Pak Idrus's Blog

Spices is part of our cooking culture. Never a day we are without it in our cooking, it always there in the kitchen. A Malay kitchen is never complete without the various spices in its larder. Always ready to be used in the cooking especially the creation of a good Curry. I  love the smell of spices thus I also use it to give a spicy smell to my dinning area or the other part of the house. Above is a concoction of spices that I had put in a container to enhances the environment of my Serambi or Patio.  It does provides an aroma of its own to  my little space on the front of the house. Loved it.  Have a nice day.

I am not sure whether you folks out there know about the delicious simple traditional kueh that is made of leftover rice. We call it Kepal but maybe others may have another name for it. Anyhow it the period before the coming of the refrigerator where it difficult to keep leftover rice overnight. It would go stale or Basi in Malay. Nothing could be done about leftover rice that is left overnight except to feed the chicken in the early morning. Since steamed rice cannot be kept overnight and carry forward like we do now by putting it in the fridge and reheat it the next day, folks during that period came out with an ingenious way of turning the leftover rice into cake before it goes stale. When I was growing up at my father’s restaurant in Kuantan before we had the fridge, the restaurant at time has left over rice, so with ingenuity they found a way to turn the leftover rice into other food that could consumed later. They turn the leftover rice into Kepal. At individual home housewi...

I love to capture the Moon whenever it appears up in the sky above my house. I am learning to do a better photography and the only way is to experiment with my camera. Now I am using a Mirror-less Camera, the Canon M10. Above is an image of the Moon taken yesterday March 9, 2017 at 7.30pm. Enjoy it folks as much as I had enjoyed photographing it.  Have a nice day.

Today is my wife Asmah's Birthday.  It her 77th.  Happy Birthday dear.  A bouquet of Roses for her.   Have a nice day.

A young man [42] the son of my late friend Hj. Omar woke up one morning and found the left side of his body paralyzed. He apparently had a stroke. He could not move at all. Went to the hospital and got treatment. He could hardly move around and had to use a walking stick if he need to move at all. One day while attending the Friday prayer at the local mosque a friend who saw him in that sad condition advise him to seek traditional healing from a man. He got the address and went to se ek treatment.  With great difficulty, he was help by his relative into the house of the Dukun and sat down on a chair. The Dukun after enquiringly as to why he came for treatment, start to massage a few parts of his body on the affected side. After the massaging is done the Dukun ask him to stand up. He says he could not do that since he got the stroke. The Dukun insisted and eventually to his surprise he could stand. Then he was asked to walk without the walking-stick. Again, he hesitates but t...