Expectations.

The new intern JJ who has just joined us on the 30/8/11, asked me what kind of responses i would expect out of the new market project ( will be talked about in a separate posting) which we will be diving into this week. i shrugged and said, any response would be good. If not this marketing effort would at the very least spread the news to the receiving ends of the email that JFF existed and is very much alive and happening! 

From previous experiences (8, 9 years ago), when i started peddling packets of dried snow jelly to the medical halls. I get snubbed by all the chinese TCM educated grey hair folks. Some of them were vehemently insisted that my product is a fake (!!??!). I spent weeks and months, travelling to their medical halls with cooked and raw but soaked samples for them asking them to try for themselves to see the difference. I was SUPER enthusiastic, they were much less interested. Out of the 25 shops i visited, only 7 eventually agreed to put our products on consignment. To date, only 3 of them still maintained an account with us. The shops that i subsequently gave up on, placed our products behind closed cupboards.. or underneath stacks of other brands of dried snow jelly.

” Its ok that you do not want to sell my snow jelly. I have 100% faith in my products and you ought to have some respect for it!.” 

Bottomline is to manage your expectation but full conviction on your product!

Ivy Singh-lim,

the President of KCA, my mentor. If u had caught her speech last evening at Mr Tan kin lian’s rally, you will either be in awe of her courage or worry if her words will land her in any kind of soup. I definitely respect her principals, candidness and guts to stand in front of a large audience and say the same things as she would to a smaller group of people. That to me is honesty. True that u can be honest with tact, but if I were her, at 62 yrs of age, i wouldn’t have much reservations to speak my mind too!
 
Until this morning I was in a delimma on who I should give my vote to. In fact i even did considered nulling my vote. But now that I’ve used the elimination method.. the answer is pretty clear. Ok back to work now… whichever candidate wins this election, life goes on as per usual. How much of change would you want and expect from him? 

 

Halt to the Trial

but thats ok.. This trial was interrupted by a 10 days holiday to Japan. In the quest of looking for more collagen related products, I made up my mind to PAUSE everything I was doing and go on this trip.

This trip was very eventful and was indeed a refreshing  getaway to a world where everyone looks beautiful, well-groomed and contented.

I thought of bringing a packet of the dried snow jelly there but in the end i left it as just that.. a THOUGHT. I didnt find any sushi bar that serves frog sashimi. Oh well, what were i thinking.

I read somewhere about how there could only be 2 fundamental sources of human motivation- Desperation or Aspiration. The Japanese certainly must be motivated by the latter.

While the Chinese do businese based on “Guan Xi”, Japanese do so based on “Wa” – which means harmony and peace. Even though they do not speak my language (English) they try to explain themselves in their language coupled with universal sign language. The sales girls there laugh at absolutely everything and anything you say even though they do not understand you. HMMmm.. seems pretty silly sometimes.. but did they manage to build a rapport..?? Absolutely.

Happy National Day

to everyone!

Thank you to those who visited the farm on 9/8/11!!

A group of youths came in to catch frogs!!


“We will catch this frog with our Teamwork!”


“YAY! We caught it!”


“I can do it on my own now!”


More of them joined in the fun thereafter!


Good Job guys!

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Remember to check out the Special Promotions that will be published in The New Paper tomorrow(12/8), 19/8(Fri) and 26/8(Fri)!

We hope to see you croaking at the farm soon!

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7th Day SJ Trial – Lemon Ceylon Tea with Longan & Collagen Bits

To make this is as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Soak the Tea Bag in a half a cup of warm water.

2. Add in 4-5 Longans (do not add in syrup!!)

3. Add in 100 ml of (soaked and Boiled in rock sugar) Snow Jelly.

OK- Maybe 4 steps. Lastly, add in some ice cubes!!

Swarmed with lots of admin work today.. so cooking is not an option. That is why its useful to stock up the soaked and boiled in Rock sugar Hashima in the fridge! In fact, other than for preparation of this trial i have been cooking tens of bowls; in fact by today it would have been at least a 100 BOWLS of Royal Snow Jelly in this week. We have an order for 99 bowls of dessert for a RC group coming tomorrow morning. And on Sunday, we will be participating in a 9am-12pm event at Teck Whye CC. We will be selling our Royal Snow Jelly and the Applicious Collagen Desserts there!! So please do show your support by showing up at our stall!

Hosting Herpetology

thrice a week!

YCK Primary 1 students are a spontaneous bunch! I enjoyed hosting them throughout!

What I’ve been implementing at every single stations: if you want to get the kids to really understand what they’ve learned, get them to repeat important points at the end of every station. And at the end of the tour, ask them again!

Don’t we all get sick of memorising? If we understand what we’ve learned, every information will automatically get ‘saved’ into our memory! ‘Retrieving’ the information is ‘easy-peasy’!

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Remember to check out The New Paper for the Map of the Kranji Countryside TODAY! Also, check out the Special Promotions that will be published in The New Paper on the 12/8 (Fri), 19/8(Fri) and 26/8(Fri)!

We hope to see you  croaking at the farm soon!

Happy National Day to all! 🙂

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Cherie Hearts

braving the rain!

Although it was raining, the kids’ excitement was not dampen at all! Well done! Today marks my 2nd hosting of the Herpetology WS!

Cherie Hearts consist of very young kids of ages 4-6 and they need to take a longer time to fill in answers. However, good job to them for being receptive in learning at such a young age! Different people tend to learn at different phase just like the growing process of frogs! Just to digress, not all tadpoles grow into baby frogs in the same week; some tend to take a longer time to grow into a frog!

Before I end off, here’s a famous quote that I really like “It’s not the destination that matters but the journey that counts.” Because all the lessons we learned comes from the journey.

I hope we’ll all learn something new everyday! 🙂

(P.s I figured that if the kids are shy to make any interaction, I need to change my presentation technique and so I did! ;))

6th Day of SJ Trial – Savoury Collagen Omelette

I must admit that i’m pretty tired of adding snow jelly in all the sweet desserts. Today i am going to experiment with adding the Processed Snow Jelly (Pls read below) into my favourite omelette. I remember seeing this cook performing this recipe in a cooking show before when i was younger and Mum actually did tried it!

Guess i must be pretty young when Mum was buying the dried snow jelly from medical halls. I do have recollections of her using a tweezer to pluck out those black specs and threads etc.. the smell of those products were pungent so she usually add in ginger in her cooking to kill that smell.

When i was in my mid teens, Dad started experimenting processing the snow jelly from the raw products and our family eat A LOT of that. Luckily for sweet toothed me, i aLWAYS like hashima for its texture and that it’s always done sweetened. I have ever even frequent Soup Restaurant to take away their Double boiled Hashima with rock sugar for $6 – $8 a bowl. The portion was meagre!!=(

Back to this recipe, the result was fantastic! As Froggie Guide has suggested, it has a bit of the oyster omelette bite. This recipe is certainly one which i will definitely try again! It took me barely 10 mins to get it done!

Recipe (serves 3):

1. Beat 3 eggs together with a pinch of salt and pepper

2. Cut up a small stalk of chives and 2 small slices of ginger.

3. 50 gms of soaked (In plain water) snow jelly. You may boil this portion of snow jelly for about 15 mins first before sieving it out. 

4. Heat up wok with some vegetable oil. Add in (1), followed by (2), Lastly (3) when omelette is 75% cooked.

5. Serve Hot!

5th Day of Snow Jelly Trial – Steamed Snow Jelly in Papaya boat

 

Have you ever experienced any form of obsession?

I read a Malcolm Gladwell book which suggests how genius are not born ingenious; they are products of 10,000 times of obsessive trials & tribulations. Yup yup.. its only been 5 days but i do think thats where this snow jelly experiment is heading now..

Honestly i do need all the beauty need  i can get! Work is overwhelming man. Workers issues, payment due dates, restocking inventories, month end statement of accounts, KCA’s demands of the Hon Sec, walk in visitors and friends, teachers on recce. Have i forgotten to mention the 86 kids from YCKPS and 40 ducklings from PCF  Froggy guide and I hosted this morning?

Yes… this is Life at JFF.

Ok back to the Snow jelly, “TCM practitioners believe that it can strengthen the functions of organs such as liver and lungs, therefore lowering blood lipids, promoting active blood circulation, boosting the immune system and promoting the brain cells’ ability to utilise oxygen..” (* Source from The Straits Times, Mind your Body 12.5.11)

Sadly, hashima has never undergone any clinical trials. Which means another opportunity for us to get these claims scientifically proven!! This adds another thing to do to my LIST OF THINGS TO DO (Completion Date: 30.06.2016)

Disclaimer: ONLY IF annihilation doesn’t happen in 2012.

Recipe:

1. Read Day 3 Post for How to prepare Cooked Snow Jelly from Dried Snow Jelly.

2. Slice a papaya into thick strips of about 10 cm each.

3. Cut out a box in the middle to create a papaya boat. Use a dessert spoon to scoop out the seeds and papya flesh.

4. Add in processed Snow jelly, fresh milk and some rock sugar for taste (according to preference) into the papaya boat.

5. Steam this portion under low heat for 20 mins.