One of our favourite restaurants is Maccarina in the Makkari village just an hour’s drive from Hirafu. We have been coming here over 10 years for our “dump the kids” romantic dinner but this year, for the first time, we brought our kids to introduce them to “fancy” food! They are so excited and Matt loved his first taste of Fois Gras! But just look at this amazing salad of local vegetables: each item on the plate required patient individual work: who would split a bean pod lengthwise and display the beans?? A virtuoso display of knife work! This is French cuisine but with an element of Kaiseki: the freshness and original taste of each item are always preserved and never adulterated by overpowering sauces! #maccarina

We (I) FINALLY stopped procrastinating, fueled up on coffee, and made the hour-long journey to Aunty Aini's at Nilai last weekend. We love Malay food. It's the one cuisine that I didn't get to eat much of at home, although there are some overlaps of ingredients with mum's chitti and peranakan dishes. I always have tempoyak in my fridge - for days when I feel like using it as a condiment, or when I feel like cooking ikan masak tempoyak, one of the greatest Malaysian dishes EVAH. But last weekend, I needed to get away from KL, and I'm glad we visited Aunty Aini's. We ordered a fair bit of food on the premise that we would not come back again in a long time (I mean, we took this long to make a first visit!). So out came the gulai lemak cili api dgn ayam, gulai lemak daging salai, gulai lemak itik salai, rendang daging, gulai lemak tempoyak + ikan, ikan masak asam pedas, sambal petai sotong, kerabu pucuk paku, kangkung belacan and side servings of telur masin and tempoyak. They were all good dishes, but the standout would have to be the itik salai in that creamy spicy (as in heat) gravy. The tempoyak fish was beautiful too. None of the adulterated stuff. What we noticed was a generosity of ingredients to make that perfect gravy/sauce, be it masak lemak or asam pedas or tempoyak or sambal. Will we be back? Happily, if someone offers to drive. Because driving home in the afternoon heat, foggy-headed, stomachs taut and almost bursting, is not the most pleasant thing to be doing. Ya know?

There have been much fuzz about the safety and credibility of essential oil claims. I am not surprise because the fact is 90% of so call essential oils that are sold out there are adulterated oils of much lower grade combinations and even with synthetic substances. Labels that says 100% pure may not necessarily be true and definitely not therapeutic certified. So that’s the reason why we continuously educate and advocate about the difference. We use only dōTERRA and we are sharing with you because we are living it. We use these oils diligently, for our son as well as the entire family. We have a community of happy Oiler’s who have benefitted so much from dōTERRA. Unfortunate 99% of the population in Malaysia are still ignorant about it. They including many doctors and physicians can’t tell the difference between what’s real essential oils from aromatic fragrance oils. Much educating is still needed to be done. dōTERRA is a huge part of our life. And that’s why we are sharing this gift. We are truly grateful to have the knowledge and to have found dōTERRA. Alhamdulillah.