The ties that bond




There is a French saying about how the more things change, the more they stay the same. That French dude sure was uncannily perceptive, non?


As evolved as we are from days when our ancestors were hunched and hairy, our basic need for companionship hasn’t wavered. And events on Sunday reaffirmed just that.


Yesterday, we were invited to a sumptuous vegetarian spread at Srilakshmi’s apartment where after a sip of her hot homemade chai, she asked if I'd wanted to try on a sari. My strong instinct for not wanting to look like a retard ethnic poser kicked in and it nearly thwarted my enthusiasm. Thankfully, the chai was so good, it humoured me into gamely saying a “yes!”


Sri pulled out a brown suitcase from her closet and upon unzipping it, 30 or more sparkling saris in various iridescent colours were revealed. And with each sari that she displayed, she added a short story about who gave it to her and on which occasion. It was nothing short of the Indian version of the famous play where an American pioneer lady had patch worked a quilt with blocks of material, each symbolizing a significant time in her life. I picked a gorgeous, light-weight aquamarine sari with beautiful beadwork at the edges. With Sri’s expert help and a couple of sturdy safety-pins, I was transformed -- with matching bangles and bindi to boot – into a Geetha, a Monisha or a regular fancy sari-wearing Indian. I was tickled with glee.


When the giggling died along with the picture taking, we returned to sit by her suitcase. I listened to her stories about her family and her concern for her parents’ well-being in their golden years as she pulled out more saris. She’d also shared how there were so few people here who were truly interested in another culture other than their own. It was then that my heart leapt out to hers. I knew that cultural differences aside and only having met her twice, I felt a connection between us because the shared sentiment was all too familiar.


Surely, back in our hunter and gatherer days, women bonded in very much the same way as we do today.

“Now, this one with the cotton-soft long white fur was what won me over when Grog thumped me over my head and dragged me by the hair into his cave. Totally worth the scars that never healed from those first scrapes and burns down my back!”


Not to be outdone, other competing stories would be thrown into the circle.


“This slightly raggedy one with the blood stains belonged to his toothless Ma. Bull-face had to wrench it out of her deadly clutches even if he did snap off her purple pinkie in the process. Boy, what a die-hard romantic he was back then!”


Our cave women folk would be both heartened by such stories of romance and yet would all be nodding in sympathy at the physical injuries sustained because they too (possibly) have their own hidden scars.


Thankfully, Sri and I were not comparing animal pelts nor scars on our backs, but we were pretty much bonding in a more resplendent way -- over an old suitcase full of glittery saris. And so were the men while they hunkered over their mugs of milky chai in the living room -- perhaps not quite thumping their chests nor grunting – but they too were doing their fair share of male bonding. However we look at it, we are genetically predisposed to bonding with another human being for companionship, safety and I believe, for sanity too because our species would have gone extinct if we didn’t.


Like in Bollywood, they know better than to change the quintessential dancing scene around coconut trees. Some things don’t change, and they shouldn’t need to.

Not all prawn crackers are made equal

Ingredients gathered, dough forming and steaming.

Hungry.


That is one word that would succinctly describe me. I’m a hungry Singaporean girl living in small town America where food diversity – beyond pizzas and burgers -- is as illusive as black hairs on my graying head.


More precisely, I hunger for foods that I’ve grown up with. Sometimes, being hungry drives people to do pretty crazy things. Take me for example, I started learning how to cook! Now, this is a pretty radical concept for Singaporeans who are spoilt for good food choices at affordable prices. I was once that spoilt Singaporean who had ready access to tasty food either a short walk or a bus, train or taxi ride away.


Even simple snacks that I’d taken for granted because they were so easily available in every Ma and Pa shop, I could not easily find in Corning. Or even if I did, it was never quite the same nor as good.


Hungry and desperate, I pestered, begged, even contemplated about offering my off-coloured soul to my long-time family neighbour and Sophia’s Godma, Christine, in exchange for her Grandma’s kick-ass prawn crackers recipe otherwise known as keropok udang in Malay. I had these homemade prawn crackers when I was last back in Singapore and it jolted me to keropok nirvana at every salty crunch. I was in complete, round-eyed awe of this grandmother who’d made these amazing keropok, from scratch no less!


Come on, you say, surely no one would be mad enough to make prawn crackers from scratch? It was such an absurd idea for me to grasp because they were sold in huge bags at no more than a couple of Singaporean dollars. These crisps were even served free, in baskets, at a few Chinese restaurants. They aren’t exotic. They aren’t gourmet-worthy. They seemed like too much work for so little payback. So why even bother trying to make them?


That’s because, once you’ve tasted Christine’s grandma’s homemade version, your taste buds would have realised that you’d been denying them the real mccoy for years. And quite frankly, they are insulted that you would choose to pervert them, again, with factory made ones. And now we know why they were served up as freebies at Chinese restaurants. Clearly, those weren't that great.


Christine, bless her, sent me a carefully handwritten recipe for her grandma’s award-wining (I assure you all, they will be one day!) keropok udang. Holding the recipe in hand, I felt like I’d the golden ticket to Wonka’s factory. I had to try it.


So, I did. After 2 days’ worth of preparing them for the final immersion in hot oil, I was ready to fry up some. My kids crowded around me at the stove -- a parenting huge no-no -- but seeing that they were sharing my anticipation, I let them watch just for a while as the first few pieces plunged into hot oil. My heart missed a beat as I watched the little pink pieces slowly expand and curl in the oil -- exactly what their keropok ancestors have done for years.


Still glistening with oil, I popped a small crisp in my mouth. There are just not enough words to describe the gradual ascent towards keropok udang heaven I was levitating towards. You'd think that my pint-sized critics’ raving reviews and shared delight were evidence of my keropok udang success but secretly, I still think Christine’s grandma’s ones were tastier.


But, I’ll persevere. You’ll see.

Steamed dough sliced, dried, fried and then enjoyed.

Nappy-less

I’m still pinching myself; it might be too good to be true.

But it is.

Yessiree, there is no doubt about it. Sophia is officially off nappies! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! And I’m officially done with potty training my last baby until the day when the hubs and I need adult-sized ones along with kicky orthopedic shoes.

I’m deliriously glad that my youngest baby kick-started potty-training all on her own. We didn't need singing Elmo on DVD to facilitate the transition nor did we need the huge jar of M & Ms rewards system. All she needed was to model herself in her big sister's footsteps. She desired “big girls’ underwear” perferably ones exactly like Monique's. And so, before her 2nd birthday, she stayed dry during the day, mostly self-regulated unlike the times when I had to drag the other kids to the potty. We rewarded her efforts with training underwear during the day, a couple of 'Hello Kitty' stickers and her delight was our reward. 

But I didn’t think her ability to stay dry overnight would happen promptly after she'd turned 2.5 yrs old. About 2 weeks before leaving for my NYC getaway, she’d been waking up overnight with a dry nappy. Then, while I was gone that weekend, the hubs allowed her to go nappy-less at night – quelle horreur! I would never have allowed that until she turned 10 or could do up all the back buttons on a very long dress -- with gloves on.

I’m celebrating. But I don’t want to jinx myself so, I’m keeping that ratty-looking nappy -- just incase.

"Oh come to Mama, yummy little quinoa cakes!"

Quinoa – a grain not much bigger than a sesame seed but a nutritional giant, is adored by the hemp and tie-dyed wearing health-food worshippers like myself. Except that these days, I'm not hippie-looking not unless 'hippy' is meant to imply 'big Mama hips', then, why yes, that certainly would be me.

My love affair with quinoa started about 3 years ago when my hubs first went vegan. Since cutting back on meat in his diet, I’d started increasing or bringing in other nutritional heavyweights to his plate. If my hubs hadn’t brought quinoa to my attention, I wouldn’t have discovered it until maybe, much later when scientific studies all commanded us to eat more of it like the way they did with salmon. But even so, I didn’t really know how best to include quinoa into our diet besides adding it into our brown rice staple. A terribly boring addition. Sure, I’d seen recipes for quinoa salad that looked interesting enough but it didn’t grab my attention.

But on my recent trip to NYC, I had a quinoa epiphany earth moving enough for me to lock my taste buds to remembering the texture and flavours of that one bite of Evonne's quinoa pattie. It was Evonne who’d bought that one delightful quinoa pattie from my once favoured grocery shop -- Whole Foods -- where I'd often frequented in Houston but never again step foot into since moving to upstate NY. And it was also Evonne who insisted that I had to try some -- as if her disturbing moans between bites didn’t already confirm my suspicions that it really was that yummy.

And it was.

The quinoa pattie wasn't fancy. It didn't call for ingredients like white truffles or belugar caviar. In fact, it was made up of flakes of vegetables, like the humble carrot, iron-rich spinach and the unassuming onion. All of which, were already in my vegetable crisper (well, bar the onions, of course). And I'm certain, one could throw in any vegetable they had on hand if neither carrots nor spinach was available. The idea of cooking foods that call for hard-to-find ingredients is possibly most busy moms' nightmare. That’s why I can never replicate a good bowl of laksa without the essential laksa leaf which makes it unique and authentic, and not just noodles in common coconut curry.

So, the other night, I took out my container of quinoa, cooked 2 cups worth in vegetable broth and waited until they puffed up like bloated, brown and transparent tadpoles before leaving them out to cool. I also threw in some finely diced onions and had my usual seasoning suspects like garlic powder, veg-it and dill mixed in. Then, a grated carrot was added and a bunch of chopped up baby spinach leaves. Sun dried tomatoes went into the mix too because I was trying to rid a largish container with no more than 5 measly pieces in too-much-olive-oil. Time to use up all those I thought.

Since I was going to make these patties vegan, I couldn’t use eggs to bind the grains and vegetables. I ended up using the dejected-looking box of egg replacer in my pantry that I kept handy, incase I needed it for vegan recipes like this. Adding one egg equivalent to the mixture wasn’t enough to hold the patties in shape. I ended up having to add three eggs equivalent of egg replacer before the patties stood the no-crumble test. Perhaps two eggs replacer would have sufficed but the fastidious in me, didn’t like the slightly misshapen look of the patties after taking them out of the pie mould.

The patties were grilled on a well oiled griddle at 400 deg Fahrenheit for a few minutes on both sides until they browned and looked model gorgeous. I tried one right off the griddle, and it was mind-blowingly yummy that I scarfed one whole pattie right there on the spot.

Needless to say, it was that good.

NYC for the weekend

Facebook has been the unexpected gem in my life allowing me to connect with friends from the past and present. At first a hesitant user (I’d started with as few as 5 friends for many moons and never logged on -- ever), I’m now a converted addict, checking it on a daily basis -- when time and kids permit -- and keeping in touch with friends from far flung places like humid Singapore and all the way up in frigid Norway.


I've hooked up with school friends from the past, people I've barely known, others I have liked, teased, camped with but because life is so unpredictable, our paths once separated because of different academic pursuits or differing life journeys, we have now reconnected after several white hairs and wrinkles -- thanks to the magic of Facebook.


So, when Evonne called one day suggesting a trip to NYC for a weekend, I balked at the audacity of freeing myself from the responsibilities of Mommyhood to take off for a frivolous weekend and in any case, I didn't think the hubs would be in agreement. But I was wrong. Not only did he barely raise an eyebrow about the escapade, he even took 2 days off work to mind the kids and suggested that I hooked up with my long-time friend, Rachel, who lived in the city.


After 22 years of not having seen Evonne we planned our meeting in the first weekend of August. My memory of Evonne has always been of a smiley and spirited mushroom-haired girl. She wasn’t a conformist and even if her oddball trends -- I remember her wearing a flexi-curve ruler as a headband during Maths classes – never took off,  she exuded an air of confidence, unaffected by the group mentality rampant during our teeanage years. She was loud, funny and unique. I liked her.


Evonne flew in from San Francisco on the red-eye flight while I took the company very-pampered leathered seats shuttle into NYC. She re-introduced Yoga by dragging me off in the mornings to a nearby class. After my 10-yr hiatus of not having performed any downward-facing dog poses and/or twisted lotus positions, my limbs screamed a quiet Ooohm while my face faked a blissful state of calm to blend in with the other enthusiasts around me.


We ate our way through the city because I kept reminding her that I lived in the town of boring burgers and pizzas. But the most memorable meal I had with her wasn’t at the highly recommended Malaysian café, or at the renowned Bouchon or at chi chi Bar Boulud, but it was the simple chicken kebab bought from a street vendor, relished in the cool evening and sitting amongst other tourists watching the crawling traffic.


We narrowed the list of ‘Things to do in the city’ and agreed that The Metropolitan Museum was something we wanted to see. We visited it twice because Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet and the Egyptian exhibitions fascinated us. We went to The Guggeheim too but at the last minute, decided that Wassily Kadinsky's abstract art wasn't our cup of tea. But I stumbled on a well-spoken Indian street artist selling his vibrant art pieces outside the Guggenhem that had me captivated and where I mulled over his collection for far too many minutes.


On our very last day, we rented bikes and like kids, whizzed through the park past the other kazillion tourists and locals and occasionally leaving bike tracks over muddy horse droppings. The sun beamed brightly on our skins, the wind attempted to cool off our sweaty underarms and the crystal clear tunes from local performers on their violins and saxophones transported me to a quieter retreat. I love bike riding maybe because it reminds me of my childhood days cycling aimlessly in the neighbourhood. Plus, when the wind is lifting the hair off my face, I’d like to think I’m high in the clouds.


After 2 ½ days, Evonne and I said our goodbyes after a hurried meal and then I was off to visit another friend I hadn’t seen in 10 years. Pecks and I have known each other since working at ICIS Singapore. The last time we met was in Houston where she was my first visitor, and the first to break in my Amish futon couch. She was also a darling who cooked me Chinese pork porridge when I was hoarse and light-headed from the flu.


Even as the time spent with Pecks was done in a New York minute, I enjoyed catching up on lost times in her teeny and chic Manhattan apartment. If I had known that it was a studio apartment, I might have decided against staying the night. But Pecks treated me with big Southern Mama hospitality and never once made me feel that her space was being encroached on.


We dined at her neighbourhood Thai restaurant then headed off to a dance hall where I attempted to relive my salsa dancing days. Hours later, deaf in one ear and sweat still sticky on my skin, we headed off to a nearby pub with her 2 friends and chattered the night away, blind to the death stares of the wait staff itching to close-up but too polite to throw us out. The newly acquired small town girl in me worried that we would be mugged or threatened in the wee hours of the night walking down the quiet streets of the city but Pecks seemed oblivious to the dangers playing out in my mind and walked me over to the deserted park across her apartment where the view of the city lights against the river twinkled magically in the night. I’m glad that she did. It was a charming spot, a treasure the tourists have yet to invade.


All good things must come to an end. And so, the next morning, Pecks and I parted outside her office in the financial district and I made my way into Chinatown in search of juicy Longans for my wee kids and Dim Sum for my rumbling tummy. I got both, and with a death grip on my treasured char siu baos, I bade NYC goodbye.


Coming home 3 ½ days later to squeals of delight and effusive bear hugs warmed my heart. It was good to steal away from the needy little people but I did miss them and the hubs. Add the fact that my hubs valiantly held the fort without turning the house into a scene from ‘The Cat in the Hat’ before the Cat magicks the mess away, was reassurance that all was alright when Mummy took a break.


That night before tucking Aidan in his bed, he said,

“Don’t ever go to NYC again, Mommy.”

“But why?" I asked.

“Because I love you,” he said.


And just like that, my heart melted a little more.

Sweet memories

Bunuelos sweetened with sugar and raspberry jam -- our afternoon tea on Sunday.


The hubs has often said that I "spoil" my kids by going the extra mile with regards to food preparation. I've mostly ignored the double-edged compliment until Sean's verbal prediction that "Daddy is going to make us cereal for breakfast everyday while Mommy is in New York City", which promptly elicited 3 little people groans at the breakfast table. I then realised how truly "spoilt" they are to expect nothing less than a varied breakfast menu for the week!


So, sue me. I love food and I love my kids. I love that my kids love (OK, I exaggerate, it should be "like on most occasions") my meals. I would happily forgo that extra half-hour of sleep on a Saturday morning just so that I can make them their favourite pancakes. I’m happy to wake early Mondays to Fridays to prepare them healthy bento lunches for school. I might even try to recreate (some) foods that they like that they can't readily get.


I'd even ensure that cereal isn't the only breakfast food made available to them on school days.


I know that all this -- like every parent's thankless tasks -- will go unnoticed and there will not be a rousing applause much less a shiny gold plaque of achievement to hang on my bare walls. But for every sleepless Saturday morning that I'd to drag my limp body out of bed, I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, they might one day reminiscence -- as they chew on a freshly made pancake -- how (feel free to add lauding adjectives here) Mom used to make them pancakes every Saturday morning and even on holidays.


Just as I have remembered with utmost detail that one Saturday morning when my Dad made us french toast instead of my much detested daily breakfast of semi-raw eggs. The taste and aroma of those golden pieces of white bread sweetened with condensed milk have stayed with me right to this day.


On that note, thank you Dad and I love you!