Death.

I have always seen patients at the end of their lives at the hospital.

I have never seen the 'after'. Aftermath. How the grieving family deals with it. How the funeral is. What is after.

The end is final. Sometimes we can already guess. My daily job is to break bad news. Every day, there is always at least 1 bad news.

Your family member is dying.

He/she may most possibly not survive.

No matter how they beg me to help, I am helpless.

I am not God. I am not the answer to your hopes and prayers. I am trying as best as I can.

The is always a limit to what we, at the hospital, can do for your loved ones.

We are not heartless. The end is always final. It is always sad. No matter how hard we try to prolong it, no matter how we try to ease the end, it always comes.

Death is a promise. It is one thing that is one truth we have to understand and embrace. Young or old.

It is not that I do not want to see the aftermath. I just cannot. I have to move on. If you see the same thing I do, day in and day out, if we do not develop a mechanism to make it bearable, we will not survive. So we survive. Each in our own way.

If you see us discussing deaths so cavalierly, it is not that we do not have any empathy nor we disregard any life. No. We just have to make it as it is. For us to function.

But trust me, there are days some faces haunted us. Some stories. Some family members. Some words. Some little things like a smile, a hand who held yours, a touch, a word. We will live with that. We have to.

Flan/Caramel Pudding/Cream Caramel/Whatever-You-Want-To-Call-It Recipe

This recipe is adapted from myriad of online recipes I found. Reasons are, well, I don't like my dessert to sweet (it is still TOO sweet, as you will see from the amount of sugar) and I don't like eggs. Period. I adapt it to suit my needs and what I have but hey, it works.

Photography is not my forte, so alas, enjoy the lopsidedness of this picture. Please do ignore the little bubbles, as I am impartial to imperfections. It still tastes divine, bubbles or not.

This recipe will amount to 3 normal sized mugs. I used mugs as I don't have the equipment for baking (I need to pans for the boiling hot water, which I do not have) and I don't have a steamer. I used my housemate's rice cooker (she has the family-sized one, I have the small one, so to fit 3 mugs, I used her).

Serving: 3 persons (very generous portion)

Preparation:

1. 3 mugs (normal sized, as in ones you can generally get anywhere, even from RM 2 shops) 

2. Boil your water in the rice cooker (generally we put about 1/4 height of our mugs of water)

Ingredients:

Caramel sugar syrup 

• 3/4 cups of white sugar (120g) - equals to 1/4 cup (40g) of sugar per mug
• 3/8 cups of water (60mL) - equals to 1/8 cup (20mL) of water per mug
• 3/8 cups of boiling water (60mL) - equals to 1/8 cup (20mL) of boiling water per mug (this is used at the end, when your sugar caramel mixture turned golden brown)

Pudding

• 5 medium to large sized eggs (I used grade B eggs)
• 600mL milk - equals to 200mL per mug, if you like more, you can add more milk. 200mL is sufficient per mug
• 1/2 to 3/4 cups of sugar - I prefer 1/2 cup (I actually add another 1/8 cup to my 1/2 cup, as I am making this for my housemates too, not just for me), usual recipe calls for 3/4 (1/4 cup for each mug), follow your own preference 
• Splash of vanilla - to mask the eggy smell

Instruction:

1. Put 3/4 cups of white sugar and 3/8 cups of water together on a pan and boil it on low to medium heat, I used low heat to control the browning of my caramel sauce
2. At the same time, boil 3/8 cups of water
3. Once your sugar and water mixture turns golden brown, swish it around to even the colour to get the maple syrupy colour you want and turn off the heat
4. Pour the 3/8 cups of boiling water onto your hot caramel syrup mixture, close the lid of your pand and swish it around so that your syrup is less sticky - this is important as your syrup mixture will become stickier and hardened fast, this boiling water step is to prolong the period before your syrup becomes sticky and hard to pour
5. Pour the hot caramel sauce into 3 separate mugs in equal doses, well, as equally as possible, if you can
6. Then mix your pudding ingredient together until well combined, I whisk the eggs first to break the yolk before adding sugar and milk
7. Sift your pudding mixture to remove any lumps onto your 3 separate mugs
8. Cover each of the mug with foil (and I used rubber band to make the foil snug) and put the mugs into your boiling water in the rice cooker. You can substitute rice cooker with an oven or pan, as long as your pan is deep enough for boiling water to reach about 1/4th the height of your mugs. You need this water bath to cook your pudding evenly. If you use a pan (on your stove), put the heat into low to medium heat
9. I cook my caramel for 10-15 minutes, until the middle part is jiggly (not runny/watery, but jiggly as in almost solid), then turn of the heat and let the pudding steam for another 15 minutes
10. The cool the mug on room air for 1-2 hours and then put the mug in the fridge for at least 6 hours
11. Then, reveal time! Put a knife at the edge of the pudding and put the mug upside down onto a shallow dish and voila! Your flan is ready to be devoured, errrr, consumed!

Times Of COVID

While this MCO is not really MCO for me (other than not being able to go home to KL to see my family, business is as usual for me, as in my days are the usual), I have been doing things I haven't done or before.

I have started to cook again (ah, reminds me of the good old student days in New Zealand). Just because food it hard to come by, and takeout does not interest me anymore after eating the same thing over and over again.

I have started to be interested in plants. Yes, plants. It started with not being able to get my hands on curry leaves. Then it became another whole new interest after seeing Mardhati and Kalai's garden of herbs, spices, vegetables and plants.

Then, lastly, I got addicted to buying groceries and random household items. From RM2 shop, DIY shop, supermarkets and Shopee. Yes, I am doomed. So doomed.

One thing that is surely not budging, is my career. Exam is postponed, thus I am stuck where I am in this rut until I can move forward and sit for my exam. For now, this has to be in the back burner.