Chai and the dying of a culinary tradition

I opened up my Twinings Chai tea in front of my Indian Malaysian colleague R.  OH! she exclaimed, where do you get that tea from?  Turns out that her mother used to mix her own spices into tea leaves for masala chai tea.  After all, masala means 'spices'.

I asked R if she knew what is the proportion of cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and ginger to mix into the tea.  She replied that she never thought to ask her mother when her mom was alive.  Ah.... there goes another family recipe.

I have mastered Sarawak kolo mee, Hainanese chicken rice and many Cantonese soup staples - lotus root, winter melon, old melon, cai gan, liu mei.  The Husband has perfected his Chinese sio bak (glazed pork belly with crispy skin) and his char siew (lean pork with sweet marinade).  Some years ago, we realise that our peers could turn out Jamie Olivier and Nigella's recipes at the drop of a hat, but our Asian dishes.... the comfort food that we grew up with.... are slowly and surely being lost as our grandmothers and grandfathers pass on.

The recipes I want to learn from my mom and aunts are

• Braised mushrooms with dried scallop, dried oysters, and seaweed (fa cai)
• Yong tau foo, vegatables stuffed with fishcake and minced pork mix
• Curry chicken

Parent Teacher meeting

Saturday was the Parent Teacher meeting.

Medium Boy is writing now that his drive for learning has kickstarted.  He is making baby steps in Chinese.  I am VERY pleased that he has started his learning journey by himself.  He will not be any sort of academic star, in fact he will most probably be an excellent fan technician.  His all consuming love of fans since 8 months old.

Small Boy has learnt to play with his classmates, but prefers the company of his korkor during playtime in school.  The little boy is not as secure as I believe him to be... time for major dose of love, spending time with him and hugging him.

Life has been challenging these past 3 weeks.  New job, new tasks for both me and the Husband.  I am down with a cold that escalated to a fever that the boys brought home from school.  After they had interrupted my sleep for 2 weeks before that.... coughing... needing to be propped up to catch their breath... 

In the ideal world, I would be always well, they would be always healthy, and I have infinite time and energy to constantly and consistently tell my boys how truly wonderful, marvellous, lovely boys they are.  Life is not all air and roses... however.

Patience patience.  I shall get there... eventually.  The God I believe in, is bigger than the sum of these current cares.

What comes after 100?

Medium Boy and Small Boy were talking to each other in the car.  Medium Boy told the Husband and me, that he was able to count up to one hundred, then proceeded to demonstrate with Small Boy chiming in.  When Medium Boy reached one hundred, he wondered aloud to himself – what comes after one hundred?

Ah, I know, he continued… the next thing I heard was Eleventy-one, Eleventy-two. Then Twelvety-one.  *Grin *

I have seen the google articles, written by an American, asserting that Chinese children learn the concept of numbers faster, because the Chinese counting system places each number in the one, ten, hundred place, and proceed to describe them.  The Chinese count 1 to 10 in the normal way.  11 is ten-one.  20 is two-ten.  21 is two-ten-one.  101 is one-hundred-one.  110 is one-hundred-ten.  111 is one-hundred-ten-one.  I certainly do not know if that is true for myself as I was growing up… but I certainly like to think Chinese children have an advantage in counting!

I am dreaming

Medium Boy chatters.   A lot.  Constantly. 

This morning, there was a 5 minute block of silence in the car.

I turned back and looked.  No, they were not fighting.... just silence.... Fellow mothers of young children will know this is highly unusual.

Me: what are you doing, Medium Boy?
MB: *smiles* I am dreaming Mama....
Me: what are you dreaming about?
MB: Fans..... (in the hushed tones that religious people reserve for apparitions, and football fans reserve for their favourite club)

A Second Shot

One of my ex-staff, whom I have not caught up with for at least a decade, announced on Facebook that she is getting married.  I thought that it was very strange, because she had already married when she ceased to work with me…. Facebook photos show that she attended French classes, had many delicious looking lunches and dinners with people of various nationalities, travelled extensively… AND there were no photos of her with a partner.   Ah so I conclude that she divorced, and now is remarrying.

The year she was working with me, her work suffered.  She broke up with her university sweetheart, dated extensively, then ended up engaged to another guy by the end of that year.  The uni sweetheart initiated the breakup, seemingly without warning… that relationship lasted 4 years and they were in the queue to purchase a HDB apartment together…. (“Do you want to apply for HDB?” is usually how the Singapore man proposes).

Now she is remarrying.  I wish her all the best in her life.  Be happy darling, you totally deserve it.

Making the most of 24 hours

I have been running on a treadmill these 2 weeks. 

Wake up at 630am, check work emails, get myself and the boys ready for office/school, commute to work, perform new tasks at work, lunches to plug myself back into the grapevine (now I know who is moving into which role when), come back in the afternoon to work some more with interruptions from meetings, dash down by 6pm to meet the Husband (traffic is horrendous at the office building!), take half an hour at a coffeeshop to recollect myself before fetching the boys, have dinner, read to the boys and play with them, sometimes break up their fights, lie down with them by 10pm so that they sleep by 1030pm… and if I am still awake, get up and work some more.

Phew.  I NEED a break. 

To make the best use of my time and be present in the moment, I have resolved to

·         Stop checking my phone when talking to someone.  My phone does not notice when it is neglected.  Other people notice.  And they care.

·         Stop multitasking during a meeting.  Because the easiest way to be the smartest person in the room is to pay attention to the room.

·         Restrict FB time to my commuting time.  These are the found pockets of time.

·         Say no to the volunteer activities.  Taking time away from me and I do not feel as energized as before from doing it.  Might as well stop.