It's a great day today for me. Why? I actually got myself to the bangsar wet market. There I bought some fresh meat and some dried mushrooms and a packet of curry paste. Then I head over to tmc and bought some shiitake and spinach. And I cooked a combination of fried beehoon with mushrooms and spinach and also pork curry.
I feel such a sense of achievement. And i must say that Nigella's book on How to eat was really quite inspiring in the sense that she was saying cooking is not about following one recipe after another. It is more of cooking what you like to eat and i figured that i ought to start with my favourite foods. And I like my food to be properly paired and I just think the best food combination has to be fried beehoon and curry. The taste of each mouthful is just amazing. The richness of the curry and the simplicity of the beehoon yet good enough to eat on its own. With that the impetus is naturally there to follow the sense of taste. I can visualise how my mum would cook those dishes from all those times spent watching her cook. Though I didn't get to use the exact same ingredients but the essence of the dish is ingrained in me. And i just follow through from the preparation to cooking it. I guess in a way, cooking is really a matter of mimicking an impression that is in the mind, gauging the taste that is a part of us.
I hope that with this first step, the menu for the next day and the day after that would flow seamlessly. And that somehow gives me a sense of life's purpose and my role in the connection between one generation and another. Next I want to go down the lane of my days in Monash where i would do a one pot meal essentially with chicken, mushroom and potatoes.
