The Soup Queen

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's not that I have not been making soups but life and business intervened. Business, clients, family, life.  Whenever I get tired or bored, I'd head to the kitchen. I'll try a new recipe and a lot of people find cooking tedious (especially in my case when it's just my husband and me). Some people ask me, "Isn't it far easier to head out to the hawker stalls or a coffeeshop and get dinner over and done with?"  After all, I am living in Penang. The island with the most lipsmackingly delicious street food.  I admit that cooking small portions can be tedious BUT as I said, cooking and tinkering in the kitchen is my escape from a world that gets too hectic (at least for me).  Cooking and gardening are my escapes.  So this blog post is inspired by what's growing in my tiny patch of garden.  I've been growing serai or lemongrass in a pot in my garden. It's been thriving happily. But at times...

Today's recipe is not so much a soup but a drink! And this one comes with its own little story. One day, many moons ago, I was at the Tropical Spice Garden. This was at Teluk Bahang, almost near the end of the tourist hotel strip. My sis, cousin and I decided to lunch there, not knowing what we would find. But adventurous girls that we were, we headed there, despite the oncoming drizzle. It didn't help that my sis and cousin were in 'urban attire' - short skirt, shorts, heels. It was a bit of a climb up to the cafe of the spice garden (which by the way is a must-see for horticulture fans. It's a spice garden so it's full of plants and herbs for the green fan.) I'd been on the spice garden walk years ago so we skipped that. We were there for the grub. Which wasn't much and that itself was a disappointment. The cafe basically served as a snack and beverage corner though the view of the sea off Batu Feringgi was amazing. Imagine, post-rain, the aquamarine s...