Porridge & Kueh

Red Delight, swiped from williamnyk on Flickr.

St. Ignatius Church organized a Family Fiesta to wrap up its 25th Anniversary celebrations and of course to raise funds. Each BEC rented a stall for MYR100 to sell food and other items. My BEC decided to sell Nyonya kueh, kaya and porridge. Mum was tasked with cooking cuttlefish and peanut porridge while another woman prepared chicken porridge. Troubleome to say the least. Preparation work had started the day before with mum chopping spring onions, frying shallots and slicing ginger. She actually started cooking at midnight and only went to sleep at 2:00 am. :S. I woke her up at 5:30 am and started moving stuff into the car. She practically brought along the whole kitchen. At church, quickly found a parking space and unloaded everything with enough time to spare to attend the 6:45 am mass. By the time we came out, nearly every thing was set up. Our stall had a very Chinese New Year feel to it (and wasn't even Christmas yet). Everything was red with flowers, Chinese opera masks, bamboo trays and baskets. And most of the women were dressed in qipao's or other traditional Chinese garb. I didn't have any Wong Fei Hung clothes, so it was just jeans and T-shirt for me. Went through all the trouble because it was rumoured that there was a big cash prize for the best stall. As expected there was some kind of chaos going on. The woman who prepared the chicken porridge was making a lot of noise and barking orders. It was as though she was so busy that she can't scoop a bowl of porridge and put in the condiments. I didn't bother, I just continued selling kueh and manning the cash box. The porridge was hardly being snapped up, didn't know what the fuss was about. All of us heaved a sigh of relief when she announced that she needed to jaga the horse ride. Go go go!



Some two stalls away was a BBQ station. Funny thing was, their grill wasn't in the open. They did it under the shelter. The smoke was trapped and travelled to the other stalls. Best of all was the fact the underneath each stall was a fan. The smoke was blasted down and we were bathed in the fumes. Ack! Couldn't take it no more, so we complained to the organizing committee. They were instructed to move their grill, but it was still smoky. Ugh. At 8:30 am, the rest went for the bilingual mass. Considered the calm before the storm. With nothing much to do, we went around looking at what the other stalls offered. I bought some hand-made Christmas cards while SK bought a vinyl tote. As expected, things started getting busy after the mass ended, but in fact we already sold half of our stuff. It was getting hotter and smokier and with the larger crowd, it felt harder to breathe. Was sweating buckets in the fiesta. When the peak period had passed, we went walking around again and mum went for a foot massage. Numerous performances took place, but we didn't really pay attention. After the judges had given points for the prettiest stall, we immediately started to pack up. Tired, sweaty and smelly-- couldn't wait to go home! We didn't win the bunting contest but at least we won the prize for best stall. Felt a bit cheated when the prize turned out to be an MYR60 voucher for Chakri Palace. Meh.

Back home, I quickly washed the sweat off my body and ate more leftover porridge from the sale. The kids also came over. Big Monster was down with a fever and Little Monster was being his kang-kang kuan self. Switched on the TV and let them entertain themselves with "Pacific Rim". With my tummy filled, I immediately napped. The secrets of my elusive six packs revealed. When I woke up, I found the kids asleep. SK ajak dinner with her, Lifebook and KT. Felt like some hot, soupy stuff, so we ate at Restoran Hong Cha. Both KT and Lifebook didn't approve. Complained that the soup wasn't porky enough. KH couldn't join for dinner, but he joined us for drinks. Ended up at Restoran K3K Benta Kaya and introduced Lifebook to their yummy topee. Did a lot of blah-ing about relationships, work and such. Touched on KT's new boyfriend and how she was adjusting to a completely different man. An anti-ex so to say. Aloof vs clingy. Picky vs cincai. Passive vs active. LDR vs non-LDR. It's funny how we think we want something but when we get it, we wonder whether it was really what we wanted. Time will tell.

P.S.: KT gave me Part II of my birthday present-- a hand-carved seal with my Chinese name! Classy. She actually did it herself. Hebat kan?. I can now sign off my greeting cards in a very Cina way!