Cook with Love

For those of you who have been following my adventures as a parent, you would have known that I actually learn to cook after my wife had given birth to Ryan (now 5 years old) during her confinement months. What got me started were two confinement recipe cook books and I remembered faithfully following the ingredients in those recipe books to the letter.

Over the last 5 years I have developed a passion for cooking and coupled with my passion for photography, I am obsessed with the thought of making sure that my food looks delicious and tempting to start with. I love to cook but I must admit that I DO NOT have the discipline required to be a good cook. I, for one would and could never remember or even bother to record the types of ingredients and their measurement that I used to whipped out a dish. Hence, I always have problems trying to tell or teach others how to prepare a dish that I have just cooked because I could hardly remember what I had just dumped into the pot nor how much I have used.....

I get bored cooking the same dish over and over again because there is no challenge and above all, nothing interesting to photograph. I am always game for a change. Anything visually stunning excites me and hence, my wife always know that I would order something visually attractive whenever we go out to dine, not bothering whether the food is going to be delicious or not. Yes..I am a sucker for good looking food. That is because I am curious to see how exactly these professional chefs laid out their creation.

 This is one example where I ordered this dish earlier from a Yunnan restaurant. I have always had challenges on how to plate an eggplant dish and since my mother in law adores eggplant, I got tired of cooking the same egg plant dish over and over again. So, when I saw this dish at the restaurant, I ordered it immediately and over the next few days, I went out to buy me some eggplants and attempted my version. The result was oven grilled eggplant, stuffed with stirred fried eggplant with minced pork meat and Chinese mushrooms and red chillies with Chinese cooking wine of course, topped with chopped chives and Chinese parsley leaves. My wife said that this is even better than that at the Yunnan restaurant ! I am a happy man!

To me, cooking is an adventure. Gone are the days when I would follow a cook book by the letter (although I still do when I run out of ideas to cook). Most of time, I would just buy something that I fancy, conjured up the taste I thought I wanted as outcome and picture the dish being presented in my mind. Other times, I would just open my refrigerator, and plan what I wanted to cook based on what I still have left in the fridge.

 This is a dish where I roughly know what I wanted to cook yet had never attempt before nor do I have a recipe for it. I wanted to cook a mussel dish in premium soup (something rather popular back home in Malaysia in restaurant like LaLa Cheong) yet I have absolutely no idea what the ingredients are. Cooking is an adventure and being innovative and creative. I roughly knew what taste I would want my dish to come out as and I made used of some of the ingredients that I have left in the fridge, such as some left over lemon grass and lemon. The final product was mussels cooked in thick spicy and sour lemon grass soup with lots of black pepper and red chillies to provide the extra kick I needed. To thicken the sauce, I add some corn flour and whipping cream for colour. I am not even sure whether I am using all the right ingredients to get what I want but I got WHAT I have set out to prepare. Verdict: My mother in law whacked every single mussel that is left and even kept the left over soup for her next lunch!

I am not one who could cook every meal because once cooking becomes a daily chore, I will loose interest and the desire to cook. I see cooking as a escape from my mundane daily routine, something that I could exercise my creativity and at the end of the day, a sense of achievement and satisfaction with a nicely taken picture of that creation.

 This is one dish that I have been cooking almost two to three times a week for Ryan since he absolutely adores salmon. The only thing that keeps me interested with this dish hence, was to see what other sauce I could use to accompany this dish or how else can I better present this dish. Here, I made a horseradish sauce based on a recipe I found on the internet (Thank God for internet!)

Above all, I think I cook with a sense of love for the those that I am cooking for, wanting them to enjoy the same journey that I have taken in preparing them, when they feast upon the food before them.

 One of my wife's favorite is scallops and I have always been on a look out on different ways to prepare a good scallop dish. I used to bake scallops with Japanese mushrooms and Japanese mayo but I have got bored preparing that dish. I wanted something different and instead baked these lovely scallops that we found at the wet market near our place in Beijing, simply with some Chinese cooking wine, sea salt, black pepper and minced garlic topped with finely chopped chives for color. If you cook with love for the one you love, you would constantly think how to better yourself with fresh ideas to surprise them and in the process, learned something new.

Prior to this, I always thought that cooking is something beyond me. But if I can cook (and only started to do so when I was 45), so can you, as long as you cook with LOVE for the very ones that you LOVE.

Am I a good cook? I seriously do not think so but one thing I do know, I can cook, I love to cook and I love to cook for the ones I love. Bon appetit!

Obsessed with Dandelion

There is no flower that attracts both Chenya and Ryan like the common Dandelion. After the harsh winter this year which ended sometime in February and when spring kicked in, there were so many little white tiny fluffy star burst like flower popping up everywhere – the dandelion.

Both Chenya and Ryan were having a blast, picking them up and blowing them into the wind. 

 

I enjoyed watching them having simple fun like this and being back to the nature, running wild in the park (although it would have been much better if they were in a real natural park somewhere with clear blue skies with little air pollution, unlike the severe ones that we get in Beijing).

 

The laughter, the squeals (especially from Chenya) and the screams from Ryan as the light tiny white dandelion seeds float in the air, being carried by the wind, landing we know not where, but with a possibility of a new beginning and starting the next life cycle was something precious and memorable to me.

I can’t really recall whether I had such fun when I was younger but from the look of both my children, I can sense the true, deep and uninhibited joy of simply blowing the dandelion flowers and chasing after the seed all over the place.

 

We just went through some hot and humid summer here in Beijing, reportedly one of the hottest that most Beijingers would attest to. Autumn has arrived and the weather is slowly cooling down a little and we can see more clear blue skies in the recent weeks as compared to the hot polluted summer days.

Days are shorter now as compared to summer and soon the sun would set by 4:30 in the evening, as winter arrives. Honestly speaking, I am looking forward to the winter although it can be very cold and harsh at times, but I am looking forward to snowfall and another round of snowball fights with my son and this year, I am sure Chenya would be able to join in as well.

 

For now, with this post, I just hope and wish (if I could) remind my children when they do grow up, that the best fun and laughter and true joy sometimes comes from the simplest of things in life, such as a tiny white dandelion.

So, if you are ever depressed and frustrated anytime in the future, try picking up a dandelion and blow it into the wind, sit back and watch them float without care nor worries, wherever the wind takes them, knowing that a new beginning for them has just started.

Blood is Thicker Than Water

If you currently have more than one child, do you still remember the one major reason why you went ahead to conceive another, or do you still remember that one major reason your spouse used to convince you to go ahead with another?

If you currently have ONLY ONE child, can you recall one reason why so many, especially your parents or in-laws are trying to tell you why you should go ahead to have another. And if you have been trying to have another, what is the reason that you have braved your fear for conception, pregnancy and pain?

If I remembered correctly, that one reason was "so that Ryan being the only child then would have a little brother or sister to play and grow up with and would not be lonely." Well, at least that was the reason that so many people were telling us, the same reason my wife was using to convince me to concede defeat and the main reason why I went ahead to work on Chenya, so to speak.

Well, one thing is for sure. Ryan is definitely not lonely right now because he is kept so busy fighting with his little sister, Chenya. However, there are also so many sweet and tender moments that they shared together which reaffirms our belief that they are there for each other, or at least that is what we hope for.

Unfortunately, I have come across too many families where sibling rivalry, not when they were young but after they have grown up, has torn an entire family apart. Sisters not on speaking terms with sisters, brothers cursing brothers or sisters suing brothers. My mother's own family comes to mind where siblings can go on not talking or seeing each other for decades. I just cannot imagine the pain the parents must be going through, seeing their own children hating, fighting and hurting each other.

If that is to happen to Ryan and Chenya eventually, then I would rather have Ryan being lonely as a child, then having to endure the pain of seeing them going at each other's throats.

So, my dear son and daughter. If and when you are old enough to read and understand this, do know that our intention of having both of you together is FOR EACH OTHER, to love, to care and to be there for each other when we are no longer around. Nothing will please us more than seeing the love and bond that we see in you now, as you play together, mature and strengthen as how we have wish and pray for.

Blood is always thicker than water.