Pickles n' Tickles by JJ

WE hear of children being kidnapped for whatever reasons. Not cool at all. It happens here once in a while. Some are lucky to have been found again but others are never to be heard of after that, which is just too painful for any parent or family to bear. In some cases, the parents may be hit with a painful closure of having to find their little one cramped dead in a duffel bag or something.  The early Friday morning kidnapping of 12-year-old Nayati Shamelin Moodliar came as a real shock to the nation. The student from Mont Kiara International School in Kuala Lumpur was near home when he was abducted, believed to have been seized by two men in a black car at 7.35am. I can't begin to imagine what Nayati's parents are going through right now although the video in that link above speaks volume of their ordeal. We can just hope and pray for the boy's safe return. The Royal Malaysian Police Force has posted an alert on its Facebook page yesterday and urged people ...

RUSSELL Peters is going to be in this part of the world some time soon. Yes, the bloody Canadian comedian who picks on his audience for a laugh. Tickets for his show were snapped up within three hours when it was up for sale last week here in Kuala Lumpur. I hear Dubai still holds the record for having sold all tickets within eight minutes or so ? It's crazy how people would pay so much and risk themselves being made fun of by this man on World Wide Web.  Just the other day, I got a call from a dear friend. I mean, I love this woman to bits, don't get me wrong.  "Jaya, do you know of anyone who'd want to sell their Russell Peters tickets ? I'm willing to pay any amount. Money is no issue," she said.  Coming from her, it's quite acceptable ( because she was enquiring about something to a friend ) although it seems pretty much like the case of random idiots who call the media office to complain about a small fire in their backyard when they'd be bet...

I have a habit of buying cookbooks. Not the sort that have well-modelled pictures above straight-forward recipes but more like those with rambling stories, recipes and then well-modelled photos on glossy pages. Going through these books is like reading fairy tales. They always have a happy ending but kind of somehow leave you high and dry after that, unless of course, you decide to preheat that dormant oven and follow a recipe confidently. If it turns out well, it's good, otherwise you'd have the satisfaction of having tried it at the very least. Sometimes, these cookbooks even read like chick-lits. ( My all-time favourite chick lit, although some may argue that it's just really a bloke-lit, is Date Expectations, written by a man, Paul Reizin.)  By now I own quite a few of em, cookbooks, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it had initially kicked off with Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess! Mich and I used to look through this book (and other L...

MAYBE it helps to appear confident and sure of yourself even if your mind is tangled up in a Cuban whore house sometimes. Or how else are you going to get away from being handcuffed and dragged shamefully into the security room when you've absent-mindedly walked out of a luxury boutique with a RM15,000 (about USD$ 5000) handbag on your arm, unpaid for!  Silly me. It happened a couple of days ago at a Louis Vuitton boutique in town. I was with a friend, looking for a certain handbag ( Oh, RC . I don't usually do this : stopping by to check out an obscenely-priced handbag because I still rather go on a whimsical holiday to the land of exotica which for me is Africa :p ) Funny thing is when I walked out of the store, the well-dressed security officer, looked at us and the handbag, and let us go with a gay smile. "Thank you, maam, and have a good evening," he said, holding the door open for us. Now, I hope his mind was also tangled up in a Cuban whore house becaus...

IT'S a Sunday and I wish I could sing. I was never the singing sort or had a talent for anything musical despite coming from a musically-inclined family. Growing up with lots of music around me, I'd managed to block them all out to some degree. Why? Probably there was too much of it. But some music have stayed on. Like that of Michael Jackson. It didn't help that a family friend at that time just happened to resemble the pop king so much - you know, the look he'd spotted after the first two cosmetic surgeries : still very much him, but just with better defined features without the bleach? Was listening to an album earlier and I've just realised how much I miss MJ's voice. This just makes me want to reach out and touch the edge of that voice to see if it's for real.  I also couldn't block out Boney M (or Abba for that matter). My grandma played them way too much for me to stop their music from sneaking up into my system and staying there fore...

HOLIDAY is over and I'm back into this time and space, trying to fit in. It's almost 3am now and I can't sleep. Current time in Doha, Qatar is about 10pm, and usually around this hour, all throughout last week, I was dining in some place nice with a bunch of fun-loving friends. I must say the city has some truly  impressive restaurants. A real test to my child-bearing hips, tease to my tastebuds. I'm still thinking of that ever-so-yummy Wagyu Steak from La Cigale (hotel) and at this quiet hour, it's even more tempting because I'm really hungry!  A survey in the kitchen turned up a high pile of chocolates, a box of Taiwainese pineapple shortbreads, a container of assorted nuts (unsalted) and dried fruits, a variety of instant noodles, some cookies and cheese, and my dad's pickles. Funny thing is I don't really eat these things (except for the nuts/ fruits, cheese and pickles) but they still somehow end up in my shelves. What I really would like right ...

SO I've been to Doha a few times already by now. Minimal or no changes at all on this flat land of sand and sandstorms, except that the population seemed to have increased by god-knows-how-many-folds judging from the volume of people seen at the popular Souk Waqif in the city centre two days ago. It's like people have multiplied like the sea sands. The last few times I was there, I remember liking the place for what it was - a perfect venue to people-watch, smoke Shisha and be a tourist. Now I don't know if that's a good thing... ...if there aren't enough social venues for this astounding volume! Perhaps, I'm a little spoiled coming from a city where food is available 24 hours a day, with freedom of alcohol consumption at random bistros and cafes and to do just about everything I wished for in a cultural setting that doesn't stare at me like I'm some kind of a three-eyed monster. I suppose people here are just a curious bunch given the potpourri of ...