Black and white pepper isn’t just for seasoning

Sprinkling a dash of black pepper does more than please your taste buds. The piperine in it increases the bioavailability of many substances through a bunch of cool processes, which results in more nutrients reaching your cells.  Not only that, but did you know piperine can act as an anti-depressant, pain reliever, and antacid, boost brain functioning, and help you sleep?! Can someone please pass the pepper STAT!

I’d advise to get peppercorns like the ones shown in the picture above, rather than grind-ed pepper from the supermarket. Once you grind, you’ll start to lose a lot of the wonderful volatile pepper oils.

Sarawak White Pepper.

When you’re going for nuance of flavor, Sarawak White Pepper, named for the Malaysian state where it is grown, is the top white pepper. In fact, I believe we Malaysians don’t really appreciate the Sarawak White Pepper. This pepper is actually very sought after by top chefs around the world. While other peppercorns are soaked, Sarawak corns are held under a constantly flowing stream of artesian spring water, yielding a smoother and whiter product. The berries are larger, brighter and more flavorful, with a mild, peppery, sweet aroma (somewhat reminiscent of allspice) and a robust, rich, winey/floral flavor. The finish is hot. The shell is thinner and more fragile.

Sometimes I forget how hard it is for farmers to grow the Sarawak Peppers. These farmers are not rich, dirt poor is more like it. I mean, just look at the house shown behind the tall bright green pepper plant in the picture above. It’s really a hard life, and it makes me feel very blessed that there are people out there who toil to bring me food to the table.

In most gourmet supermarkets around the world, the price is about double that of most peppercorns but this pepper is well worth it. We Malaysians get it dirt cheap, so we should use it more often! Perhaps because it’s cheap we don’t appreciate it. Perhaps if the farmers and the distributors were to jack up the price will we fully appreciate how truly wonderful this stuff really is.

The rest of the culinary world treat it with reverence. About time we do to.

Taken from feeds.killeraces.com/~r/wisebread/~3/9DA4_7HTm7Q/bioavailability-how-to-get-more-nutrients-from-your-food, mysarawak.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/sarawak-pepper/ and thenibble.com/zine/archives/varietal-peppercorns9.asp

The doggy’s master is in the background carrying two heavy bags of groceries

I was at the morning market yesterday when I was pleasantly surprised to see 3 dogs walking around with baskets in their mouth. As you can see in the picture above, I managed to capture an image with my mobile phone of one of the dogs carrying some raw uncooked vegetables. Isn’t this dog the cutest thing?

There they go, swishing their tails happily.
I had dogs before, so I know they are just
ecstatic to be out of the house

Since I work from home, my time is pretty flexible, and I’m blessed in that I am able to go to the morning open air market, maybe twice a week, to buy fresh ingredients for my meals. I thought I’d just show you readers, who are not from my neck of the woods , how my regular market looks like.

Although it’s not compulsory, people are starting to carry their own reusable shopping bags

Anyways, talking about using reusable bags, it’s good to know that the island paradise of Penang is now enforcing a “No Plastic Bags Day” every Monday. Ikea has gone much further and does not offer free plastic bags.  I try not to accept plastic bags unless I really can not help it. And I try to get the vendors to wrap the purchase with newspaper and raffia strings or just plain rubber band.

==============

More on plastic bags

• Plastic bags causing flooding problems
• No rush to ban plastic bags from MPs
• Plastic bottles vs paper cups at “More raw food at the night markets”

===============

This is amazing.

Brad Pitt’s green and sustainable building foundation Make It Right will unveil a house that floats when it floods. The house is ready to move in and will be presented to a family that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina tomorrow.

According to Thom Mayne founder of Morphosis Architects, who was behind this incredible design explained in an interview how it was done:

The designers gave the building a chassis, made it out of polystyrene foam and covered it with glass-reinforced concrete. What does that do? It produces a raft; it floats and it’s thought about as a seat belt. I mean, hopefully it never gets used. But when it gets used, it’s important. The house is anchored to the ground by two vertical guideposts. At times of flooding, the house moves up the guideposts — up to 12 feet — to prevent it from drifting.

As if that wasn’t enough the home is able to break away easily from electric lines and plumbing allowing it to travel up to 12 feet during flooding. The floating house also contains enough batteries to keep everything running inside for as much as 3 days.

Info taken from cocoperez.com/2009-10-06-brad-pitt-makes-it-right-float

Jasmin says:

I think it is a wonderful initiative. I’ve been living in uncomfortably warm concrete / brick houses all my life, and my family is looking into building a green home in the near future. We think it’s great that other people are also making an effort to built sustainable homes here in Malaysia. Check this event out.  Matthias Gelber is chairing the Malaysian Green Building Conference http://greenevents.com.my/

My almost 4 year old little boy loves to look at pictures, and one of the things he really like to look at is the juice menu. Parents often tell me that their kids don’t like fresh, raw juice. Maybe they need to try more variety? Or something attractive looking? Or just something from the restaurant, not from the house?  Kids! They are picky at times, aren’t they?

Hiding behind the McCurry menu

Anyways, we were at the McCurry restaurant. This, now, world famous McCurry Indian curry house is owned by Suppiah who is a friend of ours and one of Shaun’s first students in his very first Boot Camp on Internet Business and Internet Marketing way back in 1999.

==============

More on the McCurry vs McDonalds story.

Why did McCurry restaurant, the underdog,
going against an 800 pound gorilla (McDonalds) win the court battle.

==============

My toddler trying to feed himself.
I was debating to put this picture as it’s not one of
my most flattering moments, but what the heck.

Anyways, I like to bring my family to Indian restaurants, particularly those that serve vegetarian food because Ethan, my toddler is allergic to eggs and seafood. That pretty much eliminates most places he can eat out. I can be assured he’ll be ok if he ate some vegetarian food. You see, Ethan is the main reason why I started a blog on raw food, healthful food, health and the environment. Eco issues are a passion of mine. But I’ve never imagined I’d be obsessed with food matter until I realized his health problems stemmed from food. Poor guy had extremely bad, itchy, uncomfortable exzema from day one. Through proper diet and watching this little guy like a hawk so he won’t touch any no-no food, we are able to control it. So far, so good.

See the latest video campaign for a Child Friendly Australia. It’s a good reminder how to be a better person

We try not to go out nowadays because of the Swine Flu (H1N1 virus) pandemic. However, last Sunday, Shaun had to give an Internet talk at THE biggest bookfest in Southeast Asia (Shaun, by the way, is known as Sen Ze to the internet world) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center next to the KLCC shopping center. KLCC is an iconic place because this is where the world famous Petronas Twin Tower is at.

The shopping center with lots of fabulous shops,
the world class aquarium called the Aquaria
and the Convention Center are right below the towering twin towers!

While we were there at the Convention Center, I noticed that quite a number of people wearing masks either to protect themselves or to protect people from their flu.

You can see people wearing masks at the background.
There are more people on the left wearing masks
but can’t see from this angle

Shaun has only one complain about wearing masks. His hot breathe tends to fog up his glasses!

Shaun paying parking

————————————–

More

. Read Shaun’s eye popping Internet Business blog at www.SenZe.com/business-blog

————————————–

Today, I saw a random newspaper picture of a plump Chinese guy nicely sleeping in his plane seat with his face mask covering his eyes like an eye mask. That was funny. Which, you know, means you could also use a face mask as a hair band, pretty much the way people place sun glasses at the top of their head to keep their hair out of their face. Yup. There’s many other ways to use face masks.

Ok, so it’s uncomfortable wearing masks. I would be the first to admit it. It is. I feel like Darth Vader when I wear it. It’s hard to breathe, and I’m just this much closer sounding like Darth Vader as well. And like Shaun, having your glasses fogged up is no fun. Can’t see. But hey, it’s for the greater good! I mean, if I coughed a storm up, and didn’t wear a face mask, you’d be pissed, won’t you?