COOKING

13 Sept 2006

I don't cook in Singapore. The last time I cooked a decent meal by myself was when I was in Secondary School! That was when I had to take Food & Nutrition as a GCE 'O' Level subject. It wasn't because I liked cooking then but I chose it as my 8th subject for a peace of mind. Most students in my school took 8 'O' level subjects, of which 6 would be used to gauge the total aggregate. That means 2 subjects are like back-up ones. For my class, only students who were really good in Maths could take A Maths, so the rest had the option of taking Art or Food & Nutrition or simply be contented with 7 subjects (means only 1 back-up subject!). Obviously I'm not one of the brainy ones who could do solve Trigonometry problem sums in 3 seconds so I had to chose between Art and Food & Nutrition. I enjoyed Art until the day when we were told to paint a banana during Art lesson. I just couldn't get the right colour! So Food & Nutrition was the last option. I did enjoy cooking in Food & Nutrition classes though because I get to eat after that! Haha! I think it's also because I had so much fun cooking with my classmates.

So it's been a long time.. I shall not count my occasional baking of little cakes & cookies as real cooking... Ever since I came to Hach, I've been cooking almost everyday. Most of the time, it's just simple Chinese fare consisting of stir-fried meat, veggies & plain rice. When I'm lazy I cook pasta or noodles.

But today I decided to cook something reminiscent of Singapore... Yes, Bak Kut Teh!!!! Plus it"s easy to make so it shouldn't take very long... Asked some ALTs over so that they can also share my joy. Bought pork ribs from the supermarket but they were all pretty long so I had to chop them into smaller pieces.. Alas, after struggling with my pathetic knife for ten minutes, I gave up & simply threw the pork ribs into the soup.

Apart from the fact that some of the ALTs had to use their hands to eat the pork ribs, my Bak Khut Teh turned out quite well! Yeah, so happy!