Pleasure of cooking (and eating!)

When I arrived this part of the world 2 and half years ago, I have a policy, "tak masak, tak dapat makan" since there is no halal restaurant around. I was half vegetarian and half seafood-tarian for a quite a while, until Imran joined me a year later. We then drove to and fro the nearest city, Dallas, which located about 6 hours of driving (bear in mind, Texas is about 4x larger than Malaysia) to get our halal meat supply. Occasionally, we ate at Chinese buffet until I forbid myself to go there anymore. Not until a year later when a Pakistani opened a groceries store with halal meat supply.

It is not that I am not into cooking, but I do prefer house chores. It gives me such a headache to think about what to cook, and importantly, what not to. I consider my other half as a picky eater. He is totally against seafood because of their hard shells and bones, so he eats only fish cakes, prawn balls,  squid / calamari or filleted tilapia. Whenever I cook my favorites: asam pedas with a lot of daun kesum or masak lemak cili api with salted fish and pineapple or pre-grilled chicken and potatoes, I have to fry sunny side eggs for him. He won't even eat the dishes if I replaced the ingredients with his favorite proteins.  He has fried foods on top of his list, from fried chicken, fried crispy sliced beef, battered squid or oyster mushroom, or anything with tempura flour. I am lazy enough to cook separate dishes for lunch and dinner, so there is no way that I will cook separate dishes every time he refused to eat my favorites. Consequently, I end up cooking the same dishes that suit both of our appetites, all over again: fried rice, stir fry vegetables with scrambles eggs, nasi lemak, beef or lamb rendang, beef / chicken goreng kunyit WITHOUT vegetables. He loves neither mee bandung nor mee rebus, so my only option is mee goreng basah or bihun sup.He dislikes any kuih talam or karipap or bubur kacang, but he likes anything extra-sweet like jelly or kaswi without grated coconut.

As oppose to him, I was born in a state where food selections are varied enough to eat different food each mealtime, for at least a month. I hardly ate at kedai tomyam until I was in my degree years. My late grandmom was indeed a good cook, and Lord, I miss her serunding kelapa with beef bits, botok-botok ikan, urap pucuk ubi, asam tumis sayur keladi and sipu sedut, sambal goreng jawa and off course, her best-in-the-world nasi ambeng. During hari raya, we ate ketupat with ayam masak kicap instead of rendang, kuah lodeh and nasi beriani. When my dad slaughtered cows during raya Qurban, we would request the satay usus susu (yes, you heard it right). My dad said it is pretty tricky to get that usus susu, and not many people know how to do that. Silap hari, dapat benda lain hehe. He then marinated that long usus,weaved it to a cleaned coconut frond (bukan lidi tau) and grilled it like one cooks lemang. It tasted creamy and off course fatty. Bila makan, penuh lemak-lemak kat mulut hehehe. But that was really yummy!! Sometimes when my dad went hunting, he would bring back napuh or deer or birds. He often brought back ikan sungai like patin, tapah and belut (bukan bela kolam punya). Good gracious, I miss those foods! I hardly recalled when was the last time I had them.

  

 Botok-botok ikan, image googled. Dah cuba search for the satay usus susu, but I guess no one else besides of our family eats it hahaha.

When I stayed with my aunt, she made kuih for me on daily basis. I still remember, she was complaining to her friend that she was still making karipap for me even when she was sick, because I would throw my tantrum- mengaruk menghempas diri ke lantai if I didn't get to eat her kuih. I was only like 6 years young that time, hahaha! No wonder people around me nicknamed me as FaraDebab!

Well, for today, we are having (again) fried rice with sambal tumis telur. Sudah, jangan nak berangan banyak-banyak pasal makanan, p buat kerja sana!