Recipe for Pork Chops

Aching arms : one right arm
Splattering oil : several splashes
Watchful eyes : two pairs
Garnishes : oil burns on hands (compliments from splattering oil)

I am a culinary idiot. Apart from passable instant noodles (with egg; my speciality), I cannot cook at all.

Home economic classes in secondary school and cooking lessons during my diploma days never did manage to nurture that domestic part of me which I suspect never existed in the first place.

Practice makes perfect. 

No practise however, makes whatever little that I had managed to retain from earlier days, throughly forgotten. 

I did meddle a little here and there when my mom or mother-in-law was cooking. But even those had to be under explicit instructions. Otherwise, I was a clueless soul at the stove.

Today had been a rare ocassion when everything had fallen into a right timing and here I was, standing at an arm's length away from the wok, trying to fry the pork chops. 

Under her instructions earlier, I had laboriously pounded on the pieces of meat using the back of the chopper. I thought I sounded pretty professional while I was pounding away with whatever strength I had in my arm. 

'POM.. POM.. POM!' 

Easy peasy, I thought. 
After a few minutes, my overconfidence was replaced by a dull ache that spread from my right forearm.

The aching continued as I awkwardly welded the spatula and tried to move the pieces of meat from side to side in the wok. They seemed to be taking their sweet revenge by causing the oil to splatter ferociously all over my hand, and some onto my face and feet.

Under her watchful eye, my mother-in-law stood beside and watched as I flipped the meat with my unskilled, cramped fingers. While I could sense her hands itching to take the spatula away from my clumsy, uncoordinated hands and say 'let me do it, you ninnywit!' on several occasions, she didn't. Instead, she patiently guided me through with appropriate instructions.

'Pour this', 'Add that', 'Stir here', 'Flip there'.

As the oil contunued to splutter and splatter all over, red burn patches began to appear on my hand. She laughed when I told her that I would have to wear gloves the next time I do frying in the kitchen.

I might have overcooked a few pieces of her chops and burnt her garlic in another dish. But she let me be as I was, like an over eager child trying to complete a newly learnt task. 

With no reproach of 'spoiling' her dish, she gently gave encouragements and compliments on how I was faring. I was clueless and awkward, but under her guidance, she made me believe that I could do it. 

And with that flip of the last piece, the pork chops were done. There was a sense of uncertainty and pride as I dished the cooked meat onto the porcelain plate. Uncertainty in presenting the family with a subpar dish for dinner, yet pride in (almost) completely preparing it by myself. It was definately a far cry from her tasty and tender pork chops, but it was a small start for me.

The burn marks will fade, my muscle aches will recover and she will do a perfect batch of pork chops the next time I am not around to interfere. 

In a few day's time, I will most likely forget the steps that she showed me. But how she taught and encouraged me today will be remembered in my heart for a long time to come. And given time, perhaps I may practise my way to better tasting pork / chicken / lamb chops.

So as my 8 year old son would say, chop chop curry pok. 

Let's eat up.

Our lazy road trip holiday: KL - Genting - Melacca.

It has been three days since we last came back from our road trip.

My unpacked luggage lying in the corner of the hall serves as a reminder of the chores that I have yet to complete, while the loots that we had bought - all still in their original packaging, sits in another corner wistfully reminding me of the 6 wonderful days that we had spent on the KL - Genting - Melacca route.

Good times fly by. 

In 'normal' times however, procrastination run rampant.

I'm probably suffering from the post-holiday syndrome and a part of me is still in denial mode. This undue procrastination would be my delaying tactics to prevent life from fully resuming back to normal. 

The road trip had been tiring. But it was tiredness well-spent. S and L were obviously thrilled to have our unadulterated company for those days, as were we. Spending whole, uninterrupted, lazy, glorious, just-us days with hub and the kids had been simply wonderful. 

We were slow to wake up in the mornings and often sauntered out for our breakfasts (or brunch on some days) way after 10am. 

Afternoons were spent holding their little hands and leisurely walking around the malls, enjoying the sights, sounds and different cuisines that we could find before tumbling back to the hotel late in the night.

Over the days, we had our breakfast alfresco-style in the misty, cooling weather of Genting Highlands. We watched 'The Good Dinosaur' and cried at the movie when.. well, I shall not spoil the plot here, on the many tender moments in the show. We 'poured' money down the games at the arcade with S furiously racing on the Daytona while L busied herself with the various funfair games available. Along the way, we spilt a tub of popcorn, ice-cream toppings and a whole bottle of sanitiser. We ate gingerbread men and hello kitty cookies, watched a street performance and clapped as clunky chipmunk mascots danced on stage.

On our last leg at Melacca, we met up with friends and braved the rain for good food and familiar company. With hub's crazy idea, we grossly exceeded the seating capacity of our humble saloon car by squeezing 10 persons in a 2-layer formation. It was a crazy idea but we did it, and returned back to the hotel numb-legged and intact. 

There was also a nail-biting moment when we travelled down the north south highway on an empty tank anxiously looking for the next petrol kiosk. It was another hand-wringing 44km later when the petrol sign was finally spotted. I have never felt as relieved to see a petrol kiosk in sight.

The jam at the causeway took us almost 2 hours to clear and we arrived home road weary and dusty, but safe and sound. 

It was already past 9pm when we finally turned into the porch. The kids were laughing deliriously over a game that they were playing earlier on. The seats were littered with sprinkled biscuit crumbs and shoe print marks all over. And with jackets, pencils, stickers and papers strewn everywhere, the interior of our car looked just like a storm had passed through.

Aptly, it seemed befitting to think of our boot - laden with the various merchandise that we had heartily accumulated, as the treasure at the end of the rainbow. 

My mind hashes up bits and pieces of our lazy road trip as I unpack the items bit by bit. Although we did not travel far to places that were exotic or fanciful, it was nonetheless a fantastic holiday where we did nothing extraordinary, but experience joy in the simple ordinary of spending time with the people that we love. ♡

Back to reality and onwards to 2016.