Creation Inspiration

Surprise, surprise.. After endless naggings by Ian, I've decided to branch out into another aspect of my passion.. Cooking.

It all started a long long time ago, flashes of cooking activities going on around my little self, in an old Peranakan house, with high ceilings made out of solid wood, and decorated with handpainted patterned tiles on the floors. I find much consolation in those memories, when I feel down and lost... so I look back and remember all those moments I had, and somehow or another, it has led me to where I am today.

I only discovered how different I was from my other friends, when I was about 18 or 19 years old and had Chinese New Year food at a friend's house. I questioned my friend, about the lack of Beef Rendang, Jiu Hoo Char and dry Chicken Curry. My friend look in askance at me, and said "That's not Chinese food. Are you even Chinese?"

I then went to my grandmother (wise matriarch) and asked her. She then said, "Girl, we are Baba Nyonya. Those dishes are OUR typical dishes for New Year. Chinese don't even make those dishes." And it dawned upon me, that, hey, we were something quite out of the ordinary.

Fast forward to today, and everyone claims to do everything by every culture and country. Of course, I am not going to start by stamping our rights on which dish belongs to whom and which culture, but I have to say, I do find some pride in declaring that certain dishes are 'ours'. Yes, the adaptations are definitely from other cultures, but there is always some result of variance due to differing tastebuds and methods.

And of course, there are the different types of Baba Nyonyas as well. The Malacca Peranakan are proud of their heritage, the Singaporeans too and the Penang Peranakan are supposedly 'too much influence of Thai food' and so on. I won't delve into those controversial intricacies now - this is an introduction not a conference paper. :)

Last Saturday, I had the great honour of making a new friend, John De Silva, Serani as they say in Penang, Eurasian all over and Portuguese in KL. Oh well, he's a cousin of Andrew, Eve's speed dial #2 and he goes around, with a simple point-and-shoot camera documenting all he eats and sees. He, too, has a blog called Cili Padi Diaries. Saturday was the group's day out, as it started in K3K Benta Kaya (funny name, I know, which kind of deterred me from trying it out, but ZamZamAlaKazam told us it was good, and ever since then, it's been our staple Saturday lunch place.) and we went off to Pipit Marketplace 5 and the Power Over Cervical Cancer @ Zouk, where I ran into several friends and caught up a little here and there. After which, we went off to Anu & Radhi's place for Ganesh's birthday BBQ and had tons of yummy food and drink. Doctor Anu can cook ay?! :D

So, conversations with John led me to thinking and inspired me as well. I'd love to be a food-blogger, competing with the myriads of people around and risking looking like a tourist wherever I go, but, this little niche here will be my own personal discovery of food. My little confession booth, my little crevice of my mind and all that is privy to it.

This is fun, I believe, and will also be sporadic, since my line of work consists of long hours, workaholism and relentless energy, but, let's leave it as is for now, until after the New Year for our usual New Year Broken Resolutions mood to sink in.

Random they will be, and hopefully, in an organised way.

*breathes in cold night air*

I'm excited.....

*rubs hands together in glee*