What’s Cooking?

With advanced cancer, one never knows when the spurt of energy will come and when the lack of it will befall. Through trial and error I have learned to ride the tides. Last week was a swinging high for me. I managed to cook a meal every day for five consecutive days. Of course, I must also give credits where credits are due—my achievements these days are always the result of family support. Cooking becomes a joy when it is a social activity.

Starting with the purchase of raw materials, I enjoyed solo shopping for many years but because of my need for physical assistance, I often enlist the help of one of my boys. If not, I will be shopping with a friend and on my way home I will alert one of them to meet me at the bus-stop to help with carrying the grocery. The company of friend or a family takes away the fatigue or perhaps delays the onset of it.

My small cramped kitchen restricts the amount of help I can get as far as food preparation goes. I am often tempted to work solo but I know I enjoy the work a lot more when someone is with me, washing, chopping and chatting away.

I recall the days when I lived with my in-laws as a young but not-so-newly-wed. My cooking training took place in my mother-in-law’s kitchen when I accompanied her while she cooked. The task at hand for me was to help with chopping vegetables and meat; and sometimes the pounding of spices which I dreaded but never uttered a word about. When she cooked, my responsibility was to clean every utensil she used as soon as each one landed in the sink. So the sink never piled up with dirty dishes before dinner began.

As a chief cook in my own home, I relish the sight of a clean sink at the end of cooking and before a meal is served. Therefore when I asked for help in my kitchen, it was not really to help me cook as much as to help me clean. That might not go down well with children when they found out that helping Mommy cook was really doing dishes before dinner! I am not sure if my teenage boys mind my request, but I do love “cooking” with them.

The best part of the whole ritual of cooking is of course meal time. Family sitting down to eat together is to me a piece of heaven. And the heaven becomes extended and expanded if we have guests over. My memory of happy times often involved sharing of meals with extended family and friends. This reached way back to my childhood memory. As the youngest of seven, my older siblings were married and had their own homes and families. During festivities, my parents’ tiny HDB flat would be packed with their children and grandchildren. Those were the occasions when I thoroughly enjoyed eating—first because the food was delicious; second because the company was special.

Today I live in my late parents’ tiny flat and I somehow still manage to share some meals with friends and family. Things have changed over the decades. Many people we know live in larger apartments or houses and inviting them to cramp with us in the living-dining room here is in essence taking them away from their comfort zone. Sometimes I do feel a little self-conscious. However, like Chinese says, just be “thick-skin” and invite anyway, because I sincerely enjoy the company of good friends and family.

I hereby conclude: Cooking is a joy when it culminates in a social activity!