Tag Archive: Holidays


We had some close family friends over on Christmas Eve as well as on the 26th, the evening after Christmas.

Originally planned on serving up hors d’oeuvre based on left-over turkey from the evening as well as roast beef and a leg of lamb but Cold Storage managed to lose our orders and in the process of looking for it, managed to throw in an insult about how we should not be ordering things being collected on different days on the same receipt. Protests of how we should not have been issued one receipt by their staff for 2 different collection days went unheard.

After about a half hour of unfruitful searching in their cold rooms and storage freezers as well as a number of frantic calls to staff who were working the day before, the store manager offered a refund but I was already feeling too flabbergasted at the thought of having eight guests over with nothing on the table 4 hours before their arrival. Naturally, we rejected the refund and went with what they did have available at the store.. which necessitated changing our menu on the fly and running around the store like mad men, chucking ingredients and necessities into our shopping cart.

Eventually, we ended having essentially the same menu as Latreia’s visit a number of days back which was:

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Wanted to set out the new runners but given the amount of time we had, we went with what was used days before but were too lazy to clear. Added individual place settings (but omitted little menu cards) since we had a smaller number of people visiting.

Thankfully, no one noticed the last minute switches we made.. not that they knew what the original menu and plans were.

- adrian t

Christmas with Latreia

Our CG, Latreia, got together for Christmas at our place this year. Since this was going to be a pot luck, there wasn’t much we had to do other than tidying the house, prettying it up a little, making our dish, preparing drinks, and making sure everything was presentable and everyone at home was ready.

On the menu was:

Traditional Roast Turkey basted with Rosemary & Thyme and some sort of bread stuffing – Lydia

Beef Pot Roast – Lydia

Green Bean and Walnut Salad – Tracy

Pasta Salad – basic carbo dish by Tracy

Creamed Spinach Dip & Crackers – Tracy

Traditional Baked Ham with Honey Glace – Irene

Cheesy Potato Gratin – us.

Orangeade -basic non-alcoholic from us

Root Beer Granita Float – us

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- adrian t

Since our return to Singapore late 2006, the family has been involved in one activity or another. In recent months, I was seeing my personal productivity at home and at work falling.. decided the family needed a short break away from work, school and church commitments and after some thought, we went with the bold step of making our first drive into Malaysia and visiting a place that was recommended to us. We’d also be making the trip together with a family friend – Kent, Lai Yoong & their 2 kids,  as an experiment/trial of more trips to come.

Early on the morning of Nov 26th, we set off at 5am departing Singapore for Colmar Tropicale, a resort nestled in the highlands of Bukit Tinggi in West Malaysia. The resort was supposedly modeled as a replica of a well-known French village in the Alsace with a castle, keep and what else have you. Having never visited France, much less some village in some remote corner of the Earth, I was more concerned with the drive up and the lack of Internet access for the next few days!

Coincidentally, we met 2 families from church vacationing at the place as well. Small world!

Highlights from our trip after the jump..

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