Stylish

I would like to thank Claire (www dot reanaclaire dot com) for the lovely key chain she sent me. Thanks, Claire. I like your handwriting - very stylish - just look at the capital H and M.

I would also like to thank Wenn (wenn-experiences dot blogspot dot com ) for the microfiber cloth (about 10" x 11") she sent me for leaving comments on her blog daily. The colour of the cloth is very nice. I am still keeping it nicely and have not used it yet.

You are both very nice ladies and I just love reading your blogs because they are updated very frequently. Happy blogging! :)

Result

A very big thank you to:

wenn
Somewhere in Singapore
reana claire
myweddingbells
Sue Ann
ykristen
Small Kucing
Willie a.k.a Reptoz
Agnes
Amy
cquek
What I Did Today

for leaving a comment in my previous post so please email me your postal address so that I can send you a small token of appreciation apart from wenn, somewhere in singapore and ykristen because I already have the postal address of the 3 of you. :)
As the two mini jigsaw puzzles are still available, please email me if you would like to have them or know someone who would like to have them. The pieces are quite small so it will only be suitable for children or adults who are very, very patient and love jigsaw puzzles.

For those who have indicated that they would prefer the toy building bricks, I have used the random-picker from www dot miniwebtool dot com to do the selection and the result is as shown below - Sue Ann! Congrats!

Hope to hear from all of you soon!

Giveaways

Thank you to everyone who answered my previous post.

The photograph in my previous post was taken at the intersection of Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, opposite the shopping center named Lot 10. Jalan means Road or Street in the Malay language.

This area is located within the Golden Triangle which is the main shopping district in Kuala Lumpur. Some of the shopping malls around here are Pavilion KL, Starhill Gallery, Lot 10 and Sungai Wang Plaza. The thing I like about the photo is that I managed to capture the monorail train in it. Now moving on to the topic of this post.

I am having a giveaway as it is the anniversary of my blog in a few days time. Everyone is a winner here as everyone who participates will get a small gift of appreciation.

As all of you know, I love mini jigsaw puzzles so I am giving away two packs of them to share this joy of playing mini puzzles with you all. Also I would like children to have fun too so I am giving away a small box of toy building bricks as shown in the photo below.

To participate, all you need to do is to leave me a comment before 11am 18 September 2013 (Wednesday) and indicate which game you would like to get:

a) mini puzzle of Donald Duck and Chip and Dale
b) mini puzzle of Donald Duck and Daisy Duck or
c) 3 in 1 toy building bricks (for this category, please let me know who this is for - your children or your friends' children).

Since everyone who participates will be getting a small token of appreciation, please also send me your postal address via email to zhengmun2 at gmail dot com. Please be assured that I will not disclose your details to anyone else, the postal address will solely be used to send you your gift.

For the winners, when you have completed the jigsaw puzzle or your children have completed putting together the toy building bricks, please take a photo of it, blog about it and let me know. You will then receive another small gift.

Have fun!

Place this

Do you know this location?

青龙菜

The literal translation for 青龙菜 (Cantonese: Ching Long Choy) is green dragon vegetable. I remember having this dish a few years ago. Before that, I have not heard of this vegetable at all so I wanted to find out more about it.

This led to a search on the web for more information and to my surprise, this vegetable is none other than 韭菜 (Mandarin Pinyin: Jiǔcài, Cantonese: Gau Choy). In English, the name is Chinese chives, also known as garlic chives, Oriental garlic, Chinese leek (Allium tuberosum).

I would like to add that this "ching long choy" does not taste like "gau choy" (garlic chives) at all. I like the strong taste of "gau choy" and this green dragon vegetable has none of the strong taste of garlic chives.

It is grown in Cameron Highlands by a man named Lau Kuan. There is an article in the Star newspaper dated Monday May 16, 2005 entitled "Farmer rejects pesticide use in growing chives" that explained why this green dragon vegetable does not have a strong taste like the normal garlic chives.

Below is an extract from the above article that describes the method used to grow this green dragon vegetable:

"He lets his chives grow for six weeks before chopping off the top half of the leaves to be used as mulch and fertiliser. He then covers the remaining chives with a thick nylon netting for 10 days in a process known as blanching before harvesting them. Limiting sunlight made the chives more tender and delicious as they contained less fibre, Lau said."

This method is a slight modification of the method used to grow yellow chives (韭黃 - Gau Wong in Cantonese). To grow yellow chives, normal garlic chives are harvested by cutting them about a few inches above the ground, leaving the roots in the ground to grow again under cover without being exposed to the sunlight at all.

You get yellow chives by covering the remaining roots totally to let them grow in complete darkness whereas by covering them with nylon nettings and letting them grow under limited sunlight, you will get this green dragon vegetable.

If you are interested to grow your own yellow chives, please refer to this blog post with the title "Growing Yellow Chives". It has photos for every step on how to grow yellow chives. Modify the method by limiting sunlight instead of total darkness to grow your own green dragon vegetable.

So after knowing all this, the green dragon vegetable is no longer a mystery to me. I hope all of you get to have a taste of this dish to see whether you like it or not.

P/S
I also found a blog post written in Chinese published on Friday June 1, 2012 entitled 金马伦 (Cameron Highlands) that has many photos of Mr Lau and his chives farm. If you are interested to see the farm and how this green dragon vegetable looked like after being packed for sale, please go and have a look, thank you.

Hari Raya

Here's wishing all my friends who are celebrating Hari Raya:

Selamat Hari Raya 
Maaf Zahir dan Batin

And to everyone, Happy Holidays for the long weekend.

Thank you

Look at what I have received in July - two lovely postcards, one from Wenn and one from Sharon. I would like to thank them both for being so nice.

I like to read their blogs and would definitely be leaving my comments for each and every post of theirs. May they continue to blog regularly so that all of us can enjoy reading their posts.

Thank you Wenn! Thank you Sharon! :)

New Zealand and Singapore

See who the cards are from

Pretty stamps