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When was your last family reunion?
Who was the one cooking at your home?
What food do you miss most at home?
Aruitemo Aruitemo (Still Walking), a film directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, depicts a Japanese family who gather yearly to mark the death of the eldest son. Perhaps, family reunion is something to celebrate, yet the loss of a son is definitely not. The dad, Kyohei Yokoyama (played by Yoshio Harada) was expecting the eldest son to continue his prestigious career as a doctor, but the eldest son lost his life by saving someone else from drowning. The second son Ryoto (played by Hiroshi Abe), not only didn’t become a doctor, but he married a divorced woman with a kid. Ryoto suffered from not living up to his dad’s expectation. Death did bring family member to reunite but gradually they were wearing apart as well.
The mother (played brilliantly by Kirin Kiki) was busy preparing dishes with her daughter Chinami Kataoka (played by You – the mother from Koreeda’s Nobody Knows, another great film). It’s interesting to see the way the mom preparing food. It’s even more interesting to know that instead of making everything from scratch in the kitchen, the mom also ordered some sushi delivery. One of the favourite family food is corn tempura. It represented a shared happy memories of the good old days. Ryoto could still recall little details of the corn tempura preparation, from harvesting, shaving the kernels off the cob, to the bubbling of fritters frying in hot oil and enjoying the light, crisp and sweet corn tempura.
I believe that the bond among family members is hard to break. I believe that home cooking is a binding agent. This is the power of food. This is the power of love.
Despite devastated natural disaster some years back and the current political unrest, Thailand still draws a crowd of tourist, myself included. I came back from Phuket recently. There are just some favourable Thai ingredients that keep attracting people from all over the world. Here is mine:
1. Fresh coconut
A fresh young coconut to be specific. It is THE DRINK to have in Thailand. Coconut juice quenches your thirst, rehydrates your body and effectively cools you down after sun-roasting. Give me more!
2. Thai delicacies
Thai cuisine hardly fails to whet my appetite. I enjoy the nice balance of sweet and sour, spice and herbs. I can easily finish a main course size Thai salad, especially those with green papaya or mango or pomelo. A bowl of tom yam something or curry and a plate of Thai rice, leave me mmm….aah…. throughout the meal.
3. Beach Beach Beach
Colourful umbrellas, sandy beach, clear water for snorkeling, sexy bikini ladies and well-toned man…Do I need to say more?
4. Massage
Perhaps I am getting old. Perhaps I am too tired. Relaxed, recharged, rejuvenated and all the feel good factors after a massage is addictive. The massage ladies are blessed with magic hand, don’t they?
I am sure I miss out some other favourite Thai ingredients. To me, for the ingredients above, it’s worth a visit to Thailand. What’s yours?
How do you know how much spaghetti to cook? Get a spaghetti measurer?
Spaghetti measurer has various designs, the most basic one comes with four different holes, indicating the diameter of dry pasta you need for one to four portions. Then there is another design that looks like a camera shutter. You adjust the dial for the portion you need, and the diameter of the shutter will be adjusted accordingly. Good, a more compact device. Still not happy with the single-use device? What about a spaghetti measurer cum trivet? Instead of keeping the device somewhere in the kitchen drawer until you have almost forgotten about it when you are cooking spaghetti, it can be kept at a handy place for putting a hot pan on top.
Despite the interesting thoughts given to the design of a spaghetti measurer, I am never convinced that I need one of the above. What if I am not cooking spaghetti but say fusilli or fettucine? What if I am cooking for big/small eater? Will it be accurate? At the end of the day, if it has to be precise, get a scale; if not, just use your common sense to eyeball it. If you have leftover pasta, transformed it to a baked spaghetti casserole; if you don’t have enough, congratulations, that’s a sign that you cooked a delicious spaghetti.
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