John & Belle Have A Blog

Indian Rojak Sales Down Across the Island

Another person died from the Indian rojak food poisoning thing, one remains in a coma, and one woman miscarried, sadly.  I was reassured in my distaste for Indian rojak when a Singaporean friend shared her similar feelings. It's not just that all this greasy fried stuff is just sitting around at room temperature, it's that some of it is dyed a lurid red. And deep-fried battered hot dogs, just not very appetizing. There are some photos here but none of them show the scary red stuff. This random discussion is kind of interesting, in terms of revealing prejudices, anyway. I don't actually know whether the people running the stall were non-Singaporean Indians, as some of the commenters imply. I didn't actually think that type of worker could work in a hawker stall; most of the foreign workers you see are construction workers/highway maintenance types (all men, from Bangladesh or China for the most part) or domestic workers (all women, from the Philippines, Indonesia, and others). The people who clean up at the hawker centres, taking the plates away and so on, are always Singaporean. Singapore is a place with many foreign workers, and those workers are legally treated very differently from citizens. (I mean, different minimum wages, days off, and so forth, which makes them much cheaper to employ.) It will be interesting to see whether attitudes towards foreign workers might become negative as the economic downturn goes on.

Rojak

A woman here in Singapore has died and 100 others have been sickened by an outbreak of food poisoning at a Geylang Serai rojak stall.  My first thought was that it must have been Malay rojak given the location, but reading the articles I see it was, in fact, Indian rojak.

Many customers turned up to find the stall shuttered, unaware that other than Mdm Aminah, at least 30 others - including children - have been warded at CGH, Tan Tock Hospital and KK Hospital.

This is the first time they have heard of a major food poisoning incident in the market, said hawkers and regular customers.

Some like material controller Omar Ahmad expressed surprise as the stall has been around for 20 years. Some said they would still buy from it when it re-opens.

Mr Omar, 56, said he ordered from it every weekend. “At first when I saw that it was closed, I thought they were taking a holiday.”

Mdm Rabeah Samson thinks the food poisoning might have less to do with the stall than with the surroundings. “I’ll not lose trust in the stall as nothing happened to me the previous times I ate from it,” said the 54-year-old housewife.

“But the environment in the centre is not very clean. Sometimes there is rubbish around and it is very near to the wet market.”

But banking officer Yeni Sani, 32, said: “I don’t think it’s the hygiene level of the stall or the centre. It’s a one-off incident, hopefully it won’t happen again.”

Hawkers at the market told TODAY that an Indian father and son team operate the stall with three workers.

A chicken rice seller who only wanted to be known as Mr Man said the stall owner was probably unaware of the mass food poisoning as he turned up on Saturday morning to set up the stall.

Inspectors from the National Environment Agency (NEA) came to close it down at about 8am, said Mr Man.

“He (the stall owner) looked ‘blur’ when the officers talked to him.”

A satay seller who didn’t want to be identified, said “The stall owner is usually very friendly. I’m shocked because he has been in the business for so long.”

 

Looking or being 'blur' is a distinctively Singaporean state of mind, and it's pretty much just what you think: confused or spaced out.

Malay (or Indonesian) rojak is a kind of mixed-up salad of fruits and/or vegetables and/or ginger buds, with a delicious sweet/spicy sauce of gula melaka (palm sugar) and chilis and tamarind and stuff, and is really delicious. Indian rojak is, in my opinion, not so great. You make your own selection  from an assortment of little fried items, savory doughnuts, battered prawn fritters, etc. I know, you're thinking, what could be wrong with little fried things? Well...something. They're room temperature and greasy, not chaat-like and yummy. I don't know, obviously Singaporeans don't agree with me as there are probably 5 times as many Indian rojak stalls as Malay ones. Maybe I haven't been to the right rojak stalls. Singaporeans also use 'rojak' where Americans would say 'melting pot', to refer to the harmonious mix of people here (and in Malaysia too).

I Always Wondered Who Made The Giant Puppets...

Oh, hey, it seems I have a blog of some kind. I should probably post on it, and stuff. Walp, in Takoma Park news, the local cops were spying on citizens involved in non-violent protest and then putting their names on national terrorism lists. Great. The government does this kind of stuff every time. Why? I guess nuns and papier-mache-puppet-makers are easier to spy on than some group of close-knit friends who know each other from childhood in Jeddah or whatever, but this is hella weak.

Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by "Lucy" and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database -- and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.

Among those labeled as terrorists: two Catholic nuns, a former Democratic congressional candidate, a lifelong pacifist and a registered lobbyist. One suspect's file warned that she was "involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings."

"There wasn't a scintilla of illegal activity" going on, said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit and in July obtained the first surveillance files. State police have released other heavily redacted documents....

Investigators, the files show, targeted groups that advocated against abortion [I wonder if this is right given the array of causes, but it could be--Belle], global warming, nuclear arms, military recruiting in high schools and biodefense research, among other issues.
he Maryland operation also has ended, but critics still question why police spent hundreds of hours spying on Quakers and other peace groups in a state that reported more than 36,000 violent crimes last year.

Stephen Sachs, a former state attorney general, investigated the scandal for Gov. Martin O'Malley -- a Democrat elected in 2006. He concluded that state police had violated federal regulations and "significantly overreached."

According to Sachs' 93-page report and other documents, state police launched the operation in March 2005 out of concern that the planned execution of a convicted murderer might lead to violent protests.

They sent Lucy to join local activists at Takoma Park's Electrik Maid, a funky community center popular with punk rockers and slam poets. Ten people attended the gathering, including a local representative from Amnesty International.

"The meeting was primarily concerned with getting people to put up fliers and getting information out to local businesses and churches about the upcoming events," the undercover officer reported later. "No other pertinent intelligence information was obtained."

That proved true for all 29 meetings, rallies and protests that Lucy ultimately attended. Most drew only a handful of people, and none involved illegal or disruptive actions....

Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman, said that no one in the department had been disciplined in connection with the spying program. Lucy, who has not been publicly identified, would not consent to an interview, he said.

The surveillance, Shipley said, was inappropriate. And the listing of lawful activity as terrorism "shouldn't have happened, and has been corrected."

Most of the files list terrorism as a "primary crime" and a "secondary crime," then add subgroups for designations such as antiwar protester.

Some contain errors and inconsistencies that are almost comical.

Nancy Kricorian, 48, a novelist on the terrorist list, is coordinator for the New York City chapter of CodePink, an antiwar group. She serves as liaison with local police for group protests, and has never been arrested.

"I have no idea why I made the list," she said. "I've never been to the state of Maryland, except maybe to stop for gas on the way to Washington."

Josh Tulkin, 27, a registered lobbyist with the Virginia state Legislature, is cited under "terrorism -- environmental extremists." Tulkin was deputy director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group that claims 15,000 members and regularly meets with governors and members of Congress.

"If asking your elected officials a question about public policy is a crime, then I'm guilty," he said.

Barry Kissin, 57, a lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2006, heads the Frederick Progressive Action Coalition, a group that works "for social, economic and environmental justice," according to his police file. Their protests "are always peaceful," it added.

He was labeled "Terrorism -- Anti-Government."

Nadine Bloch, 47, runs workshops for protest groups that seek corporate responsibility and builds huge papier-mache puppets often used in street marches. Her terrorism file indicates she participated in a Taking Action for Animals conference in Washington on July 16-18, 2005.

Animal rights, Bloch said, is one of the few causes she doesn't actively embrace. Besides, she was attending an educators conference in Hawaii that week as a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"This whole thing," she said, "is so absurd."

Go to all this trouble and they can't even get their bogus info right? Somebody ought to face sanctions for rank incompetence, in addition to all the rights violations. I hear these poetry-slamming monsters were also plotting to hand out vegan cupcakes after the demonstrations. Good thing we were kept safe from that threat.

I actually have a good recipe for vegan cupcakes, the cake recipe here but baked in cupcake pans with paper liners for 15-20 minutes. I guess you could make the icing vegan by substituting Crisco for butter (and water or soymilk for milk), but all the awfulness of veganism is encapsulated in that deadly alteration. On the plus side it will hold its shape better when piped and be more stable at warm room temperature, so you can line three up and pipe "Fuck Tha Police" across them without worrying it might run!

This Ingredient May Also Be Found In Tequila

The main funny of this Onion article is fully encapsulated in the title: Study Finds Link Between Red Wine, Letting Mother Know What You Really Think. Until you get to the real payoff, the closer: "The Northwestern team is currently in the process of securing funding to determine what ingredient in bourbon enables one to finally wrestle one's stepfather to the ground."

Gaga

Today I was trying to organize the mysterious piles of stuff that one generates, and I ran across a cute cookbook that my aunt made for us a few years back, with family recipes and reminiscences. Thus I give you the tale...of Gaga.

Martha Crouse Parsons, known as Gaga, was your grandmother Nanny's paternal grandmother, so your great, great grandmother. She was born in Akron, Ohio, where her father was a US Congressman. When he died, she and her four sisters and one brother each inherited a million dollars. (Where did it all go?!?) Gaga went to Smith College and was an avid student. She told Nanny that her college days were her happiest. "In later years," Nanny writes, "Gaga read foreign language books--German, etc.--before lunch. Each evening she finished a mystery novel." [My kind of woman!]

She married Dr. Thomas Parsons, an eye, ear and nose specialist, and they lived in Rochester, New York, in a big house with a lovely, grand garden. She loved her flowers and her gardens. Nanny's father, Tod, was their only child. In 1913 they took him out of Hotchkiss for a year and traveled the world while their house, 974 East Ave., was being built.

According to Nanny, "Gaga loved to take rides in her Cadillac. Each afternoon at 2 o'clock her chauffeur would drive her for about two hours. Sometimes Gaga came at lunch to pick me up with Dickson at the stick of an old electric car. The car was luxurious inside, and had two sconces fitted with cut crystal vases which were always filled with flowers from her gardens or greenhouses."

OK, that's awesome. That's also a long time to spend in the car every day just for fun, but I guess when the sconces are full and Dickson's driving you around, it's all good. This made me think. My paternal grandmother's family lived in Greenwich, CT at this time and also had a chauffeur, whose name I am sadly unable to recall. I heard it because my grandmother Henrietta was very fond of him and he taught her how to drive; I hope my dad remembers. My maternal grandfather's family had some changing retinue of drivers from East Hampton to Cap Ferrat, leaving only my paternal grandfather's family, whom I know almost nothing about. They were not all that rich, though, so they may have had no driver at all, surely a shocking state of affairs in the teens and twenties. The recipe is from Frieda:

Frieda von Bargen was Nanny's family cook. She came from Bremen, Germany. Frieda was one of Nanny's favorite people growing up in Rochester, along with Dickson, Gaga's chauffeur, and Almuth Keller, Allie, her nurse.

Frieda let Nanny help out in the kitchen where she made delicious soufflees, homemade strawberry ice cream, and cookies. She took Nanny skating and was her teenage confidante. Frieda stayed with Nanny's family until Nanny was 17.

Chocolate Cake
1/2 c shortening
1/2 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c granulated sugar
3 squares chocolate
1 1/4 c flour--1/2 teaspoon soda--1/4 t salt--1/4 t baking soda--sift 4 times
1/2 c sour cream
Beat shortening to cream, add sugar and 2 well beaten eggs (not separated), melted chocolate, sour cream. Then add flour etc a little at a time. Put in buttered tins with flour in them. Bake 350 for 20 to 30 minutes

I can't help but feel butter would be better than shortening, but I haven't tried the recipe so I can't say.

Kulfi Bar

Last night we had Thai at Spicy Thai Thai Restaurant again, and afterward we went to this great Indian ice cream place right across from Madras New Woodlands (a popular vegetarian place at 12/14 Upper Dickson Rd). Well, kulfi, rather. It's the Kulfi Bar, 15 Upper Dickson Road. Each serving of kulfi is individually frozen in either a metal cone or a little earthenware pot. If you order the pot you just eat it out of that, but if you get a flavor from one of the cones they take it out and slice it up for you, and then shower it with pistachios and cashews. Yumola. The front of the restaurant is all decorated with moving lights, including a row of disturbing strobe lights that seem to put you in danger of a seizure. The same place also sells Indian tchotchkes and offers "Qaballah Numerology" readings, and has a dentist's office upstairs, so it's one-stop shopping, basically. Next door there's a temple devoted to a god who has the head of a lion, not sure who that is...let's see, looks like Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu. Good stuff. Little India is the most lively neighborhood in Singapore and great fun to walk around in.

Spicy Thai Thai Restaurant

Tonight we ate at a really great Thai restaurant, which is now my new favorite, with "Young Neil", aka Neil Sinhababu (we call him that after the character in Scott Pilgrim). I can't find the exact address online anywhere, but it's called "Spicy Thai Thai Restaurant", and is right at the corner of Dickson Road and Jalan Besar in a pinkish building, with the tables in the alley. The glass noodle salad was almost too spicy (and this after my friend Cheu asked for it to be less so). Young Neil had an amazing dish of seafood in otah paste, served in a coconut, with the young coconut meat in long shavings in the paste. Otah paste seems to be the Thai version of what's in Singaporean otak--basically fish, dried shrimp, maybe candlenuts, and then the garlic etc. that would make up a normal chili paste, all pounded together. Singaporean otak is made into banana-leaf-wrapped packets and grilled, whereas this seemed to have been steamed in the coconut. Very unusual texture, with soft paste studded with bits of seafood and ribbons of translucent coconut meat. The other food was all great, too, with a pronounced fresh coconut flavor in the curry that tells you they made fresh coconut milk for it today. And it's hella cheap! Those of you in Singapore should go to this restaurant.

Cole Slaw

Last night I made pulled pork and cole slaw.
1 small head cabbage, sliced thinly
2 carrots, grated
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
2 eggs
2 T butter
2/3 c vinegar (I used rice because thats what I had)
salt and pepper
1/2 c greek-style yogurt
1 t celery seed

1. Beat the eggs till thick. Bring butter and vinegar to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. Pour the vinegar mixture in a thin stream, whisking the eggs all the while. If you are concerned about the raw eggs, return the mixture to a double boiler over low heat and stir for a while.
3. Whisk in yogurt, salt and pepper and celery seeds. Pour over cabbage etc. while still warm. Admittedly, it's a lot better with pulled pork on the side, but...

SWPL: Cucumber Sandwiches

Ta-Nehisi Coates doesn't "get" cucumber sandwiches:

There are many, many tribes of whiteness in America which I don't particularly understand. I didn't get how some white people go off to expensive colleges and then spend their friday nights, french-kissing a keg of the world's cheapest beer, until they're rendered unconscious. I remember the first white parties I went to, in my early twenties, and I was shocked to see people standing around clutching plastic cups, music playing, but no one dancing. It took some time for me to get blue-collar comedy. I'm still not up on cucumber sandwiches--but judging by the diabetes rates here in Harlem, maybe I should be.

As to the first question, no harm will be done by continuing to think that white college kids throw some lame-ass parties. On the other hand, cucumber sandwiches really are delicious. Here's how my grandmother, Janet Parsons Wainwright, aka "Nan" did it:

Cucumber Sandwiches:
Use peeled hothouse cucumbers, those thin-skinned ones, or if they are normal cucumbers, peel, cut in half, and remove the seeds and gelatinous middle bit with a spoon. Slice cucumbers paper-thin. Use Pepperidge Farm Very Thin White Bread, spread with Hellman's mayonnaise. Lay the slices of cucumber down, top with fresh mint leaves, and add salt and freshly cracked ground pepper. Top with another slice, cut the crusts off after completion, and cut each sandwich into four triangles (now it feeds four times as many people!). You may wash this down either with iced tea with a splash of orange juice and fresh mint, or with Nannie's traditional libation, a triple bourbon on the rocks.

UPDATE: if you want to take the sandwiches on a picnic you may substitute softened unsalted butter for the mayo, being careful to coat the bread thoroughly--that way they won't get soggy.

Blue Ginger

We're going out to eat at Blue Ginger tonight--it's a great Peranakan restaurant and I recommend it highly if you're in Singapore. There are some wonderful pork rolls they have, wrapped in I don't know what--probably tofu skin. They're called ngo something; I'll update later, because everyone should eat them.  Well, OK, not observant Muslims or Jews, or vegetarians.