur Alia Jazleen and Nur Farhana Jazreen (the budak puchong as they called themselves) both 7 and 5 years old respectively. Their nanny had taken a one month leave to visit her parents in Madura Indonesia after being away from them for the past 5 years. While she is away another temporary nanny will come daily from the hours of 7 am till 6 pm to do as much work as possible to take care of the budak puchong as well as do some house chores. My real duty was to look after them so that a similar tragic act as done on Nurin Jazlin will not happen to them while their parents are at work.

My daughter's place was in Taman Amanputra in Puchong. Without any means of transport as the two cars in the house were used by both my son in law and my daughter, I felt hopeless to move about as I had flown in by AirAsia from Kota Bharu. Taman Amanputra is a relatively new housing area and no direct bus services is available. It was definitely too far out for Pak Idrus to come and fetch me. To add insult to injury Pak Idrus told me that when he was in Boston to do a similar duty to his grandchildren, he relied on public transport to move about. Wow, he could survive in Boston and I was only in KL! That's a challenge.

I had sometime earlier brought 2 folding bicycles for my two grand daughters from my collection of bicycles in Pasir Mas. Thus the bike became handy for me to look around for public transport in the other more established housing areas near Amanputra. That evening was spent biking around and to my amusement I saw not just one but two bus companies providing transport to the public to the adjacent housing estate. One bus was the Metro 20 commuting between the area and Kota Raya and the other a Rapid KL No 69 commuting to Pasar Seni bus hubs in KL. The designation numbers are the easiest way to identify a bus to illiterates and being sure of the numbers I didnt bother to see the destination at the point of embarkation but from afar I could distinguish the word Perdana as the name of the housing estate.

Calling Pak idrus again, I confirmed my willingnes to meet him up at Kunikuniya Bookstore KLCC. He further advised me to take the bus leading to Pasar Seni as the hub there was close to the LRT terminal which will take me to the terminal at KLCC.

As luck would have it, my son in law had something to do around KL and will be able to send me to KLCC in time for the meeting at 11.00 am with Pak Idrus. By about 10.45 am I was standing at the mezzanine floor which Pak Idrus told me later was the Ampang side while the opposite end is the P Ramlee side. Directly infront of me was the world famous shoe outlet of Jimmy Choo the shoemaker to celebrities the like of the late Princess Diana. That was where I found out that he makes shoes only for the ladies.

A call to Pak Idrus who was then at the RHB bank on the same floor soon unite us and we met for the first time.

We proceeded to Kunikuniya on the top floor. Since Awang Goneng's book Growing Up In Trengganu was hot among Malaysian bloggers at that time, we made a check at the counter only to be told that they were out of stock. The guy at the counter enquired whether I would like to place a reservation for one. I hesitated initially as I may not have the chance to come back to KLCC before I go back to Pasir Mas, a place in Kelantan which is as far away as its neighbour Trengganu itself where Awang Goneng hailed from. Pak Idrus reassured me that usually they won't take too long and I will be able to collect it before I go back home to Pasir Mas Kelantan in 3 weeks time. I left my particulars at the counter and proceeded to walk up a flight of stairs to another level above the bookstore to a place called The Coffee Club. Pak Idrus ordered coffee for the both of us and I was surprised to see them arrived in a cup the size of a bowl. I didnt ask for anything else while Pak idrus had somekind of bread which I didn't know the specific name. Actually I was reserving some space for lunch with another group which I was supposed to meet for lunch at the same place at 12 noon. Pak idrus had agreed earlier to join this group of VTers (Virtual Tourist). VirtualTourist.com is the website for travellers the world over to write about their travels and experiences which was useful for people like me who needs to have friends at the destination I am visiting. I have had wonderful help from such members in my travel to Medan, Jakarta Indonesia, Bangkok Thailand and Xian in China.

We had a wonderful time chatting about so many things at The Coffee Club as the place was yet to receive the lunch crowd as it was about 11 am at the time. We literally had the place to ourselves. I think its the best place in the world to meet up and chat comfortably provided it's not the peak hours of lunch. Pak Idrus related to me of how he was interviewed together with Rocky of Rocky's Bru by a student working on her/his thesis for two hours at the place(couldnt recall the sex as the word pelajar was used).

While there, Pak Idrus and me chatted about blogging in general. Most interestingly we talked about how to go about building a 4 star toilet in our homes and enjoying its use forever and not having to go yo a 4 star hotel to enjoy it once in a blue moon. I was interested as I need to redo my toilet at home. Being a handyman myself I need only to spend on materials as I dont have to pay myself for the workmanship. Alternatively I could pay myself a hefty rate even how bad my workmanship will be. Do you see any difference there?

Another good subject we talked about was PPS which stands for Project Petaling Street. Sometime earlier I commented in Ruby Ahmad's blog that me and Pak Idrus discussed about PSP as I was presuming it to be Petaling Street Project. PPS is a site where you can inform the world that you as a Malaysian blogger have posted a new post on your blogsite. I have registered myself for PPS and will use this post as a test case whether I have learnt enough on how to use it successfully.

When 12 noon came we proceeded to RHB Bank to meet up The Vters some of whom were from the Phillipines. The Malaysian VTer who organized the meet was Mr Chia whose call sign is chiabh.

It was while having lunch at Pelita Nasi Kandar with the Vters that I received the call from Kunikuniya about the availability of GUIT which I had reserved some 3 hours earlier. Immediately after lunch I went to colllect my GUIT from Kunikuniya to experience one of the most efficient service ever encountered by me and with the utmost courtesy to boot. Maybe Malaysia must be ruled by the Japanese in order to have a change of mindset and behavior. A stint under the Japanese instead of the British could have done wonders for us. Blame it on Einstein for discovering the formula E = MC2 and blame it on the American for developing the hydrogen bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima that led to the end of WW2. Otherwise we would be an advanced country under the strict and stern discipline of the Japanese.

With GUIT in my hands I proceeded by the underground passageway to the LRT terminal at KLCC. After learning the way how tickets were bought using the automatic dispensing machine I boarded the LRT to Pasar Seni the bus hub for most destinations by Rapid KL and hence began the nightmare for the return trip to Amanputra, Puchong in Selangor.

The hub around the old Klang bus terminal was haphazard and difficult to fathom for any first time user. Just by looking for the bus number will not lead you to the bus that you want to use. After waiting for 30 minutes there wasn't any bus 69. An inquiry at the ticket and information kiosk resulted in a a half hearted show of direction as to the general direction of the bus 69. Further check with one of the driver of the bus as to which bus to take to go to Puchong Perdana received a puzzling answer as bus 70. Bus 69 showed Putra Perdana as its destination. Now should I trust the number or the destination? Feeling confused I overheard another driver speaking the Kelantanspeak (just like the Trengganuspeak of Awang Goneng). A Kelantanese can detect another fellow Kelantenese from a mile away provided he can hear his voice speaking certain words. Get him to mention 'Seven Eleven' and without doubt you can confirm him as one or otherwise. The same may not apply on the likes of Elviza Michelle a trueblue Kelantanese but whose name doesn't even sound like a Kelantanese. Her diction of the word 'Seven Eleven' in perfect Oxford English or at least the English of KLites will not indicate her origin. Nevertheless this Kelantanese driver of RapidKL was willing to help another Kelantanese in distress as another fellow Kelantanese is always a brother outside of Kelantan but a foe when within Kelantan itself. He confirmed that bus 70 was the bus for Puchong Perdana.

I had a seat on the airconditioned bus for the 60 km ride home. The bus reached the last stop and I was the last passenger remaining. The driver asked me where I was going. Hearing that I was going to Amanputra, he told me that I was on the wrong bus as bus 69 was the right bus. As is always with me, if anything could go wrong, it will go wrong. I disembarked intending to take a taxi to Amanputra. Tough luck, not a single taxi to find.

I promised my daughter that I would be home before 6 pm before the maid leave for home. It was already 5 pm. A franctic call to my daughter and she told me that she will ask the 'budak puchong' to seek shelter at her friends place some 3 doors away and told me to back track to Puchong and catch the right bus home or take a taxi. A rickety old minibus took me back to Puchong and the sympathetic bus driver clearly directed me to the right place to take the bus which is either Metro 20 or RapidKL 69 on the other side of the road thus ensuring that I was taking a bus heading in the right direction.

When I reached the final stop in Putra Perdana it was already 6.30 pm and another 1,684 steps, I reached my daughters home.

So call me a 'Jakun' if you like. Unlike that state assembly man from Kelantan, I won't kick you for it, however derogatory the word Jakun is meant to be on me. The state assemblyman instantly found fame when he was U tubed all over the world kicking and shouting at another assemblyman of the state ruling party in a sitting of the august assembly. Joceline Tan wrote a beautiful piece on the incident under the title 'All abuzz over the dogil kick' in her column in The Sunday Star of 2 December 2007. She wrote that talk has been going around that the said assemblyman has not been himself since a car crash near Gua Musang sometime ago. This longest serving state assemblyman was my ex field supervcisor before he took the plunge to join politics full time. Being called a Jakun was the last straw that broke the camel's back and he went beserk immediately after. If not for the intervention by the others, history would have been made as the first brawl in any state assembly in Malaysia could have happened in Kelantan.

Jakun is one of the many tribes among the aborigines of Malaysia. A Jakun is thus considered to be primitive though some Jakuns has been known to make it good in education and economics. The use of the word on other people not of a Jakun tribe is thus considered deragotory.