A Curried Life

Chinese Reflexology Shop. Photo by Doris Lim It was sometime in the 90s that my colleague and I decided to go the healthy route. Indian vegetarian food instead of lard laden char koay toew (fried flat noodles) for lunch. Reduce  sugar and copious cups of coffee and snacks. Both of us were in our late 20s and it was as good a time as any to start a healthy regime. For him it was weekend cycling round island. Some 6 hours or so of strenuous biking up the slopes on the south west side of the island and dodging cars on the north east side. Tennis twice weekly. Swimming every Monday and Wednesday and karaoke on the nights that we didn’t exercise. On nights like these, we’ll both have a liquid diet. He will have his beers and I will have my juices, fruit, cakes and supper after we’ve sung ourselves hoarse. One Thursday afternoon, Dan turned to me and said, “Let’s try foot reflexology” he grinned cheekily, eyes dancing mischievously. I turned up from my detailing and...

I watch Marge prepare tinned rice cereal, pre-mixed with milk for little Eva. “I’ve tried it myself,” she says, “it’s not bad. Would you like a taste?” I want to say aloud: No? That’s not real food. But instead flash a polite smile. Lovely Teochew porridge with duck gravy and cilantro, Sg. Bakap. P hoto by Doris Lim Chinese mothers start to prepare rice gruel for their babies when they wean off milk at about 9 months. In the 50s, the rice grains are first wash, dried taken to Indian spice millers to grind into powder. The rice gruel is cooked with water slowly over a charcoal stove in an enamel sauce pan, stirring constantly. A few grains of salt are added for taste. Sometimes a little Bovril is added.  As the child grows, the moms would add cubed potatoes and carrots to the rice gruel for colour and variety. Back then, it is not uncommon to see a grandmother feeding a row of little toddlers sitting quietly on small bamboo stools. She would nurse a big bowl of porridge...

Mantle Clock. Photo by Doris Lim It’s been a tough week. Around August every year, I get a little soapy. A little weepy sad. A little melancholy. There are many events in August that I like to forget. Blank out, wipe out. It’s like losing a little data that you remember backing up on those 4 inch diskettes that you either misplace, or mishandle; like placing them on car dashboard or on top of the TV. Back in the days when TV was actually almost like a piece of furniture. My old Sony could support a mantle clock! What is a mantle clock, you ask; why its a clock normally placed on a mantle of course. Marking time… Back to my being self-indulgently and sentimental, August is for me; a time of reflection. I’ve lost good friends and relatives over the years. Some after a period of illness. Some suddenly. Others to tragedy. ~ Lilli Mei’s eldest sister suffered from cancer and was at Mt Miriam, waiting. I couldn’t think of another word to better describe that period. One day, Mei s...

Gray and white friendly tom cat on the beach. Photo by Doris Lim There was a little crack at our metal door leading to the back lane, which Dad never got around to fixing. Mother would nag daily. “The rats will gnaw their way through”, she’ll start. Then snakes will come in, monitor lizards too. Maybe crocodiles with sharp teeth, I thought. Horrified. My brothers’ ears prick up at that. They thought to themselves, we could capture and keep these as pets. We could capture, use them to form a circus. We could capture and use it to terrify Dee Dee then cook it for her dinner. So they chose to watch the going-ons at the “hole” instead or playing war games with their friends. After a week of mindless waiting, the boys soon give up. Craggy tom cat, Sg. Bakap. Photo by Doris Lim I would only go into the kitchen and use the toilet if my sisters or Mother accompanies me. One day, I cried and demand that my potty be placed in the living room. The “hole” looks large and loom...

Virility has a name and it’s not prawn induced in anyway. Oyster which is 100g zinc per serving is so much more potent than prawns at 1.6mg. With that information sourced from the net, my newlywed friends decide on an oyster binge. Both Bride and Groom has never seen a shucked oyster up close before. The nearest they got was in the form of an eggy omelette fried with cornstarch and chives eaten with a garlicky, sharp and spicy chili dip. Those oysters were minuscule, peppercorn to dime-size mollusca. These two decide to book a seafood buffet and they go there early. They take a table closest to the cold seafood section. Deceptively fresh, oysters there look plump and potent. They are on half shell laid on a bed of ice and decorated with lemons and parsley. Each takes half a dozen, grabbing the fattest ones. Back at their table, they stare at the oysters and then at each other. The captain recognises that anxious look of one totally out of depth with raw seafood, comes ...

In the late 70s, I started working as a general clerk along Beach Street. It was a dream come true. I could take a direct bus from home and just walk five minutes to the office. The most exciting time was without a doubt, lunch time. I greedily counted all the kopitiams (local coffeeshops) I could lunch at. Hey, I could do a two-week circuit without repeating! That made me happy. Barely eighteen was a wonderful time. No longer a child but not quite yet a woman. In those days until you marry, you are still a girl and can receive ang pow (red packets filled with money) during Chinese New Year. My closest friend Mimmi was a few inches short of being a real 'va-va-voom'. She was an elegant, womanly 32 with short crop hair that framed an angelic face with ruby red lips. She had a figure that rivalled Mae West's - so small was her waist. She also often wore three-inch stiletto heels that let her sashay in her walk, always one foot in front of the other like a model. H...

“My twins are heading south this winter,” Kiki remarks out of the blue.  We are all having a nice little  tête -à- tête , a Girls' thingy, sans husbands and kids. South? I thought how much further south? Kiki lives in Auckland. Surely the boys are not headed for the South Pole?  The other girls look a little perturbed. Probably both boys are taking their gap year and heading for some research centre to observe what is it that you call those? Penguins? Seals? Walruses? Kiki continues, with that knowing smile that she now has our full attention. She cups and lifts 'them' higher on her chest. Our eyes widen - I catch that surprised look on the waiter’s face. “I’m thinking of a nip and tuck,” Kiki says. We stare at her chest. Kiki is wearing a very low neckline, more than ten inches below the hollow of her throat. Still, no sign of boobs. They are hanging low like Hush Puppy ears somewhere a-midriff. Our eyes meet hers with resignation and an awkward smile...

My Hakka mother thought nothing out of the ordinary to feed her young ones a myriad of food ranging from all the hawker fares, curries, gulai and different types of meat and seafood she could afford to buy. She used to tell us that whatever had its’ back (i.e. spine) facing the sky is edible. That and the vile concoctions made from roots and barks bought from the medicinal shops that she labelled as nutritious soups set the tone for the culinary adventure  and my lifelong love affair with food. For our Peranakan staples, there's the grinding, pounding and chopping with large cleavers on wooden blocks in the kitchen. The dins of which is irritating yet soothing, in a way. These are the noise of my childhood. If it’s the pounding of pestle and mortar coupled with that salty rancid burn of toasting belacan that means sambal belacan is being made. Also means there’s either nasi lemak which is rice cooked in thick coconut milk and tamarind prawns, honeyed anchovies, deep f...

Our holiday to Kota Kinabalu took us to the many local eating shops, to sample the astounding variety of seafood from the South China Sea. The most famous of which was a famous fish ball noodle soup which had queue lines all the way to the pavement. Fortunately, my friend was a local and he had pre-booked a large table for the eight of us. T he fish balls there were so springy that you could bounce one off the floor, two feet in the air! Just kidding. Charles, my Aussie friend once asked quietly, “Err, fish where got balls?” when we took him to eat Yong Tau Foo. But that’s a story for another day. Although the shop was crowded, we were served quickly with large bowls of delicious noodles with the famous fish balls. There was a choice of yellow noodles, flat noodles and vermicelli but all of us had ordered the soft, palatable flat noodles, koay teow. T he broth was flavourful, sweet and the fish balls had a nice bite to them. They were obviously home and handmad...