Magic Nuts!

soapberry

Take a closer look at these nuts! They look like 'dried mata kucing' that we can buy at the local shop but I call these 'magic nuts!' because it works like magic! These are sapindus mukarossi. It is a type of nut that contains active natural soap ingredient and biodegradable too.

I have found these nuts at a local bioshop and did not think twice to get them.They are also called 'soapberry'. These nuts are natural laundry soap and by using only 5 or 7 nuts (put them in a small bag which is given together) and put that small bag together with your laundry. Of course the end result of your washing won't smell like lavander or wild rose but they are absolutely smell fresh! The best thing about this soapberry is that you can reuse them for 2 or 3 times! You can get approximately 50 washings just from 250 grams of these nuts. If you like your laundry to have sweet smell, just put a few drops of essential oil together with these magic nuts!

Autumn/Spring Kitchen Garden

The day is still warm and in fact it is warmer than usual. It is early October and the sun is still scorching hot in the middle of the day and the temperature can go up to 28 degrees Celcius.

I planted more or less the same vegetables like last year but without beets. However, I planted more red cabbages, Italian parsley, Sicilian broccoli, romaine lettuce and 'puntarelle'. Puntarelle is a family of chicory and is best eaten raw with garlic and anchovies. It is an early spring salad and you have to cut them in small strips and put in a bowl of cold water. Then, these small strips will curl up and become very crunchy. I love to clean and cut them into small strips. Eventhough certain people might think that cutting and cleaning puntarelle is more suitable for old ladies with some spare time to spend, I think it is so 'therapeutic' and even relaxing. I love to see them curling up in the water.

The organization of my kitchen garden this year is more 'linear' with some flower bulbs in between the vegetable rows like tulips and daffodils. Last year the daffodils were extremely spectacular and I am planning to extend the space for them this time. My kitchen garden will blend with many spring flowers and usually it will have an explosion of colours in early April to late May.

This year, I am planning to sow various types of poppies too, (I am a BIG fan of poppies!) like Iceland poppy( I am not that lucky with this poppy) , American poppy and opium poppy and I will put them together with the peas!

I love to do the winter/spring kitchen garden each year as it so rewarding. Working with the nature and observe how it works wonders and only through preserverance and patience, we can see the abundance. However strong my wishes are, there are still a lot of work to do here. Weeding really makes me feel so helpless. It is such unending task. But, as for now I have a few dahlias to admire!

Pretty Peppers

Peppers. There are so many shapes and colours. Most of them are mildly hot, 'piccante' (hot), extremely 'piccante' or even sweet. Talking about sweet peppers, there is one particular red pepper which is also beautiful! Beautiful in the sense that the shape is like a miniature pumpkin and it is also shining red in colour! I have found these peppers at the vegetable stall last week and i thought that they were piccante. This is because there is another type of pepper which is similar to this one but smaller in size. They are absolutely so hot, you cannot even feel your tongue when you eat them.
I took these pretty peppers home and just put them together with other fruits. It took some days for me to decide what i was going to do with them. My son thought that those peppers were some exotic fruits!

Then, i decided to bake them stuffed simply with tuna flakes (from the tin), parsley, garlic and tomatoes. We had them for lunch and dinner and found out that those peppers were not only pretty but very sweet too. Together with the tomatoes, they make a perfect combinations!

Eid ul Fitri

Wish all of our friends the best of Eid ul Fitri al Mubarak. We hope that this year's celebration of Eid is more meaningful with families and friends. We also should not forget the other Muslims who are not able to celebrate Eid in the safe environment like in the Occupied Area of Gaza.

On the morning of Eid, i went to the mosque for the 9.30am prayer and witnessed the most colorful and diversified the Muslim population in Rome. Outside the mosque, there were so many stalls mainly from the Middle East selling so many delicacies like kebab, sweets and gourmet specialties.

At about 1 pm, we invited our Malaysian friends who reside in the Eternal City for lunch at our house. I cooked laksa johor, lontong (with sambal sotong), kuah sate' and rendang. I even cooked my 'nasi impit' myself. I know that my cookings could not compare with my mother's back home but i think she is proud to know that i cooked everything from scratch. I know that this year my mother prepared 'sup kaki lembu', which is one of her specialties for hariraya. Apparently this year she only bought 4 kaki lembu because she couldn't get hold of 8 like last year!

My mother's sup kaki lembu is so unlike the other soups that she usually prepares. The preparation is absolutely meticulous and tedious. However, the end result is S.U.P.E.R.B!

Autumn Fruits

I am blessed to able to live in Italy; a land of abundance. We still have a lot of fruits in our garden like figs, plums, apples and grapes during this time of the year. In fact I can say that we have a lot of fruits throughout the year except in March and April.

The figs ( buah tin) are simply delicious.We have at least 4 types of figs in the garden and each year they give us loads of fresh fruits. These figs are very soft and that is why they can't be exported and they also have short shelf life. Figs can simply be eaten right after you pick them or if you like, it can be eaten with Italian country bread. I am not a fan of bread, so just simply pop in my mouth is the best way to do. Or, if you love cheese, figs can be eaten with 'ricotta' (goat cheese) with some honey drizzled on top.

We have different kinds of grapes too. I am not so keen on grapes because i am so used to eat 'seedless' Californian grapes (much to my husband's disappointment). However, the grapes that we have in the garden will keep well right until December each year. It is nice to eat fresh grapes from the garden during that time of the year when there is nothing we can eat from the garden. I have never seen the seedless grapes so far, but i can find the grapes which are called 'pizzutello', which almost do not have any seeds.

Plums! Lovely. We have so many varieties of plums in the garden and we have different plum each month from June to September each year! The Italians give many strange names to their plums like 'coscia di monaca' (nun's thigh), giocce d'oro (the gold drop) and many others.

However, we are not lucky with peaches. Peach tree needs a lot of chemical treatment and since we do not give any unorganic substance to our trees, i am just happy with some small fruits that we have.

The day is getting shorter and the temperature is getting cooler especially during the day. Autumn is obviously the best time for me!

Ssssss..nnnaaakkkeee.....

Dear friends... nampak apa tu kat gambar sebelah sana? This is a real picture and nothing was added or omitted to the image. It is a real 4 m ular sawa!

We have found this 'ular sawa' on the last evening before my children left for Italy. We went out for dinner at the Putrajaya Seafood Restaurant and on the way to that restaurant, while we we walking on the deck of the corriodor suddenly Dina said to me, so calmly ..'mummy, it is snake...' just simply pointed to that creature which at that time was only like half a meter. I am a 'geli' type of person and quickly called the restaurant workers. One of the workers asked me about the length of the snake and i simply said that it is not that big and probably only a meter long. So, they went to take a small fishing net (which actually looks like a butterfly net to me). We went straight to the restaurant and started to order our dinner.

After about more than half an hour the waiter asked me whether i wanted to see the snake that we have found (to tell you frankly, i have forgotten about the snake... this is obviously the syndromme of short term memory). I said nicely to him that i am quite afraid of any reptile bigger than a house lizard. But he insisted that i take a look because it was their biggest catch!

Suddenly my legs became so 'lembik' looking at that 4 m ular sawa! Nak pengsan! My children were so happy to witness the longest and biggest snake right infront of their eyes. It took more than 3 workers to remove it from the plants at the corridor and take a look at the picture.... the snake has not been eating for at least 2 weeks. Dina was so proud telling her relatives in Italy that she was the one who 'found' the 4m snake. Snake to the westerners is such an exotic animal and to find it right infront of you can really make a 'hit story'. It is an experience that she will never forget.

Back to real LIFE

I am safely back in Italy after almost 3 months 'raya keling'. As the term implies... it takes quite sometime to be back to normal schedules. However, i have one song especially for me, i do not remember who is the singer, but it is something like this '.... back to life,back to reality...' It is really the right song to describe my situation right now.

However, there is nothing to complain. We had a good time with families and friends. As this time i also celebrated my 40th birthday, so this summer vacation is really special. On that auspicious day, i went to visit the Wetland Park in Putrajaya. It is not really a big place but going around on the mountain bike until noon was really fun. Then, later we went to Kuala Kuantan to see the fireflies. It is so amazing, looking at thousands and thousands of 'kelip-kelip' !Beautiful! It is more beautiful if we could go later at night when it is really dark. We had to take a small 'sampan' and go through the dark with just the sounds of the water flowing is very exciting, especially for the children. As for me, it is exactly like cerita-cerita zaman dulu (in black and white)... where Normadiah and Aziz Satar happily singing.....It was really a birthday treat for me besides my 4 cupcakes and 4 balloons! I strongly insisted to Vittorio that i wanted to have 40 balloons but ..... 4 balloons were more than enough!