A day with stamps and yummy milk dishes

Posted by shuping under Blogging, Lifestyle, Museums/Heritage Galleries, Personal
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Located at Coleman Street, near City Hall area, Singapore Philatelic Museum (SPM) houses stamps which tell the postal history of Singapore. In conjunction with the International Museum Day, 31^st May 2009 (Sunday) was the day of open houses for several museums. Taking this opportunity, I decided to have a look at the SPM especially after watching the first episode of ‘Amuse U’ on Channel U, when they introduced the museum.

I am not a collector of stamps but I was still fascinated by the different stamps exhibited at the museum.

Issued in 1856, The Black on Magenta is the one of the rare stamps in the world

The Treskilling Yellow was the most valuable stamp in the world, and was sold for 2.5 million Swiss francs in 1996. Its original colour should be in green but was printed in yellow by mistake

This is one of the ‘action replay’ stamps. When you tilt the stamp, it seems as if the runners on the stamp are running. This is due to the optics in the special lens material of the stamp

As the name suggests, the kids will need to stamp on the canvas with many stamp designs on it. They would start by throwing a dice and according to the cue given from the dice, decide on which stamp design to stamp on.

"I'm going to throw the dice now"

"Then now I step on the stamp designs"

Kids can also make prints by colouring on the paper, which was placed over the stencils.

They can also make their own postcards and envelopes at ‘Send your love the write way’.

the self-made postcard and envelope

the postcard done by one of the kids

the proud participant with his self-made postcard and envelope

You can also have your caricatures drawn at SPM.

the caricature of one of the visitors

What got me really excited was the milky cooking demonstration later that afternoon. We were given three recipes (Macaroni cheese, Bread pudding and milk pudding) but were only taught two of it (macaroni cheese and bread pudding) due to time constraints. The recipes were easy to follow and the instructor, Tresnawati, General Manager of SPM, was very engaging. The kids were all excited to learn that they rushed right up to the instructor’s table to take a look while she cooked. Held in conjunction with the Cow and Bull Story exhibition, all the recipes had milk as an ingredient and were healthy dishes for the whole family.

the instructor leading the demonstration

the instructor allowing the kids to try the boiled macaroni

pouring in the milk to cook the sauce for the macaroni cheese

stirring the sauce

pouring in the vegetables and minced meat onto the macaroni

pouring the sauce onto the macaroni as well

putting the macaroni cheese into the oven

spreading the butter on the bread to prepare for the bread pudding

putting the bread into the dish for baking

putting the raisins in to the dish

pouring the main ingredient of this workshop - milk into the dish

stirring the custurd mixture to be poured onto the bread

pouring the custard mixture onto the bread

it's time for the tasting session!

see how excited the kids are. all rushing forward for the macaroni cheese!

macaroni cheese

milk pudding

the bread pudding

The food tasted so delicious that I could not help but take three servings of macaroni cheese (it’s only a small serving each time) in total, on top of one serving each for the other two dishes. I liked the macaroni cheese the most, partly because I love dishes which included cheese. When the macaroni cheese was in the oven, the fragrant aroma which came out from the cheese was enough to make all who were present hungry. Now, I know what to cook when I do not have much time to prepare for my meals. The three recipes will suffice - an appetizer (bread pudding), a main course (macaroni cheese) and dessert (milk pudding).

I definitely enjoyed this trip to the SPM, especially with the cooking demonstration. It was fun and definitely different from what you would expect from a museum (stamps and cooking demonstration don’t seem to have any links with each other). I think such activities, held in conjunction with the exhibitions, will draw crowds to the museums. Won’t it attract your attention too?

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