First Hari Raya Aidil Fitri in Rome, Italy

This year is our first Hari Raya in Rome. We were joined by my father and sister-in-law whom arrived few days before Eid. Tok Ayah wanted to spend time with his first grandson. Since we have never celebrated Eid with them before, I thought I would make all the effort by cooking the Raya dishes. 

Hari Raya has been announced to fall on Wednesday, 6th July 2016. We have all be invited to the Ambassador's Residence on the first day of Raya. Everyone is required to bring Raya dishes. So I have volunteered to bring daging dendeng, chocolate cake and tiramisu. So, the day before Hari Raya I was slaving myself in the kitchen to prepare the Raya dishes. Honestly, this is the first time I ever had to do a major preparation for Hari Raya. Typically I would just help out my mum back in Ipoh. Time has definitely changes as I now have to be like my mom, preparing Raya dishes for my own family.

I made rendang ayam first. I took me almost 4 hours to make rendang ayam, hence I would not cook this dish on a normal day. It's too long! Next is the daging dendeng which took less than 2 hours. The thing with Malaysian food is that the longer it is to cook, the better it would taste. But I didn't put in kerisik. Definitely will put kerisik in next week when we have guest over for Hari Raya. 

Before we set off to Ambassador's Residence, we took the opportunity to take our obligatory Raya picture. Unfortunately Norman refuse to take pictures and throwing his tantrum. Therefore, if you see our family picture is not as perfect as I want it to be...sigh. Anyway, Selamat Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir Batin everyone!

Norman Harris first birthday in Rome

Gosh, it has been a while since I post anything. Three months to be exact. I am currently a housewife in Rome but yet I find it challenging to keep on updating my blog. This time I have got to do it as it's my baby's first birthday so it a very special one indeed.
As parents, we have been planning to do this for a month before his birthday. The actual work is a week before but we need to come on with the menu, concept, decorations to make sure everything is nice. I didn't want to be one of the parents who keep on obsessing about their children but never throw any birthday party for their children. Instead the will write a long paragraph..telling the whole world that it's their children birthday wishing them all the best things in life. Surely, there is a lot more parents can do than posting pictures of their kids on Facebook for their birthday.

We picked the theme black and yellow. We did blue for his aqiqah so this time something different. The menu is Malaysian as our guests are Malaysian Embassy's home based staff. It's Ramadhan and the party will be for iftar (berbuka puasa) in our house.

His birthday is on 22nd of June which is on Wednesday so we had to host his birthday on weekend i.e. Saturday to make it convenient for everyone. I am happy that I manage to set up his desserts table, which the best so far. I will definitely share all these pictures with Norman one day!