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!

Fear of Falling

Fear of falling is our birthright. Perhaps that's why most of us, at least some of the time (and some of us most of the time), are frightened by another deeply primal experience: intimacy. Allowing yourself to become emotionally close is the psychological equivalent of skidding off a cliff; hence the expression "falling in love". This gauzy phrase usually describes a sexual connection.

But love has infinite variations that can swallow the floor from under your feet at any moment.

It is a bad idea to guard our heart from the falling. There's an old folktale about a giant who removes his own heart, locks it in a series of metal boxes and buries the whole conglomeration. Thereafter, his enemies can stab or shoot him, but never fatally. Of course, he also loses the benefits of having a heart, such as happiness. The giant sits around like Mrs Lincolm grimly trying to enjoy the play, until he's so miserable he digs up his heart and stabs it himself.

This grisly parable reminds us that refusing to love is emotional suicide. Yet many of us fight like giants to guard ourselves from intimacy, boxing up our hearts in steel-hard false beliefs. "I'm unlovable" is one such lock box. "Everyone wants to exploit me" is another. Then there's "I shouldn't feel that" and " I have to follow the rules" etc. Whatever your own heart-coffins may be, notice that they're ruining your happiness, not preserving it. If you've buried your heart to keep it from hurting, you're hurting.

It is also a bad idea to control your beloved. "If you don't love me, I'll kill myself. If you stop loving me, I'll kill you." Some people believe such statements are expressions of true intimacy. Actually, they're weapons of control which destroy real connection faster than you can say "restraining order". Though few of us are this radically controlling, we often use myriad forms of manipulation and coercion. We can say, "Sure, whatever makes you happy," in a tone that turns this innocuous phrase into a vicious blow. To the extent that we try to make anyone do, feel, or think anything - whether our weapon is people pleasing, sarcasm, or a machete - we trade intimacy for microterrorism. So, if neither control nor avoidance works, what does?

The best advice for coping with fear of intimacy is - be willing. Avoidance and control can't keep our hearts from falling, or cushion the landing. Why not try throwing yourself forward, being willing not to mind that it's going to hurt? Please note: "Being willing not to mind" isn't the same as genuinely not minding. You'll mind the risks of intimacy - count on it. Be willing anyway?

But how? Simply allow your feelings - all of them - into full consciousness. Articulate your emotions. Write about them in a journal, tell them to a friend, confess to them to your priest, therapist, cab driver. Feel the full extent of your love, your thirst, your passion, without holding back or grasping at anything or anyone (especially not the object of your affection.

It is also a good idea to go "woo hoo"!! This phrase works as well when you're falling emotionally as when you're falling physically. When fear hits, when you want to grasp or hide, shout "Woo Hoo" instead. While there is never - not ever - a sure foundation beneath our feet, the willingess to celebrate what we really feel can turn falling into flying.

What I really panic about nowadays isn't falling ; its landing. But even that concern is fading, because I've realised there are only two possible landings for someone who embraces intimacy, and both are beautiful.

The first possibility is that your beloved will love you back. Then you won't land; you'll just fall deeper into intimacy, together. This is how bald eagles prepare to mate - by locking talons and free falling like rocks - which is deeply insane and makes me proud to call the eagle my country's national bird.

The other possibility is that you'll throw yourself forward, yell "Woo Hoo"! and smash into rejection. Will it hurt? Indescribably. But if you still refuse to bury your broken heart, or force someone to "fix" it - if you just experience the crash landing in all its gory glory, you'll create a miracle.

If you fall into intimacy without resistance, despite your alarm, either you will fall into love, which is exquisite, or love will fall into you, which is more exquisite still. Do it enough, and you may just lose your fear of falling. You'll get better at missing the ground, at keeping a crushed heart open so that love can find all the broken pieces. And the next time you feel that vertiginous sensation of the floor disappearing, even as your reflexes tell you to duck and grab, you'll hear an even deeper instinct saying, Fall in! Fall in!!!

So.......... woo hoo!!!!!

(Extract from Oprah Magazine)