And I'll be the boss, once in awhile coming in to check on the food, talk to the customers, do the accounts, deciding whether to expand the business or not, maybe once in awhile I'll cook. Haha yup, I'm day-dreaming. And as and when I like, I'll go in and eat whatever I want. Eat and eat and eat and eat. That would be perfect!
Or maybe I'll open another chain of 'Kopitiams'. Thats even better! All the local food would be in MY Kopitiam!!!
Yeah thats one of the greatest sacrifice I made to come over to NZ! No more hawker food! But, thank god theres Prima pre-mix. Thats like the best substitute for hawker food. And coming here forced me to learn how to cook local dishes. I mean, it doesn't taste exactly like it, but theres just a tinge of similarity which is good enough!
I thought I loved cooking, but now I realize I only like it. After that time I tried cooking for 8 people, I promised myself I'm not going to do that again!
This took me at least 5 freaking hours. And I was so dead tired after that. Several weeks later they said they've a craving for chicken rice and if they can come to my place to cook. My first reaction was NO! Chicken rice is just too much trouble! You gotta buy so much stuff and take damn freaking long to just boil the darn broth. But at last I relented when they said they'd the premix.
Haha, its just too tiring when you do it everyday. Last time, I gained personal pleasure if what I cooked tastes nice. Now, I just want to get it done in the shortest time. So everyday is like a small competition against time. See if I can break the previous day's record. Cooking while washing and trying to do everything simultaneously. On the right its cooking, center is preparing, left is washing. Erm, its kinda exciting (Self-entertainment) cause you gotta do everything damn quickly so your food don't get burnt but in the end you get burnt haha. I got scalded at an unprecedented rate recently - 2 times in 2 days! So the rate is 1 per day which sounds quite a number considering the pain. And I thought the scars would just fade away, but apparently not! Its like a patch of cooked meat. Haha.
Which comes to the point of:
Reasons why I need a Brandt Induction Hob
1) Time and cost savings
2) Wide cooking possibilities
3) Say goodbye to burnt dishes - there is no longer a need to watch over the pots as the hobis fitted with a timer and auto shut-off device
4) Worry about spills no more! - a simple wipe with a sponge is enough to clean any mess on the glass surface - HEAT IS ONLY PRODUCED AT POINT OF CONTACT WITH SAUCEPAN - THEREFORE SPILLS DO NOT BURN ONTO THE GLASS SURFACE (WAHHHHHHH!!! I WANT!!)
5) Child safety - prevents accidental start up of hob, cool hob surface means reduced risks of burns, unlike gas or electric hobs
Conclusion - peace of mind
But theres a catch to it! It costs around $2000-$3000? Yeah. I know. WHATTTTT THATS DAMN EXPENSIVE!! (But my 21st is coming you know...)
But its not worth it to get that - its a luxury item which is unnecessary unless I'm damn freaking rich with too much money to splurge.
That amount of money can buy me a car here man! Thats even better. I don't need to walk the stupid slope after grocery shopping. The food monster came alive in me the other day I went grocery shopping with Grace. I got so excited and bought so much, forgetting that I've to actually carry them. So I bought 3litres of orange juice, 1litre milk, heaps of veg which is not exactly light either, few packets of meat, fishballs, tofu, instant noodles, blah blah blah and to my horror I was way over my budget and it was so heavy. I guess I'll never learn my lesson. When I was climbing up the slope with all those stuff I suddenly felt like I was carrying that 15kg bag during trekking in benom (was it benom? I forgot.) Haha and then Grace insisted that she is going to give me a trolley (those ah ma trolley which you see housewives pushing in wet markets) for my 21st. NOO!! I'm going to be 21 NOT 51. I can't imagine me pushing that here. They would be like..stupid Asian, what is she doing?!
Ok stupid post. Read this which is way more enriching than what I've written above.
'Let's supposed 2 firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterwards, when they emerge and go to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man's face is complete clean. My question is this: which of the 2 will wash his face?
Marie, 'That's a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course.'
No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him. And vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I'd better have a wash.
Marie, 'What are you trying to say?'
I'm saying that, during the time I spent in the hospital, I came to realise that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They,on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. Please, don't let that happen to you.
I would like to have added: that's what happened to Esther, and I've only just realised it, remembering now how the look in her eyes changed, I'd always absorbed her life and her energy, and that made me feel happy and confident, able to go forward. She, on the other hand, had looked at me and felt ugly, diminished, because, as the years passed, my career - the career that she had done so much to make a reality - had relegated our relationship to 2nd place.
If I was to see her again, my face needed to be as clean as hers. Before I could find her, I must first find myself.'
Paulo Coelho
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