The egg beater

In the process of making a souffle pancake. You have to whisk the egg white till peaks form, i.e. when you turn the bowl over your head, nothing drips.

BACK in the days of my childhood, the "tock-tock-tock" sound of pounding chili and belacan was not all that common. At least not in my household. It was more the sound of "flop-flop-flop" -- that of the spring egg whisk working very hard.

My mum was into making cakes. We weren't always that successful. Our old oven was not able to heat up evenly. Often, you get only one side of the cake well risen. You had to open the oven door after a while to turn the cake around so that the other side would rise as well. This needed precise timing. Too early, the cake would just sink when you open the oven door.

More often than not, our cakes were lop sided. Cakes which never rose also happened once in a while. These were fed to the stray skinny black dog which foraged our dustbin regularly. He always lapped them down with great gusto.

I was the chief egg beater, a task I enjoyed very much. The whisk we had was a giant one with a huge spring and red wooden handle. You flop it up and down on the eggs and sugar mixture till they are white in colour and quite firm in texture. Then you sieve in the flour and melted butter.

These days, it is rather hard to find such a whisk. More common are the ones shown in the picture. Most people use the electric egg beater of course, which gets your egg whites to peak within minutes. 

But I don't own one and much prefer to hand whisk -- preferably one with a huge spring and red wooden handle.

House on Mt Faber slope

Anyone home? One of the two "mysterious" bungalows I see on my left each time I clamber up Marang trail.

I always stop to see whether there's any thing happening inside or around this house when I  clamber up Marang trail. Anyway, it's always time to take a breather after climbing all those steps. (According to a write up I found online, Marang trail which leads up to Mt Faber, is about seven storeys high. So this spot here must be about four storeys high  according to my own estimation).

But each time, I saw absolutely nothing, no matter how hard I peered. No one hanging out the laundry or such homely acts. Except for once when I saw a very busy grass cutter clearing the lawn in front of the house.

Much of the view of the house was obstructed by trees, being nestled on a slope of Mt Faber. There's another house lower down the slope but it is even more hidden by the thick foliage.

I wonder how the occupants (if any) go in and out of these houses. Surely, they didn't have to bash through all those undergrowth each time they want to go to the market.

Recently I seemed to see something being constructed though I couldn't really decipher what in the world it was. And today, I saw the construction was done and it seemed to me to be a little bridge! Can't be sure though.

More updates next time I go up Marang :)

Map showing Marang trail and Mt Faber Park. The "You Are Here" spot is near where my blogger friend, Streetsing emerged from his "Keppel Hill lost reservoir" trek once. 

Just a little note on the first time I heard about Marang trail: A former colleague, just before he resigned, when asked what he was going to do, said he was going to smell some roses first. One of the things he would do was to explore Marang. There are so many things to do in Singapore, he says. No need to travel out of the country. Time flies. That was 12 years ago? 

Of course, one does not have to resign or retire before one goes on this little trip. On weekends, tonnes of people scramble up. It is a wonder the trail doesn't get eroded down to five storeys.