Help my Daughter Aces her Cooking Exam

Dear Dotter

 

Last week, after hearing your upcoming home econ’s cooking exam (today), as your mother, I felt very obliged to help. PoPo will not tolerate otherwise because, for my own cooking exam back then, your grandma prepared all the ingredients down to the seasoning mix for me in little packets. I stapled all the packs of love under my pinafore and sneaked them into the exam kitchen and poured them right into the frying pan. A star star star.

 

Popo knew her daughter was not gonna make it in cooking back then. But in your case, your mother is by no means insinuating your lack of competency. I am merely uphold the grand tradition of Motherly Love to help Aces your Home Econs. 

 

Alas, you said the food brief was “Cook a dish that a local Singaporean family will cook and eat during the Japanese Occupation”. What kind of a brief is that? So they want this to taste good or bad? I was stunned.

 

You were considering chicken soup, and your classmates discussed the need to use less oil since cooking oil must be expensive during war times. (yah right, gas is scarce too, I think you need to cook with coal)

 

THIS is getting bigger and more tricky than I tot!!! Gonna cover all base! Gonna nail it for my gal, Mummy is here!!!!

 

As usual, I harnessed my problem-solving skills, aka outsource the problem. “Help my daughter aces her cooking exam” became the hot new topic across many chat groups.

Just ask the grandparents, Daddy said. 

Which I did. 

 

PoPo said:

“The occupation ended in 1945, I was not born yet.”

“... and chicken soup is luxury tonic. You cannot get full on soup alone; the objective must be to fill empty stomachs”

 

Good point. What exactly is the objective of this exam?

 

Wei said:

“it’s obviously a test on war zone society and survival diet. Nutrition in an occupied zone!”

“Grading criteria should be nutritional value, budgeting, taste, historical accuracy, a good oral presentation of the food…”

 

Bun said:

Ah gong and Min both said: 

“Sweet potato porridge” 

But Lim highlighted:

“Sweet potato hard to chop. Can buy cut ones? Every time I cut I so scared”

 

Finally, PoPo came up with a solid dish idea – yellow noodle fried egg soup. Noodles being a common staple back then, easy to cook and fills the stomach. And eggs are a good source of proteins. Immediate buy in. Suddenly there was a 30g protein requirement (why is information coming in dribs and drabs?) Each egg only provides 6g of protein, so mincemeat was added to the ingredient list. So much for war time cuisine. 

Looks like you are A++ in the making.

Day of the exam. 6am.

“Mum, we cannot use mincemeat. Must be Halal!”

4pm.

How was the exam, my love?

“oh I changed the dish to shredded chicken egg drop noodle soup…. And the examiner is vegetarian so cannot taste my dish.”

 

What the…..

 

Year of the Dragon

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone. 

My Dragon

Here is my watercolor dragon. Was uber proud of myself, sent my almost completed artwork to show LX and he said “Never seen a dragon before izzit, why the cow’s horns? This is how Chinese Dragon horns look like: ” 

Hahaha. Damn. Having such a friend is such a pain. I suspect he was still sore with me saying “于十三 is like a brother I never had”. Because after texting me “I thought I was the brother you never had”, he refused to talk to me again for two weeks. 

Luckily, my watercolour is adaptable, and within a day, my juvenile dragon has matured into a force to be reckoned with... and I added splashes of gold paint. 

Self-appointed little brother also bought a cute dragon for Mr Morg to show off his Dragon dance. So pretty. 

GST hits record high so let’s repaint the house and redo the living room since Kenneth is sick and tired of our resident lizard. He wants to be able to see everything under the new sofa. No hiding places. Yeah, new year, new look. 

This is also child labor camp time for CNY decorations since everything outside is commercial and plastic. Where is the new year vibe? It is the children's job to make our new living room festive. 

 

2023 had been a fabulous year for the Horses. 

Work was great fun, ending with a high…

 

Flower Power Company Annual Party

Was not intending to attend as it fell on my Wedding Anniversary, but I was dumped by spouse at the last minute. Hence, Lily’s team generously adopted me and wrapped me up as a bouquet.

As you rightfully conclude, we were a bunch of superficial beings, preferring to take the Flower Power theme literally! Hahaha. England not very good lah… But the team displayed deep conceptual thoughts on colors choices. Designer in white flowers - getting married soon. Pink flowers - in a romantic relationship. Green - she is vegetarian. Lily in red flowers? CNY is coming and she 顺便 wanted to use them for CNY. 

Based on depth of thought alone, we should have won best dressed. But bosses wanted a Dance Off between 4 teams to decide the winner. A waste of time and pointless as once we occupied the floor, nobody could see anyone else! We won by sheer volume. And every move we made; we whacked others out of existence. They either laughed themselves to death or suffered injuries that all other teams gave up. We WON. 

Bosses scraped the “Worst Project Award” which I took very personally because I could have won these three years in a row. Instead, now we have a new award called “No No Mei-You Award”, given to the most unhelpful team of the year. By now, me and bestie who won “Can Can Most Exploited Award” were laughing too badly on the floor, too weak to get up. 

 

Too much mooning, costumes with no openings so no hands to eat (needed feeding). In short, too stupid, and funny, just the way we liked it. 

 

Family was fun too. 

 

Tufting

Exactly like what Kelly described – duper fun activity. I even asked if this is Axminister, cut loop, sheared? Blank looks from the coach. 

 

Ice Magic 

Taiwan was not cold enough, so we went for this super fun -15 deg C freezer. 

Great end to 2023 and looking forward to a great 2024.