Bring it on...

... the snowplow confronts the snow head-on!

It's been snowing hard, like a heavy downpour, since before sunrise. What a sharp contrast to the lovely "T-shirt weather" on Sunday, that was but just a sneak peek of warmer things to come... later! For now, it's still very much winter, and officially so for the next 17 days. And this snowfall, coming so close after temperatures plunged back to below freezing yesterday, is probably the biggest one we've seen while here. And I was wrong to have thought there wasn't going to be any significant accumulation before the season ends.

Vern is on campus, the boys with me at home. They want to go outside and play, but no way with how the white bits are being swirled all about, the winds must be blustery, too! And no, not while the snow is beating down so incessantly, and relentlessly! But you understand why schools have declared a Snow Day, because it's still better to stay indoors.

By the time the snow peters out, around evening as the forecast predicts, the accumulation will be between six and as much as 10 inches! Tomorrow, hopefully, the weather will be OK enough to give the boys some time outside after school.

What else is bizarre...
If you think this drastic weather change is strange, separately, in other news, the third and last part of a newspaper story about fugitives "free to flee", made headlines today. The reporters' findings revealed that suspects fleeing St Louis can pass police checks elsewhere because authorities didn't issue warrants for their arrest!

It's just a coincidence that I'm reading this here, while the mad manhunt is going on in Singapore for JI fugitive Mas Selamat. But how odd is what the investigation by the St Louis Post-Dispatch (the major newspaper here) found? That, "St Louis is one of the few major metro areas in the nation that rountinely decline to issue arrest warants for fugitives. Of all the cases of St Louis suspects sought for felonies, a third(!) lack warrants."

In other words, police elsewhere don't know when they've stumbled on one of these fugitives, for the very reason that without warrants, their names are not allowed in a database police check nationwide. And even if police find out they are suspects, the arrest can't go through without warrants.

Should it come as no surprise then, that the St Louis city is infamous for having the second highest crime rate in the country? This, besides that its weather swings from one extreme to another! I'll never forget the "joke" (or more like, well-meaning advice?) told to us by the locals, when we first got here:
Don't like the weather? Wait a day or two... erm, no, just hang around for an hour or more!

I hope the Singapore authorities find their fugitive soon! Our home country is after all still one of the safest in the world (yes? no?).

One fine day

The sun was out, really out yesterday! The mercury rose to an all-time high of 21C, making it the hottest day all season! The skies looked so blue and bright, the clouds so white and puffy, I saw less of the bald trees and dried up branches.

We didn't get a lot of time outside after Jon's Chinese class. But watching Vern play with him and Ben at a playground of the boys' choice, I forgot how much the kids fight, and all the other things I worry about. And then, when the littlest one started 'floating' around -- not quite a kick yet, but more than a flutter, it was like ripples of joy running through me!

I felt so blessed, so very blessed.

Hot yesterday, cold today... right now as I'm writing this, the temperature's back down to 3C, and dropping some more to freezing and below! There's in fact a winter storm in the forecast, followed by snow! I know, it's wonky weather, and we can't wait for warmer days again -- to get out there and breathe in that nice, hot sun!

Have a great week, everyone!

Wonton Fun

No, I'm not out to domesticate my kids, and this is only our second time making wontons. Or should I call them dumplings? Somehow, "wonton" conjures up the image of the deep-fried version that comes with wonton mee back home!

We didn't deep-fry ours, nor did we steam them like that first time as called for in the recipe from a kids' cookbook (our adapted version's included in the link). Instead, we had them in soup (chicken stock)! I'm a soup person, and see why I think dumplings may be a more appropriate term for how we cooked ours this time round?

If you like, you can add minced ginger, garlic, and scallion to the filling, or the scallion could come later in the soup itself. We didn't put any of these in ours though, simply because they are the kind of stuff our boys will pick out or have me pick out for them, before they'll tuck into their food! And I also left out the sugar, and added a bit of rice vinegar to the basic soya sauce-sesame oil seasoning for the filling, for a more savoury taste. Our filling consisted of minced meat -- I like to use pork or chicken, and shrimp. Some mushroom would have been nice, too, but one child asked me to please leave it out.



There are different ways to do the wrap, and what better way than to leave ours to the boys' own creativity...


Jon made his lot into these neat envelopes, and Ben, with a little help, pinched the sides together for a good seal (some water did the trick, too). There's at least another way -- the one given on the wonton wrap packaging, that goes like this: use a chopstick to make a slight dent in the middle of the triangle, and then flap in the two lower sides so they overlap slightly. But it can be a little tricky, especially if you've packed your wonton quite full, as then, the filling may ooze out from the sides!

Before and after the dumplings were cooked...


Broccoli was what we had at hand, and ended up having our soup with. And to me, it is one vegetable versatile enough to go with most things. If you like your soup to be more "oriental-looking", you may prefer a more Asian vegetable.

So then, this was the dinner we had, on a less hurried evening with no school the next day, and when homework didn't "get in the way" of dinner preparation, or me roping in the boys to help out in the kitchen! Um, actually, it was the dining table we used, for how much more workspace it offered!



Not surprisingly, the dumplings tasted extra yummy -- like little pockets of fun they turned out to be, with Jon giving them two thumbs-up, and Ben, (not the only one) asking for seconds!



Maybe we'll put just shrimp (with or without mushrooms) for the filling the next time... my favourite's always "har kau", but that's another dumpling, for another day! =)