Cooking...

(Picture to the left: Fish Head Curry + Malay Fried Chicken + Cucumber Pickle with Briyani Rice)

One of the first few blogs I've written:

Dining out has become a way of life for most people, especially working class people these days. We have more food choices than ever before, and convenience food is available to us at almost anytime. I could still remember a recent visit to my sister’s apartment in New York City, I opened her typical American styled fridge, only to find that apart from a jug of filtered water, a couple packets of soy sauce, a tube of wasabi (you could see she likes sushi!), a few bottles of alcohol and a stack of takeout menus. Of course, the first reaction was to laugh, thinking why she would store her takeout menus in her fridge. She shrugged and said, ‘When I am hungry, I’ll open the fridge and when there’s no food, takeout would be the answer. So can’t think of any other place better to store it.’

On the flip side of the coin, I am the complete opposite of my sister. First, you would hardly see many takeout menus lying around, and second, my fridge would definitely contain a reasonably wide selection of vegetables, meat, fruit, eggs, wine, chocolate, fizzy drinks etc. I would say there’s a good mixture of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ food. My kitchen top will always have a complete set of the essential Chinese cooking sauces without fail i.e. Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, Dark Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce, Chinese Vinegar, Cooking Wine and other essentials i.e. salt, pepper, garlic, ginger etc. The main point is, there will always be some food around.

I adore food. I don’t think I would need to repeat this anymore for those who know me. A friend has once asked me, ‘Noelle, what is it that makes you so passionate about food?’ It’s likely because of the way I’ve been brought up and my parents share the same passion about food. I could still remember dad would drive some 2 hours to get to a restaurant because a certain dish is much better at that restaurant. He still does that.

Since moving to the UK, I realised that we have a limited selection of food. It was pretty depressing to start with. It took me a good few years to realise that the best alternative is to cook my own. I have to admit, I have never cooked prior to living in the UK. I could still remember when I was a young child, my brother and I attempted to melt chocolate, but we ended up burning the saucepan and nearly set the house on fire (Sssshh… mom doesn’t know – even until now!I guess, if she's reading this now... she knows!! Sorry mom... but at least the house wasn't burnt down.)

After that, when I started university, I remembered I had the same spaghetti Bolognese every day for at least a few months, as that was the only easiest thing I could possibly cook (but in my defence, I have bought different ingredient Bolognese sauce to make it different! Some with garlic, some with added mushroom, some with added onion), I’ve eaten mouldy turkey (naively thinking that once the meat is cooked, I would have killed all the bacteria in it); I’ve drunk sour UHT milk, thinking that if the milk is still white, it’s still fresh; in addition to all these, lots of instant noodles of course!

Since then, cooking is now my number 1 hobby. I’ve had dinner parties at home several times (whether they are good or not, I’d best leave it to the people who had it). But whether it tastes good is not the point, the point is, I’ve tried and I’ve learnt and I enjoyed it. At the end of the day, if the food didn’t turn out as I expected it to be, we still have takeouts as a backup!

Many would argue that they simply do not have the time. Honestly, how long would it take to steam some broccoli? The steamer does most of the job anyway. Others would argue that they cannot cook and it would be an embarrassment. But, in that case the ‘eater’ should be trained. Like my dad have always said, ‘If mom take the trouble to cook, you should take the trouble to eat.’ And it’s true! Practice makes perfect too.

Furthermore, we’re not asking for it to be cooked professionally like Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver etc.

Preparing food at home has many advantages:

- You can save money
- You control the sugar, fat and salt;
- You burn calories because preparation requires exertion, i.e. shop, prepare and clean up
- You can relieve stress.

Like the old saying goes, ‘One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’
So what are you waiting for? Pick up a new hobby – cooking!