More Food!

How nice it is to be able to partake of different types of food!

My sister Ellie put on a delectable dinner for us a couple of nights ago. Dish of the night ( a unanimous vote ) was the sambal petai. Petai is actually a pod of smelly beans and it is very bitter. You guessed it! Anything vegetable that is bitter has good benefits and Petai is high on the list.

It is touted to be good for almost everything ranging from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, etc. The best way to cook it is the sambal way. It kind of tones down the smell and of course cooked this way it is very delicious.

Apart from sambal petai, we had Indian curry chicken. This has to be specified as we have Malay curry chicken, Chinese curry chicken and Nonya curry chicken. Each type has its own subtle taste.

Indian curry chicken

There was also a pineapple and cucumber salad, fried taufoo rolls, fried okra, hum choy taufoo soup (salted vegetable & taufoo boiled in chicken stock ) and rock melon for dessert.

hum choy soup fried taufoo rolls

fried okra

Best part was the catching up with my younger siblings who were also present and my lovely niece who looked so elegant in her new hairdo. Sunitha has blossomed into a lovely young lady.

Malaysians are very lucky to have a fantastic range of different styles of cooking, thanks to our diverse ethnic communities. Food tourism ought to be one of our attractions to bring in people who are adventurous with their tastebuds and ready to try out local cuisine. A type of cuisine known as fusion food has evolved but I for one am not a fan and prefer to stick to the authentic local fare which is best savoured at our hawker stalls that proliferate in urban areas. The easiest gauge of how good the food served is, would be the number of customers frequenting that particular stall. Good food is best advertised by word of mouth.

Baby blues

This morning I was at the Women & Children's Hospital for my routine checkup. While waiting for my turn I looked at the others who were there patiently waiting for the doctors to arrive. Doctors usually do their ward rounds first before coming downstairs to attend to their clinics.

Quite an assortment of people were either sitting patiently or walking about, with children in tow. Many were young fathers or fathers-in-waiting who were accompanying their very pregnant wives for their ante-natal checkups. Some men were following their wives, with the wives' handbags in their hands. Wherelse can you find men carrying their wives' handbags... and walking docilely behind them? Usually it is the wives following behind their husbands, carrying their own bags and shopping to boot.

One particular couple stood out. The wife was carrying a young baby around two months old while the husband was a burly young man with a limp. The mother was held to ransom by the young baby. I presumed the baby is a girl, judging by the sound of her cries. She would not let her mother sit down and she would scream if the mother stopped rocking her in her arms. Her father tried to relieve his wife of the baby by carrying her on his lap. No sooner had the baby realised that she was not being rocked, than she started screaming again. The poor father quickly passed the baby back to his wife. Once the mother had her in her arms and walked about rocking her all the while, the little girl calmed down and I swear it, had a smirk on her face!!!

This has been and always will be the experience of new or young mothers. The baby will attach herself/himself to the mother, declining other people's attention, and as such, make their mother's life a nightmare. Imagine having to carry the baby all the time, without any respite, even though you are dead tired, esepecially with demand feedings if you are breastfeeding, and with other chores waiting to be done. I've known of mothers who cannot even put the baby down for a minute just to go to the toilet, without having the child screaming his head off.

Having had three of my own and now two grandchildren as well, I know what young mothers have to go through. However it is part of learning to be mums and to realise what their own mothers went through when they were young.

Lucky are those who have relatives or hired help to assist them. Those who have to struggle on their own would need their spouses' help. That's how husbands and wives bond and become closer as they raise their child. Even so, there is always the extended family members to fall back on, especially in our Asian communities. Auntiees and grandparents are looked upon as godsends especially in times of crisis. A daughter or son has only to send out an SOS and mum & dad would come rushing to their aid.

So a big salute to all grandparents and aunties who respond to young parents in need of help. We hope that in our times of need, when we are not able to even send out an SOS you will be there for us.