Doggy Desserts and Carob

Buddy had his birthday muffin made for him last year and then mum went to learn baking doggy biscuits in Three Dog Bakery. And then it all stopped. No more home baked stuff after Cadet went to heaven. Sob :(

Last week dad pulled out this book about baking for dogs called Doggy Desserts by Cheryl Gianfrancesco and started flipping through the pages. Next he saw 3 packs of Carob chips that mum got from her colleague from the US still in their original wrappings. Our luck changed.

A day later, they bought some organic wholemeal flour from "Great". Soon after dad messing around with the spatula in the kitchen putting all the below ingredients together, the muffin mix was ready. 25 minutes in the oven and this Banana Carob Chip Muffins came out as if by magic. Mum and dad had a taste of it. Yummy!!

1.75 cups wholemeal flour
0.25 cup honey
0.50 cup carob chips
1.00 egg
0.25 cup veggie oil
0.25 cup milk
1.00 mashed up banana (pick a ripe one)
1.00 tsp baking powder
1.00 tsp baking soda

Our only comment is the muffin taste more like human food than dog food. All good for us. Check out the book for more exciting experiments and lets hope we get more from the home bakery.



NB - Carob is an excellent source of pectin which makes it a good colon cleanser. More on carob in wikipedia.
Also if any of you know where one can buy carob chips in Hong Kong, please let us know.
We will talk about another good colon cleanser, epsom salt in another article.

Bad birdies

Of course this is a different type of birdies that everyone is trying to get in golf. These are the birdies which pecked away our beloved peaches from the 2 small peach trees in our balcony. Mum and dad got them after they saw a similar tree in the flower show last month. And then 2 weeks ago when we went up to the balcony, we smelt the smell of ripen peaches. Surprise, surprise, those fruits are not for us. All we can do was looking up and hoping that we will get given one!!

The birdies which visited the balcony don't need permission, they just flew down and took liberty in feasting themselves to the peaches still hanging on the trees. Mum and dad noticed that one were eaten when they went up last night and now there are 3 more destroyed goods. The birdies did one good thing for us though, they forced an early harvest of all the ripen fruit. We will get to share the spoil.

Mind you if mum and dad are not careful, we might get bad birdies visiting during the day and scary fruit bats swooping in at night. Check out Mount Butler Drive after 9pm, you will find quite a few fruit bats flying around there!!

A great way to bond

Whenever we walk past pet shops and see other mutts being groomed by the pet-shop groomers, we always thought these mutts do not know what they are missing. We just had one of our regular grooming sessions and we are looking smart again. Mum and dad will always take an extra good look at us whenever we get our coat groom, just a great way to bond. You should ask your parents to groom you as well. After all, when you see some of the gremlins which come out from the pet shop after being groomed by "professional", you have only got yourself to blame if you don't ask.

Finally, it's Buddy's turn!!

Another visitor

We are always delighted to see butterflies and we even tried to chase after them. You don't need us to tell you what happen afterward....... There seems to be more butterflies in the garden nowadays and yu won't be surprise when you see this picture. Again, not mum's cup of tea and they destroy her precious plants. The caterpillars always get taken outside to the public park when they are found.

Resident Spider

There are plenty of creepy crawlies living in our area and some decide to settle down in our garden without so much of an invitation. This spider for instance have been sewn its web on our largest tree for the last 2-3 weeks.

Mum is always worry that one day it will crawl out of its web and jump on her while she's on the couch watching TV. Just like all the horror movies she watched!!

NB Water is spray on hoping to get the documentary-like effect, but probably need a longer lens to capture the effect properly.

Animal Interruptions

In Hong Kong, most places have the no dogs allowed sign posted everywhere. So unlike our cousins in say Paris who can go into a department store or a street-side cafe without fear, we can't go anywhere openly. Some other dogs travel around hiding in carrier bags, but we are not a big fan of those bags.

The picture above is from the Reuters news site with the caption below:
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTXE880#a=10

An umpire orders a dog that disrupted play off the pitch in the opening game of the 2009 Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket tournament between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in Cape Town, South Africa, April 18, 2009.

REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

Whose dog was it? How can it get on the pitch to start with? He doesn't look like a mascot. Perhaps dogs are allowed to watch cricket in South Africa.

Just an aside, IPL is the richest cricket tournament in the world and it's being held in South Africa instead of India because of security reasons.

Dreaming about $$$ - Part2

Little do I know the relevance of this photo in relation to the title and it can be turned into reality. The photo above was from the same series as a blog entry from 2 years ago. "Hedge Hogging" is all about hedge funds, from a unique perspective of a veteran market practitioner in starting a hedge fund. Insights into how hedge funds make money and why some eventually failed. This is a great book to read again given that hedge funds have turned from studs to duds in the 2 years since the photo was taken. Of course, Scottie is still dreaming about money and all the treats in the world that money can buy!!!



More importantly, auntie has been nagging us to put all our favorite books in the blog and have them linked to Amazon. If you find these books interesting, click on the links and eventually buy the book. You can help us realise our dreams of eternal supply of delicious tidbits. Of course, we will do our level best to get mum and dad to put more of these reviews on our blog and keep improving them after they are published. Happy reading and keep dreaming.

16,444,444 Youtube hits and counting

Every morning, our radio get switched on and we get to listen to all sorts of mumbo jumbo blasting through the airwaves by Commercial Radio 2 (CR2). On a Clear Day (在晴朗的一天出發) is our favorite, not that we have any choice in the matter.

This morning we heard this name, Susan Boyle, repeated many times. Once you see the youtube clip below, you will know why. Lets enjoy the music and be absolutely stunned like everybody else the world over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

What is also interesting is the link below:

http://news.google.com.hk/news/story?q=susan+boyle&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dfvddUE-MFIZ4rM&hl=en&ei=bvPnSYXvPIaMkAWBseCVBw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1

This shows you the surge of worldwide interest in the subject in the last few days, noting that the episode of "Britain got Talent 2009" was broadcast on 11 April 2009.

Move over "Trouble", Obama "Bo" taking over

The most famous dog in the world - this title belongs to "Trouble" who inherited US$12,000,000 after her owner, Leona Helmsley died last year. She's been involved in court battle and death threats since. Poor girl!!

But now, if you take "Trou" out of "Trouble", you get "Bo". The new title owner of the world's most famous dog, the First Dog and yes Obama family dog. As widely reported, he is a Portugese Water dog.

This breed is apparently good for allergic persons as the coat sheds little to no hair and is virtually hypo-allergenic.

Just when you thought 12m is a big number, Bo being the First Dog will have an impact on Obama's decisions on the economy, probably not to the same extent as Nancy Reagan and her astrologer, but just the TARP program alone is worth US$700,000,000,000.

Perhaps Bo will get death threats if the government can't get the economy going again. But meanwhile, lets wish her a peaceful life in the White House.

More Orchids

Another batch of blooms. These orchids are different.

For my fans

You probably wondering why there are no recent photo updates from us. All you see are dad's photos of one thing or another except us. Of course, we have our own way to remind them who are the precious ones. So I, Scottie, decided to go and pee in mum and dad's bathroom, while mum fell asleep and dad was on the computer!!...... So now they know.

And you get a photo of me. But Buddy is too busy watching his goldfish, so no photo for him, only what he's looking at.

Creepy Crawlies and Slimy Creatures

The warmer season is coming back to us again. At night we can see little shadows dotted around the street we walk. Sometimes they are just wilted leaves but often they will jump when we decide to pounce on them. They are the local colonies of frogs which make a huge symphony of noise late into midnight. It's not the famous "ribbit" (US frog's sound) or "croak" (UK frog's sound) but more like "kwaak kwaak" (German frog's sound). Chasing these slimy creatures is our favourite pastimes, probably not mum and dad's cup of tea though. They crawl up on walls, jump around the backyard and last night even jumped into the house!! They come in different colours and sizes. But then we can't tell and don't care what species they are.

Of course, there are plenty others that get mum excited. Some even we can't see properly and especially the beautiful colours.