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There's No Kitchen Like Show Kitchen

“No one has a show kitchen in their home,” Mother glances around and tut-tuts disapprovingly.

I cringe, feeling like a three year old who’s caught stuffing chocolates in her mouth and forgetting to wipe the evidence from her lips and cheeks.

So this girl keeps quiet. Mother walks around prying at the drawers, she shoots a stare. I quickly curl my fingers and pull slightly beneath the drawer. “It’s one of those hidden handles,” I volunteer sheepishly, “Equip with spring mechanisms for closing and opening that prevents slamming little fingers, only a light tap will do, err…”



Mother stares hard at me: So lame.

Arrghh….

“If you were rich and moneyed,“ Mother starts, “you wouldn’t even spend money on such frivolous things. Putting up mirrors in the kitchen some more.” Mother pauses, “Siao!” she exclaim for maximum effect.

Tempered Glass on the walls was a bad idea. Mike the architect and his kitchenology! This will be the death of moi, yet. That man has brilliantly plan another escape with Overtime. Sigh.

In my Mother’s eyes, a kitchen was for the longest time, a place of shame, located at the back of the house or in separate quarters manned by minions. Those were the days of formal British boarding school education for the little masters and missy. Days of circular driveways, horse drawn carriages and twin cast iron gates relegated to the likes of such mansions. Manicured lawns and such.

Typical Peranakan Chinese Kitchen with Firewood Stove
The old kitchens in my Grandpa’s turn-of–century shophouse have red cement floor with a brick stove, cemented and plastered red too. The wood and charcoal soot darken the walls and cobwebs string like laundry across the rafters. A good eight feet of the lime plastered wall which was painted white some thirty years ago is coagulated with lard or coconut oil grime. All that lovely oily vapor from deep frying.

As for the sink, there’s that six inch indentation in the cement floor with galvanised tubs and wooden chopping board which is a sawn off from the trunk of a “Jelutong” tree. 

You get the picture. It’s called functional.

As always no matter how modern, we will have that blue print of mother’s kitchen as firm as the imprint on our genome.

In Mother’s home, a two storey terrace house fronting a service road on busy Ayer Itam Road, her kitchen was tiled a full five feet high with four by four inch ceramic blue tiles. The toilets are tiled with the same tiles in white to match the Armitage Shanks fittings, a commode and vanity. The kitchen floor was red cement with lines formed by ropes placed on the render before it set.

Our Living Room and Dining was tiled three feet high with pale green tiles to match the 1960s mosaic pattern fashioned in various shades of mint, pale green and beige that was the height of luxury way back then.

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Chinese Calender showing Auspicious Days, Public Holidays, Races Days.
Photo by Doris Lim

Mother had one of those modern Formica laminated wall and base kitchen cabinets with an S shaped chrome handle. She cut out the large numbers from her men-riding-horses calendar and pastes this on the doors and drawers. Her reason? “How else do I tell your sister-in-laws to get what from where, every Chinese New Year? These untrained women wreak havoc in my kitchen you know.”

Yes, Chinese New Year Eve cook-out. One determined matriarch and several career women type and only one fully domesticated daughter-in-law. This girl disappears conveniently at such times, when a full blown war rages. Mayhem beyond the Formica table tops. Duck!

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Pestle and Mortar, Wok and Chinese Chopping Board. Photo by Doris Lim

Mike’s kitchen design was practical and the execution by the Contractor was flawless. The only flaw that goaded Mike was mine. It was that lump of folded towels beneath my feet where I stand at the sink or at the stove. And another lump of towel underneath the pestle and mortar.

I have terribly flat feet which hurt if I stand for long periods of time. The other concession that Mike made for me was a little round table with two stools near the window for me to crochet my greens into a raincoat: his exact words which translates; roughly how long I normally take to prep my leafy vegetables.

“There’s a nice niche here to prop up my iPad for instant recipes too,” I boast, showing Mother how to pinch and unpinch the screen.

Mother frowns at this. Her eyes widen, horrified. First the microwave, then an upright freezer and now internet recipes!

She opens my sliding pantry and checks its contents. I have a myriad of tins and jars and Tupperware stacked and colour co-ordinated. Separate compartment for seasoning and condiments and dried things like pasta, drinkin and cooking chocolate, box cake mix and instant noodles.

“Where’s the rice jar?” that sounded like shouting.

“We prefer pasta or bread, Mother. Rice is err… fattening.” I said softly.

“Fattening? And I breast fed you orange juice izzit? So you grow up eating White man's food?” with that Mother slams my pantry door and storms out of my show kitchen.


Siao ~ Hokkien for "mad" or "crazy
Izzit ~ Manglish for "is it"
Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to Penang, Melaka and Singapore.


Doris Lim is a popular freelance writer who blogs as Little Fish on travel and food stories here. Be sure to check out her other inspiring stories and follow her Instagram @SmartDoryID & Facebook to check out more places to eat delicious street foods or dine in the best restaurants!


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