Yummy Twist Potatoes!
Twist Potato (from www. twistpotato. com.my)
This post is quite overdue, but I must make this special mention because we had a fantastic sponsor who helped us!
Last year, in a bid to raise some money for our class fund, my homeroom of 2011 (5 Columbus) decided to open a stall during the school’s Merdeka Day carnival. This carnival was held in conjunction with the country’s National Day, and it was an open carnival which meant that public could come into the school. Many classes and clubs opened stalls to sell food, drinks, and products, and some ran games stalls such as a dunking booth and even Haunted Houses.
5 Columbus wanted to set up a food stall that sold fried finger food (I can’t remember the name of what it was they wanted to make initially) and smores (marshmallows with melted chocolate served on cream crackers). The smores were deliciously fabulous, but the fried finger food that they tried to make did not work out so well. They showed me a photo of their failed attempt – it tasted quite good, they said. But it wasn’t in a presentable form. You wouldn’t have bought what they were trying to make.
I knew they were frustrated, and I wanted to help them find something foolproof that they could make. And honestly, the moment they told me they wanted to open a food stall, I already had the solution for them, although I wanted them to figure something out for themselves first. When they hit this roadbump, I immediately called Twist Potato Malaysia.
Twist Potato Malaysia is actually a division within Fresco Cocoa Supply, and this division sells machines that makes potatoes into a lovely spiral – hence the name “twist potato”. Even when uncooked, the shape of the potato is aesthetically pleasing.
However what would make the potatoes sell is not the machine, nor the shape. It was the taste. If it was delicious, no matter how it looked, the potatoes would sell.
And this was where I found Twist Potato really awesome.
The Twist Potato machine is very easy to use. Just a quick twist, and voila! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.
Twist Potato Malaysia does not only sell the machines to make the spirals; they also sell their Magic Flour, as well as more than twenty different flavouring powder to accompany the twist potatoes. The key to the delicious twist potatoes lies not in the twist potatoes, but in their Magic Flour.
What’s so special about their Magic Flour?
The Magic Flour, which is made from their secret recipe, makes it so easy to cook a potato. All you need to do is add some water, oil, and salt; then coat the potatoes with the batter and deep fry them. Quite frankly, you don’t even need twist potatoes, or even potatoes. You can just slice potatoes thinly and coat them with the batter, or even use other foodstuff like fruits or vegetables. Coated with the Magic Flour batter and deep fried, they’ll taste better than our local delicacies such as goreng pisang or goreng nangka.
Twist Potato Malaysia helped me out without hesitation when I called them; I wanted to rent the machine, but instead they lent it to us for free, and even sponsored us three different seasonings. They even lent us their buntings which reduced our need to decorate our stall. All we needed to do was just buy the Magic Flour, and promote twist potatoes.
Actually, we didn’t even need to promote them. The twist potatoes promoted themselves.
The twist potatoes sold like hot cakes during the carnival; we sold so much more twist potatoes than our smores did. We had so many repeat customers, and the lines were so long. We made a lot of twist potatoes in advance, before the lunch crowd came in; but when the crowd really began to swell, the twist potatoes were snapped up so fast that we had to start taking orders instead. We didn’t expect the twist potatoes to sell out so fast; in fact, we had been quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to sell enough to cover our cost. Our home deep-fryers were not able to cook fast enough. Had we known we were going to sell out, we would have brought our own gas stove!
The stall busy selling Twist Potatoes. Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.
We still had orders coming in way after the official closing time of the Merdeka Carnival, and were forced to stop only when the carnival official politely but firmly told us that it was time to call it a day.
Thank you very much, Twist Potato Malaysia! Your wonderful twist potatoes sold so much that we not only covered our cost, we made a considerable profit. (In fact we had losses from the smores because they didn’t sell as well as planned, but the twist potatoes more than covered that loss.)
Hon Wye enjoying a twist potato! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.
If you are looking for business opportunities with Twist Potato Malaysia, I would tell you that they are a fantastic company to work with, without a doubt. Even though we were merely using their machine to sell twist potatoes for just one day, they were very generous and they were willing to spend a considerable amount of time to teach me how to make the twist potatoes to ensure that they will sell. I tell you the truth – it is so easy to make the twist potatoes that are ready for sale. I didn’t even need to teach my students ahead of time; I brought all the items with me on the morning of the carnival, and spent about ten minutes teaching them what to do, and they took it from there.
I would also like to say : to 5 Columbus 2011, you guys rock! All of you really worked hard and contributed so much to the class through this stall. You know I miss you already!
August 13, 2010
The first stitch I’ve ever gotten
I received the first stitch of my life about one month after my 31st birthday.
On Friday, 6th August 2010, Sri KDU organised a Merdeka Carnival in conjunction with Patriotic Run, which is the school’s mini-marathon. It is usually held in conjunction with National Day, but this year because the fasting month was starting on 11th August 2010, the school decided to have the run earlier.
My class was planning to make a maze of terror, and were only allowed to start our preparations on Thursday 4pm. I stayed back with the kids until 11.30pm to get as much done as possible, but the maze was still far from finished, and we had to come back early the next morning to continue work. The guards told us we could get in by 6am, but I was too tired and decided to get there by 7am. Bryan Homi asked me to pick him up from Zhou Han’s house, but because they overslept, I had to WAIT FOR THEM and we ended up reaching school close to 7.30am.
I was trying to fold the metal legs on the wooden table when the leg snapped at the ring finger on my right hand. I didn’t feel the pain at first; all I saw was BLOOD. My immediate reaction was, “Oh, we have real blood here.” Then I ran all the way to the school infirmary to ask the nurse to clean it up and to put on a dressing. The nurse took one look, and told me I needed stitches. I asked her, “What, now?” She must have thought that it was a really silly question. But what actually ran through my head was, “I need to be at the maze to monitor the students.” She didn’t clean up the wound, but put two tight layers of dressing to tide me until I get to the hospital.
I then ran back to the special classroom to get my handbag, but because I hadn’t had breakfast, I could feel the nausea building up. Jasmine Leong saw me, and stopped me to ask what was wrong – she said I had gone so pale!
She was going to accompany me to the hospital, but she couldn’t drive; so she got Mr Lee Wing Hong (the new Chem teacher) to drive me instead.
I went into the emergency ward and was given two shots: one painkiller in my ass, and another in my arm for tetanus. The nurse then opened the dressing but had a hard time taking it off because the school nurse had put the first layer on so tightly. She cleaned it and then put a basic dressing on it. They then recommended I get an X-ray done to ensure that there was no fracture.
After the X-rays, a hand specialist took a look and said that it didn’t require major surgery and said I only needed stitches. They were going to get an orthopaedist to take a look at it, but he was busy at that time so the emergency ward nurses suggested we go for breakfast instead and to come back in half an hour.
When we came back after breakfast, we were told that orthopaedist had come down in our absence, and they then sent us upstairs to see him. We had to wait for about half an hour before we were called in. The orthopaedist, Dr Soong, opened up the basic dressing and was going to do only another dressing before taking a second look and realising that I needed stitches.
He first administered a local anaesthetic, which was injected at the base of my ring finger. I couldn’t bear to watch that one… IT HURT!!!! I could feel the sensation of the anaesthetic traveling to my finger. But it quickly numbed my finger and the stitching process didn’t hurt at all. In fact, I was able to watch the entire stitching process without squirming or wincing at all. I was quite interested and fascinated because I had never received stitches before in my life!
Dr Soong was quite surprised and impressed that I could watch the whole stitching process. It was Mr Lee who was squirming with his shirt pulled up over the bottom half of his face.
We got back to the school late – at 11.30am. That’s 3 hours after the accident happened.in the hospital! The kids were already running the maze and there was already a line.
I’m going to be removing my stitches on Monday (hopefully) after 10 days. It was supposed to be removed tomorrow but I’ll be accompanying the kids to the debate competition at IIU.
I didn’t manage to take photos during the stitching, because I couldn’t have possibly managed it at that point in time; and poor Mr Lee was squirming too much. I did manage to take a photo of the stitched finger though… if you’re not squeamish, you can view them here.
Oh, and the class managed to make a little profit from the maze. The important thing was that we covered cost, which fortunately we did.
August 14, 2009
Best Birthday Ever!
OKOK. I’d better write this down before I forget to, and the news becomes so old that it’s not interesting anymore. It’s just that I had no time, what with the class tests and the dance competition and falling sick.
My birthday was last month, on the 8th of July. I had shamelessly been announcing my impending birthday in vain hopes that I would, for once, be able to get something from my birthday wishlist, and I mean my birthday wishlist. Nothing of the sort happened, of course. Except for the dark chocolates. Oh, but at least I didn’t get any plumbing accessories this time 
Anyway my birthday was off to a good start with dinner with close friends at The Ship. It was fun and enjoyable, but if I thought I could escape the “Happy Birthday” singing, there was no such luck. While other places like TGIF merely get all their staff to sing very loudly, The Ship blasts the birthday song over their speakers so that everyone in the restaurant knows it’s someone’s birthday.
![Birthday fun at The Ship! [Kodie not in the photo because he's taking the pic]](http://www.zyenhoo.com/blogger/2009/08/20090704_theship.jpg "Birthday fun at The Ship!")
Birthday fun at The Ship! (Kodie not in the photo because he's taking the pic)
We took a lot of photos… Take a look!!!
Sunday saw a brief celebratory lunch with some of my dance teammates. Tracy made me beautiful cupcakes, every single one personally handpiped by herself. The cupcakes were absolutely delicious! She bought us lunch at Starbucks before making everyone embarrass me with a “Happy Birthday” song…
Tracy's beautiful cupcake. She says her sifu told her it takes 600 tries before she'd get a perfect rose, but it already looks beautiful to me
Me with Tracy and her cupcakes
More photos of the beautiful cupcakes here!! Must-see!!!
My family then took me out fo a nice quiet dinner at Sri Siam. Erm, there’s no photo because it was a really simple dinner.
Tuesday night, on my birthday eve, I went for dance class which is usually followed by dance practice. One of the ladies who attends the social dance class, Eloise, usually brings her 6-year-old daughter Jye Yi to the class, but because the little girl usually can’t cope with the adult-level class, I spend time with the little girl, teaching her the basics and dancing with her so that she doesn’t lose interest in the dance. Because I spend so much time with her, she became quite attached to me; and she found out my birthdate… through the expedient method of asking me.
She made her father take her out to buy a cake, and insisted on coming to class to give me the cake. Fortunately it wasn’t a class celebration, because everyone left quite quickly when the class was over (phew!) but for the little girl’s sake, her mother and her aunt (both of them attend the social dance class) sang a quick round of Happy Birthday, and I cut the cake to give the little one a slice. She had bought a delicious coffee cake… yummm :)
Jye Yi and I
Wednesday… my actual birthday. I have to say that it was simply the best birthday I’ve celebrated at Sri KDU, ever. The day got progressively better
I had ordered mini-cupcakes from a friend, with the intention of giving each of my students one, and some of my colleagues (can’t give EVERYONE… there’s too many). I ordered the cupcakes because I knew that I couldn’t expect people to celebrate my birthday with me, so the only way to make sure I’m not alone in my celebration is to MAKE THEM CELEBRATE IT WITH ME.
The mini-cupcakes I distributed to my students and friends
The first class of the day was 4 Newton who, instead of the customary “Good morning, Miss Hoo” sang “Happy Birthday”. That was a nice greeting
"Everyone do the Japanese pose!!"
And… surprise, surprise. Some of my tuition students actually got me a cake!!! I was quite touched; it was the first time I ever received a cake from students not in my class. Muaxes to all of you 
With Lydia’s help, they got me a very pretty chocolate cake.
With the 5A kids who bought me the cake
Shaun attempting to stab Kareem with the superlong knife
The second class was 4 Aristotle, who used to drive me nuts the whole year by always singing “Happy Birthday”. But when I walked into class, they refused to sing it to me, and gave me the customary “Good morning” greeting instead. And when they did sing, they sang it to one of their classmates Gary instead. After a bit of hemming and hawing, Juno finally came forward with a papercard which everyone signed. And they said they didn’t know how old I was, so they wrote every number they could think of – “Happy 16th birthday”… “Happy 32nd birthday”… “Happy 48th birthday”… But of all the numbers everyone wrote, no one got the right number.
Me with 4 Aristotle
The class immediately after that was 4 Mozart, and they sent people outside to stop me from going in. I guess it would have been obvious to anyone as to what they were planning, especially since the lights were off and so many of them were holding cameras, but I had long taught myself not to expect anything. And… so when I went in, they had a cake with candles lit and everyone burst into song, I actually started crying. And unfortunately, a few of them caught my tears on camera. =.=”
But I don’t mind admitting it. I was truly overwhelmed, especially since this class isn’t even my homeroom, yet they were thoughtful enough to throw me a surprise party. If I could, I’d take them in as my homeroom, too.
"Everyone look at Miss Hoo!"
I don’t have photos of the cake 4M prepared for me though. I didn’t have my camera ready, I was too busy wiping the tears away.
The best surprise was yet to come though. 4M had done something great, and it would be right to expect my homeroom to do something better, but like I said, I had taught myself not to expect anything. But during lunchtime, it was obvious that they were planning something, because from my seat in the staffroom, I saw quite a few of my students walking by the doors, and the moment they spotted me through the glass, they quickly doubled back. Then Darryl was sent in to ask me to step out. He pretended to want to ask me a Chemistry question, but it was so obviously a lie, that I handed him my camera. What was waiting outside for me was beyond anything I had expected…
I GOT A HUMAN GREETING CARD!!! IT’S THE BEST CARD I’VE EVER RECEIVED!!!
My human greeting card is so big, I get to stand inside it!
And on top of that, they got me a cake! And embarrassed me in front of everyone by singing “Happy Birthday” very loudly at the cafeteria.
The cake 4 Dickens bought. I'm at the cafeteria where they embarrassed me by singing "Happy Birthday" very loudly.
I had no more tears left, but I was still very touched. It trumps 4M’s surprise party, hehe.
I was surprised at how quickly everyone disappeared back to class when the bell rang, leaving me and a few others to clean up the mess. And when we got back to class, someone kept saying, “The party isn’t over yet” but it didn’t register until Johann walked in with a second cake…
My second cake from 4 Dickens!!
The day ended with my receiving a beautiful bouquet from Bronya, which she had sent to the school. They were late; it was supposed to be sent in the morning. But nevertheless, it was a great end to a great day.
The lovely bouquet Bronya sent to me at school
Thank you everyone for your wishes, presents, and cakes! I love you all!
Photos of my birthday at school can be viewed here.
May 16, 2009
I got my dark chocolates!! :)
Today was Teacher’s Day at Sri KDU. Initially the teachers were supposed to play games (men – football, ladies – netball) but then the plan was scrapped and nothing was supposed to be on, except for a lunch for the teachers.
I had also initially planned to have a birthday celebration for my homeroom 4 Dickens for the March, April, and May babies, but with the lack of anything special going on, we decided to postpone it to next month.
I didn’t want to go to school today (I don’t work on Thursdays and Fridays), but Lydia asked me to accompany her for the lunch, so I went. I got there about noon – in time to catch the last 5 minutes of the “surprise performances” the students put up for the teachers. Not that it mattered much to me I wasn’t there to celebrate Teacher’s Day.
But even though the students knew I hadn’t planned to be at school today, I still got some gifts!! I GOT MY DARK CHOCS!!! Check that out… Lindt 85% COCOA!!!! YUMMMMM!!!!! And a box of Black Bitter Chocolate with 100% chocolate!!!!
My Teacher's Day gifts! Not all are from students - the food flask and the folded storage box are from the school, the small flask from the PTA, and the bottle of lotion from Mrs Chan.
Thank you to Nadirah, Ee Wen, Florence, Nee Shuang and Ee Ping (my former shadow!!!).
It’s so sad that I can actually name the students who gave me pressies.
Oh! And thank you 4 Mozart for the papercard!!!!
Card from 4 Mozart
Even my own homeroom didn’t give me anything :’( But anyway, thanks, you Chickens :-*
Oh. And I still owe you kids the Chemistry answers.
May 6, 2009
David Archuleta DVD – Not for sale
Hi everyone. It is with regret I have to make the following announcement.
Sony contacted me yesterday and informed me that the DVD on David Archuleta at Sri KDU cannot be sold. They have also advised me to provide a refund on the DVDs that have been sold so far.
My sincerest apologies to Sony, and to everyone, for all the trouble.