Cooking Rampage

I've been waking up thinking of food the entire of last week. Before you call me a hopeless glutton, i assure you that it is the lack of sleep, excruciatingly painful throat and carnage of taste buds it has caused that have made me a tad bit nostalgic over those "comfort food" I grew accustomed to having at home whenever I was not at top form.

While some people might find bangers and mash, macaroni and cheese, a big fat double cheese burger, lasagna or chocolate soufflé comfort food, mine lies in the depths of my mother's Peranakan kitchen. When I think of my mother, I think of food. Being the typical chinese mother, her way of showing her love was definitely not through hugs and kisses and constant eulogies of my accomplishments, but by putting a dish prepared with "heart and soul" on the table. My response back to her, is devouring it to every last morsel and emphasizing on how marvelous it tastes. My mother is a typical Peranakan who spends hours in the kitchen after each meal, preparing for the other. But she never cooks for herself, it is always others, she cooks for.

I always equate my mother's characteristics to her food. My mother's love is like a big bowl of "Kiam Chye Ark" ( Duck and sour mustard leaves soup) where it's been brewed for hours till the vegetable fibers disintegrate but soak up the lovely broth of the duck with a sour tinge to make sure that you can never have enough of it, ever...  So it is no wonder that on my bad or ill days, when I am positively deprived of my mother's presence, all I can think of is her food, and taste buds will just come floating back to me even just it is just through imagination.

Although I am more capable than my chinese mother in showing more emotions to my peers, cooking for others is always one of the top ways i choose to use to say thank "you", "sorry", "I'm thinking of you" or "I love you". The best way so, is replicating my mother's famous recipes which is a hell of a feat, especially since her measurements commensurates to the size of her "thumb" and her endless steps to cooking just one dish. While I have been successful so far, and gained numerous compliments for the authenticity of my cooking skills in comparison to its traditional taste, my satisfaction comes more from the smile I put on others when they taste my food because I know that I have successfully brought them on a journey back to the good old days.

As far as the apply falls from the tree, chances are that if I ever bother to offer to cook for you, it would be a gesture of affection, because I am my mother's daughter after all.