16/06/2020
“Cooking is creating something delicious for someone else” according to author Ayumi Komura, or in my case, trying to create decent meals for my daughter.
While my normal function in the kitchen when my wife is cooking would be to help prepare the ingredients, cutting the vegetables and meat, or running out to get some needed spice, and post cooking, washing up, during this period of physical distancing, I found myself in rather unfamiliar territory. My wife, youngest daughter and I were down in Singapore in Jan but then my wife returned to our home in Penang to be with the rest of the family, leaving me and our daughter in Singapore when the lockdown began in both countries.
With our regular chef no where in sight, it was now up to me to either a) top up my grab food/food panda account or b) start to attempt to cook meals for both of us. With the memories of having watched my mum and wife cook, plus some tips from chef youtube and google, I started my journey from simple steamed rice, fried egg and a can of baked beans, to more adventurous and at times unconventional recipes. Has anyone ever tried chili tuna bolognese macaroni, or sambal udang fried rice ? Also managed to do more traditional carbonara, bolognese, stir fried vegetables, grilled chicken, wanton soup, baked salmon and even baked a cake. Not without some mishaps along the way, with too little or too much salt or slightly burnt broccoli but I must say over the last 5 months I have added a new skill to my list of can do’s. And yes I did take photos as proof to be shared with the rest of the family.
But what it has reminded me is that, we only need to step outside our comfort zone, not be afraid to ask for help and advice when we need it, and to make continuous improvements so as to be able to learn a new skill. Oh and getting feedback from the customer is key too, in my case, I could rely on getting honest feedback on whether I was headed in the right direction, and in the amount of leftovers too if the quantity was not right.
Starting with needing to cook just one thing at a time, I progressed to being able to handle a pot on the stove, frying something, heating up something in the microwave and baking something in the oven all at the same time, who says multi-tasking is out of fashion. The other thing it has reminded me of is that you can grow to like doing something even if it’s not your “passion”, the more you learn about something and get better at doing it, the more you enjoy it.
So what have you learnt this lockdown period ? hopefully like me it is something that will make life a little more interesting….especially now that my wife can help with the preparations and washing up while I do the cooking :)
