Marsha Maung: Write. Cook. Read. Watch. Try. Innovate.

The lines are so blurred in the world that we live in. The internet has changed things so much and culture have veered us into a path that we never knew could exist before. But maybe it is because we were not so often exposed to such diversities. Our world consists of getting on the bicycle or bus to get to school, playing with your friends after school and then going home for dinner with your family. That was it. But the world that my kids live in today is so different from my childhood days. I am sure my parents will say the same thing about their world  and mine. I remember an altercation that occurred with my kids quite a few years back, maybe 5 or 6 years ago when Youtube was a thing  but not the norm.  Believe me, if you took a look at a normal teenager's life today, Youtube is a huge thing for them, especially if they are into gaming. I argued (and will continue to argue) that Youtube cannot be the norm, you need an organization to govern and monitor it, othe...

If there's one thing that I really hate, apart from traffic jams, is queue cutting. I hate queue cutting whether in a jam, at the store, at the restaurant or in the mall. I think it's just rude. So, whenever I have to line up at the traffic lights and someone 'conveniently' tries to wiggle their way into the line, I don't often give way. Call me a B or whatever, I don't care. Line up like everyone else. Unless I am in one of my Zen modes which isn't often when I am behind the wheel. So, today, I was in 7-11 and there was this foreign man  (I shall not mention the nationality because my son happens to opine that racial profiling  should be stopped...and it's not China Chinese) decides to not just...how to say this? Let me draw a stupid picture. LOL OK, the said A-hole is furthest to the left and I was using Counter A and this man used Counter B, crossing over and cutting the queue for Counter B. I kept quiet in the beginning because the cashier...

No one knows how hard this is, being both mom and dad at the same time. While some argue that we, women, are the emotionally stronger gender, it doesn't become and isn't easy. Sometimes, there are things that are nearly impossible for us mothers to replicate.  Like hormones, being a man, being competitive about anything and everything , brotherhood, being a role model (because duh...I can't teach a man how to be a man in the real world because I can't be a man, LOL). It's different, really.  I will be lying if I said everything is smooth-sailing and I am the best mother AND father in the world and my kids don't need a male figure in their lives...it's not true. Let's not kid ourselves. Dads are important too so, I keep their dad in their lives.  But as far as the everyday workings in life is concerned, I have tried my very best to be both mom and dad. To make all the decisions and be responsible for everything under the sun is f-g taxing. ...

It's been one of those sucky Sundays for me as for the second time this month alone, that something wrong went with my older-than-my-son car. First, we had a flat but was saved by my dad. Today, the battery died but was saved by a neighbor (my lovely, lovely neighbor! Muax!) He let me take his wife's car out to hunt down the mechanic, brought him over to my house and put in a new car battery.  With that said, I am, of course, short on time as I have some writing to do as well so, had to use the dump-and-cook method a.k.a crock pot or slow cooker. Lucky for me, I had the wisdom to thaw the minced beef out ahead of time and it was in the fridge.  So, I will share this out very quickly and as usual, there are no measurements to follow, you will have to use your instincts and taste-buds to do taste tests along the way and then season towards the end. If you're on CookPad (Eng) version app, here's the Bulgogi Beef Stew Recipe complete with a simple indication of ...

I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore . There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me. For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media. Since we were more like partners in crim...

Instagram, Google Plus and Tumblr are great places for inspiration for me...it all depends on who you are following actually so, the people that I follow on those sites often offer nuggets of wisdom that I find are great reminders to...well, life in general. Some provide me with a great number of humorous posts that I share across other platforms. We've all had that 'bad thing that happened to me and I don't even know why and how it happened', right? Most of us prefer not to remember anything about it and some of us send out curses. Silent, passive or extremely aggressive. I prefer not to. Because what's the point? The person's not going to care, won't listen to you and this only means that...it is all wasted brain energy. Why waste brain energy when you can spend an hour watching absolutely funny and inspiring stuff instead, right? Anyway, I found and screencapped something I think I want to keep reminding me of. It says "When dealing with bad...

Personally, I have never really been a cake or cookies or dessert person because I am kinda anti-sugar that way. Use of sugar is sparing, to say the least, in this household so, baking is not really my thing. And besides, I have always felt that there was little creativity to baking because....you know...2 tablespoon of this, 1 cup of that, 2/3 cup of this and mix at low level for 2 minutes (no more, no less or else YOUR CAKE IS GONNA SUCK !!!!) So, it never really occurred to me that I might want to delve into baking anything, apart from bread which I am interested in. That is, until my son came home from school expressing his interest in baking a cake. I was like....me???!!! Bake? Puahahahahaha! But OK, I will go with the everything-is-in-here-already kinda cake mix, then. And I did and the first one we did (I threw away the box and took no pictures of the cake because it looked like shit but taste like heaven. The picture would do the cake no justice) and it was a smash! I wil...

You know what happens when you are a mother or parent? Now, this is a quote from either my mom, my dad or both.  "When you are a parent, your kids eat the meat and the parents eat the bones" I've only realized how true this is until I became a parent. I laughed about it then until I found myself stuffing my 3-year-old kid's half-chewed and rejected sausage into my own mouth. Chewing at it heartily like nothing unusual was happening until I saw the look on my mother's face. It says that's effing disgusting . But what's disgusting about eating my son's saliva, a rejected sausage and whatever that is in his mouth? Not like he ate dog poo before this.... or did he??!!  Never mind. It continues today and maybe it is an Asian thing because I kind of saw a few Buzzfeed videos referencing that this is an Asian parent phenomenon. That shoving food into someone's mouth is the way we show how much we love you? The less you leave behind shows how much ...

It's hard to give motherhood a meaningful name, maybe there is no way to describe the journey after all. It's not just a sacrifice, it is joy, pain, struggle, happiness, hugs, kisses, commitment, disappointment, anger, awe, loyalty, forgiveness, acceptance....all rolled into one. To the wonderful boys that I have helped shape, this journey as your mother is something that I will remember to the day I die...and maybe until then, I will not forget.  It has changed me, made me a better person, helped me see the world for what it is and to accept reality. I have seen the worst that life has to offer, as a mother, and I have also seen the best of life.  And I know I am not alone experiencing all the above-mentioned feelings. If you are a mother of a child, teen, adult, pet or all of the above, congratulations for having come this far. You're doing great! Happy Mother's Day ! You're a rock star! Love, Marsha

I mean who doesn't love bulgogi?! Seriously? Who doesn't love it? And the thing with bulgogi sauce is that you can use it as a marinade or you can use it on pasta, chicken, pork, whatever. Like seriously think out of the box for a while, it can be used on anything...including rice? (I would venture but have never tried before) So, venture at the cost of your own dinner. Anyway, there are lots of choices when it comes to sauces to use for your cooking and I think Asians have more options than people from other regions simply because we can mix soya sauce with anything and it can become something. And we don't have to follow everything by the book. Well, when you need to come up with something for dinner, you will find yourself experimenting and hoping it doesn't suck....or it's time for Domino's, anyway? lol Sorry the pictures aren't the best because I cooked later than usual and there wasn't good lighting to count on to make them look awesome...