Month: September 2014

Offerings from my kitchen today

On By bumblebee3londonIn Awesome Recipes, Everything!!!4 Comments

My children’s father asks very little of me.  He did not mind when I gave up a highly paid job. He doesn’t mind coming home to a messy house.  He never complains when I use his credit cards to purchase things that he does not understand. He doesn’t even expect me to do the school run or to help our youngest with her homework or wake up for her 6am football sessions.

All he ever asked of me is to create a happy, nurturing home for our children. Fortunately, it isn’t such a difficult task, thanks to my mum who is Chief Happiness Officer at large: I just have to take my mind back to the sunny kitchen of my parents’ house in Southern England to know just what I have to do. So here are the offerings from my kitchen on this rainy Phuket day:

 Start the day right: green smoothies!

greens

My friend Vivienne Webb bought a bag of avocados that she left behind. We went to the sea-gypsies area in Rawai yesterday and bought some as-natural-as-you-can-get veggies and I had some other greens in my fridge from the organic section in Villa Market. Blitzed together with some filtered water, topped with chia seeds, flax seeds and bee pollen, and voila, I have fulfilled my first task of the day, namely providing my family with a nutritious breakfast. 100% goodness, and so easy, too.

Making a veggie stock

stock

I can’t find organic Swiss bouillon anywhere in Phuket. I have to make my own stock. It’s actually easier than you think. I just boiled these veggies in a large ceramic pot with distilled water, and then simmer on low heat for hours. You get a really delicious broth from this.

If you are an instant noodle fan, try making your own version with this stock, cooked spaghetti and lightly boiled bean sprouts. Add cooked chicken if you are not a vegetarian.  That’s what I would have for lunch, probably.

Eat rainbow colours

colours

I am trying to get my 14 year old to eat more veggies and less red meat.  her father is worried that it will not be enough, given that she does so much sports and is going through a growth spurt.  I think it is. Broccoli has as much protein as beef. In fact, 11.1 grams per 100 calories of broccoli =  6.4 grams per 100 calories of beef. I also would add cashews and other nuts for that oomph.

From this colourful platter, I could add Thai paste for a curry, or go Italian by cooking the veggies in red pesto. If I were to go for the Thai option, I would serve it with a wild rice/red rice combo; the Italian option of course goes with spaghetti.

My secret arsenal: sprouts!

sprouts

Sprouting is actually something fun and easy to do, and best of all, it is exploding with goodness.  Sprouts are rich in enzymes (even more than in uncooked fruits and vegetables). These enzymes are vital for many of the body’s functions, including extracting more amino acids, essential fatty acids, minerals and vitamins from food, so the body works more efficiently.

All you have to do is soak the seeds and then sprout on!  Make sure that the seeds you use are the ones specially for sprouting, namely not irradiated or contaminated. Put them on a sprouting tray, water daily and agitate the tray to prevent mould from forming. When the little shoots appear, they are ready to be eaten.  I add them as topping.

Making our own trail mix

dried stuff

This is a little sweet treat for my minx’s lunchbox tomorow.  I dehydrated some apples and pineapples in my dehydrator to make trail mix (I add nuts to the dried fruits combo). I added some gorgeous tomatoes in to make dried tomatoes, which makes a tasty addition to salads and pasta dishes. Well, that’s my lunch tomorrow.

 

Note about eating rainbow colours, as we have done today in rainy Phuket:

RED
Red fruits and vegetables are coloured by a natural plant pigment called lycopene. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that can help reduce the risk of cancer and keep our heart healthy.

PURPLE /BLUE
The plant pigment anthocyanin is what gives blue/purple fruits and vegetables their distinctive colour. Anthocyanin also has antioxidant properties that protect cells from damage and can help reduce the risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease.

ORANGE/YELLOW
Carotenoids give this group their vibrant colour. A well-known carotenoid called Betacarotene is found in sweet potatoes, pumpkins and carrots. It is converted to vitamin A, which helps maintain healthy mucous membranes and healthy eyes. Another carotenoid called lutein is stored in the eye and has been found to prevent cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.

GREEN
Green vegetables contain a range of phytochemicals including carotenoids, indoles and saponins, all of which have anti-cancer properties. Leafy greens such as spinach and broccoli are also excellent sources of folate.

BROWN/WHITE
White fruits and vegetables contain a range of health-promoting phytochemicals such as allicin (found in garlic) which is known for its antiviral and antibacterial properties. Some members of the white group, such as bananas and potatoes, are also a good source of potassium.

 

Footnote:

It has been nine months since I gave up work, and I can honestly say, I have found gainful employment in the home. I love what I do and enjoy each day to the fullest, this simple and wholesome life without complexities and complications. For this, I have the father of my children and my mother to thank.

PS: Today’s offerings took less than two hours.  

 

 

Conversations in the car

On By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, WhimsyLeave a comment

Screen Shot 2014-09-09 at 9.14.20 AMI think this is the most important part of a child’s day, because you make them feel loved and also they learn communication skills. So with the other children, we had a policy of never having the radio on in the car on our drives, but to make the conscious efforts to talk to each other. With G, we turn up the volume to give ourselves respite, but she still talks over the radio. This was yesterday afternoon’s conversation:

G: “Momdad, let’s talk economics.”

Us: “OK.”

G: “At school today, I just had to spend a little money at break to buy eight dim sums. Because I get lunch for free. It is all included in the school fees, remember? So I had lots of ribs, I skipped the rice. And finished off with banana fritters with chocolate sauce.”

The father: “In that case, we are net-positive then, since we only paid for a little snack and you chowed down so much.”

She whipped out a piece of paper from her bag. ‘Not so fast, Dad. Here’s the note from my maths teacher: you have to buy me a calculator that costs THB5,900 for my maths class. And the bursar said you only paid THB15,000 out of THB75,000 for my International Awards. So you still have to pay the school THB65,900. That’s 1,275 pounds by the end of the week. There is no such thing as a free lunch, folks.”

My article on growing your child to get 100% through conversations is published in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jacqueline-koay/the-scenic-route-to-getti_b_5770398.html

Rainbow looms? Forget that! Try nature bands instead!

On By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Love, light, blessingsLeave a comment

Screen Shot 2014-09-09 at 9.27.49 AM

 

 

From the lovely Susan Orchid Bansin who lives in Borneo:

This pretty and delicate bracelet is made from the tip of an unfurled banana leaf. I used to make this bracelet all the time when i was a child, adorning myself with natural ‘jewelleries’ and flowers tucked in my ponytail. I showed my daughter how to make this natural bracelet recently and she was so delighted. “Watch out for baby bats inside the unfurled banana leaf!”, I exclaimed. “What!! Baby bats?!!”, she exclaimed, too! Haha…. but it is true, bats like to sleep inside unfurled banana leaf.

The Scenic Route to 100%

On By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Whimsy1 Comment

IMG_7193

It’s a well-known fact: Asian parents are hot on education. The type of education that means anything less than 100% is not acceptable. A friend from my hometown (Portsmouth) taught Math at a top international school in Asia. He said parents would often ask him, “How can my child improve on his grades?” Err, the kid had 95%.

Into this hot-housed world we arrived a few years ago with our weird values of raising happy strong children, never mind the grades. Georgina could not read at 5, but she was a glorious, delightful child. Here’s a video of her at 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RFONbabE6A

She took her own sweet time. For the longest period, her father read to her every night. He read her every book in Fairy series (from Bethany the Ballet Fairy to Gemma the Gymnastic Fairy to the 200 fairies in between the ballerina and gymnast). Father and daughter then moved on to Jacqueline Wilson’s books. The father was so into the books which he read to his daughter that once, forgetting himself, he got very excited about meeting Jacqueline Wilson. Poor lady must have had a shock when a middle-aged man came up to her and gushed, “I love your books!”.

G finally decided to read when she was around 11. ‘I could read from when I was small, you know,” she declared. ‘I just pretended I couldn’t, that’s all.”

It made no difference to us. Because she learned a lot of other important things the natural, organic way with the time that was available to her. She grew into a strong girl with a good understanding of the world. She has such enthusiasm for life and forms her own opinions from the thousands of questions that she asks daily. She was (is) excited about learning new things, has an inquiring mind, is eloquent, sharp, witty and quicksilver bright. And when the time was right for her, she began reading. Mein Kampf is one of the books she is reading, because she is interested in the politics and the wars in today’s world. Slowly, steadily, she climbed up the rankings. All on her own steam. She got into the top set for all her subjects, and that is at an academic school where tuition is norm. English and Music are her weakest subjects.

“Don’t blame me,” she said with her usual insouciance. “My dad speaks bad English.”

I sighed. “But Music, G! Your dad is a guitarist in a rock band, and you got 0% for your Music exam!”

“I only do Rock,” she said belligerently. “And that’s not on the curriculum.”

But she excels in Math. “Momdad, I have beaten all the Asian kids. Even those who do 10 hours of tuition a week.”

Do I sit down and teach her Math for hours on end? No. But I wrote about the ten most beautiful equations in the world. I am always pointing out to her the Fibonacci sequence in the natural world. I told her about Pythagoras and the cult he founded. We talked about Fermat’s Last Theorem (which took centuries to be solved). I asked her if it is ever possible to find Theory of Everything, the one equation that describes “everyfink”.

None of it is related to ’exam’ Math.

Last Monday, she started at a new school. She had to do a Math test for streaming purposes. She was totally unprepared for the test.

She came back in a foul mood. “Half of it was on Probability! And I didn’t do them at the old school. Well, other people probably did, but I was out playing football. I must have missed it.”

The result came back 2 days later. She had 100%.

Her father was annoyed at her for getting 100%. After the fuss she kicked up. “I thought you said you hadn’t covered Probability?” he said. “You lied.”

“I didn’t!” she protested indignantly. “I have not covered them before! I just worked them out. Probability is like the gambling stuff, right? You just work out how likely somefink is going to happen or not, that’s all. So what’s the big deal?”

As my friend Azlan Adnan said, “This is what education is all about – empowering people to work things out from first principles using logic, which is the highbrow word for “common sense,” which, unfortunately, is not very common nowadays.”

And so, here’s our scenic route to 100%. Not through rote-learning, tuition or hot-housing, but through conversations with our child – she was about 6, when we asked her to tell us 10 reasons why it is not a good idea to build houses on a cemetery that is not related to ghosts. It was a good conversation.